The Scandalous Duchess

Chapter Six

June 1372: Hertford Castle

‘She’ll have a hard time of it, mark my words.’ Mistress Elyot, experienced midwife summoned by the Duke to attend his wife, was quick to give her opinion. We were all established at last at Hertford and the important event loomed.

‘Narrow hips. And she’s not strong. Comes of being Castilian, I expect.’

Tears filled Mistress Elyot’s eyes and she sniffed in doleful anticipation.

I did not see that Duchess Constanza being Castilian had any bearing on her ability to grit her teeth, hold onto the hand of one of her Castilian damsels and push hard when instructed to do so, but since Mistress Elyot had the reputation of a wise-woman, and her nature was well-known to me, I did not argue the point. Mistress Elyot had supported Blanche through her pregnancies so her reputation was well-earned and perhaps she was right. The weather was June-sultry, the rooms at Hertford uncomfortably hot, but Constanza insisted on the windows tight shut to ward off malign forces, since she was Queen of Castile and that is how all royal children were born.

‘This son,’ she panted between groans and heart-rending cries, ‘will be King of Castile.’

We suffered with her, for her demands were frequent. At least the nausea that had so afflicted her in the early months had vanished, but now her ankles and feet were so swollen that the skin was as tight as a drum. I drew on all the knowledge I had, bathing the afflicted areas in rose oil and vinegar, encouraging her to eat lightly of chicken. Praising the beneficial properties of quince fruits and pomegranate.

Duchess Constanza was a poor patient but for the sake of the child gave in to my ministrations.

Mistress Elyot nodded curtly, faint but noteworthy praise. Constanza insisted on my remaining at her side, day and night. The little cluster of damsels, useless except to carry carefully learned messages and fetch trays of food that went for the most part uneaten, glowered speechlessly at me. My sister Philippa, dislodged from her place at Constanza’s right hand, observed with a caustic shrug that there was no accounting for the strange decisions of pregnant queens.

‘This is a great endeavour for me,’ Constanza whispered as her strength waned, despite the cups of spiced wine held to her lips. ‘I must bear a son for my lord.’

Her final words, before a dark-haired, red-faced, squalling scrap of humanity took its first breath and howled. Strong enough, lively enough, but not received with any great rejoicing. Constanza’s great endeavour was a girl.

Washed gently and wrapped in linen, the baby had improved to the eye when Constanza, also restored, held out her arms. I placed the infant there.

‘She has the look of my sister Isabella,’ Constanza observed, touching the dark hair, before handing her back to me almost immediately. ‘Take her. Fetch me new linen for my bed.’

‘She is a fine daughter,’ I assured her, the light weight of the child in my arms reminding me of my own labours, the joy and relief at the outcome. That the Duchess showed so little concern except for her own discomfort was worrying me. I would not have handed my new daughter to other arms, with barely a glance.

‘Better a son,’ the Duchess announced.

‘Next time, my lady,’ Mistress Elyot cooed.

‘I suppose I must.’ Her brow was furrowed. ‘It is my duty. To my country.’

And I knew that she did not mean England. The frown remained heavy on Constanza’s brow.

‘Your daughter will be of great value in a marriage alliance when she grows, to the glory of Castile,’ I said. An angry woman did not make a good mother. ‘She will be very beautiful, and much sought after,’ I tried.

‘Yes.’ She was not soothed. ‘I will call her Katalina. Katherine, I think you say.’

I felt my whole body tense, my arms tightening around the child who whimpered a little, as the unpalatable incongruity of it struck home. The Duke’s child called after the Duke’s mistress. As dismay stirred uneasily in my belly, I could only imagine the waspish tongues, stinging at my expense, heaping mockery on all of us, if the truth ever became the talk of the court.

I would not wish that for the Duchess.

‘It is not a royal name in England, my lady,’ I suggested lightly, keeping my eyes on the child, keeping my mouth in a smile, selecting the only argument that I thought would hold any weight with her. ‘Monseigneur might not like it.’

‘Why would he not? It is a beautiful name.’ She looked directly at me. ‘Is it not, Katherine?’

There was a rustle of laughter at this rather laboured attempt at humour. But for me, although I kept the smile intact, dismay turned to horror. Constanza could not know that I had kissed the Duke with more than the respect expected from a damsel of the household. She could not.

‘St Katherine is the saint I admire most,’ Constanza continued, impervious to my cold fear.

Of course she did not know. And relief flooded through me. I must learn to control my reactions. I could not allow myself to be so vulnerable, so open to every breath of possible scandal, for the rest of my life. The die was cast and I had the audacity to hold my nerve.

‘It is an admirable name,’ I replied easily now, for I too admired St Katherine, a virgin princess of Alexandria, martyred for her faith by a Roman Emperor.

‘I approve of her courage in adversity, holding fast to her faith in the face of death,’ Constanza announced. ‘As I will hold fast to mine—that my lord will recover Castile for me. And next time I will bear a son. Go to the chapel and give thanks to St Katherine and the Virgin, for my safe delivery,’ she directed us. ‘And for the child, of course. I expect my lord daily.’

As I handed the babe to the waiting wet nurse, my compassion was stirred a little, for I saw the disappointment swim in Constanza’s eyes with the unshed tears. She would not weep. Queens of Castile, she had informed us, did not weep. But that did not mean that she was untouched by what she saw as a failure.

I would see no successful birth of a child of mine as a failure, son or daughter.

And I too looked for the Duke’s arrival. He was in London, in attendance on the King. It was almost three months since we had been together for that shortest of hours, a lifetime of absence and longing.

My sister prayed beside me, then kept step with me as we left the chapel.

‘Since when did you care what she calls the child?’ she asked sotto voce since Lady Alice with her sharp hearing was a mere few steps in front of us. Philippa’s glance was equally sharp. ‘Does it matter?’

My reply was cool. ‘I spoke without any real intent.’

‘You never speak without intent, Kate. Your cheeks are flushed.’

‘Are we not all flushed in this heat?’

‘Perhaps…it’s having an effect on your temper too.’

‘And on my patience!’ I responded as my sister’s barbs got the better of me.

Lady Alice, falling back to walk with us, clicked her tongue. Philippa stalked off ahead. I sighed.

‘I promise to offer up two novenas in penance,’ I remarked, but with a wry smile.

Lady Alice laughed. ‘But your sister is right. Something is troubling your equanimity.’

‘Nothing that a good night’s sleep and a cup of warm ale would not cure. If the Duchess can allow me out of her sight for an hour or two.’

‘Perhaps she will become less demanding when the Duke arrives. It will be good to see him.’

I lay on my bed, the hangings drawn back to allow even a breath of air. I wished with all my heart that the Duke would come.

‘I present to you your daughter, my lord.’

The Duke had arrived at Hertford.

But I did not want this. I did not want to be in this formal audience chamber with the newest royal child in my arms, under the combined eyes of a nursemaid, a servant, a liveried page and William de Burgh, the chaplain, but the office had been given to me. Since Constanza remained secluded in her chambers until she was churched, it was decided that I should be the one to present Katalina, now two weeks old, to her father.

I did not want to do this at all.

I had once shivered at that brutal word hypocrisy. Here it stared me in the face, that I, the mistress, should present the child of the legitimate wife to her lover.

My excuses were ignored, rolled over like a charge of cavalry, my suggestions for one of the Castilian damsels to have the honour swatted away. Mistress Elyot declared herself too busy. And at least, she added, with a jaundiced eye to the damsels, I could speak good French when I conversed with my lord, which was more than…

I pondered the wisdom of handing the child to Philippa, but she would want to know why I was reluctant and I could not say. Philippa had waved me on, although she was not entirely pleased at what was considered an honour for me.

So there I stood in the audience chamber with the babe in my arms. Uncomfortable with the whole situation, I governed my features and acted out the pretence, taking as my pattern Master Ingoldsby’s formidable austerity to me when faced with some conundrum.

The Duke entered, having been informed by Robert Swillington, the Chamberlain, that one of the damsels would present the new child. Even though he had the appearance of a man just emerged from an edgy diplomatic bout, he took in the scene with one sweeping survey, and there was no hesitation as he strode in with perfect sangfroid. Yet I spoke immediately to give him fair warning that I was the damsel.

‘Your daughter, my lord. She is two weeks old and thrives. Duchess Constanza is in good health and is eager for your visit.’

How well I had learned my announcement.

How well his features had settled into enigmatic lines. I was merely a servant, no different from young Henry Warde, the page at his heel.

He stopped before me, and I offered the swaddled bundle in case he wished to hold her, watching as his gaze dwelt for a moment on the child, then lifted to me. My hands trembled as if the little body weighed heavily, until the Duke took her in his arms, as I knew he would, his face softening as the baby yawned.

‘Tell the Duchess that I look for her churching and her return, if you will. Tell her I will send a gift.’

He touched the dark curls that escaped the little linen coif, and bent to press his lips to the infant’s forehead.

‘The Duchess wishes her to be called Katherine, my lord,’ I stated carefully, adding: ‘After St Katherine, you understand.’

My words brought a wry twist to his mouth. ‘I will not argue against it, although it would not have been my choice.’

‘The Duchess calls her Katalina.’

‘Which is good. My thanks to you all for the care of my wife.’

The nursery maid curtsied, the chaplain beamed and I continued to stand with my rigidly schooled expression.

Such a multitude of emotions expressed between us, without any evidence on his face or mine, yet his were clear to me. I saw his pleasure, after his initial disappointment, as with any man, that the child was not a male heir for Castile. The tenderness with which he supported the child. His surprise that the babe should be called Katherine. And a thought touched me to awaken all my insecurities and the green glitter of jealousy that sparkled through my blood. I had no history with this man to call on when uncertainty struck. I had no place in this family. The Duke, with only one son to his name, would desire more children with his wife. They would of necessity continue to share a bed and the intimate act of procreation. Which I must accept, however hard it might be.

Unaware of the lurch of dismay that began to build beneath my sleekly buttoned bodice, the Duke said: ‘Tell the Duchess that I send her felicitations on this happy birth of our daughter.’ He glanced up. ‘But she wishes it was a son, of course.’

‘Yes, my lord. She hopes for more children, an heir for Castile.’

He gave the child to the nursery maid, not to me, but it was to me that he spoke. ‘Will you talk to me? About the Duchess? Tell me how she has fared.’

All the time that he was speaking he was unpinning a sapphire from the shoulder cape of his hood, dextrously transferring it to his daughter’s wrappings.

‘Yes, my lord.’

And then the calmly beautiful chamber with its carved hammer-beams and lightly plastered walls was empty, apart from the two of us, and the atmosphere was not calm at all. We simply stood apart, not talking, not touching, the long drawn-out weeks of our separation formidable between us.

It will always be like this, a voice warned in my mind. It will never get better. How could it when you will live most of your lives apart, snatching moments that are tainted with guilt and anticipation of loss?

I waited for him to speak first.

‘Smile at me.’

I smiled. The muscles of my face felt stiff, unused.

‘Speak to me.’

‘You are right welcome, my lord.’

‘Not like that.’ His voice was unexpectedly harsh. He did not smile at me. ‘Speak to me as a beloved to her lover.’

The time and space between us had been too long. It had created a chasm in my mind and I was not able to step easily across it, for ranged on the opposite side, standing closely with the Duke was Constanza with the child in her arms. Our love was too new for me to rest on it. I had no safe harbour, no anchorage that would hold me fast and secure. How could I survive without some continuity of touch, of speech? Of shared kisses and soft endearments? I had nothing. It was as if I felt my way blindly through a maze.

‘I cannot…’ I said, fretfully. ‘Not yet.’

‘It is not easy, is it?’

So he understood. And his understanding was as soothing as a bowl of hot frumenty on a cold morn. ‘No, it is not easy.’

‘Be brave, Katherine.’

‘I am trying.’

‘The child does not stand between us, any more than Constanza does.’

‘But sometimes my heart betrays me and I can see no path for my feet to follow.’

‘Tell me.’

So I did, as we stood in the centre of that sumptuous room. ‘I fear that you will come to love them more than you need me. And that I will be rejected.’

‘Katherine…’

I raised my hand in quick denial. ‘I know you will say that it isn’t so. I know what I must not ask of you…’

‘Because it is not so. Have I not proved to you?’

‘I cannot bear that we are apart for so long.’

‘Yet it must be.’

He took a step and touched me, drawing the back of his forefinger along my throat to where my blood beat heavily. It was the first time that he had touched me, in public or in the privacy of his rooms, since I first shared his bed all those weeks ago at The Savoy.

‘You look tired. And paler than I recall.’

‘We have all suffered from the heat.’

‘How I have missed you…’

‘And I you.’

I thought he might have held me, but approaching footsteps made him look up and draw back. By the time the Chamberlain pushed open the door, we were standing a good distance apart, I by the door, the Duke on the dais.

‘My lord.’ He bowed with the briefest of glances at me. ‘Forgive me. A courier from the Prince at Kennington. He says it is urgent.’

‘I will come. Ensure that the man has ale and food.’

‘Of course, my lord. It has been done.’

The Duke made to follow, but stopped when he drew level with me and, for form’s sake, I curtsied with lowered eyes.

‘Prudence is a heavy burden,’ he said in response.

I looked up, for once not even trying to hide my despair. Did I not know it? It was like balancing on a sword edge suspended over that chasm that I found so difficult to cross. Agonising for the feet to do the walking: fatally agonising to fall into the depths. Yet this was how we must live. I could not show him how gravely I had missed him in all those weeks apart. I could neither speak nor act, but must exist on these crumbs of conversation, when all I wished to do was to announce to the world: ‘This is the man I love.’

‘What is it?’ He searched my face.

‘Nothing,’ I whispered.

‘It is not a sin, Katherine.’ It was as if he had read my concerns.

It is a love greater than I can sometimes bear. But I could not speak of it.

‘Come with me to London.’

‘I cannot.’

‘Yes, you can.’

He left me without explanation. Why did he need to explain? Sometimes his conceit unnerved me.

The Duke’s plan was a simple one. Far simpler than if he was planning a military campaign, I supposed, and put into operation with all the high-handed self-belief I had come to expect. I, as one of the Duchess Constanza’s senior damsels, he decreed, should be given the office of presenting this royal granddaughter to King Edward.

With my court dress and my jewels packed, I was provided with a litter and outriders. A complete household of nurses and servants, so many for so small a person, accompanied the baby Katalina in her own litter, but I travelled in solitary luxury. Nothing was lacking to my comfort, from a welter of cushions to the spiced wine. I knew where the order had originated. On arrival, as Katalina was settled with her entourage into The Savoy nursery, I turned towards the room I had once shared with Philippa.

‘No, my lady.’ Sir Thomas Hungerford was standing at my shoulder.

Perhaps I was expected to remain nearer the child. There was always Alyne’s room.

‘If you will accompany me, my lady.’ The steward had a certain stern disapproval about him, but he gestured expansively towards the ducal apartments. ‘My lord ordered that you should be housed here, in recognition of your service to the Duchess.’

And he pushed open the door into one of the guest chambers.

All I could think of was the contrast. Here all was opulence, luxury, comfort. My manor at Kettlethorpe was a peasant’s hovel in comparison.

And so there I was settled, with two servants of my own to answer to any whim, leaving me with no role other than to enjoy the accommodations, for I was made free of the family rooms. I had no responsibilities except to feed my own pleasure. I could walk in the gardens, sit in the Duke’s library with his collection of books, venture out into the city with an escort, as I awaited the royal summons to take Katalina to the King.

It was not the only summons I looked for. My blood sang with the anticipation, my heart scurrying like the rat in my undercroft at Kettlethorpe, as if I were some lovelorn girl.

Within a day of my arrival, the Duke came.

I had a week with him, seven whole, endless days that stretched before me, a se’enight of such magical sweetness, my heart was suffused with it. I did not think that I had ever known such untrammelled happiness as in those days, for we were still new lovers, still caught up in the glory of it, still untouched by the outside world.

How did we use it, that precious freedom? Were we discreet?

Without exception, for we both knew the importance of that discretion. In public we were never alone. We met in company. We dined in company. No slight was cast on the position of the Duchess, on my own reputation, nor on the Duke’s joy in the birth of a daughter. Any guest who visited in those days was brought to the nursery to admire this child who was heir to the throne of Castile. I curtsied as any good damsel should. The Duke took the child from me as he had done on that first day, to commend her beauty.

‘You will know Lady Katherine de Swynford,’ he introduced me to his brother Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, and his wife who, a valuable ring glittering on every one of her fine-boned fingers, regarded me as some species of upper servant. ‘Her care of my wife is beyond praise.’

‘Lady Katherine.’ Gloucester saluted my hand. ‘I knew of your return to my brother’s household.’

‘And I am honoured, my lord.’

All seemly and formal, as it should be.

But the nights…

Where was the seemliness, the formality, of my nights? For when I dismissed my maidservant, the Duke came to me. And then he was the Duke no more.

‘John…!’

I laughed as he kissed my shoulders, for I could call him by his name, which I could never do in the Great Hall or the public chambers. Even in my thoughts he was the Duke, as he had always been, royal to his fingertips.

‘Say that again,’ he ordered.

‘John.’ And I delighted in softening my voice until I made of its single syllable a caress.

‘I never thought that I would hear you call me by my given name so effortlessly.’

Which brought to me how few people did so, outside his immediate family. Not even Constanza in my hearing chose to make use of such intimacy.

‘I will call you John,’ I repeated, for my pleasure and his. I stood at the foot of my bed in my shift, my court robes discarded, and whispered his name again as he drew me into his arms.

‘I cannot believe how much I have missed you.’ His lips were hot where my blood beat hard at the base of my throat. ‘Should I not be able to control my appetites? But with you I cannot.’ He cupped my cheeks so that I must meet his eyes. ‘Do you suppose Gloucester would have been shocked if I had kissed you at supper?’

‘No, but his Duchess might. She would have called for my excommunication at least,’ I said.

Before he kissed me, I watched myself reflected in his gaze, saw my smile, the glow in my own eyes. I saw the planes of his face alter, tighten, as he read the desire in mine.

‘Will you lie with me? Will you lie with me, that we might—just for this night—and perhaps tomorrow—forget the world beyond these four walls?’

‘I will.’

Ah, yes. We forgot the world. Or I did, and I think the Duke did too for those enchanted days when he conducted business from The Savoy yet found time to walk in the gardens when he knew he would meet me there with the child. The presence of the nursemaid who acted as unknowing chaperone could not stem the happiness that filled me from my pleated hair to the soles of my shoes.

‘I want you,’ the Duke said, his lips against mine when the night was ours again and the pleats were all undone.

And so he proved it with a tenderness that belied his sometime reputation for harsh and impatient judgement, wooing me with soft words and compelling kisses. Until, with an unapologetic slide into male ribaldry, he ordered me to remove my shift:

‘Before I fall into pieces with longing.

‘I have a gentle cock,

Croweth me day:

He doth me risen early,

My matins for to say…’

And he tumbled me into his bed. The world was ours, to do with as we wished. I was entirely seduced.

At the end, when I must return to Hertford, when an embrace would have been too painful, too indulgent, he simply held my hands.

‘Always know, even when we are apart, when time does not allow me to touch your thoughts over the miles that separate us, that you are held close in my mind. Nothing will separate us. We are made to be together.’

Our road stretched out before us without blemish. There were no personal gifts, no public displays of affection. I did not need them. I read his hunger for me in every careful choice he made to give me seven days of perfect delight. This would be my life, cared for and cherished, even in the servant-cushioned silence between us as we rode through the streets of London. The lengthy absences I could tolerate, my uneasy life at Constanza’s side I could support. The Duke’s ownership, wrapped around me, was a thing of beauty beyond compare.

‘Walk with me,’ he invited, for those final moments in the garden.

And for me the world stood still, the air hot on my skin, the sun blinding my eyes.

‘I will walk with you,’ I replied.

That is where it happened, that exact moment where I slid from being captivated by the Duke’s unquestionable glamour into the powerful clutches of pure love. I might speak of its intensity, I might read the romance of it, but I had never known it.

Walk with me, he said.

Until that moment, I had been tiptoeing in the safe shallows of love. Now I fell into its depths. I would walk with him until the day I died, of necessity matching my footsteps to his. Yet although the intensity of that moment was hammered into every element of my body, I did not speak of my shattering conversion, for I thought the Duke would not understand. I was content simply to enjoy his proximity amidst the scented shrubs.

When I began my journey back to Hertford, my horizon was cloudless despite the farewell we had been forced to make. I was effortlessly, thoughtlessly, happy.

I curtsied before Duchess Constanza, my hands clasped around the little jewelled casket quite secure. My mind was equally secure in the decision that had been forced on me since my return. My heart had plummeted to somewhere in the region of my gilded court shoes.

‘We are pleased to see you, Lady de Swynford.’

How formal she was, even in her confinement, even with my intimate services to her. She had still to be churched and there was an air of restlessness about her slight figure. Her eyes remained fixed on my face, to my discomfort.

‘You look strained, Lady de Swynford. I trust you are not ailing? Is there plague in London? I would not wish any harm to come to my daughter.’

My lips curved into what would be interpreted as a smile by those who did not know me. ‘Merely the weariness of travel, my lady.’

‘Was the King graciously pleased to receive his grand-daughter?’

‘Yes, my lady. He has sent you this gift, as a token of his pleasure.’ I proffered the casket. She made no move to take it.

‘So he was in his right mind?’

Duchess Constanza did not mince her words. Even in seclusion as she was, the court gossip had reached her. A cold breath of air shivered along my arms in the heated room, and I swallowed before replying.

‘The King was well, my lady. The gift came from his hand. The sentiments were his own.’

‘I will thank him when I can travel again. It will be good to have his support for my campaign.’

It was all strikingly familiar. The luxurious setting of her apartments. My sister Philippa standing beside the door to my right, two of the Castilian damsels stitching beside the fire, chattering softly in their own language, a third with a lute in her hands. Mistress Elyot was stitching some small garment in fine lawn. And there was Constanza, quick of action and ever impatient, with the desire for her distant throne uppermost in her mind. Just as it all had been before I left.

But not so. Taking her daughter from the nursemaid, Constanza was standing by the window with the infant in her arms, inspecting her closely. Constanza had rarely held the baby in the days before I left for London.

I lowered my eyes, unable to watch.

‘Did you see Monseigneur in London?’ she asked, looking back over her shoulder.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Does he come here to me?’

‘He has gone to Wallingford, my lady.’

Constanza wrinkled her nose prettily. ‘Ah, yes. The wedding. I wish I could be there with my sister.’

For Constanza’s younger sister, Isabella, made welcome at the English court, had found a most advantageous match with another son of King Edward: Edmund of Langley, the Duke of York.

But Constanza was not concerned with her sister’s marriage. Gilded by the sun that made a halo of her loosely veiled hair, she was smiling down into the face of Katalina. I had never seen her look so beautiful, so maternal and contented. The jewels set in the little domed lid of the casket glittered as my hands around them trembled. Here was reality in all its cruelty. Constanza’s pleasure would turn to wrath in the blink of an eye if she could read my mind.

I dragged in a breath.

Constanza looked up as if I had spoken. ‘Yes, Lady de Swynford? There is more that I should know from your lengthy sojourn at The Savoy? Is the English army soon to sail to Castile?’

I placed the casket on the coffer at my side, the fine metal clattering a little as I set it down, drawing, as I was aware, a speculative look from Philippa. I was not normally clumsy.

‘I know not, my lady.’ I felt perspiration clammily unpleasant along my spine as I considered my next words.

Ignoring me the Duchess smiled down at the baby. ‘My daughter grows more beautiful every day.’ She smoothed the linen coif from the baby’s head. ‘Look how dark her hair is. A true Castilian princess.’ And she bent to caress the fragile curve to the child’s ear. ‘I had forgotten how blue her eyes…’

Conscience was a slap to my cheek, a clenched fist in my belly, and I flinched, momentarily closing my eyes so that I might not see. I had thought Constanza unmoved by her child, but as she had regained her strength, maternal love had touched her.

Do it. Do it now!

Straightening my spine, firming my knees, I spoke clearly and carefully because there was really no other way.

‘I have a request to make, if it please you, my lady.’

Constanza raised her brows in polite interest. Then walked slowly towards me, and placed the child in my arms.

‘Whatever you need, Lady de Swynford.’

The baby whimpered and squirmed for a moment until, warm and sleepy, she settled with a sigh. My heart clenched at my awareness of the little body against my breast.

‘I wish to leave, my lady,’ I said rapidly. ‘I wish to leave your service.’

I felt the silence that invaded the room, as I marvelled at the evenness of my request. I felt Mistress Elyot’s sudden interest as her needle stilled. I felt Philippa’s stare, gouging like a bodkin in an inexperienced hand, between my shoulder blades. Even the Castilian damsels looked over with a cessation to their chatter.

‘And why is that, Lady de Swynford?’ The line between the Duchess’s brows was sharp-etched. ‘Has your sojourn in London, the superior accommodations at The Savoy, made you dislike our life here at Hertford?’

‘No, my lady…I need to go home to Kettlethorpe. My husband’s estates in Lincolnshire,’ I added when she appeared not to understand. ‘And now my son’s.’

‘I see.’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘I understand that there might be matters of business for you to attend to in your son’s name. Then of course you must. But will you not return?’

‘No, my lady,’ I interrupted before she could say any more and my courage disintegrate. It seemed to me to be already in rags. ‘I need to leave your service.’

I heard the rustle of Philippa’s damask layers as she changed her stance. Mistress Elyot set down the stitching in her lap, making no pretence that she was occupied elsewhere. The damsels exchanged glances as the lute was discarded.

‘I wish to live permanently at Kettlethorpe,’ I explained. ‘It has become imperative that I do so.’ My lips were so dry that the words were hard to form.

‘Why would you wish to do that? I thought it was a poor way of life.’

‘Yes, my lady, but—’

‘Are you not satisfied with your position here?’ Constanza’s voice was suddenly harsh with accusation, and, I thought, astonishment.

‘I am more than satisfied, my lady. It is a position that I value.’

‘But I need you. To help with the child.’ Resentment was building fast and the Duchess flung out her arms as if it must be obvious to any person of sense. ‘You have only just settled into my household. I do not see that…’

Her glance suddenly landed on my face, searching, assessing, reminding me that this lady had a good supply of wit.

‘I am aware,’ she announced with a heavy dose of disapproval, ‘of the gift that my lord has made to you, in recognition of your services to me. And that is as it should be—I have no complaint. But such an increase in your annuity—I confess it is a surprise to me.’ Her tone had climbed a little higher than was her wont. ‘As I understand it, your annuity for service has risen from twenty to fifty marks. Some would say that is more than open-handed. Can you afford to dispense with such a sum? If your estates are so encumbered? I would say that fifty marks a year would make any woman content to remain in service to me. My lord has been extraordinarily generous. Some would say that you owe us your loyalty.’

I had not expected this level of attack, and felt a flush of uncomfortable hot blood mantle my neck as I heard the intake of breath from my sister. And yet I should have anticipated it, if I had not been so caught up in more pressing concerns. I wished with all my heart that Constanza had not seen fit to announce my annuity to the whole room.

‘I am grateful, more than I can express,’ I replied, mustering an air of acquiescence. ‘But I have a need to go to Kettlethorpe, my lady. The estates do not thrive. I had hoped that service in your household would enable me to remedy this.’ I took another breath to steady the nerves in my belly. ‘The truth is that I am faced with hostile voices from neighbours, and demands that I put into place improvement of the land drains. I am unable to ignore it. It is my son’s inheritance, and so it is my duty. It would be deplorable for me to allow him to inherit land of no worth, or with the burden of local opposition raised against him.’

It sounded plausible even to my ears. Behind me Philippa dug the toe of her shoe against the tiles.

‘I believe that I need to be there, to answer the complaints, and show that I am not unsympathetic to local problems. An absent landlord can sometimes stir up trouble simply by being absent.’

Constanza stared at me for a long moment. Would she refuse to release me? What would I do if she demanded that I remain? The Duchess raised her chin. I returned her gaze and prayed silently.

‘Very well. Perhaps one day you will return to us.’ Waving me aside, her displeasure was intense as she retired once more into formality, but all I felt was relief.

‘Thank you, my lady.’

My curtsy was heartfelt.

‘When is it that you wish to go?’

‘Tomorrow, my lady, if it please you.’

Relief was cold on my brow. I had known that to appeal to the importance of inheritance would sway the Duchess if nothing else would.

‘Then perhaps you must make arrangements.’

Constanza, gesturing to Mistress Elyot to take the child from my arms as if my hours in her employ were already numbered, walked away from me, her shoulder deliberately turned, to fall into conversation with one of her Castilian damsels. The lute player began to pick out a Castilian love song.

It hurt me.

But it did not hurt me as much as the impending consequences if I remained at Hertford.

I was surreptitiously blotting moisture from my cheeks with my sleeve when footsteps hurrying after me gave me warning, and there was Philippa at my side.

I marched on, even when she caught at my arm, conscious only of the chill rising from the stones that were no colder than my heart. Winter cold, I thought, with shards of ice to hurt and tear. Tears collected in my throat, only to be swallowed. I would not weep. I was free to go. That is what I had wanted, so what point in repining.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Why not? You know the problems with Kettlethorpe,’ I replied. ‘They get no better with time and my distance from them. And now there is a deluge of complaint to be answered…’ Which was not untrue. At least there was some element of truth in the whole episode, I thought bitterly.

‘I know all about that.’ Philippa gripped my sleeve so that I must perforce come to a standstill. ‘You came here to seek a position in the first place because you could not live without the money.’

I could not look at her. ‘There have been serious inundations on the land, in my absence,’ I said.

‘And your presence will make a difference?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe you. Why in heaven’s name do you need to go to Kettlethorpe? Why do you need to remain there permanently? You have a steward, don’t you?’

‘Yes, you know I do. Don’t be obtuse, Philippa.’ I shrugged her off with as much insouciance as I could muster. ‘I simply feel that I should be there. And with the legal settlement of the estate still not made…’

Philippa waved this aside in typical fashion. ‘And what about the children? Will you disrupt their lives again? Are you so selfish?’

‘Thomas and Margaret will come with me. Blanche will stay here.’

Before I could stop her she grabbed hold of my hands, forcing me to face her when I would rather not.

‘To take yourself off to the wilds of Lincolnshire when you fought so hard in the first place to have this position…’ She frowned, refusing to be reassured. ‘There’s something untoward here and you’re not telling me.’

‘It is nothing. Just the usual matter of a dilapidated estate and a steward who is growing old.’

‘So appoint a new one. The Duke will appoint him for you if you lack the confidence to do it yourself.’

‘Of course I don’t lack confidence. Just the money to pay some bright young man—’

‘And you never will have the money unless you stay in the Duke’s employ.’

I saw the trench I had dug for myself but by now had no choice but to leap into it, for good or ill. ‘Well, I cannot…Now, if you will let me go.’

She released me, but her tone no less amenable. It had acquired an edge. ‘By the by. I did not know of your vast importance, Kate! Fifty marks for your annuity, by the Virgin!’

‘For my service to Blanche, I expect.’

‘Didn’t we all serve her? I do not receive fifty marks!’

I pulled away and left her to her ill-temper.

Next day, our belongings packed onto a pair of sumpter horses, Thomas and Margaret ensconced in a borrowed litter while Agnes and I rode, I left Hertford with little in the way of farewells. There was not much to say between us. Constanza was not pleased, Lady Alice regretful and Philippa, lapsed into a furious silence, essentially disbelieving of any explanation I might give.

Of one fact only I was certain as I looked to the north and the towers of Hertford fell away behind. Discovering my absence, precipitate and without warning, the Duke would be hot foot after me, to demand an explanation. I imagined that he would think that I had lost my wits.

He would follow me to Kettlethorpe.

To slight a Plantagenet prince was to play with fire. I might play hazard with the truth for Philippa and the Duchess. I could not lie to the Duke.