William has pardoned the Earl of Surrey. I take no issue with that, for Surrey was not at Framlingham at the end and I do not believe he had any personal involvement in his family’s schemes. I do not even mind too terribly that Eleanor has been released and sent to Kenninghall. She is vindictive, but not stupid. She would never have countenanced a scheme to harm William when he is the source of every favour she has ever had. And she did lose her husband at Framlingham. My guilt is enough to soften my dislike. A little.
My troubled mind arises from a message I received this morning from Stephen Howard, youngest brother of the late Duke of Norfolk and my stepfather. He has also been pardoned and asks that I pay him a visit in his London house before he returns to the country.
I shall have to slip away quietly, for both Dominic and William would protest. It is annoying to have both of them watching me so closely.
Minuette knew that she could not, of course, go completely alone to see Stephen Howard. She might be able to deceive the men, but never Carrie. Her maid was a fierce friend and even fiercer guard, and there was no slipping away from her. Minuette took Fidelis with her as well; the enormous hound reminded her of Dominic, padding quietly along next to her and turning a forbidding gaze on all around him. Fortunately, her stepfather’s town house was on the same side of the river as Whitehall. She couldn’t imagine the boat that could have carried Fidelis across the Thames.
The streets, as always, were awash in humanity and its trappings. Street vendors and darting pickpockets and the shrill cries of argument mingled with the odors of food and, from some of the smaller streets, abundant refuse. At least in winter the odors were not quite so overwhelmingly bad. Minuette had dressed in one of her plainest gowns and a simple wool cloak with no trim—but there was no disguising the quality of the fabrics or the shine of her hair or even the way she moved. Eyes followed her and Carrie as they walked the mere half mile from Whitehall to the edge of the City—that square mile of London that answered to its own Lord Mayor and deigned to pay homage to the king—but Minuette did not feel in any danger, particularly as Fidelis ensured that she and Carrie were given a wide berth.
She knocked on the door of a discreetly wealthy town house and Stephen Howard himself threw it open. He looked much the same as before his imprisonment, perhaps the lines around his mouth and eyes slightly deeper. Though he was in his mid-fifties, he had the lean build of a younger man and his light brown hair had grayed attractively. There were times when Minuette had to admit that her mother might have actually loved her second husband for his person as much as for his position.
Those moments were usually ruined when he opened his mouth. Today he raised his eyebrows at Fidelis and asked, “What the hell is that?”
“My protection,” she said.
“Do you need protection fromme?”
He always made her ruder than she meant to be. “Are you going to invite me in? I am here at your bidding, not the other way round.” He regarded Fidelis dubiously, and she added, “He can wait with Carrie. Surely you have somewhere for my maid to sit comfortably?”
It was pleasant to have disconcerted him, and she thanked Dominic silently for it as Howard led Carrie and the wolfhound—which nearly reached her maid’s shoulder—to the kitchen.
When he returned, he took Minuette into an airy solar at the back of the house. The room overlooked a narrow garden that was sunk in the grayness of winter slumber. In addition to the fire in the maroon-tiled fireplace, several coal-filled braziers made the chamber pleasantly warm.
After she seated herself, he studied her and remarked, “My disgrace suits you, stepdaughter. You are glowing.”
Uncomfortable with his penetrating stare, as though he might be able to divine the secrets that made her glow, Minuette countered sharply. “What disgrace? You never even saw the inside of the Tower. You ensured leniency when you warned the king of your brother’s search for the Penitent’s Confession. House arrest can’t have been too difficult in these surroundings.” She indicated the warm fire, the thick carpet, the silver candlesticks.
“Yes, my familial disloyalty and your intervention spared me the Tower. Nonetheless, the name of Howard is a dangerous one to bear just now.”
“As it has been before. You weathered your nephew’s treason and brother’s disgrace once before—no doubt you will weather it again.”
He chuckled. “Can it be that you have grasped the game of politics? Your mother never had it in her—and your father certainly didn’t—but then, you’ve spent most of your life being tutored by the Boleyns and they play as easily as they breathe.”
She ignored—just—the slight about her father. Stephen Howard seemed to take it personally that her mother had loved a man before him. But she didn’t have time to debate the merits of her father to her stepfather. “What do you want?” Minuette asked.
“To tell you not to play these games,” he answered promptly, and all mockery vanished. “I don’t like that you were in the middle of everything at Framlingham. And your mother would have been horrified.”
“You were the one who warned me that the duke was looking for the Penitent’s Confession. That’s why I was at Framlingham.”
“You were at Framlingham because you are a convenient pawn. Who sent you there? Was it the king himself? Or Rochford?”
He was so annoying that it was easy to overlook how perceptive he could be. “What does it matter? The Penitent’s Confession is destroyed and this particular game is over.”
“Is it? Why did you burn that confession, Minuette?”
Because I don’t trust you entirely. Because my mother’s name was signed to that document and you are the one who told me your brother was looking for it …Although part of her wanted to pretend that burning the Penitent’s Confession had put an end to the ache, the larger part wanted answers.
She countered with a question of her own. “What precisely did you know about the contents of the Penitent’s Confession?”
He looked bewildered, and wary. “Only that it claimed William was not Henry’s son.”
“That is all? No discussion of who might have made such a claim? No concern that such a convenient document might be a forgery or outright lie?”
“As you said…what does it matter now?”
“Who talked about it in your family? Someone besides your brother?”
“Minuette—”
