Behind Henry, Alessandro was still staring at Lorenzo as though he had forgotten anyone else stood in the room.
"Elena had a child?" The king's face had gone strangely pale. His eyes unfocused for a moment as he calculated something only he could know. "She must be nineteen now, no?"
Henry turned back to Alessandro, careful not to let even a trace of desperation show on his face. "Yes."
"Would you have your guards seize my Lord Chancellor and keep him under guard while I remain here?" he asked. "If you will allow me to remain in England. I want to see her."
Henry believed the shock. He believed the confusion too. But Livia had spent too much of her life paying for other people's lies for Henry to simply hand this man access to her. "Answer me one question first."
"Anything."
"She told me her father sold her into bondage. Did you do it?"
The question seemed to strike Alessandro harder than everything else.
