Robert passed easily through the camp, though not quite without comment. The encampment was orderly and sentries were posted to challenge. Robert got them through it all, making vulgar comments about camp women and laundry maids.
They slid sideways through the camp to the least populated area, where the tents and men thinned out and the sentries were far between. Robert pulled her close and murmured, “Now I go back, rather loudly and possibly drunkenly, while you slip into the night. Follow the edge of the village until you can’t see the lights from this camp any longer, then you’ll find the road leading out from between the old priory ruins. William’s camp is two miles east of here. Once you’re safely out of sight, take that coif off your head so William’s guards can see your hair. He’d be miffed if his own men shot you on your way to him.”
“Do you have a message for the king?”
“Of surrender, you mean? Tell him that if I have not brought my father to open surrender by nightfall tomorrow, I will leave Dudley badges in the priory ruins that will get him and Dominic and a handful of others through the camp the way we just came. I will leave the postern door unbarred to them if I must.”
“I’ll tell him.”
He nodded and turned away.
“Robert,” she called softly. “Have you any message for Elizabeth?”
“I think the time has long passed for that, don’t you? Get on your way, Minuette.”
It took forever to creep her way along the edges of the village and then to find the road. She gladly discarded the coif as soon as she could, hoping Robert was right and the wan moonlight would be enough to gleam on her bright hair. She was starting to panic, almost certain that she had gotten turned round and headed off on some other road (perhaps leading to Wales) when she heard the whicker of horses before her.
The first sentries were upon her before she knew it. They were wary, of course, for what were they to make of a solitary woman wandering into the king’s camp? She gladly gave herself into the charge of one of them, who escorted her the remainder of the way. They passed a dozen more sentries before she saw firelight illuminating the gold lions on William’s standard.
Before they could pass her along the chain of command, to more men who might not know her, she said, “My name is Genevieve Wyatt. If you could wake Lord Exeter, he will confirm my identity.”
The sentry shot her a sharp look, but one of the guards outside William’s tent intervened. “I’ll watch her,” he told the sentry. “Fetch Lord Exeter.”
She was glad no one wanted to question her just yet, and equally glad they didn’t insist on waking William first. And when she saw Dominic break into a run when he saw her, she was glad she had the excuse of being a weak female escaped from a horrid situation so that she might break down in tears and let him enfold her in his arms.
Robert was prepared for nearly anything when he slipped back into Dudley Castle through the postern door: from the best case, in which the guard had taken advantage of Robert’s dismissal and was still absent from Minuette’s now empty room, to the worst case, in which the Sharrington range was ablaze with lights and men searching top to bottom for their missing prisoner.
As with most things in life, the truth was somewhere in the middle. Robert went directly to his father’s study and was not surprised to find his father waiting for him.
“You let her go,” his father said. Robertwassurprised at the lack of anger in his father’s voice; if anything, he sounded sorrowful. “What else have you promised the king you would do?”
“Get you to surrender.”
Northumberland snorted, but Robert could not miss the new hollows in his cheeks and the dark smudges beneath his eyes. The study was icy despite the blazing fire, and the Duke of Northumberland resembled a warhorse approaching the limit of his strength. “I suppose you think surrender is the only option left now that my last hostage is flown.”
He had been trying to persuade his father to reason for three days without success. Now Robert would have to be blunt. “No hostage could have given you what you wished, Father. I had word at Kenilworth just before Lord Exeter arrested me—Guildford is dead. He was executed the day after the trial.”
Robert knew he was often careless of other people’s feelings—women, especially—but he had never been deliberately cruel. As he watched the light go out of his father’s eyes, he wished he could get his hands on the man behind all this pain. His father had been reckless and angry and intemperate—but George Boleyn had taken every careless act by the Duke of Northumberland and twisted it back upon him fourfold.
If he hadn’t thought it would break what little remained of his father’s heart, Robert would have told him all that he himself had done at Lord Rochford’s bidding. But though Robert had disappointed his father before this, he could not damn himself fully.
The best he could do was get his father to surrender into the king’s hands without bloodshed. As long as Dominic stood with William, there would be someone with wisdom and balance to get at the whole truth. Robert would not let his father condemn himself utterly without at least attempting to ease the blow.
His father slumped at his desk in silence, staring at his clasped hands. Robert held his tongue for as long he dared before saying, “Father, you have other sons—and daughters, as well. Do you want us all tainted? Will you ride into battle and make yourself a rebel while Mother weeps at your death?”
What most people missed about John Dudley, Robert thought, was his humility. He had it—though it wasn’t often in evidence—but one had only to see him with his family to know that his love for them was far greater than his ambition. Robert knew he had won; now he was just waiting for his father to speak.
At long last his father raised his head. “Send your mother to me. At first light I will tell the troops to disperse and deliver myself to the king.”
There were many things Robert wanted to say—I’m sorry for Guildford, I’ll do everything I can to see you redeemed, forgive me—but through the sudden tightness in his throat all he could manage was, “Trust me, Father. I’ll do everything in my power to return you home soon.”
Even if he had to bring down the Chancellor of England in the bargain.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dominic couldn’t take his eyes off Minuette. Dressed in peasant clothing and with a bruised look about her eyes as though she’d been sleepless for days, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
After that first startled moment of being woken in the dead of night, followed by the sweet relief of holding her close, Dominic had himself woken William and sent for Elizabeth to join them. She was still in the camp because she had doggedly refused to leave. “Not until Minuette is safe,” she had insisted, and no one dared defy her. Now the four of them sat together in William’s tent as Minuette related her story.
