The Scandalous Duchess (35 page)

This invitation did not come from the Countess's lips. Was this not simply another attempt, on the Duke's part, to cushion his rejection of me? Another attempt to salve his conscience, together with the pension, and the frequent delivery of wine and the venison that would surely arrive any
day soon on my doorstep? Why would he burden himself with these futile overtures? Since the quitclaim had made his future path as clear as day, I would have no compunction in refusing an invitation to attend the household of the heir to the dukedom and his child bride. I would not!

I crumpled the sheet in my hand, then in a fit of petulance, I ripped it into little pieces and scattered the whole in the cold hearth. I would not go. I would not go to Rochford Hall in April or at any other time. All connections between me and the Duke of Lancaster were at an end.

As for the quitclaim, I pushed it into my coffer, my fingers brushing against soft fur as I did so. I reacted with a hiss of breath, as if my flesh had been singed, and I dropped the lid closed. I had had quite enough of the Lancaster household for today without the lure of those magnificent sables.

I went to Rochford Hall.

Despite all my proud pronouncements, all my much-vaunted self-sufficiency, life at Kettlethorpe after another month of rain had palled enough to make me see sense.

‘You are right welcome.'

A formal acknowledgement of my arrival. After an initial hesitation—I had become conspicuously sensitive to both real and imagined slights—the Countess of Hereford drew me from entrance hall to private chamber, anxiety stamped on her broad features, her fingers clenched in the furred edge of my sleeve. The heavy damask of my skirts brushed against the painted tiles. How satisfying it was to have the opportunity to wear court finery again, but anxiety at the quality of my reception made me stiff and formal in reply.

‘I am honoured by your invitation, my lady.'

The words sounded cold when addressed to a woman who had stretched out her hand in friendship to the extent of allowing me to give birth under her roof, but that was before I was branded a witch. That was before the Duke had condemned me as the cause of his grievous sin.

Come to a halt in the tapestry-hung luxury of the Countess's chamber, I waited for the predictably chilly response. It crossed my mind that the well-connected Joan FitzAlan, Countess of Hereford, might have agreed to this invitation under duress. Perhaps I should have stayed with the miseries at Kettlethorpe, with the rain and flooding after all.

Countess Joan released my sleeve, with a little shake of her head as if embarrassed to be discovered clutching it.

‘I was planning to send a courier direct to you if I did not see you this week,' she announced. ‘We may very well have need of all your knowledge—and more besides—of foolish pregnant wives and babies who arrive before their time.'

My daughter Joan, self-important at being invited to accompany me at the age of five, stood with quaint gravity, but pushed close against my skirts. I had against all my good intentions taken up the shredded invitation because it was a situation that gave me some concern, involving women as close to me now as my own family. I could not turn my back on the Countess in her troubles, or on her daughter, however abrasive our new relationship might turn out to be.

But that did not mean that I would be won over by Lancaster's apparent wish to keep me connected to his family. I would give my knowledge freely. I would bring my skills to bear for the Countess and for Lady Mary, with the
happiest of outcomes if that was possible. And then I would take Joan and return to Kettlethorpe.

And in a spirit of rebellion I had ridden the Duke's last gift to me. Why waste such generosity and neglect such a pretty mare? Had the labourer not been worthy of her hire? But I would not wear the cloak with its valuable sable. I would never wear it. Somehow to feel it warm against my skin was too personal.

Sometimes the depth of my cynicism startled me.

Standing in the Countess's parlour, testing the atmosphere, I regarded the Countess who might see me as the vile temptress of John of Lancaster. Once she would have thrown her arms around me and hugged me with a spontaneity that always surprised me, and I would have returned it. I found it impossible to be spontaneous. On my first appearance in exalted company since the Duke's denunciation, I simply resorted to formal courtly manners.

I curtsied, eyes respectfully lowered.

‘I will do what I can, my lady,' I said.

The Countess sighed pointedly.

My eyes flew to hers.

There she faced me, fists planted on substantial hips as if she were no better than a fishwife in the marketplace when faced with a beggar who filched from her stall, rather than a lady whose marriage had been attended by her kinsman, King Edward the Third.

She was staring at me, not best pleased.

‘My lady?' I queried. This could be worse than I thought.

‘Well, the first thing that you can do, Katherine de Swynford, is take that sour expression off your face and call me Joan, as you have done any time over the past decade!
Did I not sit at your side when you howled curses down on John's head for inflicting this little moppet on you?' She swooped, quick and friendly, to pat her namesake Joan's head and plant kisses on her cheeks. ‘And you called her Joan for me! I thought we were friends. I've enough to worry about without a slighted mistress on my hands.

‘And if you're thinking the Duke will be here to harass you, well he won't. Or not that I've had any indication of. He's too busy courting Constanza at Tutbury, trying to put right a decade of neglect on his part and disinterest on hers. Castile is on their joint horizon again and he's hoping to persuade Parliament to vote the funds. If you have any thoughts of revenge against him for his pinning you in the pillory for all to gawk at, I think you'll have it in the frosty atmosphere in their bedchamber, where they're doubtless trying to achieve a male heir for Castile.' She laughed immoderately, eyes gleaming with the prospect of gossip. ‘If I were you, I wouldn't give it a minute's thought that I had stirred Walsingham's pen to vitriol once again. And whether John meant what he said and did—'

I braced myself against the warmth. If I did not, I would weep at the unexpectedness of it. Instead: ‘Of course he meant it. He told me so,' I responded, all my ills rejuvenated, with enough ice to smother the heat in a cup of mulled wine.

‘Never believe what a man says when his power is under threat.' The Countess now patted me as if I were no older than Joan. ‘Enough about the man. Cheer up, Kate, and let's see what we can do between us for my errant daughter.'

Pointing to a stool, where Joan dutifully sat, the Countess pushed a cup of wine into my hand, nudged me to a cushioned
settle where she joined me, drinking deeply as if her cup held the elixir of life.

I was startled. And then I laughed. What a relief it was to hear it all put so bluntly. At least it seemed that I might have one true friend in the world. To believe that I had none had begun to undermine all my self-confidence.

‘Forgive me, Joan.' I sighed and sat, shocked by the emotion that packed all the spaces in my breast. ‘I'm as miserable as a cat with a cold.'

‘Then drink. It's the best wine we have. Better than anything you have at Kettlethorpe. Or perhaps not.' Her eyes, wide and ingenuous, glowed. ‘I wager John still supplies you?'

And I laughed again, enjoying the closeness I had lacked. And drank. ‘Tell me about Mary,' I invited.

‘Come and see for yourself.' She was a little brusque, more than a little worried, but not given to condemnation of either of the pair. Just as she had not condemned me. ‘Foolish children,' she observed. ‘I'd say they should have known better—at least Henry should—but youth will have its day. Perhaps I should have kept a closer eye on Mary, but how would I have guessed? And what's done now is done so no sense in weeping over a spoilt pail of milk. I am everlastingly grateful to have you here.'

For the first time in months I forgot my anger, my despair, my desolation. I continued to forget my purely self-centred concerns in the demands of the coming weeks.

The child was born in April, to full term, not an easy birth, leaving both young mother and infant weak with the effort. I wrapped the squalling mite in a linen cloth and
carried him out to where Henry, covered with mud and sweat from having ridden hard and fast from the jousting in Hereford to be with his wife at the birth, waited in the antechamber.

‘You have a son, my lord.'

I thought he was due some formality on this most auspicious of days, and enjoyed the quick grin in response. A son. I held him out. Small but hopefully with a grip on life.

Henry touched his son's tiny hand tentatively, with a look of shocked awe that he and Mary had managed between them to create this child.

‘He won't break,' I said.

‘I know.' Whereas I had expected him to be clumsy, more at ease with a sword or bow than a day-old infant, Henry took the child from my arms with surprising competence. ‘Edward. He will be Edward, after my grandfather, the old king.'

‘A good name.'

The years swept back, as they must, showing me a different scene, but not so different in the audience chamber at Hertford. There I was, as now, carrying a newborn infant, but receiving me with desire in his eyes was the Duke. All those years ago, when all was still so bright and new between us. My heart clenched with grief for what I had lost as I watched Henry, unaware of my turbulent feelings, bend his head to kiss his son between the brows. Then laughed a little when the baby wailed and Henry clenched his grip as if he might drop his son.

‘Is Mary well?' he asked.

‘Yes, my lord. She is tired. But you will see her soon.'

‘And you are very formal, my lady. I recall you stripping
me and dropping me in a bath of water when I had managed to fall into the midden at Kenilworth. You had no sympathy and scrubbed me unmercifully. You always used to call me Henry. What has changed?' He paused, then added solemnly, ‘What is between you and my father does not alter my regard for you, Lady Katherine.'

How easy it was for control to slip away from me at the least show of affection, for the emotion to well up again, but I took the baby from him, moved beyond measure when he leaned to kiss my cheek in formal greeting, with the same elegant grace that his father might once have used towards me.

There was a shadow in the doorway that made Henry lift his head and turn. Henry must have heard the footsteps but, forsooth, I did not. I had no premonition of it, no sense that the Duke had accompanied Henry to Rochford Hall.

How could that be? Once I could touch his mind, at some immeasurable distance, when we were bound in love. It had proved on so many occasions to be a comfort, a strength. Now I could not sense his presence even when on the threshold of the same room. I had lost the ability to call him into my thoughts.

Had I closed my mind to him so effectively? Or had he closed his mind to me? A rank chill ran over my skin. How powerful, his betrayal of me. It was as if an impenetrable thicket of oaks stood between us, and I must accept that it no longer mattered. I no longer had any call on him.

But my loins clenched when the door to the antechamber was pushed wider, and there he was, striding across the room to his son's side with loose-limbed elegance. The same imposing presence, the same statement of regal authority, and my wits, without time to marshal them, were scattered,
my responses adrift. This was the first time we had stood together, sharing the same space, the same air, since his deliberate farewell on the road outside Pontefract. And between then and now rested the horror of the quitclaim. I could not decide what to do, what to say. For want of anything else, I held the baby tighter.

His eyes were on my face, light and calmly assessing, superbly confident in his powers, as if he had gone through some great passage of torment, and emerged on the other side, more certain, more driven, than ever. As I knew he must be. The Duke of Lancaster was once again accepted as a man to be reckoned with, at the right hand of King Richard. His rejection of a life of sin, together with the penance wrung from him, had been a resounding success.

Impressive as he was in that small room, even the youth and energy of his son, rejoicing in the birth of his own first-born, could not compete. It was as if, for the Duke, our parting was complete, the unpleasant reverberations in his life long gone. He had taken his decision to step away from me and was now at ease at its completion. The advantages for him had been momentous after all.

Whereas my heart thudded in my throat and the chill along my spine persisted, he was magnificently composed, but then, he had known I would be here. He had had time to order his initial response to me into strict line. I continued to stand motionless, a figure in a tableau, waiting to see what he would say, all the time wondering if I still had the power to move him. I could see no evidence of it in his clear gaze, his proud stance. There was no suffering here. I must accept that the alienation between us was for him a matter of no further importance.

In equally proud response I schooled my features into polite acknowledgement as I performed a brisk curtsy, the briefest bend of the knee.

‘Monseigneur.' I was capable of wielding exquisite politeness like a weapon: like a battle axe to the head.

So, of course, was he. The Duke bowed, hand on heart. ‘My lady.'

And that was the sum of our exchange. The Duke turned from me, placed his hand on Henry's shoulder.

‘A son.'

‘Yes.'

I saw the Duke's grip tighten. ‘You must wait now, Henry. It is not fair on her.'

Henry understood very well. ‘I know. We will. Lady Katherine says I can see her soon. I need to tell her…'

He shrugged with a sudden blush from chin to hairline. He was a young boy again.