The Boleyn Deceit (8 page)

She did not trust any of the Howards, but her stepfather … She remembered what Carrie had told her, grudgingly, about her mother’s death.
He slept in a chair, when he slept at all, and he ordered us around as though he could keep Death away if he just willed it hard enough.

Stephen Howard had loved her mother, she trusted that. So finally, grudgingly, she told him the truth. “My mother was the supposed penitent, confessing that Henry was not William’s father. But that confession was false from beginning to end, including her signature, because it was dated just one day
before
her death.”

Her stepfather grasped that detail immediately. “No one in my family would be stupid enough to make such an elementary mistake. We were at Framlingham with the others when she died—everyone knew that your mother was out of her mind those last
days. No one who was there would ever believe she was in a condition to make such a confession, false or not.”

“What about your nephew, Giles? He would have been a child, only … what? Nine, ten? And you said yourself he had a personal issue with me. He might have used her name to hurt me.”

He shook his head. “This entire plan was far too clever and subtle for Giles. Far be it from me to disparage family, but Giles was not our brightest mind.” He paused, then said, “What about his wife? Eleanor makes no secret of her dislike of you. And she is both clever and cruel.”

“And truly attached to the king. Everything she has she owes to William. Eleanor would do nothing to threaten his rule.”

“Unless,” he argued, “she was playing a double game. Threaten the throne—in order to strengthen it.”

It was Minuette’s turn to blink. “I don’t—”

“Think about it.” Stephen Howard leaned forward, hands clasped loosely together, the firelight glinting off the threads of gold in his brown velvet doublet and dancing on the snowy linen of his cuffs. “The primary threat to the king’s rule has been neutralized. With my brother dead and his heir under question in the Tower, the Catholic powers are in retreat. Mary is under house arrest, her position has never been weaker, and the king’s public approval could not be higher after his victory in France.”

“Are you saying all of this was a feint? That Norfolk
never
intended rebellion?” Minuette thought of Alyce, her friend whose untimely death had begun the unraveling of Norfolk’s treason, and of how scarcely anyone even remembered her. The thought that her friend had been a casualty of a mere game made her sick.

“I’m saying that these sorts of maneuvers are still well beyond you, Minuette. Go back to court, serve your princess, and keep your head down. I will find out who defamed your mother’s name. You can trust me for that.”

She did—though she couldn’t swear that his intent was to bring the perpetrator to the king’s justice. He looked rather as though he would kill the person himself. For the first time, she realized that there were aspects of her stepfather that reminded her of Dominic.

“I will promise,” she replied. “On one condition—I want to know who was behind it all. Not just for my mother’s sake. There was a woman, my friend … Her name was Alyce de Clare and she died at the beginning of all this. Alyce was part of it and in over her head, and she …” It seemed wrong to tell him all of it, though most of the court had known. Known, and now forgotten.

“She what?”

“She was with child when she died. The child’s father was almost certain to have been part of the whole conspiracy. I thought it was Giles, after you told me he’d lied about being home in March of 1553.”

“He was quarantined with the pox that month.”

“Well yes, I know that now. If you’d bothered to be specific when I asked about his whereabouts before, I might have saved a good deal of time. But what matters is that whoever fathered Alyce de Clare’s child is still unknown. If you really think this was a feint, a double-dealing method of tainting your family, that man could be the key to discovery.”

“Yes, he could. Very good, Minuette.”

“I have a list of names I was going through, I could send them to you.”

“That would be useful. But that is the end of it, do you hear
me? No more games for you. Remember that the next time Rochford comes calling. You stay out of this.”

Oh yes, she thought wryly. Definitely like Dominic. Although Stephen Howard didn’t know her as well, so she was able to lie much more easily.

“I’ll stay out of it.”

“H
APPY
?” R
OBERT
murmured.

Elizabeth twitched as his breath caressed her cheek. “You’re distracting me,” she protested, her fingers moving smoothly across the strings of her lute. Happy, yes; but also suspicious. Robert had been more than attentive this winter. He had been ever on hand, and for once neither her brother nor her uncle had made any comment on it.

William’s lack of observance was easy enough to understand—he had eyes only for Minuette. And people were beginning to whisper.

Including Robert. He leaned back and stretched his legs out as he asked, casually enough, “So what do you think of your brother’s French betrothal?”

She didn’t believe in that casualness. With a quick frown, she stopped playing and laid the lute aside. Before answering, she scanned her presence chamber to ensure no one was paying more than the usual attention to her. Her ladies knew to give her space when Robert was with her.

It would have been easy to parry the question back to him, but she didn’t bother. Wasn’t that the point of Robert, that he was
someone she didn’t have to always guard against? “I think that I feel rather sorry for the child. I hear that Elisabeth de France is quite taken with my brother. She spends her time practicing her English and learning our history so that she might do him proud.”

“Isn’t that admirable in a girl who will one day be England’s queen?”

“She’s nine years old, Robert! She should be studying for herself, not to impress a man she’s met only once.”

“Not everyone loves learning for its own sake. Not every princess is you. And most men would be delighted with a wife who thinks only of pleasing them.”

“Most men don’t deserve such a wife.”

He grimaced. “You are harsh, Elizabeth.”

And you are married, Robert
, she very nearly replied.

But he swung the conversation away with his impeccable instinct for avoiding trouble. “What of your friend, Mistress Wyatt? The king has been most gracious to Dominic—does he mean to bestow any favours on Minuette? If she had wealth, the men of England would be lined up to claim her.”

From one dangerous topic to another. “Perhaps then it is wiser not to endow her with wealth. I don’t believe those sorts of men are the sort she is interested in.”

“Whom is she interested in?”

“Why? Are you thinking of staking your own claim?”

“You know that there is only one woman for me,” he retorted in that carelessly seductive voice that made her want to forget herself. “Constancy to true love—that is something King Henry’s children know all about.” Then his expression turned serious. “William, for one, is a man ripe for constancy. Why do I think it is not directed at his French princess?”

Elizabeth’s heart sank. Only three months, and things were
beginning to unravel! William had never been able to control his countenance, and so she’d known it was only a matter of time before people began to realize how he felt about Minuette.

The question was: how did Minuette feel about William? Elizabeth had never asked her, but now she would have to. How could she control the situation if she didn’t know everything?

On a sleety mid-February day, Minuette was summoned to see Elizabeth. The fact that it was a formal summons—a written request from the princess, delivered by a page wearing the crowned falcon badge Elizabeth had taken from her mother—meant that she could guess at the subject. It appeared Elizabeth had finally grown tired of her absolute silence on the subject of William’s secret proposal. There had never been any chance Elizabeth would simply let the situation unfold of its own accord. She wanted a hand in its unfolding.

Indeed, Elizabeth went straight to the heart of the matter once the two of them were closeted in the princess’s private study at Whitehall. The room was lined with shelves of books that most scholars would have sold their teeth to own. Elizabeth approached scholarship the same way she approached everything: with absolute dedication to mastering a subject until all its secrets were known to her. So it was no surprise when she placed Minuette in a chair facing hers and said sternly, “You are going to stay in this room until I know precisely how you feel about my brother and his plans for you. Is that clear?”

After an instinctive moment of stubbornness, Minuette laughed. “Perfectly clear, Your Highness. I am yours to command.”

Elizabeth’s expression softened. “For now. But that’s rather the point, isn’t it? My brother is determined that in future you will answer solely to him.”

“And that troubles you?” Minuette didn’t ask only to deflect
the attention, but because she was genuinely curious how Elizabeth felt about William’s proposal. They were friends, yes, but Elizabeth was first and foremost a princess royal. One had only to mark the cloth-of-silver dress she wore with such easy elegance, the pearls studded in the coils of her red-gold hair, the ruby ring she wore on her left hand, the indefinable inheritance of privilege that manifested itself in how Elizabeth moved and even thought. What could she think about her brother intending to marry a woman of no name and little wealth? Not to mention the fact that William’s intentions narrowed Elizabeth’s future course of action considerably.

But Elizabeth proved herself a true and concerned friend when she answered warmly, “The only thing that troubles me is that I haven’t the slightest idea how
you
feel. I can be in no doubt of my brother’s feelings—he can hardly speak of anything else when we are alone. But you have shut me out, Minuette, and not just since William’s proposal. You have kept your own counsel since my mother’s death at Hever last summer.”

Minuette remembered it well—the burning shame of being found by Elizabeth in William’s arms, lost in much more than a kiss in the same room with Queen Anne’s corpse. It was with real remorse that she replied, “I am sorry, Elizabeth. It’s never been about shutting you out. It is only …”
It is only that I don’t want to marry Will. It is Dominic I love. And I can’t tell you that because William mustn’t know, not until I figure out how to get all of us out of this without pain.

She couldn’t say any of that, so she said, “It’s a complicated situation. I am doing my best to keep my head and behave well.”

Unusually affectionate for her, Elizabeth took Minuette’s hands in hers. “I know, and you are. But we are alone here, and I miss you. You know more of Robert than anyone living. Can you not speak to me of William?”

Minuette could feel her barriers cracking, and she let some of her heartfelt trouble come through. “I was, of course, astonished at his proposal,” she answered Elizabeth. “I had never dreamt such a thing. I know he is impulsive, but this … my immediate thought was that he wanted to make amends for what occurred at Hever. Not,” she added hastily, “that he needed to make amends. We were equally complicit. But you know how generous he is in his affections. I do not believe William has thought this through.”

“But you do love him.” It was not quite a question.

“You know I do. And because I love him, I would never hold him to an offer made in the heat of the moment.” She could hear the sleet hitting the window with a hiss that sounded disapproving, as though even the weather could see through her half-told truths.

Elizabeth let go of Minuette’s hands. She sat back, once again coolly assessing. “You expect that he will have to retract his offer?”

“He cannot afford to alienate the French now, and with the debts and tax burden from last year’s war, that will not change anytime soon. William’s affections run hot, but for how long?”

“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said, frowning, “but my father’s affections ran blazingly hot for a good six years before he married my mother. Don’t underestimate William’s devotion to you.”

“I would never do that. But I also don’t underestimate his devotion to England. And even you must admit that making me queen would be an exceedingly bad idea for England.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “It is true that the nobility is not prepared for the elevation of another minor Englishwoman to the throne, even if you come without the burden of an ambitious family, as my mother did. And William is wise enough to know he cannot make his intentions public without causing an outcry
greater than any since my father’s break with Rome. He will be patient—we must also ensure he is discreet.”

“People are talking.” Minuette said it flatly.

“Only a little, but that will change if William continues to favour you so openly. As long as he was sleeping with Eleanor, no one thought twice about his friendship with you. But with no other woman to distract him—”

“Are you suggesting we arrange a mistress for William?” Minuette could not decide if she was outraged by Elizabeth’s practicality or respected it. And she could not begin to unravel how she felt about the thought of William in the bed of another woman like Eleanor.