She rose, pleased that her body responded gracefully even though panic was lurking deep. “I will not be threatened by you.”
Robert stood as well and leaned toward her, his palms flat against the table, speaking fast and low. “Look, I am as close to the holy quartet as anyone can be who isn’t part of it. You, Dominic, William, Elizabeth—I know how the dynamics work. William thinks he runs things, but that is only because he is king. It has always been the two of you together doing what you want and leaving the others to clear up after. Dominic won’t speak to you of this because…well, because Dominic never speaks and because he cannot see beyond his loyalty to Will. And Elizabeth, for all her brains and wit, has a blind spot where her brother is concerned. She may not believe that everything the king does must be right, but damned if she’ll let anyone else accuse him of it.”
He stepped around the table, urgency threading his voice. “You’re the one with all the power here. You must walk away from William. If you don’t—”
“Who put you up to this? I know this isn’t coming from you. Is it your father who’s warning me off? What exactly does the Duke of Northumberland threaten if I do not walk away?”
His face darkened. “You are in over your head. That is my warning, no one else’s. If you don’t walk away from William, someone might ensure that you are forced to.”
She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he had shaken her. With a contemptuous turn of her shoulder, she walked out straight-backed and unflinching. But so unnerved was she inside that she flinched when Eleanor fell into step with her in the corridor.
“Here to escort me elsewhere?” Minuette asked.
This time Eleanor did not trouble with politeness. “You grow increasingly troublesome with each day that passes.”
“Troublesome to whom? You? Forgive me for not caring.”
“Don’t be a fool. I don’t like you, but I am beginning to feel sorry for you. You’re no match for the king. William will have what he wants, and if you don’t play it right, you’ll end up with nothing.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Minuette nearly laughed aloud at the breathtaking folly of the situation—proclaiming her ability to end as William’s wife to his former mistress. Never mind that she wasn’t at all interested in being queen.
Eleanor studied her intently, eyes glittering, then shook her head. “You did me a favour, ridding me of Giles. So I will say it plainly one last time: you have enemies you’ve never dreamed of. And their tactics are not confined to innuendo and court gossip. You think the Catholics make bad enemies? They are as nothing to the hard hearts of the Protestants.”
Minuette stared as Eleanor swept away. What was she implying—that Minuette was in actual peril? That was absurd. Beyond Elizabeth and Dominic, no one knew for certain that William wished to marry her. Minuette shook her head and went back to her rooms, convincing herself as she went that Eleanor’s words had been nothing more than an attempt to rattle her.
Robert’s words, though, had been meant to do more than that. Combined with her stepfather’s insinuations and her own increasing uneasiness with the Dudley men’s alibis, how could she not perceive it as a threat? But how could she believe that Robert, a man she’d known since childhood, actually meant her harm?
Carrie met her at the door to her chamber with a note in Dominic’s familiar handwriting. He wrote that he would meet her in the gardens as soon as she could be there. Though there had been tension between them since his mother’s house, just the thought of seeing him lightened her mood. Compared to the murky depths of court politics, Dominic was like a refreshing dose of clear water. She would tell him everything and welcome his opinion.
She briefly considered changing clothes, but she didn’t want to waste the time. At the last moment her gaze fell on the star pendant lying neatly on the dressing table. She hadn’t worn it since leaving the French court, and had laid it away in the small, locked casket that kept her few valuable pieces. Carrie must have pulled it out for some reason. Perhaps it was a hint from her discreet maid. Well, she would take the hint.
It took her three tries to catch the clasp blindly, but at last it settled into place, the filigreed star nestling into the hollow of her throat. With footsteps as light as her heart, Minuette went down the stairs, through the courtyards, and into the gardens.
She saw Dominic, dark and watchful near the fountains, and increased her pace.
At the last moment Elizabeth decided it was too hot to go hawking with William and the French ambassador. She was practicing with her lute master when Robert Dudley appeared in her presence chamber. Although she was still annoyed with him in proxy for his family, it was hard to remember that when she saw him. He was such a familiar presence—both comforting and arousing—a reminder of herself as Elizabeth first and a princess second. She finished the lute arrangement of her father’s song, “Pastyme with Good Company,” then waved Robert to join her near the window while the lute master took her instrument and bowed himself away.
“You’re looking terrifyingly solemn,” she remarked. “What dreadful crisis has brought you to that?”
He hesitated, as though deciding which flippant response to give. Then he settled on truth. “I expect to be an uncle within a fortnight.”
“I know.” Margaret Clifford was hugely pregnant. She remained confined to the Tower, as was Guildford Dudley, though the two of them were kept strictly apart. She didn’t need Robert to elaborate on the solemnity—if Margaret’s child was a son, it would be the first boy born in the royal line since William. A Protestant boy, thus less dangerous than a Catholic one, but no doubt there would be treacherous whispers about moving him up in the line of succession. At the least, a boy would give Northumberland, as the child’s grandfather, a good deal too much power.
Elizabeth added, “You know William has moved to annul the marriage.”
“And you know that isn’t always an answer. Your father kept Mary in the line of succession despite the dissolution of his marriage to Catherine.”
“That’s not going to happen here,” she warned. “If it’s a boy, the council will ensure he has no legal claim at all.”
Robert shrugged and leaned back, but there was an underlying anxiety to his movements. “That’s not really my concern. I am not interested in maneuvering five steps from the throne for a shadow of a possibility that will never come to pass. Your brother will marry and produce any number of sons. And I will be glad of it, for your sake.”
“You do not think I could rule England if called upon?” she demanded, piqued.
There was his lightning-quick grin. “You could rule England better than any twenty men I know. But is that the life you would choose—always answering to others? Never doing something merely because you wish it?”
“William does any number of things merely because he wishes it.”
“William is a king, and you, my dear, would be a queen. A ruling queen, but a woman nonetheless. You know the expectations would be vastly different.”
