The Boleyn Deceit (31 page)

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.

“Can you tell what poison it is?” Dominic demanded.

“Given her symptoms, likely monkshood. You’re right, it’s on the pendant itself. Monkshood is just as deadly when absorbed through the skin as when ingested.”

“Will she …”

He could not finish the question. The physician shrugged. “I’ll see if she can tell me how long she was wearing that. But there’s no way to know how much was on there. She’s young and healthy. If the absorption was small enough …”

“How long before we know?”

The physician was equally blunt. “If she’s going to die, she won’t last the night.”

There was movement behind the physician and Dominic looked over the man’s shoulder to where Elizabeth stood in the doorway, her face white but perfectly composed. Dropping the leather pouch and its dangerous contents on the nearest table, the physician returned to his vigil within.

“What can I do?” Dominic asked Elizabeth.

“Find William. If he hasn’t returned from hawking, go after him. If we do not alert him at once, he’ll never forgive us.”

He’d forgotten about the king. Yes, he must be told—and discreetly. This story must not be spread abroad. Not until they had an ending to it, and could put a name to the person responsible.

Dominic went straight to the stables to commandeer a horse, but the hawking party was just riding back in. William and the French ambassador were telling each other vulgar jokes and laughing uproariously. Dominic tried to catch William’s eye, but when that failed he interrupted. “A word, Your Majesty?”

His tone must have alerted William, for he smoothly excused himself from the ambassador and the other members of the party. When Dominic whispered the news in his ear, William went noticeably pale. He motioned a page to them and said, “Report to Lord Rochford that I will be unavailable for the remainder of the day. He is to see to the comfort of the French ambassador and deal with any matters that might arise before tomorrow.”

William didn’t say another word as they paced quickly back to Elizabeth’s chambers. That suited Dominic. He could not have spoken more than the necessities if his life depended on it.

Elizabeth’s privy chamber was empty. Without pausing, William let himself into the sickroom and shut the door behind him.

After staring at that closed door for what felt like an hour, Dominic retrieved the leather pouch that held Minuette’s treacherous pendant and escaped. If he was not to be allowed into the sickroom—and why should he be? It was the province of women,
whatever liberties the king might take—he preferred to shut himself up in his own rooms. There were many things he could be doing—helping Rochford with the French or beginning inquiries into how this had happened. Who had got into Minuette’s rooms and when? Where had they found monkshood? And above all, why?

But none of that mattered at the moment. Nothing mattered but that Minuette’s heart continue to beat.

It was the longest night of Dominic’s life. When he wasn’t pacing like a caged lion, he sagged to the floor with his back against the wall, arms braced on his bent knees. At first he knew time was passing because of the changes in the light coming through his window. But when darkness fell, he sat unmoving, as though he’d been suspended in a bubble where time did not exist. Almost, he envied his mother her surety of faith; at the least, a rosary would have given occupation to his hands while he waited. He almost got up then, for he knew Minuette kept her own mother’s rosary hidden in the false bottom of her jewelry casket. But he could not face her empty chamber, not until he knew whether she would return to it.

In the dark, dead hours of the night, Dominic felt his hope flicker and go out. If the end neared, he thought desperately, surely Elizabeth would summon him. She would not let Minuette go without allowing him to tell her goodbye. Even as simply her friend, he deserved that. But no one came.

When finally there was a knock on his door, he had to blink himself into reality. Lifting his head from his hands, he saw that the first faint grey of dawn had come.

The second knock was louder, and Dominic had to swallow past the terror in his throat to answer. “Who is it?”

“Harrington.”

Through his mingled hope and dread, Dominic called sharply, “What do you want?”

“I’ve a woman wants to see you.”

In the time it took him to cross the room and open the door, Dominic imagined several scenarios. Elizabeth, grieved and shaking. One of the ladies-in-waiting, summoning him at Minuette’s request. It was dawn. Had she lived through the night?

Carrie stood at Harrington’s side, looking exhausted and ill herself. But her face lit in an angelic smile when she saw Dominic. “She’s come through it, my lord. She’s tired and very weak, but her heart is beating normal and she can breathe easy now. Physician said himself that she’ll do.”

Dominic had spent so many hours preparing himself for the worst that he wasn’t ready for this. He gaped at Carrie for several moments, long enough for her smile to falter and her eyes to grow quizzical. Plainly she was wondering if he’d understood.

Finally, he found the only words that meant anything. “Thank God.”

Her smile returned. “Yes, my lord. I must get back. She’s sleeping peaceful for now and Her Highness has asked that she be kept quiet for the day. No visitors.”

“Of course.” He could wait. Minuette would live.

“My lord.” Carrie hesitated. “Is there anything you’d like me to tell her?”

It wasn’t the question so much as the look she gave him, as if she could see into the dark hours of his vigil. Her expression reminded him of Diane de Poitiers—though the two women were poles apart in appearance and dress and comportment, Carrie had the same piercing look of understanding more than she told. Did Carrie know? If she did, it was by her own intuition, for Dominic knew Minuette had not revealed their secret even to her
maid. Just as he had not told Harrington—though, come to think of it, Harrington seemed to have a hint of sympathy in his own grave eyes.

Dominic thought of all the things he’d like to say to Minuette at this moment, and knew that he must say none of them. It was harder than he’d imagined, trying to think of innocent words that would raise no one’s suspicions but would convey what he wanted to Minuette herself.

And then he thought of the pendant, his gift that had been turned against her, and sighed. “Tell her she is still the sweetest and merriest star of all.”