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Dominic had left her.
    She had not expected it to be alive. But when Carrie told her Lord Exeter’s gift was in her bedchamber, Minuette flung open the door and was confronted by a pair of silky brown eyes that kept rising and rising as the dog seemed to unfold itself until it stood before her.
    The eyes were beautiful, and the cinnamon coat, but good heavens it was enormous! An Irish wolfhound whose nose came level with her rib cage. Minuette could not think of a single thing to say. It was the only animal she’d ever owned, apart from the horse William had given her last year. The hound was nearly as large as Winterfall.
    Minuette was even more perplexed when the dog bent his head down and pushed something toward her with his nose.Hesitantly, Minuette picked up the paper-wrapped rectangle—definitely a book—and sat on her bed to open it.
    Il Canzoniere
 … Petrarch writing to his Laura … Minuette’s Italian was nearly fluent and her cheeks burned as she skimmed the pages. The last time she had seen these poems had been in the aftermath of her friend Alyce de Clare’s sudden death and a frantic search to decode a message. Now she took the time to look at the words themselves. If this was a fair measure of Dominic’s feelings beneath that damnable self-control, then it was a wonder she did not go up in flames every time he looked at her.
    The dog sat and laid his marvelous head in her lap. Minuette stroked him between the ears. “What am I supposed to call you?” she murmured.
    Carrie was at the door, ever knowing precisely the moment she was needed. With her glossy brown hair and knowing eyes, she always reminded Minuette of a bird. A wren, perhaps. “Lord Exeter said to tell you Fidelis is his name, and so is his nature.”
    Fidelis
—Latin for loyalty. “Loyal by name and nature,” Minuette said wryly. “I could not describe him better myself.”

CHAPTER THREE

    O N THE F EAST of Epiphany, January 6, Elizabeth attended morning service at Greenwich’s Chapel Royal and listened to Bishop Latimer preach from the text of Isaiah chapter sixty.
    “ ‘Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated … I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.’ Thus spake the Lord to his chosen Israel, but is not scripture also the Lord’s word to us? Has not our own kingdom been hated for the truth’s sake, and forsaken by those more concerned with worldly power than heavenly gifts? Hear his promises to us, that we will be an excellency and joy to generations.”
    Latimer was a good speaker, Elizabeth admitted. Grudgingly, because the more fiery the rhetoric, the more she instinctively wanted to argue the opposite. Not that she didn’t agree that God had worked wonders in England, but so often his wonders were hard to distinguish from the more earthly ambitions and plots of men. Did Latimer believe that her mother had been set in her father’s path specifically to seduce him into splitting from Rome? That argued a God of sardonic intent and not always impeccable methods.
    If William had ever entertained such doubts, she didn’t knowit. Her brother tended to the practical wherever religion and politics collided, and kept his personal impressions close to his heart. She believed he had them, she just didn’t know if God’s words to William’s heart ever deviated from his personal wishes.
    The final prayers were spoken and Elizabeth had just reached the chapel door when Lord Rochford was suddenly, silently, next to her. “May I walk with you, niece?” he asked pleasantly.
    “Certainly.”
    They kept a companionable silence with one another as they passed out of the tiled chapel floor and into the more crowded areas of the palace. Since her mother’s death last summer, these informal conversations had been carried out once or twice a week. At first Elizabeth had been surprised that her uncle would seek her out, but she had come to realize how deeply he missed his sister. They had always