“Mistress Hadley, I understand that Alyce’s belongings were sent to you after her death. It was such a time of shock to those of us who knew and liked her that it is only now I am beginning to feel the loss of her. I wrote her a few letters over the time we served together in the queen’s household, and I wondered if I might look through her things for them. It would be a great kindness.”
The look Emma gave her was half simpering, half curious. No doubt the woman thought Minuette wanted to remove any possible sources of gossip. But she dared not refuse. “I cannot say that I recall any letters from you amongst her things, but I did not search overclosely. Too painful, as you said.”
“Then I might look myself?”
“Of course. Whenever is convenient for you.”
“It is convenient now.” She would not give Emma time to go through her sister’s effects once more, with Emma’s suspicion sharpened by her request. If there was anything of use, she needed to remove it today.
Though Emma herself was plump and careworn, she kept an impeccably neat household. Alyce’s few belongings were stored in a small chest in Emma’s own bedroom. She politely, though no doubt grudgingly, left Minuette to examine its contents alone.
There was no clothing, which was not surprising. Surely the practical Emma had made use of the rich fabrics and jewelry of her sister’s court wardrobe. The dresses would have had to be shortened and considerably let out, Minuette thought uncharitably.
She and Alyce had shared a chamber almost constantly for two years, so she knew the spines of the few books in her friend’s possession. A Tyndale Bible,In Praise of Follyby Erasmus, More’sUtopia…all in English save for a single volume of Petrarch’s poems. It was that last volume that had contained a cipher key. Dominic had used the key gleaned from its pages to decipher the coded letters sent to Alyce in which she had been ordered to spy on Queen Anne. Surely the man who had given her that book had also been her unknown lover. Minuette would not believe that Alyce had been embroiled in two clandestine affairs at the same time.
She set the books aside and leafed through the personal letters that made up what remained of Alyce’s possessions. There were actually two from Minuette, brief notes rather than letters, and she was touched that Alyce had kept them. The remainder was a motley collection of stilted missives from Emma containing domestic news, a few from other women at court, and one from Queen Anne herself. Minuette gathered these up, though she doubted there were any obvious clues, and returned them to the silver casket that had held them. She remembered that casket well; for many months it had stood near her own smaller case in the various rooms the two girls had shared.
She found Emma and showed her the books and the casket with its letters. “Might I borrow these for a time?” she asked, making it clear from her tone that it was not a request.
Greed warred with Emma’s desire to be useful. “The casket belonged to my mother, and I would like the books to go to my son,” she said finally. “If you will take care to return them.”
“Of course. I also wondered, did you keep the letters Alyce wrote to you?”
She didn’t have high hopes that Alyce would have spilled her indiscretions to her sister, but one never knew what information might have slipped through unexpectedly.
Emma brought them to Minuette, several inches thick and bound with a lavender ribbon. Touched by that evidence of sentiment, Minuette said sincerely, “I do thank you, Mistress Hadley. I liked Alyce very much and I still grieve for her death. I promise to return everything to you in good order.”
Emma nodded, then ruined the moment by adding, “I hear that the new Duke of Exeter is staying at Wynfield with you. Is that quite proper?”
Minuette smiled frostily. “Do you think that I would do anything at all improper?”
As she rode away, however, she couldn’t ignore her own conscience. It uncomfortably concurred with Emma’s question.Seeing as how I feel about Dominic, being alone with him in a private house isn’t proper at all.
After three weeks at Wynfield, Dominic was still marveling at how Minuette had changed upon her arrival. She had lost none of her brightness and spirit, but the nervous energy that had driven her for months had spun itself out. At Wynfield she had gained serenity, a sense of belonging to a world entirely her own.
Dominic’s own nerves had quieted since his arrival. To look at Minuette without fear or guilt, to not have to watch every word or movement, and, above all, to be entirely free of jealousy, was intoxicatingly liberating. They were not indiscreet, not even in Wynfield’s relative safety, but at least they need not jump every time someone came into view.
Riding next to him, Minuette urged her horse forward a little and cocked her head at Dominic in invitation. But he shook his head, in no hurry today. Tomorrow he would ride out early, back to London and the grinding business of paring down court expenditures, while Minuette prepared for departure to France in two weeks. She had suggested a long outing for this last day, to somewhere she would not name. She wanted it to be a surprise, she said. She had even convinced him to leave Harrington behind, persuading Dominic that the two of them would be perfectly safe together. Also, Fidelis loped along beside the horses, and Dominic was persuaded that gentle as the hound was with Minuette, he would make a formidable weapon if needed. It gave him more pride than he dared admit to see the wolfhound alongside the Spanish horse William had given to Minuette on her seventeenth birthday. She seemed to love both equally.
“There it is,” Minuette said proudly as they reached the crest of a gentle hill.
Following her gaze, Dominic looked down to a small structure, nestled in a stand of beeches that shivered in the light wind, their leaves tossing from green to gold and back again. A round Saxon tower rose at one end of the stone structure.
“It’s a church,” he said. Unnecessarily, for even if Minuette had not known where she was bringing him, it could never have been mistaken for anything else.
She let her breath out impatiently. “Anancientchurch,” she said, as if that explained everything. She clicked to her horse and moved ahead without another word.
When they reached the copse and the church, Minuette allowed Dominic to help her down, but she kept her chin lifted and did not speak all the while he helped her prepare—shaking out a tapestried coverlet on the grass, unpacking the saddlebags filled with food, tethering the horses. Fidelis watched it all with supreme indifference, as though he caught and mirrored his mistress’s every mood.
When all was readied, Dominic extended his hand to help her sit, but she ignored it. Instead, she sank gracefully down with her dark blue riding skirts spread around her and her back straight and high. She was not truly offended—if she had been, she would be spitting words of fire at him—but he could not figure out quite what she was.
At last he ventured a question. “Am I to be allowed to eat?”
“Not until you apologize.”
“For what?”
She looked at him with perfect gravity. “Mocking my church.”
