“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 Dominic had done his best to ensure Minuette’s involvement was never known, and once he might have withdrawn, not wishing to provoke Eleanor further.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.
