And an object—irregular and disturbing in outline—on her chamber floor.
Minuette focused on essentials, refusing to study the object or let her mind jump ahead. She left the door open while she located the beeswax candle on the tabletop where she’d left her jewelry casket. She had to step into the corridor—avoiding the unknown object—to light it from one of the torches that was kept burning at distant intervals, and she was cross when she realized she was shaking. Candle lit, she returned to her chamber and shut the door. Only then did she allow herself to take a good look at what her unknown visitor had left.
It was a dead rat, wound in velvet as though in a grotesque parody of court dress.
There was a parchment beneath it, though it took all Minuette’s nerve—and the use of her chamber pot—to edge the rat aside enough to see it.
She immediately wished she hadn’t bothered. The page was a parody of the broadsides that had once plastered London in protest against the despised Anne Boleyn. This was a rough but recognizable sketch of Minuette herself, bared to the waist and looming giant-sized between William on one side and Elisabeth de France on the other. Beneath her feet lay a dove, symbol of peace. One of Minuette’s heels smashed its head.
She sat down abruptly on the edge of her bed, staring dizzily at the rat as though the dead creature might come to life any second and bite her. She almost wished it would, for this was more twisted and disturbing than the straightforward threat of the adder that Fidelis had killed. So much for removing me from England to keep me safe, she thought numbly.
At least one question had been answered: her enemy was not Eleanor. Or at least, not this particular enemy—seeing as an ocean presently divided them.
There was no way she could sleep with that dead rat in her bedroom and the vulgar paper would have to be destroyed before anyone at the French court saw it, not to mention dealing with the uncomfortable knowledge that someone had opened her door only minutes ago. The culprit had no doubt thought her sound asleep and would not expect an outcry until morning. She could call for Carrie, but even as Minuette threw on a bed robe over her nightgown, she knew that wasn’t the help she wanted.
She left the candle burning in the room and, gingerly pulling it free from the rat’s body, brought the broadside with her to show Dominic.
He’ll be in bed, she thought. If he didn’t hear her knock, would she dare enter his chambers and wake him herself? The thought made her stomach clench, not unpleasantly, as she imagined leaning over him, touching his shoulder or even his face as he slept.
Think about the rat,she commanded herself, not the image of Dominic in bed, looking up at her with those dark green eyes that pulled her into recklessness. What did he wear to bed? And if he wanted to kiss her…
Veering between desire and discipline, Minuette came to the corridor where Dominic was quartered. His door was at the far end of the right-hand side—he had made sure she’d known that in case she needed him for just such an emergency. She had just started toward it when his door was pulled open from the inside.
Minuette froze as a woman came into the corridor, a woman who almost at once turned and embraced the man behind her.
Though she had never seen him naked, there was no mistaking Dominic for anyone else, not even with his face obscured while he kissed the woman clinging to him.
Dominic resisted sleep for a long time, but he finally fell into fitful dreams. Faces drifted before him, melting into one another: William to Renaud to the Spanish ambassador; Elizabeth to Anne Boleyn to his own mother. And finally, as a reward, Minuette herself. In his dream she was dressed for sleep, the loose gown bewitchingly light and suggestive of her shape beneath. Her hair hung over her shoulders and down her back and felt warm and heavy when he buried his hands in it. She let him pull her to him, and he could feel the outlines of her body pressed against his and the warmth of her breath on his mouth, and then she was kissing him…
He wasn’t dreaming. Long, loose hair hung around his face, a woman next to him in bed, her mouth teasing at his. “Minuette?” he said, disbelieving.
He was right to disbelieve. The woman pulled back, her face illuminated by the moonlight that came through his window. He knew every plane and angle of Minuette’s face and this one was rounder, plumper, and yet familiar. But groggy with sleep and injury-addled, it took him a heartbeat to place her.
Aimée. Who was his mistress for a brief time during the winter of 1553 and had been miffed when she was dismissed.I should beware Aimée,Diane de Poitiers had warned him two weeks ago.She…may wish to redress matters.
So it appeared. Aimée’s smile was hungry with intimacy. Her chemise had slipped off one shoulder, leaving it bare and much more appealing to him than it should be. “All this time wasted, monsieur, but tonight I will have what I want,” she whispered. “Is it not what you want also? I can feel that it is.”
He swallowed, trying to pull together his scattered wits. Did he want her? Undoubtedly. His body had wishes of its own and was presently making them rather strongly known.
But he had never let his body rule him where Minuette was concerned, and he would not start with someone else. He escaped the bed with as much dignity as he could muster naked, and said, “I regret that you have presumed too far.”
She hesitated between coyness and anger. Then, with a shrug, she scrambled off the bed as well. “If you do not want me, then put me out,” she challenged.
She meant it literally. He had to pick up the bed robe she’d discarded and put it around her shoulders. She would not help him at all, only letting her body press back against him as he turned her around. She did not resist, but she did not fight him, either, for which he gave devout thanks. All she’d have to do was scream and a diplomatic incident of catastrophic proportions would erupt.
Only when he’d pushed her out the door and begun to close it did Aimée move. She whirled round and kissed him, so fiercely and thoroughly that desire shot through his hungry body. He would stop her, he told himself, he would not let her back in, but for just this moment it was such pleasure to not think about anything or anyone but himself, and his hands knew where all her curves were and she was skilled and familiar and it had been so long…
She drew back delicately and murmured, “Au revoir,Dominic.”
He shut the door and shoved a chair in front of it. It wouldn’t keep anyone out, but it would at least give him warning. This was the second time in one night that he’d been caught unawares—he didn’t want it happening again.
Elizabeth received Walsingham privately in the afternoon of their final day at Fontainebleau. He bowed with that air of casual respect that she was beginning to suspect she liked. Once he had been seated at her invitation, she asked, “You have news?”
“Lord Exeter left court alone last night, quite late. He went to a tavern that is known to cater to the Emperor’s men. He met with someone in a private room upstairs. I cannot swear to the identity of the person he was meeting, but the public rooms were filled with Spanish soldiers.”
“The ambassador?” she guessed.
He inclined his head. “Most likely.”
