Free The Boleyn Deceit by Laura Andersen

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 werebeginning 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 deflectthe 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