Despite his relatively early arrival, the evening wasn’t nearly long enough for Minuette. They spent every minute together. In the softening twilight they walked to the nearest cottages and Minuette introduced him to several families, including the widow woman and her children who were embarrassingly effusive in their thanks for the help provided bringing in their harvest. They toured the rose garden, looking the worse for autumn wear, and she sought Dominic’s opinion on remodeling the old-fashioned solar.
Mistress Holly provided a bountiful meal of roast partridge, rabbit pie, dried fish with mustard, leeks and parsnips, warm wholemeal bread, and a pastry shaped like a Tudor rose. She and Dominic ate all they could and still sent back more than three-quarters of the food; the servants would dine just as well as they had.
They sat in the hall after the meal, sipping spiced wine and saying little. Minuette kept expecting Dominic to bring up the issue of William, but he seemed content merely to sit with her. At last, when the shadows of night had long closed in, she said tentatively, “If you’re away at dawn, we should retire now.”
As Dominic had earlier, she blushed when she realized how that last phrase could be taken. Her blush deepened when he did not brush aside her awkward words. Rather, he leaned across the chessboard where her black queen stood triumphant and looked at her intently. His eyes seemed to trace every inch of her face and throat, and she felt his gaze as though it were fingertips running over her skin.
She had forgotten how it felt—not that she was unfamiliar with that sort of look. It was the only way William looked at her anymore, but he did not rouse in her this feeling of breathlessness, this sensitivity of her body heightening until she thought she’d burst into flame if Dominic were to touch her.
He leaned back in his chair, somehow releasing her from his gaze without taking his eyes off her. “I can ride tired.”
Composing herself to stillness, Minuette suggested, “Another game, then?”
“I always lose.” He smiled gently. “I thought you wanted to talk. About telling William.”
“Let’s talk.”
He shook his head. “I want to hear you.”
Only fair—she’d been the one dragging her feet for months. Still, she had made her decision at Dudley Castle. “I mean to ask William to remain at Wynfield until Christmas. No doubt he will wish me to return to court for that.”
“No doubt.”
“When I return to court, I will speak to Elizabeth.”
Dominic nodded thoughtfully. “Break it to her first?”
“Yes.”
“And what precisely will you tell her—simply that you have no intention of marrying William? Or do you mean to go so far as to tell her why?”
“I will tell her everything.”
“So that she can tell William in your stead?”
Why was he interrogating her? “I thought this was what you wanted, Dominic. No more secrets, no more lies. No more twisting of our loyalties. But that doesn’t mean we must be cruel. I thought you loved William, too. Do you want me to humiliate him?”
He sighed and rubbed his hand across his forehead. It was one of those rare moments when he looked as though he didn’t have all the answers. “I just want to make sure this is what you want, that you’re not doing it simply to appease me.”
She choked out a laugh. “To appease you?” All this time, and he still did not know what she wanted. Perhaps she would have to show him.
She moved from her chair to Dominic’s lap. Twining her arms around his neck, she brushed his cheek with her lips. “This is what I want,” she said, then kissed his other cheek before letting her tongue flicker lightly across his lips. She felt rather than heard him groan softly, and she whispered, “You are what I want, Dominic. Must I prove it? We are alone enough here at Wynfield. I will prove it this very night if you wish. It doesn’t have to be on a table.”
His hands curved between her waist and her hips and his own laugh was strangled in his throat. “Don’t tempt me, Minuette.”
“My lord Duke of Exeter,” she murmured into his ear, “I did not know you were capable of being tempted.”
He stopped her words by kissing her hard and long. When she was well and truly breathless, he said, “I am tempted by you every moment of every day, Mistress Wyatt, and even more when I am in my bed at night. And if I don’t leave this room now, I will be more than tempted.”
He set her on her feet and found his own. Putting his hands on her shoulders to hold her just barely away from him, Dominic said, “I want you as my wife, Minuette. And now that we’re close—now that we have a plan and a time—I can wait. I will let the temptation be a pleasure until the night we are wed.”
“Well then, we shall have to tell William at Christmas, because I don’t think I can wait much longer.” She was only half teasing.
“Christmas,” he agreed solemnly, and her heart quickened. “Now, tell me you’ve put me in a room with a door that locks on both sides.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dispatches from Dominic Courtenay, Duke of Exeter, personal to Henry IX, King of England:
