Dominic paused, attempting to decipher that unexpected sentence. “I hadn’t really expected her to be part of this.”
“No,” she sighed. Opening the door just enough for him to see her face peering around it, she said, “I can’t get out of my dress.”
Dominic struggled to keep a straight face, but he could not entirely suppress his laughter. She answered with a rueful laugh of her own. “It’s ridiculous, I know.”
“I’ll fetch Carrie for you.”
He was half turned away when she said, in a curiously altered voice, “You could…would you do it?”
All at once he could not breathe.One body and two souls.
His hands were not entirely steady as he unlaced the two curving seams that ran down her back from shoulders to waist. He helped her remove the overdress, followed by the full-skirted kirtle, petticoat, and finally the stiff corset. Minuette herself seemed to gain in confidence with each item removed, until she faced him in only a linen smock that made his mouth go dry at how little it concealed even by candlelight.
“My turn,” she murmured, and began to undo the laces of his sleeveless doublet. He had removed the close-fitting, long-sleeved jerkin before dinner but wished now that he hadn’t, if only for the pleasure of letting her undress him. Minuette’s hands moved gracefully down the black velvet until Dominic shrugged the doublet off. With only a moment’s hesitation, she untied the neckline of his shirt and Dominic obliged her, pulling the linen over his head, wanting to feel her hands on his skin. But it was her mouth that touched him first, bestowing a butterfly-light kiss in the hollow at the base of his throat.
When she moved into his arms at last, he had a flash of memory—Minuette jumping to him at Hampton Court more than two years ago. The sharp awareness he’d had then of a girl grown into a woman mixed now with the vivid sweetness of holding his wife for the first time.My wife.She smelled of clean earth and dusky roses, and Dominic felt as he had once before when holding Minuette—that he had come home.
There was a moment when he drew back—the last moment that he could—and said breathlessly, “I don’t want to hurt you, love.”
Her hazel eyes were enormous and trusting. “I’m not afraid,” she whispered. “I could never be afraid of you.”
Hours later, in the still hush before dawn, Minuette lay in his arms and asked the question he had been both expecting and dreading since yesterday.
“What has William done?”
He told her as he’d always meant to, knowing they could not expect to have more than one night’s peace at a time. He told her of Scotland and of William’s lies and of an arrow in the back. When he had finished, he waited for her to defend William in her gentle, tolerant way.
She did not defend him. She did not say anything. She moved against Dominic and kissed him until he forgot everything but the moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
13 November 1555
Wynfield Mote
I am married. And though I know it is unwise to set it down in writing, I don’t care. I want it marked somewhere outside my own head, or in the eyes of those who were present. Dominic and I are bound, and though some might undo the words of the priest, nothing can undo last night. I am Dominic’s wife in body and soul. No one can change that.
Not even a king.
15 November 1555
Wynfield Mote
The priest left us this morning. Before his departure, he came to say goodbye and, I think, to wish me well. He’s a most unusual man, this Father Michael. When I thanked him for his service, he said, “No warning from you? I suppose you trust that your husband has already warned me as thoroughly as possible not to speak.”
“Why would you speak?” I asked. “There is no advantage to you in doing so.”
He laughed then and said, “So you are the practical half of this marriage—trusting to my silence because it serves my own ends, and not merely because I have given my word. Trust a woman to be cynical.”
I believe he meant it as a compliment.
Harrington is riding back with him to Dominic’s mother in Surrey. I saw Carrie saying goodbye to Harrington and know that I was not wrong about her feelings. I am glad that she has found happiness again—being so marvelously happy myself, I wish it for all the world.
Even Emma Hadley. I will go this afternoon and return at last the silver casket and Alyce’s letters. And I will tell her the truth of her sister’s death.
21 November 1555
Wynfield Mote
