The Boleyn Deceit: A Novel (Ann Boleyn Trilogy)

by Andersen, Laura

  As Carrie had advised, the long galleries were as empty as they could ever be. With William hawking, there was little need for hopeful courtiers to stand around waiting for him to pass through the corridors to plead whatever causes they had to plead. Those whom Minuette passed this morning seemed as anxious for solitude as she, and no one spoke to her.

  Except the one person she least wanted to see.

  She was standing in the gallery, gazing blindly at a tapestry of an idyllic country retreat complete with swans on a lake and a hunting dog pursuing ducks, when Eleanor Percy found her. “Mistress Wyatt.”

  It was the first time she had seen Eleanor since the adder incident, and it was the politest voice Eleanor had ever used with her. Minuette inclined her head in the barest acknowledgment and waited for the other woman to pass on. But Eleanor, it seemed, had been in search of her, though the tight lacing of her bodice showed rather an interest in looking for men than for a woman. “Lord Robert Dudley would like to speak with you privately.”

  Whatever for? she nearly asked. It was almost as though Robert knew what she had just read in her stepfather’s letter. “And why would he send you to find me?”

  Eleanor gleamed in that particular way of hers, designed to make men stop thinking and women roll their eyes. “I was conveniently nearby. He’s in the map room just now. I believe this is a conversation you would prefer to have out of sight of the royals. Will you come?”

  It seemed Eleanor meant to lead her there. Minuette tried to politely refuse, then less politely, but Eleanor said, “I wouldn’t want you to slip away. Lord Robert was quite specific.”

  Something in the way she said his name … could Eleanor have moved on in her choice of men? Surely not, at least not with Robert. He had an eye for women, but he had a sharper eye for his own preservation. And bedding the king’s former mistress in the king’s own palace was sure to jeopardize one’s future. Especially when one was in love with the king’s sister.

  Warily she followed Eleanor through the empty corridors to the map room, so-called because of the frescoed map of Europe that covered one entire wall. It was mostly used for exchequer business, but today there was only Robert sitting at a table with a ledger open before him. He shut it as the women entered and rose. “Thank you for coming, Minuette.”

  To Eleanor, who waited at her side, he said, “You may go.” There was nothing, not even a flicker, to betray the slightest personal interest in her. Perhaps she had merely been convenient, at that. Minuette was just glad to see her go.

  “Please,” Robert said, and they sat across from each other. She had seen him in this mood only once before, solemn and serious, when he had come to Framlingham last fall to tell her that the Spanish navy was on the move and she’d best hurry and find the Penitent’s Confession she’d been sent to locate. Robert serious was very serious indeed.

  As though he could read her mind, he asked, “Do you remember the night Giles Howard died?”

  I might have enjoyed you willing, but I will revel in you fighting. Giles upon her, sword in one hand, the other hand digging into her arm, dragging her up … pushing her against the wall … then he was falling and there was blood on her hands and wet across her face and her dress and spurting across the stones of the floor.

  “I remember.”

  “I know it was you, Minuette.”

  “You know what was me?”

  “You are the one who killed Giles Howard, not Dominic. I saw Dominic that night, not ten minutes afterward, in the clothes he was wearing in that lady chapel, and he had only smears and streaks of blood on him. You, however … your gown was so soaked in blood that your maid burnt it.”

  She met his gaze steadily, but her thoughts raced as swiftly as her heart. It wasn’t as though she regretted killing Giles, considering what he’d meant to do to her. It just wasn’t something she wanted to remember. Or anyone else to know.

  “Why are you bringing this to my attention now?” she asked softly. Robert Dudley was always a hard man to read, but never more so than when he was serious.

  “Because you are in a precarious position, Minuette, and I would like you to take my advice.”

  “By threatening me?”

  “By proving to you that I have your best interests at heart. If I did not, I would have spread this news, for there are many at court who would pay to know anything that might discredit you. I am not interested in injuring you.”

  “What are you interested in, Lord Robert?”

  “Protecting England. You have to walk away from William.”

  How to play this? Innocent? Outraged? Or as Robert was playing it—matter-of-fact and straightforward?

  “Assuming that I know what you are talking about, why would I do that?” Was she always to be in the position of defending a match she didn’t even desire? Life would be so much easier if she could just tell everyone—anyone—the truth: I have no intention of marrying William ever. “And why are you the one to give me this advice?”

  “Because no one else will,” he retorted. “At least, no one you want to tangle with. Would you rather be discussing this with my father? Or the Lord Chancellor? Or why not bring the new Duke of Norfolk into it—surely he’d have an opinion as to whether the king should marry the woman who murdered his nephew.”

  She rose, pleased that her body responded gracefully even though panic was lurking deep. “I will not be threatened by you.”

  Robert stood as well and leaned toward her, his palms flat against the table, speaking fast and low. “Look, I am as close to the holy quartet as anyone can be who isn’t part of it. You, Dominic, William, Elizabeth—I know how the dynamics work. William thinks he runs things, but that is only because he is king. It has always been the two of you together doing what you want and leaving the others to clear up after. Dominic won’t speak to you of this because … well, because Dominic never speaks and because he cannot see beyond his loyalty to Will. And Elizabeth, for all her brains and wit, has a blind spot where her brother is concerned. She may not believe that everything the king does must be right, but damned if she’ll let anyone else accuse him of it.”

  He stepped around the table, urgency threading his voice. “You’re the one with all the power here. You must walk away from William. If you don’t—”

  “Who put you up to this? I know this isn’t coming from you. Is it your father who’s warning me off? What exactly does the Duke of Northumberland threaten if I do not walk away?”

  His face darkened. “You are in over your head. That is my warning, no one else’s. If you don’t walk away from William, someone might ensure that you are forced to.”

  She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he had shaken her. With a contemptuous turn of her shoulder, she walked out straight-backed and unflinching. But so unnerved was she inside that she flinched when Eleanor fell into step with her in the corridor.

  “Here to escort me elsewhere?” Minuette asked.

  This time Eleanor did not trouble with politeness. “You grow increasingly troublesome with each day that passes.”

  “Troublesome to whom? You? Forgive me for not caring.”

  “Don’t be a fool. I don’t like you, but I am beginning to feel sorry for you. You’re no match for the king. William will have what he wants, and if you don’t play it right, you’ll end up with nothing.”

  “I know what I’m doing.” Minuette nearly laughed aloud at the breathtaking folly of the situation—proclaiming her ability to end as William’s wife to his former mistress. Never mind that she wasn’t at all interested in being queen.

  Eleanor studied her intently, eyes glittering, then shook her head. “You did me a favour, ridding me of Giles. So I will say it plainly one last time: you have enemies you’ve never dreamed of. And their tactics are not confined to innuendo and court gossip. You think the Catholics make bad enemies? They are as nothing to the hard hearts of the Protestants.”

  Minuette stared as Eleanor swept away. What was she imply
ing—that Minuette was in actual peril? That was absurd. Beyond Elizabeth and Dominic, no one knew for certain that William wished to marry her. Minuette shook her head and went back to her rooms, convincing herself as she went that Eleanor’s words had been nothing more than an attempt to rattle her.

  Robert’s words, though, had been meant to do more than that. Combined with her stepfather’s insinuations and her own increasing uneasiness with the Dudley men’s alibis, how could she not perceive it as a threat? But how could she believe that Robert, a man she’d known since childhood, actually meant her harm?

  Carrie met her at the door to her chamber with a note in Dominic’s familiar handwriting. He wrote that he would meet her in the gardens as soon as she could be there. Though there had been tension between them since his mother’s house, just the thought of seeing him lightened her mood. Compared to the murky depths of court politics, Dominic was like a refreshing dose of clear water. She would tell him everything and welcome his opinion.

  She briefly considered changing clothes, but she didn’t want to waste the time. At the last moment her gaze fell on the star pendant lying neatly on the dressing table. She hadn’t worn it since leaving the French court, and had laid it away in the small, locked casket that kept her few valuable pieces. Carrie must have pulled it out for some reason. Perhaps it was a hint from her discreet maid. Well, she would take the hint.

  It took her three tries to catch the clasp blindly, but at last it settled into place, the filigreed star nestling into the hollow of her throat. With footsteps as light as her heart, Minuette went down the stairs, through the courtyards, and into the gardens.

  She saw Dominic, dark and watchful near the fountains, and increased her pace.

  At the last moment Elizabeth decided it was too hot to go hawking with William and the French ambassador. She was practicing with her lute master when Robert Dudley appeared in her presence chamber. Although she was still annoyed with him in proxy for his family, it was hard to remember that when she saw him. He was such a familiar presence—both comforting and arousing—a reminder of herself as Elizabeth first and a princess second. She finished the lute arrangement of her father’s song, “Pastyme with Good Company,” then waved Robert to join her near the window while the lute master took her instrument and bowed himself away.

  “You’re looking terrifyingly solemn,” she remarked. “What dreadful crisis has brought you to that?”

  He hesitated, as though deciding which flippant response to give. Then he settled on truth. “I expect to be an uncle within a fortnight.”

  “I know.” Margaret Clifford was hugely pregnant. She remained confined to the Tower, as was Guildford Dudley, though the two of them were kept strictly apart. She didn’t need Robert to elaborate on the solemnity—if Margaret’s child was a son, it would be the first boy born in the royal line since William. A Protestant boy, thus less dangerous than a Catholic one, but no doubt there would be treacherous whispers about moving him up in the line of succession. At the least, a boy would give Northumberland, as the child’s grandfather, a good deal too much power.

  Elizabeth added, “You know William has moved to annul the marriage.”

  “And you know that isn’t always an answer. Your father kept Mary in the line of succession despite the dissolution of his marriage to Catherine.”

  “That’s not going to happen here,” she warned. “If it’s a boy, the council will ensure he has no legal claim at all.”

  Robert shrugged and leaned back, but there was an underlying anxiety to his movements. “That’s not really my concern. I am not interested in maneuvering five steps from the throne for a shadow of a possibility that will never come to pass. Your brother will marry and produce any number of sons. And I will be glad of it, for your sake.”

  “You do not think I could rule England if called upon?” she demanded, piqued.

  There was his lightning-quick grin. “You could rule England better than any twenty men I know. But is that the life you would choose—always answering to others? Never doing something merely because you wish it?”

  “William does any number of things merely because he wishes it.”

  “William is a king, and you, my dear, would be a queen. A ruling queen, but a woman nonetheless. You know the expectations would be vastly different.”

  “And entirely theoretical. As you point out, no doubt William will have sons and to spare.”

  But would he? Their father, virile and powerful as he’d been, hadn’t. William had already fathered one daughter. And she remembered John Dee, studying her palm last winter, promising something that she’d been afraid to grasp at, afraid to know, so that she’d snatched her hand away at the last moment rather than see it …

  “Truly, Your Highness, I did not come to discuss our brothers, at least not directly. My mother has written and asked me to remind you that you promised to consider visiting Dudley Castle this autumn. It would please her greatly if you consented.”

  “Please her?” she asked archly.

  And now his other smile, the intimate, private one that Elizabeth hoped she alone ever saw. Surely he didn’t smile at his wife this way? “Do I need to tell you how it would please me?” he whispered. “There are so many ways …” He leaned in, until she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Perhaps you will let me enumerate them one at a time when you are in my home.”

  William won’t want me to go, she thought. Not with the crisis looming over Guildford and Margaret. But I’ve done any number of things I don’t want to please him.

  “I’ll come,” she said softly. “But don’t tell the king. I’ll work it out myself.”

  She closed her eyes as lips brushed her cheek. Just as she shivered, there was a tumult across the room. Her eyes flew open as Robert drew back and shot to his feet. Dominic was pushing his way through the door, carrying someone in his arms and his voice strained beyond recognition. “She needs a physician. Now.”

  When Elizabeth saw the bright gold hair spilling over Dominic’s arm, her heart turned over in fear.

  Dominic paced the length of Elizabeth’s presence chamber for the agonizingly long minutes until the physician’s arrival. The man was taken straight through to the princess’s bedchamber, where Minuette lay with labored breath and slowing heart. Dominic could still feel each beat of it as he’d rested his palm against her chest …

  It had taken him agonizing moments to realize something was wrong. When she approached him in the gardens, he’d seen only what he always saw—her hair shining in the patchy sunlight, the lightness of her walk, and the star pendant circling her long, white neck. But when she drew near enough, he saw the crease between her eyebrows, as if she were worried or in pain.

  “Are you hurt?” He reached instinctively to touch her, but stopped.

  “No, I …” She put a hand to her chest. “I’m just having a hard time catching my breath.”

  Dominic led her to the nearest bench and made her sit. He knelt before her and studied her face. “Are you ill?”

  “No, it’s just a momentary weakness. It will pass.”

  Minuette had never suffered a momentary weakness in her life. Dominic was debating whether to get her inside when she gave a breathless little cry. “I feel odd, like tingling in my chest. But my skin is numb. I can’t feel my throat.”

  Heedless of decorum, Dominic put his palm to her bare skin, between her throat and the neckline of her gown. He felt her heartbeat, and his fear grew. It was slow—too slow. What was wrong with her? There’d been no recent cases of sweating sickness or plague and he couldn’t think of another illness that could come on this fast.

  Through his worry he could feel his mind trying to tell him something. Something not right. As he pulled his hand away, he realized that the tips of his fingers were tingling. Minuette had said her chest was tingling. I can’t feel my throat.

  This was no illness.

  “Oh, God,” he prayed. Poison, it must be poison. And if it had gotten on his
fingers, it must be on her somehow, absorbing through the skin.

  The pendant. He had brushed against the pendant when he put his hand to her chest—he remembered the feel of the star against his fingertips.

  He wrenched the pendant off her in one sharp movement. Dropping it to the ground, Dominic swung her up into his arms. She was awake and aware, but she was focused only on breathing, on the effort needed to draw in breath after breath.

  “Where is she?” Carrie’s voice pulled him back to his surroundings. Carrie looked as though she had run to Elizabeth’s chambers. Her normally neat presence was betrayed by red cheeks and the locks of hair that had slipped from beneath her linen coif.

  “She’s in the princess’s bed. The physician is with her.”

  When Carrie had vanished within, Dominic forced himself to think. He should retrieve the pendant. Before whoever had poisoned it had a chance to get rid of it.

  It lay where he had dropped it, sparkling pretty and harmless on the cobblestone path. Picking it up by the broken clasp, Dominic dropped it into a leather pouch and pulled the lacing tight. His fingertips were numb where he had touched it earlier. He wasn’t worried about himself—he was bigger and stronger by far than Minuette, and he had brushed only briefly against the jewels. But she had worn them against her bare skin for … what? Five, ten minutes? Longer? How much poison had her body absorbed?

  Though his hands were steady, he felt as though he were shaking to pieces from the inside out. Dominic closed his eyes, hoping that would help, but it only increased his sense of instability. And in the darkness of his mind, all he could see was Minuette swaying into his arms.

  He opened his eyes and returned to Elizabeth’s rooms, where the physician was waiting for him. The man sniffed the pendant delicately, then touched one finger to the star before returning it to the pouch.