The Scandalous Duchess (25 page)

I took refuge on the wall-walk, even though the effort to climb the steps took my breath, where the wind from the
Thames would cool my cheeks. Could such a loss ever be overcome? I knew that I must learn to be thankful for her life, and not weep whenever the name Blanche was mentioned. When I heard footsteps loping after me and recognised the ownership, I braced my shoulders but did not turn.

‘Forgive me, Katherine. I did not know.'

His voice was even, with none of his earlier anger.

‘There is nothing to forgive. You have your own loss to mourn,' I sniffed.

For Prince Edward had succumbed at last to his endless sufferings. We had all been in mourning robes in that year. Even worse, the Duke going to Bruges to attend peace negotiations had taken Constanza with him where she had given birth to their much-longed-for and prayed-over son, only to have him die within a few short weeks.

A unbearable time of death and loss, but for me Blanche outweighed all.

The Duke kept a discreet distance at my side in so public a place.

‘I can't comfort you. Not with every eye on us.'

‘I don't expect you to,' I replied, drying my tears. My mood was as fragile as my waist was thick.

‘I am so very sorry, my dearest love.' And abandoning all decorum, he pulled me into the corner of the wall-walk where the steps led down, pushing me to sit on the top one. Disturbingly, he chose to sit below, his back against the wall, holding my hands. If any of his household saw us, he ignored it as his eyes searched my face.

‘I feel your anguish, and I am so sorry. For the death of your daughter. For my own concerns that I cannot push aside,' he said with some difficulty, before lowering his
forehead to rest against our clasped hands. His face might be hidden from me, but his compassion was as soft as a new snowfall, wrapping around me. ‘I regret the comfort I can't give you. I regret my own anger that drives me, even when I know that your loss is even greater than mine in that it is new and raw. I knew my brother Edward was dying. Forgive me, Katherine.'

I rested my cheek against his hair. How complex was this man I was privileged to love. From hot temper to infinite tenderness; from stormy pride to deliberate abasement.

‘Blanche was my godchild, and I mourn her with you.'

The Duke stood and lifted me, his lips warm against my forehead, his gaze full of all the grief that lay as hard as granite within me. When I began to weep again, he drew me into his arms and at last I rested there for they were a defence against the world. I luxuriated in them. He was mine again, for those few moments, and he gave me the comfort I needed. The rock inside me began to melt.

‘I am afraid,' I said, ‘of your enemies who use every means to attack you.' I had never admitted it before, even to myself. ‘Of the wedge it drives between us, because you are taken up with Peter de la Mare and I am too irritable to accept that…' My breath hitched.

And so he finished the thought for me. ‘That private grief must step back in the face of England's demands. We mourn the ones we love, but sometimes we cannot choose the time or place.'

‘Yes. That's it.' It was a heavy burden. ‘I am afraid I will forget my daughter. That I will not mourn her as I should.'

Which made him kiss away the tears. ‘You will never forget Blanche. Nor need you be afraid for me. I will win the
day against de la Mare.' He pressed my head gently against his shoulder. ‘You are too tired for this, my dear love. What you need to do is to rest.'

‘But what if…?'

‘We will not talk of it. I will deal with Walsingham and de la Mare. I've a mind to show de la Mare the interior of one of my dungeons.' He smiled fiercely as if enjoying the prospect of a lengthy incarceration until, when I sighed, he fixed his mellowing eye on me once more. ‘You will go to your chamber. You will order your maid to pack what you need.' And when I shook my head against his restraining hand: ‘It will be better if I don't have to worry about you too. Sometimes, my love, we both know that it is better if we are apart. This is one of those times.'

Which I had to accept. We could not be together, but our love would never be dashed against the rocks of volatile politics.

‘I'll go to Kettlethorpe.' I surrendered, reluctantly, to good sense. ‘I need to take Blanche home.'

I did not wish to. I did not wish to be separate from him. My spirits had never been as low.

‘No, this is what you will do.' The note of command was unsparing beneath the gentleness. ‘I need to know you are somewhere safe, away from the politics and the threats of riots in the city. I don't want you where you cannot defend yourself, and Kettlethorpe has no defences. You will go to The Countess of Hereford at Pleshey Castle.'

I had an acquaintance with the Countess of Hereford, but had no wish to take up residence with her. ‘I don't wish to go to Pleshey. I'd rather go to Kettlethorpe.'

The Duke remained unswerving, even as he dried my tears with my oversleeve and kissed my sullen mouth.

‘What you want has no bearing on the matter. You will go to Pleshey because I say it shall be, and you will give birth to this child in comfort and safety. Countess Joan will welcome you in my name, and you, my dear love, will be pleased to be there. I will arrange for Blanche's burial beside her father at Kettlethorpe. It is decided.'

I went to Pleshey Castle. The Duke kissed me and dispatched me with a substantial retinue, arranging high-handedly for Agnes in the company of John and Henry to join me there, as he arranged for Blanche to go home for the last time, where she would lie in peace beside the heart of her father. The Countess, as a close friend of long standing and blood relative of the Duke, opened her doors to me with a quizzical expression as she took stock of my figure.

‘When are you planning to give birth to this child?'

‘Two months ago, I think,' I replied, heaving myself from the litter.

Countess Joan smiled at me. ‘Come and be at ease. I will look after you.'

It was there that I gave birth to a daughter, who emerged into the world with placid acceptance of her change of surroundings and predictably dark russet hair. I called her Joan in honour of the Countess who allowed me to mourn Blanche on her broad shoulder and kept me abreast of affairs beyond our walls when John could not, for King Edward had died, sinking the court into mourning and keeping the Duke fixed in London.

‘When you return, all will be well,' Countess Joan announced
with all her years of experience of court affairs. She set the cradle containing Joan rocking with one practised foot as we sat together in the nursery. She had two daughters of her own. ‘It's a new reign and everyone's of a mind to rejoice and look for new beginnings with a handsome young king at the helm. John's being astute in his dealings with his enemies, and they're of a mood to come to terms with the man who stands at the side of the new King.'

It was a good omen. Had the Duke not knelt at the opening of the new Parliament at Westminster to swear his allegiance to King Richard, denying any charge of treason or cowardice on his part? Had not the peers of the realm and Parliament received the Duke with honour and begged him to be comforter and councillor to King Richard? Even the City of London asked pardon from the Duke for their past criticisms. The Duke was safe, restored to favour, no longer threatened by vicious Walsingham or self-seeking de la Mare.

My mind steadied into serenity with the birth of my new child, my world tilting back so that my thoughts steadied and I was comfortable again. Blanche would always remain a scar on my heart but I would learn to bear my grief with gratitude for the loving child she had been. I would never forget her. All my fears for the Duke were unfounded. How foolish I had been. Even knowing that he had imprisoned Speaker de la Mare in Leicester Castle with no hope of a trial did not disturb me to any degree.

And when the Duke wrote:
Come to me at Kenilworth
, I went.

April 1378: Leicester

It was one of those soft spring days that only April can produce, as if by magic, after the bleakness of a cold March.
Shower-clouds had just cleared and the pale sun turned all the drops on thatch and wood and budding leaf to crystal. Even the rubies sewn into the Duke's gauntlets and pinned to his cap were dulled in comparison.

We were in Leicester together, one of the precious moments we would snatch before the Duke must turn his mind once more to English policy abroad and the continuing education of the young King Richard, and I to the building chaos that was Kettlethorpe and my trio of Beaufort children once more ensconced there.

I had never been as content as I was that day in Leicester, for were we not together? My happiness was so intense that I could taste it, sweet as a new honeycomb on my tongue. Since my enforced sojourn at Pleshey I had learned to live from day to day, to savour every moment, and today it was enough to be with him. He would be away at war in France before the end of the summer, and there would be no more idylls for us to linger in. The English fleet had already sailed from England a week ago with the purpose of crushing the fleets of France and Castile, and the Duke must follow.

But for now, I could be with him, confident in my position at his side even as I acknowledged the undercurrent of desolation that was always present, and always would be. I knew I could never experience true happiness, simply because of the life I had chosen for myself. There would always be that piercing grief that I could never have a permanence in his life.

I found myself smiling, if a little sadly. How remarkably innocent I had been when I had thought that I could simply step into the role of mistress, enjoy the glory of being with him, and not have to pay any price of merit. How irresponsible.
I had thought I could bask in our love without penalty. Now I was worldly-wise enough to see that there would always be a cost, and I accepted it, even the rank disapproval of the Duchess of Gloucester who turned a very obvious cold shoulder against me, making no effort to hide that she despised me. Did she not have royal blood in her aristocratic veins? I, of course, was nothing but a commoner in her eyes. I had become used to her superior condescension by now. I was no longer wounded.

‘My Lady of Swynford?'

I blinked in the sunshine, recalled to my immediate surroundings. It was the Duke, regarding me across a motley of merchant hoods and felt caps and stalwart wool-clad shoulders.

‘Forgive me, my lord,' I replied formally as I gathered up my reins, which I had allowed to slacken dangerously, and rearranged the voluminous folds of my skirt. We must be preparing to move off. I sighed a little at the prospect of more business.

Instead, he pushed his mount towards me until we sat side by side, and he lowered his voice, eyes appreciative on my face. ‘Where were you?'

‘Far away, I'm afraid.' In fact, with my daughter Margaret, who, to her own satisfaction, had taken the veil at Barking Abbey. It was an honour and I was proud for her.

‘But not so far that I cannot reach you. Can we escape from this endless discussion of town rules and regulations, do you suppose?' There was a jaunty air to the Duke's manner, and his less than discreet comment surprised me. Impeccable as his courtesy usually was in company, he had grown weary of the merchants' demands and the Mayor's
persistence over the contentious issue of taxes. Indeed, he waved them aside with casual indifference, blind to their annoyance, careless of the official disfavour of his high-handed rejection of their pleas to pay less. ‘I am finished here,' he said, and turning from them to me: ‘Unless you, my lady, are of a mind to purchase a basket of oysters?'

As he gestured towards the woman who advertised her wares with a voice worthy of a royal herald, I saw the gleam in his eye.

‘I might,' I replied lightly, not averse to a flirtatious exchange since he was obviously of a mind to respond, even as I was uncomfortable with his ability to make enemies when the mood was on him.

‘Can I persuade you not to?' Now the gleam was accompanied by a grin.

My heart melted, my discomfort evaporated. The Duke was his own man and would order his affairs with the same nerveless assurance that he always did. As for me, what other woman in the length and breadth of the country could claim to own the total love and adoration of the one man who filled her own heart? Was there any woman as fortunate as I? I thought longingly of the island of peace, isolated behind the formidable walls of the castle. We would eat together—probably not oysters. Walk in the gardens. Talk of whatever came into our minds. The Duke would read to me, if I asked him, weaving the enchantments of the old legends in his beautiful voice, which he now used to my persuasion.

‘I say we should make our apologies, before the Mayor can find some other matter to claim my attention. Such as the state of the town midden.'

He turned his horse towards the castle, saluting a farewell
to the Mayor and aldermen who still sat in a knot of frustrated corporate business, and I kicked my mare to follow him. Recalcitrant animal that she was, she promptly balked at a cur that snarled round her legs, and planted her feet. The ducal retinue came to a chaotic stop behind me.

‘Will you move, you foolish animal!' I demanded, aware of my flushed cheeks as I used my heels to no effect.

Without a word, the Duke turned his horse about to come to my aid. He grasped my bridle near the bit and hauled the mare into a spritely gait to keep up with him.

‘I'll give you an animal with more spirit,' he offered. ‘This one goes to sleep on every possible occasion.'

He kept the bridle in his hand, forcing her to keep pace with her companion, as we wound through the streets, through the townsfolk busy about their own affairs, towards the castle; the Mayor, aldermen, cleric and our own retinue followed behind.

‘Have you decided where you will go next week?' the Duke asked as we manoeuvred around a woman with her baskets of apples, small and wizened from the previous year's harvest.