She screamed, but the dog needed only that moment of the snake’s bite to snap it in half with its powerful jaw. Her scream died into echoing silence as she stared at the mess of blood and colour and wrong shapes and how had this happened and she would not faint, she would not—
Carrie caught at her arm. “It’s all right, milady, come away now.”
“No, Fidelis, is he all right, he was bit—” Her voice came out high and tremulous.
“He’ll be fine, you just come away and I’ll summon the guards. If your scream hasn’t already set them running.”
Minuette shuddered once, then shook her head. “No guards. Dominic first.”
“I’m not leaving you here. What if there are more vipers?”
“Then Fidelis would be going after them. Still, I’ll close the door and stay in the corridor until you return. Quickly now.”
Carrie returned with Dominic in less than ten minutes. He came with his man, Harrington, at his heels and the two of them entered the chamber first and searched thoroughly before letting the women inside and shutting the door.
Dominic’s expression was so tensely blank that she thought his face might crack. He looked her over from head to toe and demanded, “Are you sure you’re uninjured?”
“Quite sure. Fidelis knew—he must have smelled it, I don’t know, but he knew the moment I touched the door. Is he hurt?”
Harrington had been examining the hound’s leg. “He’s been bitten, but he’s a big dog. I wager he’ll do.”
“Make sure of it,” Dominic ordered. “Take him to the stables and tell them he was bit by an adder, but don’t tell them where. Tell them he was chasing rabbits or something.”
“Right.”
Minuette knelt impulsively before the wolfhound and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she whispered into his soft, warm coat. Only now was she beginning to tremble. The big dog met her eyes with understanding, and she blinked back tears as he followed Harrington out, limping.
After that one moment of impersonal examination, Dominic hadn’t looked at her again. “No more sleeping here. Get new rooms. And from now on Fidelis sleeps with you.”
“Fidelis is enormous, I’m lucky to get away with having him indoors ever. No one will want him underfoot all the time—”
“William isn’t no one, and he’ll order it,” Dominic interrupted brusquely. Carrie stood in the doorway, watching them both with an attention that perhaps accounted for his remoteness. “And if William doesn’t, I will. This was no accident or mere prank, Minuette. Whoever did this meant you real harm.”
She shivered, for the first time letting it settle on her. If she hadn’t brought Fidelis with her, if she had returned him to the stables as she usually did before changing … She wondered what an adder bite felt like. It only killed uncommonly, but then how common was it to find one indoors?
Carrie, prepared as always, had brought a linen bag back with her, and she handed it to Dominic, who scooped up the remains of the dead reptile along with the bloody rushes. When he rose, he gazed at her with an intensity not at all remote, and the weight of his eyes was unbearable, confirming how serious he thought this, and she wanted him to wrap her in his arms and keep her safe and tell her everything would be all right.
But of course he didn’t. Turning away—as he always seemed to be doing these days—he said, “I’ll speak to Elizabeth about new rooms for you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
FOR THE FIRST time in the long years of their friendship, Dominic was the one shouting at William instead of the other way round. “If you keep Minuette at court solely because you would miss her, then your selfishness will get her killed!”
The door to William’s private oratory opened as he yelled, and Elizabeth slid in quietly. “I could hear you from the corridor,” she remarked impassively. “And don’t exaggerate, Dominic. Minuette is unharmed.”
“Because she had the wolfhound with her! If she hadn’t—”
Dominic stopped because he couldn’t continue without giving himself away completely. Since last night, he had been balanced on a knife’s edge of fury and terror, and if he lost that balance the whole world would know how he felt about Minuette. He’d never done anything harder than leaving her last night when all he’d wanted was to sweep her away into the safety of his own rooms where he could protect her at every moment. Instead he’d been sharp and cold with her; now he was angry and unreasonable with William. Because if anything happened to Minuette …
William had let him rant without comment, but Elizabeth was willing to argue. “If Will sends her away again before the French delegation arrives, the gossipmongers will let loose. People will say he’s sending his mistress away to keep her from French eyes. Minuette’s reputation will suffer.”
“To hell with her reputation,” Dominic spat fiercely. “I won’t let her come to harm because of what gossips will say.” He wished he could pace like William usually did, but the oratory was cramped with the three of them inside. Set aside for William’s personal prayers, the space was little more than an alcove with a door, and the lectern with the English Bible filled at least half of it.
“And you think William will let her come to harm? Of course she’ll be guarded more thoroughly and—”
“Someone put an adder in her room!”
“Enough.” Though he didn’t raise his voice, William’s tone was pure monarch—expecting and receiving instant obedience.
“In this,” William continued flatly, “as in so many other things, Dominic is right. I will not risk Minuette’s safety. But Elizabeth, you are also right. It will not do to give anyone a weapon to use against her in future. If I send her away from court while my sister remains, then it will be seen as a very personal move.”
“What do you propose?” Dominic spoke calmly, now that he appeared to have gained his point.
William nodded to his sister. “The French arrive on May first. I need you here to greet them, but you need not remain the duration of their visit. If you withdraw to Hatfield after they arrive, you can take Minuette with you and there will be little talk of her absence.”
“I thought you needed me to charm the French.”
“I can contrive another opportunity that will do as well. Besides, the Protestants will claim your withdrawal as a sign of support for their opposition to the French marriage, so it’s useful on more than one front.”
Dominic broke in. “And until then? How do we keep Minuette safe for another ten days?”
“By all means,” William said, “set your own man to guarding her. He’s not one of mine, so people will pay less attention.”
“Maybe we want people paying attention—or one person, at least.” For Dominic didn’t give a damn about the French, or diplomatic tangles. He wanted only two things: to keep Minuette safe and to find out who had set a poisonous snake loose in her room. He didn’t think he would have to look far to find the culprit. “Why is Eleanor still at court?”
For the first time today, he could feel the slow burn of William’s irritation. “Lady Rochford made room for her amongst her ladies. There seemed no harm in it for a few days.”
“And where might Eleanor have been yesterday afternoon and evening?”
“Are you asking if I am her alibi? You know I am not, since we were in meetings together and then I played tennis with the Earl of Oxford.”
Because he was angry, Dominic said what he might have only thought at another time. “It would simplify matters if Eleanor had been in your bed during the relevant period.”
“Dominic!” Elizabeth remonstrated.
Her brother ignored her. “I’m sorry to complicate matters with my fidelity. Really, Dom, I know your opinion of me never runs very high, but do you honestly think I would revert to Eleanor the moment she returned simply because she is available? Minuette means far too much to me. How many times do I need to prove it?”
Over and over and over again and it will never matter because you cannot
love her as I do … Stop it, Dominic commanded himself. He had to get hold of his control and his temper before everything fell apart. And still William faced him, hurt because his friend did not trust him.
Grudgingly, Dominic said, “I apologize.”
“Accepted. And you’re right: Eleanor cannot be wholly discounted. Although I have a hard time imagining her skulking around corridors and handling venomous snakes. She’s much more direct. But by all means, question her yourself. Just be careful about it—get what information you can without giving away too much in return. The longer Eleanor remains ignorant of my true intentions for Minuette, the better. No need to give her reason to hate Minuette more than she already does.”
Excused from the king’s presence, Dominic went straight from the oratory to track down Eleanor, for he had never been more anxious to confront someone in his life. He knew, dimly, that he would be better served by disinterest and an open mind, but he didn’t care—he needed to turn his fear and anger on someone. He had not forgotten the look in Eleanor’s eyes as she had watched Minuette and William dancing the other night. From Eleanor’s point of view, she had good reason to hate Minuette.
Almost as many reasons as he had to hate William—if only William weren’t his best friend.
He found her strolling in the gardens with another woman from Lady Rochford’s household. The duchess’s women were easy to pick out, being often the most elaborately dressed and most likely to skirt the edge of protocol. Dominic might have expected a recent widow such as Eleanor to dress in a more somber fashion, but then she had never made an effort to pretend any attachment to her late husband. Today she wore a bodice and overskirt of bright cerise that highlighted her fair hair and skin; it was laced so tightly that her waist was tiny beneath her generous cleavage.
“I’d like to speak with you, Mistress Howard. Privately.”
“It’s Mistress Percy,” she retorted, “and I’m not free at the moment.”
“It’s not a request.”
She raised one insolent eyebrow. “Are you saying it’s an order?”
Dominic forcibly ignored the other woman, who made no attempt to disguise her fascination with the drama. He cursed himself for not having approached Eleanor when no one else was present. “If you insist.”
Eleanor knew when she was matched, or maybe she welcomed this confrontation. Certainly, she showed no concern as she walked off with Dominic, leaving her companion to no doubt rush to the nearest pair of ears and spread the story. Eleanor attempted to put her hand through his arm, as if they were strolling for pleasure, but he was in no mood to play.
He had little choice but to lead her to his own rooms—anywhere else would be far too public. He left Harrington in the outer reception room, as a guard against intrusion, and ushered Eleanor to his closet, where he pulled the single chair out from the table and placed it in the middle of the room. Like everywhere he lived, however briefly, the room was spare, a handful of books stacked on the table and correspondence kept tidily out of sight in a document case.
Eleanor seated herself with a flourish, letting her gown billow out in a rush of silk and embroidered gauzy underskirts. “I am not invited into your bedchamber?”
I’d sooner bed a wolf, Dominic thought. With no desire to prolong this encounter, he demanded bluntly, “Where did you find the adder—did you bribe someone to procure it for you?”
She blinked once, in what might have been genuine surprise, before her expression settled into one of bewilderment. “I haven’t the least idea what you mean.”
“Where were you yesterday between noon and seven in the evening?”
“I spent the afternoon in Lady Rochford’s chambers, then had dinner privately with family members. Including my late husband’s nephew, the new Duke of Norfolk. You remember my husband, don’t you? You were the last person Giles ever saw—or almost the last. I don’t suppose you were the one wearing the blood-soaked dress that was burned at Framlingham later that night.”
Damn it. So Eleanor had guessed what had really happened in the lady chapel at Framlingham. Dominic had done his best to ensure Minuette’s involvement was never known, and once he might have withdrawn, not wishing to provoke Eleanor further. But there was more at stake now than a widow’s guess at how her attempted-rapist husband had died.
“Someone set an adder loose in Mistress Wyatt’s bedchamber last night. Do you know anything about it?”
Dominic leaned against the bolted door, arms folded, watching Eleanor. She was so naturally devious that it was impossible to know if her calculating answers meant she was responsible for the reptile or that she was merely thinking quickly.
“Mistress Wyatt has enemies. Surely you are not so naïve that you are surprised by that.”
“And her most conspicuous enemy is you.”
“Do you think me a fool?” Eleanor leaned forward a little, giving Dominic a clear view of her breasts swelling above her square neckline.
“You’ve never made a secret of your loathing for Mistress Wyatt.”
“Half the court loathes the other half. That does not lead to murder.”
“Then what does?”
“Self-interest,” Eleanor answered promptly. “You want to get to the bottom of this, look to those whose interests have been threatened by this girl.” She tipped her chin up and eyed him thoughtfully. “Which, I suppose, places me on your list. But I assure you, when I want William back, I will not need violence to do it. I am skilled at tricks your precious Minuette would blush to know of. For all his recent infatuation, the king has not forgotten me.”
Not knowing which was worse—her arrogance or her recognition of William’s current passion—Dominic said tightly, “You may go—for now. I shall inform the king that you have been less than cooperative. If I were you, I would start packing. I believe your time at court is drawing to an end.”
Eleanor rose in a silken flutter and stepped near him, until he could not move without touching her. Her smile had a distinctly intimate feel to it. “I don’t know why you keep to yourself, Dominic, but I know frustration when I see it. If you ever wish to seek relief …”
She drew her fingertips across his cheekbone. Catching her wrist cruelly in one hand, Dominic used his other hand to unbolt and open the door.
As Dominic watched Eleanor walk away, he caught Harrington’s unspoken query and shook his head. This wasn’t quite what William had meant. He had not been discreet, and he had not been disinterested. In just a few days back at court, it seemed Eleanor had already divined William’s passion for Minuette. Even if she did not know the depth of it, she could wreak havoc with the French if she so chose, which was one more reason to get her away from court as quickly as possible.
But even more worrying to Dominic was the thought that, if she could perceive William’s love for Minuette so plainly, might she not also uncover his?
Elizabeth knew perfectly well she was being snappish and irritable and that her temper had nothing to do with those she took it out on. At least she refrained from throwing things as her mother had used to.
One source of her temper continued to be her young cousin’s disastrous marriage. Margaret Clifford was a very silly girl, and so Elizabeth told her in no uncertain terms when she left Richmond one day to visit Margaret in the Tower. The girl was cowed but not entirely without spirit—Margaret was a great-niece of Henry VIII, after all—and she absolutely denied knowing Guildford Dudley’s whereabouts. When Elizabeth asked the child—for she was hardly more than that, despite her obvious pregnancy, “Do you not think less of your husband for abandoning you to take the punishment?” Margaret shrewdly answered, “I may think less of him, but if I were ruled by my head I should not be in this place. Hearts are stubborn things, Your Highness.”
Irritation with the whole of the Dudley family was compounded by William’s clandestine infatuation—which was rapidly becoming not at all clandestine—and Dominic’s mounting concern for Minuette’s safety, which spilled out
into tension between him and the king. Elizabeth felt as though she was surrounded on all sides by the suffocating weight of passion. She could hardly wait for the French to arrive so that she and Minuette might escape soon after and keep away from all these men.
But her next visitor of note was not a man—it was Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland. John Dudley’s wife and Robert’s mother.
Elizabeth received the duchess in her privy chamber, curious about the nature of this unusual visit. The duchess was not often at court; she preferred to provide stability from behind the scenes of her ambitious family. But with her husband banished from court until Guildford showed himself, Jane Dudley was clearly prepared to step in.
“Your Highness,” she began, sinking into an elegant curtesy. “Thank you for seeing me at such a busy time.”
Elizabeth waited for her to rise, and pondered on how well Jane Dudley looked for a woman in her mid-forties who had borne thirteen children. She was still rather slender and her brown hair was richly coiled beneath the new-style French hood with the heart shape. The dip in the center of the hood accented her dark eyes, which were Robert’s down to the intelligent gleam. The duchess dressed well but without ostentation, trusting to expensive fabrics and impeccable lines rather than fripperies to denote her status.
“What can I do for you?” Elizabeth asked kindly.
She expected a plea for leniency, for both Jane’s husband and son, a request for Elizabeth to intervene with the king to bring an end to the matter.
Instead, the duchess answered mildly, “You can do my family the great honour of agreeing to visit our home at Dudley Castle later this year.”
There was a slight change in the air of the privy chamber, as though one of Elizabeth’s attendants had let out a quickly smothered gasp. She cast a forbidding look at the corner where her women sat with their needlework, to let them know she had noticed and would deal with it later. Like her mother before her, Elizabeth kept a tight rein on the women who attended her.
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