The Boleyn Deceit (48 page)

“When am I going to tell Will about them, do you mean? One step at a time, sweetheart. First let’s get him back into the world. It’s almost spring, which means campaigning, which means we’ll find out if the French intend to continue their aggressions. I’m watching Rochford, but honestly, after destroying Norfolk and Northumberland, who is left for the man to bring down?”

“You,” Minuette answered softly but resolutely. “And me. Rochford does not trust your influence with the king, and he despises me heartily.” She hesitated over the next part, but someone had to be sensible. “Do you never think that, rather than being our enemy, we could turn Rochford to our best ally?”

Against William, she meant, or at least the king’s anger. Because William was going to be angry. He was going to be furious when he found out they had married behind his back. While Minuette was secretly betrothed to William himself.

How had they come to this, the lies and the betrayals? She often wondered what she could have done differently. But she
and Dominic had made their choices and they could not be unmade. All that could be done now was to mitigate the damage. And for that, they would need allies.

Elizabeth was the most obvious, but Minuette could not burden her with this when she had been so worried about her brother. Besides, she had her own touchy royal pride and might not be entirely understanding. But Rochford was, above all, practical. Add in the fact that he wanted nothing more than to ensure his nephew did not marry a common girl for love alone, and he seemed the perfect choice to counsel and aid them.

If only Dominic could be persuaded. Because there was the not inconsiderable fact that, if Robert Dudley were right, then it had not been Northumberland who had ordered Minuette poisoned last year: it had been Rochford.

She read Dominic’s resistance in the hard lines of his chest and shoulders and was not surprised when he shook his head. “I do not trust Rochford in the least, and I will not attempt to ally myself with a man who may be a traitor simply because it is convenient for me.”

There had been no chance of a different response. Where Rochford’s core principle was practicality, Dominic’s was honour. He would never use a man he despised simply because it could benefit him. Minuette had not really expected him to agree. She had only proposed it so he could not accuse her later of acting on impulse.

She could never regret being married to Dominic, even if it had been hurried and secret and perhaps wrong. She could not regret a moment of the brief weeks they’d had together at Wynfield Mote as husband and wife. There were no such moments now, except in dark corners where the most they could manage were a few guilty kisses. But from the moment William’s eyes had opened and his slow recovery had begun, Minuette had felt a
great looming pressure that spoke of unavoidable disaster. She didn’t know what form it would take or when it would strike, but every choice she made each day seemed designed only to plug a leak in the flood that threatened to overwhelm them all.

Once she’d been confident in her ability to find a solution that would preserve not only themselves as individuals, but their friendships. Now her confidence was gone and when she wept, which was often, it was for a tangle of troubles far beyond her abilities to solve.

At such times, there was a terrible whisper in her head, poisonous and treasonous, that would not leave her alone.
If only William had not survived the pox …

She buried herself in Dominic’s arms once more to shut out that thought. William had survived and she was glad of it, and if there were terrible prices to be paid in future she would pay them with a clear conscience.

“It will be all right,” Dominic whispered, his hands stroking her hair. “It shall all come right in the end.”

And there was a measure of how the world had upended itself: that Dominic had all the confidence and she all the doubt.

“After the execution, I will speak to Robert again. Perhaps his father’s death will loosen his tongue,” Dominic said.

And if not,
Minuette thought,
I shall have to make my own choice about whether to approach Rochford.