“Which means that you are certain they would both tell you to drop it if they knew. Well, stepdaughter, if you will not listen to your king I doubt you will listen to me, but still I must offer what advice I can. Be careful. Whoever was behind Alyce de Clare’s spying has manipulated the downfall of one the most powerful men in England. My brother is dead and my nephew is only restored to his position by the grace of the king. Do you suppose such a man would rest easy if he knew you were still making inquiries into his plots?”
Tension like fingernails across her skin made Minuette shiver. But she met Howard’s eyes squarely. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Your mother all over again,” he murmured. He left her with a kiss on the forehead and a last piece of advice. “Keep an eye on those men of yours,” he warned. “Kings and dukes…who would have guessed the company Marie’s daughter would keep? Don’t let it go to your head.”
No fear of that, she thought wryly, at least not in the way you mean. These days she was mostly aware of the responsibility incumbent on her to keep William happy and Dominic content with waiting. Not to mention that she still served Elizabeth first, which at times she tended to overlook. Not so today; she went off with dutiful heart to spend the afternoon dealing with a backlog of royal correspondence that needed a personal reply from a lady of the princess’s household.
Only hours later, when Minuette had the righteous sense of duty done, did she snap her fingers to Fidelis, who had spent the afternoon snoring quietly against the wall of her study. Usually she returned the dog to the stables before she dressed for dinner, but tonight she decided to take him with her and have Carrie return him later. Since she couldn’t spend all the hours she liked with Dominic, sometimes Fidelis had to do in his stead.
She sent a passing girl to fetch Carrie and let herself into her chamber. As she pushed open the door, Fidelis gave off a sound she had never heard from him before—a deep, warning growl that washed over her skin and left it alive with nerves.
“What is it?” she asked the dog, who had somehow frozen as though in mid-motion. She instinctively stepped back, wondering who was in her room and what was wrong, and even as she wondered Fidelis launched through the door.
For all his enormity he sprang silently, an impressive flash of muscle and intent. There was something moving in the rushes on the floor beneath her bed, something that Fidelis snapped at with deadly intent but not quite deadly accuracy. Minuette had just time enough to register the sinuous shape of a snake at Fidelis’s feet before it sank its fangs into the wolfhound’s leg.
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!”
