The Scandalous Duchess (37 page)

How easy it was for him still to hurt me.

For a long time I simply sat, unmoving in that empty room, all our bitter words descending on me to swirl through my mind, to land finally on some that gave me pause.

Would you have me do nothing to protect you from those who attack me? Am I really so selfish as to place my own desires before your safety?

Had I been wrong? Had I misjudged him? Had he in truth been protecting me?

Suddenly my erstwhile certainties that the Duke had betrayed me were as scattered as the
potpourri
.

I left the pottery shards and the herbs where they were.
The sleeves of my gown were long enough that there was no evidence on view to rouse comment.

The Duke left, taking Henry with him. Back to more exhibitions of jousting skills, I surmised in uncharitable spirit, for both of them. It took little to drag a man's mind from grief. A thorough burst of male energy with sword or lance and all was put to rights, while Mary still wept for her loss, and I raged inwardly at my inability to overcome my grievances as I renewed the bowl of herbs that proved particularly ineffective in restoring either serenity or ease to anyone.

As they departed I stood in the Great Hall with the rest of the household to make our farewells. When the Duke spoke at length with Countess Joan, I turned to go, but at the end looked back over my shoulder. He was standing at the door, head turned. He might be engaged in pulling on his gloves, but he was watching me. Our eyes held, his arrested, but by an expression that I could not interpret. Unless it was a longing that could never be answered, by either of us. I was the first to turn away, thoroughly discomfited, thoroughly unsure.

‘Well, he has gone,' Countess Joan observed as she caught up with me later in the morning. It was becoming time for me to leave also. ‘Was it very painful?'

‘No,' I lied. I managed to smile. ‘Your chaperonage was wasted, I fear. Our desire to leap into each other's arms is a thing of the past. There is no impropriety.' I touched her hand in thanks. ‘The Duke's infatuation is dead.'

She tilted her head.

‘Do you say? I saw a man on the edge of control. If you
had stayed, you would have seen him spurring his horse away towards London as if the Devil was breathing fire on his heels. Did nothing pass between you?'

‘Nothing. What had I to say to him, or he to me?' I forced my brows to rise in a magnificent imitation of disbelief at what she might imply. ‘I think the death of the child would light such a fire,' I responded gravely. ‘He cares very much for Henry—and for Mary. I see no connection with me.'

Countess Joan eyed me for a long moment.

‘It's not what I see—but perhaps you are right. Who's to say? And what of your long infatuation, Kate? Is that too dead?'

But that was a question too far. I would not answer.

I could not.

I was no longer certain of anything.

Chapter Sixteen

‘H
ave you heard, Lady de Swynford?'

‘Heard what?'

My servant barely had time to open the door of my rented property in answer to the thud of an urgent fist. The Dean of Lincoln Cathedral stood on my doorstep, black-clad like a bird of ill-omen, a look of horror dragging at his thin features.

‘Come in, sir.' Such was the hammering that I was at my servant's shoulder. ‘Are you ill?'

‘No, my lady. I mean, yes—I will come in.' He stumbled on the paving. ‘It's bad news.'

‘Then you must tell me.' I took the Dean's arm and led him through to the comfortable setting of one of the Chancery's spacious parlours. ‘Sit there and tell me what troubles you.'

The Dean enjoyed being the purveyor of bad news, mostly no more than some wild behaviour in the town that had encroached on the Cathedral Close. Today I was
aware of no such disturbance yet still was pleased to extend my hospitality.

Unable to settle at Kettlethorpe after my sojourn at Rochford Hall, I had taken Agnes and the children to Lincoln, renewing my renting of the Chancery from the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral.

Lincoln. My life in the very centre of that busy town over the years was as much of a pleasure as I could hope for.

The Chancery offered me a comfortable property well suited to my standing, providing me with a great chamber, perfect for entertaining visitors, my own private chapel and a solar on the first floor, a well-proportioned room where I slept and lived out my private life. With its carved doorways, immaculate stabling, courtyard and gardens full of fruit trees, its sophistication suited my state of mind. I had made a new life for myself in Lincoln. I was not without resources.

Three years had passed since the Duke's blistering temper at Rochford Hall and my stiff-necked intransigence. Three years in which I was free to reconsider the Duke's motives. If he had wished, by the quitclaim, to deflect Walsingham and his ilk, he had succeeded, for I was left alone, but of course, I would never know. There was no longer communication between us.

Perhaps for me the pain of living alone had grown numb. I liked to think so and gave a fair imitation of tolerance of our parting. My love for the Duke, my memories of our life together, had faded as all things fade with the passage of time.

‘Tell me, sir,' I encouraged now. The Dean gulped the wine I poured and handed to him. ‘You said it was bad news,' I prompted.

‘Yes, my lady. The worst.' He leaned forward, his voice tinged with awe. ‘The assassination of the Duke of Lancaster.'

My lips parted.

My fingers gripped my own cup.

My mind was frozen.

Misinterpreting my silence: ‘Perhaps you already knew, my lady?'

I shook my head, utterly speechless.

He was dead. The Duke was dead
.

My face felt clammy and pale.

Oblivious, the Dean launched into the facts of the plot to rid the King of his overbearing uncle, while I struggled not to be submerged in absolute despair. What would the Dean think if I fell to my knees before him and buried my face in my hands? Instead, I sat upright. It was a surprise to no one, the Dean observed, relations between the Duke and King Richard being as they were at a perilously low ebb—they had been for many months, since Richard fell under the influence of Robert de Vere. The royal favourite desired control of royal power, did he not? Nor was the King averse to escaping permanently the severity of the lectures on good government from his royal uncle. De Vere's plot was to have the Duke killed at a tournament.

I could no longer still the trembling in my body, my thoughts cavorted without pattern. Holy Virgin sustain me! Killed at a tournament. He was dead, his dear body was cold clay. He no longer lived and breathed and laughed and raged. My mind could not encompass it.

‘Fortunately, it went awry—' I heard.

‘Wait.' I gripped the Dean's arm, coming to my senses at last.

‘Yes, my lady?'

I swallowed the rock in my throat. ‘Is he dead?'

‘No, no, my lady. Did I not say?'

‘No. No, you did not.' I exhaled but the shock of relief gripped me with cold nausea.

‘The plot failed,' the Dean continued busily, unaware of my distress. ‘But it was a near-run thing. The Duke's living on borrowed time, I'd say. When the King and the favourite are against him. But for now the Duke has made his peace with the King…'

I thanked the Dean, barely listening to his tale of reconciliation between Richard and the Duke, and finally made my excuses, leaving my servant to usher him and his unwanted observations out.

In my chamber, all I could do was to wrap my arms around myself, to still the shaking.
Borrowed time
, the Dean had said. And had Richard concurred with this despicable plot? It could only be presumed that he had.

I found myself overcome with an urgent need to speak with the Duke, to simply see him in the flesh, yet at the same time I knew that it could not be. What would we say to each other now? Nothing. Nothing.

Did ever a woman miss a man like this? There was no tolerance here. I was bereft, hopelessly alone. I adored him. I always had. I always would because it was not a choice for me. He had drawn me into his heart and I was entrapped there for ever, manacled with steel.

I brought him into my thoughts so that he stood before me, as he had at Rochford Hall three years before, full of anger, yet as gloriously Plantagenet as I had ever seen him, full of vital life. And he was alive now. I must hold onto that one vital thought.

But I could not. Fear gave me no respite. How long could such a reconciliation between King and Duke last? It was one thing for me to step away from the Duke, learning to
live without him as I had for three long years, but what if he were dead and I did not know? Could I remain in ignorance if his life was snuffed out by an assassin's dagger? Or by some malpractice at a tournament?

How could I continue to exist if he was done to death?

‘You will continue to live as you do now, because you are woman of good sense,' I upbraided myself. ‘You have acquired the skills to show a calm face to the world. You will continue to avail yourself of them.'

I bared my teeth at the sheer conceit of my advice, then turning my head as I heard the rattle of the latch, quickly smoothing my skirts and the flared fall of my sleeves of my new houppelande.

‘Have you been weeping?' came the abrupt query.

‘Certainly not.'

I turned away again so that my face was not lit by the cruel light.

‘Well, that's a lie! I thought you had banished Lancaster from your thoughts.'

Philippa, who had come to keep me brief company, had hunted me down before I could put my much-vaunted skills into practice. Clearly she had heard the news.

Sometimes I wished Philippa had not come to Lincoln, but then rebuked myself for my ingratitude. Despite her sharp tongue, she was my sister and so dear to me. I pitied her matrimonial state, a wife yet not a wife, her children dispersed, Thomas taking up arms and Elizabeth the veil like my own daughter. Just as I thought that she viewed me with pity, in my isolation from court circles. I would give her no further cause to pity me.

‘I no longer think of him,' I remarked with stately and
superior calm worthy of the Duke himself. ‘Our lives follow different paths. That is as it should be. I am done with men.'

I expected her to agree with me. She always did where the perfidy of men was concerned. Her estrangement from Geoffrey, as far as she had confided in me, had never been mended. Now as she moved restlessly from bed to a seat in the window embrasure to look out over the well-cultivated grass of the Cathedral Close, lifting my lute into her lap, her glance was suitably sly.

‘So you don't know what happened?' She drew her fingers over the strings in indolent fashion, her head bent over her fingering so that she could not see my scowl. ‘It was of no interest to you to discover all you could of Lancaster's meeting with the King after learning he was to be done to death on the tournament field?'

‘No.'

‘You don't know what they said to each other at the Tower, where Richard apologised profusely for the attempt on Lancaster's life.'

‘It wasn't the Tower. It was at Sheen. And Richard was as intractable as ever.'

I stopped with a hiss of exasperation.

‘There now!' Philippa cast aside the lute, which she had never learned to play well, with a dull twang of strings, her eyes sharp on mine. ‘You know every last detail, I swear. You still care. You are still besotted with the man.'

So I had fallen into her little trap, yet I clung hard to my pretence. ‘No, I am not besotted. But that doesn't mean I wish him dead.'

Philippa folded her arms with a good show of belligerence. ‘Well, he isn't dead, so you can stop worrying. That's the second plot to relieve the Duke of his life that's come
to nothing. De Vere's double-dealing is a thing of wonder, but Lancaster has a charmed life.'

I knew all about it. Had we not all been aware of the growing influence of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, young, well born, attractive and ambitious, just the man to catch Richard's admiring eye. And Robert de Vere was keen to extend his influence, encouraging Richard to ignore both Parliament and ministers. Of course he would make a target of the Duke who might be the one man in the land to stand in his path to dominating Richard.

Dangerous times indeed, with the Duke at the centre of them, dependent on his nephew's good sense and loyalty, when he appeared to have neither.

Did Philippa think this meant nothing to me? I took a breath, to stop myself from allowing my anxieties to flood out, managing to inform her with commendable gravitas: ‘I have washed my hands of all this. If he is wounded he will have Constanza to minister to him and soothe his fevered brow. He doesn't need me.'

‘I hear what you say, Kate, but there are still tear stains on your face.'

And, as if one of the Lincolnshire dykes had been broached, all my previous, well-guarded despair flooded out.

‘He had to wear a breastplate to approach the King with any safety at Sheen. Can you believe that?' I wiped ineffectually at three years' worth of tears that I could not stop. ‘And he had to have an armed escort to guard his back. What sort of life is that to live? What sort of King will Richard become when he reaches his majority?'

I knew the Duke would see it as his own failure. Richard, lacking strength and good judgement, was not the King the Duke would have hoped for.

‘I cannot bear it for him,' I added. ‘Nor can I live with the fear that the next piece of news I hear of the Duke will be that he is dead with a dagger in his back.'

‘He does not need you to bear it for him,' Philippa objected.

‘I know! That's what makes it so much worse. Why are my emotions so strongly engaged after three empty years? Why will this longing not die and give me some peace?'

How had I ever persuaded myself that my love for him had lapsed into some form of mild affection? It had not. It never would.

‘Dear Katherine.' Philippa leaned to take my hands, pushing the lute aside to make space for me on the settle, surprising me as I read an unexpected compassion in her face, and in her softened voice. ‘It can't go on, your mourning what is over and done with. There are things you must come to terms with.'

‘There's nothing to come to terms with,' I denied, furious with my inability to command my responses in any matter where the Duke was concerned. ‘When we last met at Rochford Hall he hadn't a word to say to me.'

‘Nor you to him, as I understand.'

I had told no one of our single bitter exchange.

‘I don't think of him. Not very often,' I tried.

‘Katherine! You have a man who loves you, who had stood protector to you, even when you see no good in him.'

I stared at her, absorbing her impassioned words, startled at this unlooked-for turnabout. Now I snatched my hands away.

‘Stood protector? How can you say that? And are you actually standing as his advocate? Is it the gift of yet another hanap that's swayed your judgement? Or being reinstated with the Duchess?'

‘None of that. I am realistic, where you are not. The
Duke cares. He cared for you, even when you shunned him just as adamantly as he spurned you. If you had not been so tied up in resentment, you would have seen it for yourself. Why do you think he sent you away?'

‘To put himself right with God, to remove the stains on his soul,' I replied, still perplexed. ‘To rescue England from God's displeasure. He told me that at Rochford.'

‘I thought you had no conversation at Rochford.' She shook her head. ‘But never mind that. Why do you think he issued the quitclaim?'

‘To sever all ties. So that I can have no claim on him.'

‘And did you take note of the date he had it written?'