The Forbidden Queen (103 page)

We stared at each other. My earlier fears leapt into life again, and bit hard.

‘I didn’t mean to say that.’ Owen sighed a little, but the tension was still strong in every muscle of his body.

‘A marked man? What do you mean by that?’ I gripped his good arm as all my anxieties returned fourfold. ‘What else have you not told me? And don’t say that I must not worry. Who says that you are a marked man?’

I had to withstand a difficult pause.

‘Tell me, Owen. You must. You cannot leave me in ignorance of something that affects you and me—and our children.’

And he did, in a flat tone and even flatter words, confirming all that I feared. ‘It’s Gloucester at the bottom of it. Our noble Plantagenet duke. His warning was vicious and intended as a threat. But probably with no real heat in it.’

Which, on present evidence, I did not believe for one minute. Neither, I warranted, did Owen. ‘When we left the Council.’ Now I recalled the incident. ‘He spoke with you, didn’t he? What did he say?’

‘Just that. That I am a marked man.’ Owen’s brow snapped into a black line. ‘No doubt to destroy any pleasure I might gain from successfully seducing the Queen Dowager to my own ends, and enjoying the fruits of her possessions. He said that he would have his revenge, despite the Council’s weak acquiescence. It’s a damnable thing, but there’s nothing can be done to undo it.’ The bitterness
in his words increased, and with it the depths of my own grief. ‘I am a Welsh bastard, he observed, and do not know my place. It is Gloucester’s mission to teach me what that place is. With blood and fire if necessary.’

We sat in silence for a moment. The implications of Owen’s confession pressed down on me, until I could do nothing but accept the truth that stared me in the face. I considered it as I rose, collected Owen’s maligned boots and placed them neatly side by side. I stood before him.

‘Are you saying that by marrying me you have put your life in danger?’

Looking up at me, his forearms resting on his thighs, Owen’s brows drew down into an even straighter line. ‘I doubt it’s as extreme as that.’

‘Has our marriage put your life in danger?’ I demanded.

‘Yes. It is possible. But it may be that he intends to teach me a lesson rather than take my life.’

Fear dried my mouth. The child kicked as if it could sense my perturbation.

‘Is there nothing we can do?’

‘Against Gloucester?’ Owen’s brows winged upwards.

‘But the law should protect—’

‘I have no rights before the law,’ he replied gently. ‘You must know that. I am Welsh.’

‘Ah! I had forgotten.’ I lifted my hands in helplessness. ‘I am so sorry.’

Owen stood. As his arms closed around me, as he raised my face so that I must look up, I felt some of the
tension in his body leach away at last. And because of that I spoke the one pertinent thought in my mind.

‘When you married me, you opened yourself to danger. And I did not know it. But you knew, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And still you made me your wife.’

‘I would do the same tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.’ Releasing me, he moved to enmesh his fingers with mine. ‘Would
you
have refused to make your vows, if you had seen the future?’

‘I should have done.’ I felt disturbed by the depth of my selfishness. When I had stood before the altar afraid of every creak and shuffle that someone would appear to put a halt to it all, I had not once considered that Owen might have a price to pay. Now I was rigid with inner fears.

‘I would not have allowed you to run away from me. Once you did, when I frightened you. I would not let it happen again. But we must not forget.’ Owen’s kiss on my lips might be sweet with understanding, yet it held an underlying warning as firm as the imprint of his mouth. ‘We must always be aware and take every precaution. We cannot afford to be careless with our safety. But we will not let Gloucester destroy our happiness. We won’t allow it, will we?’

‘No, we will not,’ I agreed softly, for once mistress of the art of deception. ‘We will take care.’ But as I smoothed the tangles from his hair with my fingers, my heart leapt and bounded in sheer fright.

How controlled was my reply to Owen. How well I hid the terror that dogged my steps and troubled my dreams. How I wept in the privacy of my bedchamber. Or stormed at the monstrous turn of fate. What woman would not weep or call down curses, when the man she loved was forced to live with an invisible death sentence hanging over his head?

I am a marked man
.

And when that woman herself had helped to place the weapon of execution into the hands of the enemy. Enemy. I could think of Gloucester in no other light. Twice Owen had been the target for his revenge. Twice it had failed. But one day, one day the dagger sent and paid for by Gloucester might find its mark.

Guilt stalked me, clawing at my mind, giving me no peace. If I had not carried Owen’s child. If I had not offered myself in marriage to him. If I had not fallen so
catastrophically in love with him. How heedless, how thoughtless I had been, swept along in the miracle of our love without consideration of the turbulence it might lead us into, of the blatant threat to Owen that was now unfolding!

Now I saw it all too clearly, pre-empted, so I thought, by Owen standing with me at the coronation of Young Henry in Paris. Nothing could have spoken more clearly to Gloucester that the Queen Dowager had taken an unsuitable man to her bed. It was like striking his cheek with a gauntlet. I had not realised.

There’s nothing that can be done about it
, Owen had said.

Was there not? I could not sit and allow Gloucester’s revenge to unfold. My fears for Owen became a rock beneath my heart, yet what could I, a powerless woman, do in the face of royal power?

We must not let Gloucester destroy our happiness
.

How could we possibly prevent it? Was it not out of our hands if he chose to send armed men to spill Owen’s blood?

And it came to me, even though I shrank from it. The remedy was in my hands if I had the courage to apply it. My love for Owen was so strong. It held so great a power that it would enable me to step across any chasm, attack any well-defended fortress, challenge even the authority of Gloucester and the Council. I could destroy the threat.
All that was required from me was that I make one simple decision.

My breath caught, my heart hammered. Not simple. Not simple at all.

Yet I hugged the knowledge close to me throughout the whole of that endless day. When I had wed Henry, the wilderness of my childhood had provided me with no guiding lines to measure love, to either give or receive it. Now I had travelled its path. I knew love’s glory for myself, and I had my maps and charts to hand. When I closed my eyes, there was Owen in my mind. There in my thoughts was the interplay of two people who adored one another. Who were made for each other. There was the love that would last until death. It gave me the strength to see the truth of what I must do. Yet having seen it, it took me a day and a night of terrifying thought to step to the edge of the chasm, prepared to make the leap.

I found him in the entrance hall, just come in from the stables, handing gloves and hat and an unidentifiable package to one of the pages. His hair was ruffled, his face touched by sun and wind. There had been no attack today.

‘Katherine.’ Owen’s smile, his eyes as they rested on me, spoke to me of joy in reunion. How long a matter of hours apart could seem. We were never apart for long.

I slowed my steps before he could reach me. I must not weaken. No preamble. No warning. I must say it now. I
had opened the gates to this marriage with all its rapture, and its unforeseen menace. Now I would close them.

‘I set you free,’ I said. ‘Go home. Go back Wales.’

Owen stopped as if hit by a battle mace.

‘Katherine?’

Shock flattened his features. His face registering utter incomprehension, he took another step forward, but I retreated.

‘I have arranged for money. A horse. Take an escort.’ I dared not touch him. I dared not let him touch me or I would shred all my resolution and fall at his feet. ‘If you died because of me, how could I live knowing that you were dead? I don’t want you here.’ The words fell from my lips without restraint. ‘I will not see you done to death. I will not carry the guilt of harm coming to you. I relieve you of any obligation to me.’

‘What are you saying?’

I firmed my shoulders as if addressing the Royal Council. ‘I wish to end our marriage, Owen. I wish you to leave Hertford and find refuge in Wales. I will not allow you to remain here with your life open to constant danger.’ In spite of an anguish that was tearing me apart, never had I spoken so firmly. Never had I sounded so much the Queen Dowager. ‘I command you to leave.’

It was as if Owen had turned to ice. His hands fell loosely to his sides. His face as pale as wax, his eyes glittered like obsidian. His voice, when he finally spoke, was as emotionless as mine.

‘You would send me away? Am I still your servant, to be dismissed at your whim?’ It was like the lash of a whip. ‘Does our love mean nothing to you?’

I would not bow before his retaliation. ‘It means everything. For your sake, you must leave. And for mine. I cannot contemplate the possibility that we will not breathe the same air, feel the heat of the same sun on our skins. Do you not understand? Do you not agree that it must be so?’

‘I hear what you say. By God, woman! Will you take the decision out of my hands?’ I could hear the rumble of temper in the ominous quiet.

‘Yes,’ I responded, before I could be swayed.

‘And if I do not agree?’

‘You must. We will not be together in body, but we will in spirit, and I know that you will be alive, and safe, to live your life to its allotted time.’ How well I had learned my words, even though my heart shuddered. I missed him between our rising and sitting down to break our fast. How could I contemplate a lifetime apart? Knowing that I had come to the end of my control and that Owen’s temper was about to explode like a hunting cat after its prey, I turned my face from him. ‘I have made my decision. Go back to Wales, where you will find peace and safety.’

And I walked away, climbing the stairs, closing the door of my chamber quietly behind me, because to do otherwise would be to slam it shut so that the sound reverberated through the whole castle.

Owen did not follow. He did not see the tears that
washed ceaselessly down my cheeks to mark the velvet of my bodice. He did not see me stand with my back to the door, my palms pressed there as if I needed support. He did not see me dry my tears and determine not to weep again because tears would solve nothing, then fall to my knees and hide my face against the coverlet of my bed.

What had I done? How could I have sliced my heart in two? Even worse, how could I have condemned Owen to the same wretched misery that made every breath I took without him a separate agony? I was beyond thought, beyond reason.

But reason returned, as it must, and with it all my previous conviction. I would live alone. I would send Owen away if it would save his life. I would live alone for ever if it meant he, my love, my life, would be free from Gloucester’s anger. I would do it. I would step away from Owen out of pure love.

It was the right thing to do.

So why did it hurt so much?

That night I slept alone. I barred my door to him, which I had never done before. And I waited, when my household settled for the night, until I heard his approaching footsteps. I swear I would recognise them in the turbulence of a winter storm. Breath held, I heard them pause outside, and placed my palm against the wood, leaned my forehead against the panels, as if I could sense him there. He did not knock or try the latch. I listened, but could hear no words. Not even his breathing. How long did we
stand there? Time had no measure in my distraught mind. Then his footsteps passed on.

Tomorrow we would be separated for ever.

Exhaustion laid its hand on me but I did not sleep. I kept a solitary vigil for the death of our marriage.

‘Where is my lord?’ I asked Guille next morning. I rose late. Very late. I had not heard Owen and his escort leave, but there were the usual sounds of castle life reaching my windows from courtyard and stables. He would have seen the sense of it and gone at dawn, without my presence. I could not bear to watch him ride away. Neither would I wish to burden him with my volatile emotions.

‘I’m not sure, my lady.’ Guille was carefully not noticing my wan cheeks, her fingers busy as she pinned my hair beneath a simple veil. My temples were too sore to support close padding.

‘Has he left the castle?’

She took a breath. ‘I think he might have.’

‘Did you see him?’

She affixed a pin with deliberation. ‘No, my lady.’

I inhaled against the blow. However much I had anticipated his leaving, nothing could have prepared me for the force of it. Owen had gone. He had left me. I knew he must have because, unless away from the castle, his routines always brought him back to me at mid-morning. But not today. It felt as if he had taken my heart with him,
leaving a space of pain and loss in my chest. And I would accept it because Owen would live.

Now I must begin the impossible task of living my life without him. I inspected my face in my mirror. I straightened the hang of my sleeves, the fall of my girdle, checked the safety and position of the chain that Guille had clasped around my neck. Little details of my existence that I attended to every day.

I stepped outside my door.

‘What time is this to rise from your bed? Your sons are asking for you.’

The question, soft-voiced, slammed into my mind as if it were a roll on a military drum. Collecting my thoughts was almost beyond me. I stared at him, unable to trust my reactions.

‘Guille told me that you were gone.’

What a facile reply, when he was clearly not. When everything I wanted in life was there before me. Within touching distance. Within kissing distance. Owen should not be here.

‘I ordered her to,’ Owen said.