“Genevieve.” She rolled the word. “A good French name.”
“My mother was French,madame la duchesse.She was a companion to the late Queen Anne and went to England in her service.”
“Ah, how charming your French is! Not quite native, but not pure English, either. Very good, mademoiselle. I shall look forward to speaking with you more during your sojourn here.”
“Merci, madame.”
Diane turned her focused gaze to Dominic. “And you,le duc nouveau,I shall quite look forward to continuing our last conversation when we can be…more private.” She leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial aside, “I should beware Aimée, however. She has not forgotten your last visit and may wish to redress matters.”
With a gracious goodbye, Diane de Poitiers drifted off, leaving Dominic completely stunned. Minuette looked at him sidelong and said, “Aimée?”
“No one. Just one of her ladies, I believe.” And please don’t ask me more, he thought. He did not want to explain about a woman who was furious with him for having too soon ended a careless affair he should never have started. He didn’t imagine Minuette thought him unfamiliar with women, should he say?—but nor did he want to have any conversation with her about specifics.
It was a great relief to hear a man hailing him. He would have seized on anyone at the moment, but Renaud LeClerc was much more than just anyone. Despite the fact that they’d last met on the battlefield a year ago, they remained fast friends, two soldiers who understood one another.
“Dominic!” Renaud took him by the shoulders in an awkward hug. “I did not think to have so soon the pleasure of meeting again. I am glad your king sent you, though honestly—guarding women? Is that really a soldier’s job?”
“A soldier’s job is whatever he is ordered,” Dominic replied with an honest grin. Renaud was so straightforward, so unlike nobles and kings and sly mistresses. “How is your wife, my friend?”
“Ah, you can soon see for yourself for Nicole is coming to court. She wishes to meet the English ladies and to thank you for sending me home safely to her. She will be here next week. Now,” Renaud turned to Minuette, “we are both being inexcusable. Will you introduce me to this charmingjolie fille?”
“Mademoiselle Genevieve Wyatt,” Dominic said, “I present le Vicomte Renaud LeClerc, Marshall of France and commander of His Majesty King Henri’s armies.”
Renaud bent to kiss Minuette’s hand, then regarded her with the naked appraisal that only the French could get away with. He definitely approved, but then who wouldn’t? In this gathering of experienced, elegant, jaded women, Minuette had the freshness and splendor of an English rose amidst exotic and heavily scented bouquets. Dominic felt a rush of possessive pride that he struggled to conceal.
“A true English beauty,” Renaud murmured. “It is an honour, Mademoiselle Wyatt.”
“The honour is mine,monsieur le comte.I have heard many wonderful things about your family from Dominic.”
Renaud straightened and said, almost to himself, “She is who she is,n’est-ce pas? And as she is…”
He met Dominic’s eyes then, and Dominic knew the Frenchman remembered sitting by the fire with him at his own home and saying, of his wife,Nicole, as she is, was the only one for me.
If anyone could guess his heart, it was probably Renaud. That should worry him, but for a moment he relished being in the company of someone who understood him clearly and without judgment.
On their second day at Fontainebleau, the Englishwomen were formally introduced to Elisabeth de France’s household. The young princess, just ten years old, held court with as much dignity as though she were twice that age, dressed in a stiff French gown of cloth-of-gold and crimson to emphasize her future position as England’s queen. Minuette was the last introduced, after Elizabeth and the Duchess of Rochford and her six young charges from good English noble families, who would remain in France in Elisabeth’s service.
Lady Rochford introduced Minuette flawlessly enough (“a lady of our own Princess Elizabeth”), but there was a sting to her tone that even the child appeared to notice. Though there were, of course, French adults in the room—from governess to priest to the French princess’s own ladies-in-waiting—Elisabeth was the seat of authority at the moment, and she took her duties seriously.
“You are most welcome, mademoiselle,” Elisabeth de France said gravely. It was a royal’s rebuke to an ungracious woman more than four times her age. “I am happy to be acquainted with any friend of my futurebelle-soeur,and I have been told you are also well known to the king, God save him.”
Minuette rose from her curtsey. “I am, Your Highness,” she answered with matching gravity, her heart touched by the sweet, high voice of childhood. “The king has instructed me to observe carefully that I might bring him reports of your interests and beauty.”
In truth, William had said nothing at all about his betrothed to her, and probably not to anyone outside his council members. Why did that suddenly bother her? Why, in the presence of this wide-eyed, glittering child, did she feel profoundly guilty, struck by the urge to apologize and confess.I did not mean to steal Will’s love,she wanted to say,and I promise to do all I can to turn him to you.
It might have been amusing if it weren’t all so complicated.
She said as much to Dominic as he escorted her to the grand welcome banquet that night. When she told him of Elisabeth de France’s eager questions about William, about her request that Minuette attend her in the coming days to speak of England and her future husband, Dominic shrugged it off. “She’s a girl raised to please. It’s all new to her. No doubt, by her third or fourth betrothal, she’ll be much more sanguine.”
“Like our own Elizabeth?” Minuette snapped. “It’s cruel, what is done to royal women. She’s just a little girl, and she thinks William a mythical prince who will make every dream come true. It’s not fair to her.”
“That is not your fault,” he said, more gently. “If it was not William, it would—and will—be another prince. It’s what the girl was born to.”
“Then I am delighted not to be royal!”
“Not royal, no,” Dominic murmured. “But are you any more free?”
She remembered something Elizabeth had said to her last year, referring to Anne Boleyn and her Henry.I think she loved him as well as she was able, considering she had no choice in the matter.
