“On her way back to William’s camp.”
“And William just let you in here?”
“In exchange for his sister, yes. Don’t fret yourself, I am well and truly arrested, Minuette. Dominic saw to that. I am only here on sufferance, to persuade my father to surrender and to get you out of here untouched.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
He grinned, but his heart wasn’t in it. There was real strain in his eyes. “This is my home, remember? Getting you out won’t be the problem. Persuading my father to surrender will be.”
“How has it come to this, Robert? I know you love your family, but betraying Elizabeth and William—”
He turned sharp in an instant. “Don’t play at politics, Minuette. You’re not as clever as you think you are. All you need to know is to be ready to trust me when the moment arises. I will get you safely back to your men.”
“Trust you? Why should I trust a man who meant to kill me?”
“I don’t…What the devil are you talking about?”
If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was genuinely confused. “While you lectured me about William, your confederate smeared monkshood on my pendant. If it weren’t for Dominic’s quick thinking, I would be dead. And you wouldn’t have to trouble about getting me out of here.”
Robert dropped his head into his hands. She let the silence stretch between them, and began to doubt. That doubt intensified when he raised his face to hers once more. His expression was stripped bare, and for once, Minuette saw straight through the cultivated mask of intelligence and amusement and remembered the boy she had known since she was a child: bright and irrepressible and, always, generous of heart. “I did not know, Minuette. I had nothing to do with poison. If I’d had any idea…you were ill, that was all anyone said. I would never have plotted to harm you.”
“You harmed Alyce de Clare quick enough.”
Seriousness flared into forbidding. “I told you to stay out of political games. I meant it.”
“You know what I think? I think you, too, are not as clever at this game as you thought. Perhaps you are a masterful deceiver…or perhaps you are in dangerously over your head. What foolishness have you committed merely because your father asked it of you?”
He stood, eyes blazing and arrogance returned. “I’ll come for you after dark. If my father is feeling particularly trusting, tonight. If not, then tomorrow night. Be ready.”
It wasn’t that night, or the next night, either. Only on the third night did Robert Dudley come for her, long after midnight. She didn’t know exactly what “be ready” meant, but she’d gone to bed in her dress and heard the murmur of voices outside her door moments before Robert slipped inside. “Put those on,” he commanded, tossing her a bundle.
It was women’s clothing of the lowest classes: a none-too-clean smock and a square-necked kirtle that was muddy brown in colour. The sleeves were pinned rather than tied to the bodice, and there was a heavy shawl to wrap around it all. “Where did you get these?” she asked dubiously.
“I’ve a gift for talking women out of their clothes.”
Minuette ducked behind the bed curtains, fumbling to get out of her more elaborate dress and into the simpler shapes. She could hear Robert’s impatience. “Do you need help?”
“No,” she snapped. “How did you get rid of the guard?”
“I told him I wished to be private with you and no one need overhear what we were up to.”
“Lovely.” That’s what she needed—Dudley servants speculating about how loud she and Robert might become in an intimate encounter.
“He won’t expect me to take all night about it, so hurry up.”
She stepped out from the privacy of the curtains. “Will I do?” The skirts were meant for a fuller figure and were several inches too short, but in the dark she should be able to pass.
“Put this on.” Robert handed her a linen coif, beneath which she inexpertly bundled up her hair. Only royalty and single women at court were allowed to wear their hair loose and Minuette didn’t like the confinement of the coif.
“It will have to do,” Robert said critically. “Keep your head down and don’t say a word. Pretend you’re poor and oppressed.”
“I am poor.” But then she remembered the pinched and hungry faces of those on her estate farms and the beggars she passed in the London streets and felt a pang of guilt. Poor was relative.
Irritation with Robert wasn’t enough to keep away fear, and her heart pounded in her ears as she followed him through parts of Dudley Castle she hadn’t seen during her too brief time as a guest. He couldn’t take her out through the Triple Gate, of course, so they wound past the chapel to a postern gate in the outer wall. Once through it, a narrow path circled the motte tightly against the castle. He led her down this treacherous path with remarkable speed, the lantern he carried almost the only illumination. The moon was a quarter, waning into wistfulness. And it was bitterly cold, winds hinting at the winter to come. Minuette shivered but kept her head down, looking only at Robert’s feet, until she heard the sounds of sleeping men looming.
“This is the tricky part,” Robert whispered into her ear. “But only if a soldier decides they want a few moments alone with you. They’ll take any woman at this point, but for heaven’s sake don’t let them look at your face or I’ll never get you out of there.”
Her heart ready to leap out of her mouth, Minuette realized wryly that she was far more terrified now that at any point during her imprisonment. It was as though only on the brink of freedom could she allow herself to feel the tension of the last three days in an enemy’s house without even Elizabeth for company. She’d told herself that Northumberland would be a fool to harm her—but that hadn’t stopped him arranging for someone to poison her in the very heart of William’s court. What might he do when she was alone and completely at his mercy?
