you’ll have to at least ask your uncle some very hard questions. Like which operatives told him the Spanish navy was on the move to rescue Mary.”
Again Walsingham broke in. “That’s a good point, Your Highness. The threat of Spanish naval movements in 1554 was a lie, all my intelligence sources agree.”
“Perhaps they wanted Rochford to think they were moving.”
Walsingham countered, “Whatever the simplest reason is for alie, it’s usually the true one. Deception is far easier to maintain when simple than when complicated beyond measure.”
Elizabeth stood up. “We’ll have the chest fetched from Kenilworth. Walsingham and Dominic can go through it and decide from there.”
Robert rose more slowly, still graceful despite the hollows in his cheeks. “Do you believe me, Elizabeth?”
“Do I believe that you played shameful games with my mother’s reputation and my brother’s birth in order to advance your own ambitions? That you took advantage of the woman you were using and ruined her?”
A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he asked steadily enough, “Do you believe that your uncle has maneuvered behind William’s back?”
“In more ways than even you can count,” she said. “In this particular matter? I will look at your evidence and decide for myself.”
“Thank you.”
I’m not doing it for you
, she nearly said. But that would have been a lie.
CHAPTER FOUR
T HE ONLY REASON Dominic didn’t drink himself into a stupor on Easter night was the knowledge that he would have to be present at this morning’s privy council. Trying to maintain his tenuous emotional control would be hard enough without a raging hangover. What he had done instead after fleeing the court was walk for hours through the London streets surrounding Whitehall. Not the safest choice, but he’d been armed with both sword and dagger. Not to mention a driving need to hurt someone.
His anger had kept him sober, but it had not helped him sleep. Exhaustion pounded behind his eyes as he took his place with the other men of the privy council, each with varying degrees of shock and dismay in their expressions. Even Rochford, normally difficult to read, was openly furious.
If not for his personal stake in the affair, Dominic might have found it impressive how William controlled the room from the moment he entered. The king didn’t falter or break stride at the palpable tension in the air, as though this would be nothing more than a normal council.
William took his gilded chair and faced the circle of advisors with an air of casual ease that, a day earlier, would have pleasedDominic. He had not seen his friend behave so effortlessly since before the smallpox.
“France.” William cast the word into the silence like a stone skipped into standing water. “Our old enemy, renewed once more.”
“Because of your choice.” Rochford left little doubt that he would have preferred a stronger word than choice—
folly
, perhaps.
“Because of
their
choices. You were not in the field last autumn, Lord Rochford, to see the effects of their attacks. I was. The French army broke the treaty the moment they crossed our border.”
William Cecil, Lord Burghley, cleared his throat. The most levelheaded of the privy council, and perhaps the only match for Rochford in strategic planning, the thirty-five-year-old Burghley had a high, broad forehead and wide, cautious eyes. “Are we to understand that the return of a Spanish ambassador to England is pertinent to this discussion?”
“Most pertinent,” the king agreed serenely. “Before summer’s end, Philip of Spain will visit England to sign a treaty of marriage between himself and the Princess of Wales.”
There was only a small rumble of surprise. Burghley kept to the point. “A Spanish treaty to replace the French? That makes it more likely that France will indeed retaliate in force. Will the Spanish move against France itself if, say, they move to retake Le Havre and
Again Walsingham broke in. “That’s a good point, Your Highness. The threat of Spanish naval movements in 1554 was a lie, all my intelligence sources agree.”
“Perhaps they wanted Rochford to think they were moving.”
Walsingham countered, “Whatever the simplest reason is for alie, it’s usually the true one. Deception is far easier to maintain when simple than when complicated beyond measure.”
Elizabeth stood up. “We’ll have the chest fetched from Kenilworth. Walsingham and Dominic can go through it and decide from there.”
Robert rose more slowly, still graceful despite the hollows in his cheeks. “Do you believe me, Elizabeth?”
“Do I believe that you played shameful games with my mother’s reputation and my brother’s birth in order to advance your own ambitions? That you took advantage of the woman you were using and ruined her?”
A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he asked steadily enough, “Do you believe that your uncle has maneuvered behind William’s back?”
“In more ways than even you can count,” she said. “In this particular matter? I will look at your evidence and decide for myself.”
“Thank you.”
I’m not doing it for you
, she nearly said. But that would have been a lie.
CHAPTER FOUR
T HE ONLY REASON Dominic didn’t drink himself into a stupor on Easter night was the knowledge that he would have to be present at this morning’s privy council. Trying to maintain his tenuous emotional control would be hard enough without a raging hangover. What he had done instead after fleeing the court was walk for hours through the London streets surrounding Whitehall. Not the safest choice, but he’d been armed with both sword and dagger. Not to mention a driving need to hurt someone.
His anger had kept him sober, but it had not helped him sleep. Exhaustion pounded behind his eyes as he took his place with the other men of the privy council, each with varying degrees of shock and dismay in their expressions. Even Rochford, normally difficult to read, was openly furious.
If not for his personal stake in the affair, Dominic might have found it impressive how William controlled the room from the moment he entered. The king didn’t falter or break stride at the palpable tension in the air, as though this would be nothing more than a normal council.
William took his gilded chair and faced the circle of advisors with an air of casual ease that, a day earlier, would have pleasedDominic. He had not seen his friend behave so effortlessly since before the smallpox.
“France.” William cast the word into the silence like a stone skipped into standing water. “Our old enemy, renewed once more.”
“Because of your choice.” Rochford left little doubt that he would have preferred a stronger word than choice—
folly
, perhaps.
“Because of
their
choices. You were not in the field last autumn, Lord Rochford, to see the effects of their attacks. I was. The French army broke the treaty the moment they crossed our border.”
William Cecil, Lord Burghley, cleared his throat. The most levelheaded of the privy council, and perhaps the only match for Rochford in strategic planning, the thirty-five-year-old Burghley had a high, broad forehead and wide, cautious eyes. “Are we to understand that the return of a Spanish ambassador to England is pertinent to this discussion?”
“Most pertinent,” the king agreed serenely. “Before summer’s end, Philip of Spain will visit England to sign a treaty of marriage between himself and the Princess of Wales.”
There was only a small rumble of surprise. Burghley kept to the point. “A Spanish treaty to replace the French? That makes it more likely that France will indeed retaliate in force. Will the Spanish move against France itself if, say, they move to retake Le Havre and
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