William turned his back on Dominic and slammed his palms onto the table behind him. A goblet fell over and crashed to the stone pavings. Dominic did not flinch.
At long last William faced him once more, his face remote and forbidding. Dominic felt as though a veil had descended between them, altering the other’s form and voice into that of a stranger. He wondered if William felt it and, if so, whether he counted it as one more cost of kingship.
Friendship with kings is always one-sided;so Renaud had once told him.
“I will not ask you to serve against your conscience,” William said. “For now, I suggest you withdraw to Tiverton. I gifted you the title and the estate—perhaps you should begin to act like you are a duke. I will send for you from there.”
Dominic nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.” And then he delivered the final blow. “There is one more thing. Renaud LeClerc was wearing plate armour beneath his cloak. He is sore as hell, and madder than even that, but he’s not dead. You might want to consider that when you lead your troops across the border.”
“He was…” William seemed torn between anger and respect. “Why was he wearing armour?”
“He’s a cautious man. One doesn’t get to be a soldier of his reputation without caution.” Even furious and heartsick at William’s betrayal, Dominic could not in good conscience avoid giving one last piece of advice. “You should be cautious as well. Try to balance between honest reprisal and blind vengeance.”
Dominic left the king and the castle and spent the night dozing in the stables. Before dawn he and Harrington were riding south out of Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Only once did Harrington speak, and his question showed the depths to which he understood Dominic. “To Wynfield Mote?”
It had been, naturally, Dominic’s first impulse. But he’d had time to think through the brief hours of the night, and now he shook his head. “Surrey. My mother’s house.”
Minuette was in her mother’s rose garden when she heard the clatter of hooves on cobbles. Hope rose in her, wild and immediate, and she did her best to quench it by refusing to run around the house and see for herself. She gathered up the knife she’d been using to deadhead the last of the roses and laid it in the basket with the shriveled petals. Removing the leather gloves that had once been her mother’s, she laid them across the shears and settled the basket on her arm. Only then did she leave the gravel paths of the garden to walk sedately around to the front of the house, Fidelis stalking silently by her side.
The beating of her heart was anything but sedate when she saw Dominic, talking to Asherton as a groom led away his horse. Harrington was with him, naturally, and another man Minuette did not immediately recognize. She had eyes only for Dominic. His expression was detached, almost icy, and she relaxed only a little when he turned to her and smiled, for even then his eyes remained unreadable.
“May I have a word with you?” He indicated the direction from which she’d come.
Asherton seemed to have everything well in hand, and neither Harrington nor the other guest—who she recognized with bewilderment as Michael, the priest from Dominic’s mother’s home—looked at all perturbed by Dominic’s abruptness. She led him back into the midst of her mother’s roses, where he stood silent.
Now that he had her alone, he seemed all at once indecisive, shifting his weight and hardly looking at her. Desperate to break the tension, Minuette behaved as any good hostess would. “Will Michael be staying long?”
“Just the one night.”
Minuette said lamely, “How nice.”
At last Dominic shook his head and sighed, and the smile he gave her this time was almost recognizable. “I know I’m not making much sense. I had thought the hard part was behind me, deciding…”
“Deciding what?”
His answer did not seem to match her question. “You know, of course, that Michael is not primarily a clerk. He’s a Jesuit priest, and my mother’s confessor.”
“I remember. I don’t understand why he’s here.” But she thought maybe she did, only she was afraid to be wrong, afraid to grasp at the hope in case Dominic snatched it away at the last moment.
“I’ve brought the priest, Minuette, and a witness. I thought you might supply the church? I know you have one convenient.”
Through the spinning in her head, she snatched at one point. “I thought…Christmas. Didn’t we agree we would tell William at Christmas?”
All at once his dark green eyes were aware and full of hurt. “I shouldn’t have sprung this on you. I apologize. I was thinking only of myself.”
“Dominic, what has happened?”
His eyes once again went blank. “Nothing. I’m sorry, I’m not doing this very well, but…Do you not want to marry me?”
The vulnerability of the question made her long to comfort him for whatever hurt had brought him here. She had known for months now that something or someone would have to break to end this painful stalemate they were locked in. She had never guessed it would be Dominic. She had never guessed Dominiccouldbe broken. What had been done to him?
This was not the moment to press. She reached her hands to the back of his head, laced her fingers together through the soft, dark hair and, rising on tiptoe, kissed him. There was one moment when he was stiff and surprised, then his arms came around her with unusual force and she knew it would be all right.
She pulled her head away, just enough to whisper, “The twelfth of November: our wedding day, Dominic.”
That refrain danced through Minuette’s thoughts like quicksilver over the next two hours. She allowed the joy of it to overwhelm the whispers of caution within, warning that some disaster must have precipitated Dominic’s abrupt action. It must be William. Something the king had said or done had tipped Dominic from prudence to recklessness.
