The Scandalous Duchess (6 page)

And there it was. What I had hoped for.

It had the pompous tone of a demand rather than a request, much as I would expect from Sir Thomas Hungerford, the Lancaster steward who exercised his authority over all the ducal properties in the south, but my heart leaped, and I was smiling as my eye ran down to the less formal hand, added at the bottom. Lady Alice had applied her own brand of entreaty.

Alice had signed her name.

I folded the page and pushed it into the bodice of my overgown, my face warm with pleasure. A position again. A welcome. A generous income to bolster the rents from Kettlethorpe. Perhaps the ever-flooding Fossdyke would be put to rights at last and my neighbours would not glower as I rode past.

I would see Blanche, reunite all my children, install myself with Alyne and Lady Alice. I swept Thomas up into my arms, already on my way to my inner chamber, but then my steps slowed and reality checked my delight. Here was danger. I had made my refusal of the Duke's demand succinctly clear, but if I returned to The Savoy, into Duchess Constanza's household, was that not my being complicit in placing myself back within the Duke's power? Was I not opening myself to a situation that would be a moral insult to both myself and his new wife?

I had wanted this position so badly, yet now all was changed, all my initial naïve pleasure dimmed. I came to a halt halfway up the stairs, furious with the absent Duke, who, I suspected, had answered to no one since the day of his birth. I was not responsible for his arrogant invitation. I was the innocent party, I was not complicit. I had said no.
The Duke was under no illusions about my thoughts on this. He might have a claim on my loyalty, he might pay me for service to his wife, but there it would end.

I was perfectly entitled to make my dignified return to The Savoy, on my own terms.

But there was the other folded page and a soft leather bag, small enough to fit into my palm, with a seal on the parchment that was the Duke's own with the leopards of England quartered with the fleur-de-lis of France.

Open it!
I ordered.
You are making more of this than need be. It cannot possibly make your obligation to him greater than it already is. Read it!

Instead, I tucked both items into my bodice, where the letter proceeded to burn a hole against my breast and the pouch nestled until it seemed to be a weight on my soul. I could barely resist opening it, even though I knew with certainty that if I did, if I read what must be a personal missive from the Duke, then it would be opening a dangerous window. Better that I consign them both to the flames in my bedchamber.

But I destroyed neither. Instead, dispatching Thomas to Agnes's care, I wrapped a cloak around me, strapped on a pair of patterns and made my way to the church, squelching through the puddles and wondering if I had lost my senses. Once there I walked down the aisle towards the final resting place of the earthly remains of Hugh Swynford.

Replenishing the candles, re-lighting them, I knelt by the little casket, where one day a fine effigy would stand, and prayed first for the repose of Hugh's soul. He would have been thirty-two years old, the same age as the Duke.

Looking over my shoulder to ensure that I was alone, I began to explain.

‘I am going to Hertford. I am to have a place in Duchess Constanza's household. She is the Duke's new wife, the Castilian Queen. You would not have known about this alliance with Castile—or perhaps you did before you…well!' I took a breath. Speaking to the dead was foolish perhaps, but I felt a need to do it. ‘I know that is what you would want for me. Have we not always served the royal family? I will take the children with me. But I will not neglect my role here. They already call me the Lady of Kettlethorpe, did you know? I am proud of that and I hope you are too.' I paused for a moment, trying hard to concentrate. ‘I swear I will preserve your inheritance for your son. Thomas is growing well. His education under Lady Alice's eye will be of the best. I expect he will become a page and learn all he needs to know about being a good knight. I give thanks for it.'

The letter against my heart almost vibrated with an urgency.

‘I am grateful to the Duke for his generosity. He remembers you with affection.'

I closed my fingers over the cloth of my bodice so that the parchment of the letter crackled. The package felt hard and uneven, its composite parts moving one against the other.

‘It will be good to reunite the children,' I said. ‘I have missed Blanche.'

I retrieved the letter.

‘Master Ingoldsby will look after everything while I am away. The meadows have flooded again.'

I broke the seal and opened it, smoothing the creases.

‘I don't have the money to clear out the Fossdyke. Not
yet—but perhaps I can do it when I am remunerated. I will try to do my best…'

My words dried and I sank back on my heels and read. Strikingly formal, it was not of any great length. My heart beating in my ears, I read, my eye skimming over the first brief paragraph. It was as if he were standing beside me, with a similar irritation to my own, colouring his choice of words, which were abrupt.

That was good, was it not? Rather sharp and caustic, even a thread of criticism that my precipitate departure had necessitated this letter. My heart steadied.

There was a space on the single page and then:

There was another little space. And then:

There was no signature. There did not need to be, for the owner of the flamboyant wording and forceful command was without doubt the Duke. As I took in what was imperiously issued with no consideration that I might actually refuse, I scowled at the final comment, and was aware of making a little mew of distress as my heart once again thudded against my ribs. I looked up—surely a sign of guilt—as if Hugh might be aware and would ask what tormented me.

But the church was settled into its habitual silence around me.

So what had the importunate Duke sent me?

I laid the letter down, loosed the draw-string of the little pouch, but, before I could catch it, out slithered a rosary, a string of simple beads threaded on a length of silk, to fall to the floor at my side. But not simple at all, I saw as I scooped them up. The
aves
in their little groups of ten
were of coral, the softest pink, as seductively smooth as a baby's palm, richly interposed by the larger paternosters of carved jet with gilded flowers.

This was no trifle. I breathed out slowly, lifting the gift so that the candlelight glimmered along its length. I looked again at the letter and the lovely beads, which I allowed to slide again from my hand to be caught by the fullness of my skirts.

And there was Mistress Saxby beside me, with her world-weary smile.

Has he given you a gift? If he does it shows he had designs on your respectability
.

So I should refuse any such gift?

I'd say accept any gift he makes you. It may well be that it is the sign of a true regard, if he is willing to spend money on you and he has matched the gift well to your inclination
.

He had given me a rosary. He knew that such a gift would be close to my heart.

Unless he merely wishes to lure you into his bed
. Mistress Saxby was still needling with her observations.

But a rosary, with its exquisitely carved silver crucifix. Did he make light of my strong faith, which would make the position of mistress, no matter how important the lover, anathema? Were these gifts, a string of beads, a purse of coin and a preserved heart, nothing more than lures to buy my compliance?

Or was he concerned merely to give me what I needed? What would please me?

How could I discover the answers to such impossible questions? For the briefest of moments I covered my face with my hands, then knelt upright and squared my shoulders.

‘Dear Hugh, I want you to know. I honoured you. I was loyal to you in thought and deed through all the years of our marriage. But…forgive me.' I stuffed the letter and beads back into my overgown and placed my hand flat on the carved coffer lid. ‘I was never unfaithful to you. I was a good wife. But now…'

And because I could no longer stay there in that holy place with my thoughts in such wanton turmoil I stood, genuflected and hurried out.

Will God punish us for snatching at happiness in a world that brings a woman precious little of it?

I pushed Mistress Saxby's questionable wisdom aside, but shame and desire kept joint pace with me. Returned to the manor, I made excuses—I knew not what—to Agnes and Master Ingoldsby and took refuge behind the closed door of my chamber.

And there, for the first time for almost eight years I allowed thoughts of John of Lancaster to flood in without restraint, and take possession. This was the man. This was what he meant to me.

I stood by the head of my bed, in the shadow of the thick damask hangings, once a lustrous blue, worn and faded now into a uniform greyness. I stood as if I were an onlooker, for the walls of my chamber grew dim in my sight, to be replaced with the rich severity of the chapel at The Savoy where I had been wed to Hugh.

How powerful memory could be. Instead of the dusty silence of my chamber, broken only by occasional rustles and cheeps from the singing finches in their cage, bright little birds that I had bought for Margaret's amusement,
the scene was peopled with faces and figures from the past that I knew well, a little gathering to celebrate an old and sacred rite. The candles were bright, the high quality wax perfumed with incense, the altar heavy with gold, but it was a quiet, intimate scene, without display as was fitting. I, fourteen years old and newly delivered of my daughter, stood with the child in my arms.

It was as if I had stepped into the ceremony already underway with prayers said and promises made. With the appropriate words, the priest lifted the infant from me, allowing the linen covering to fall to the floor, before lowering her into the font where the shock of the cold water caused her to drag in a breath and expel it in a cry of pure anguish. Her hands beat on the water, her dark eyes wide and staring with distress, and I, new mother as I was, was stricken.

It was the Duke, standing as my child's godfather—was I not highly favoured in the household in those days?—who lifted the baby from the font, wrapping her slippery body with astonishing deftness, in a pearl-encrusted chrysom robe handed to him by Duchess Blanche herself, for whom my baby was called. His cradling of her was sure, confident. I could not imagine Hugh doing as much with his soldier's hands, rough with old scars and abrasions even though the two men were of an age.

‘Hush then,' the Duchess murmured, touching her name-sake's cheek while, cupping her head with his hand, the Duke smiled ruefully.

‘There's no need for all this, Mistress Blanche Swynford,' he said. ‘You are named in the sight of God and much loved.
Look at all here-present, who will care for you. Why would you weep?'

The unexpected words struck hard at my heart, the unbelievable tenderness of them, and my infant's cries instantly subsided to whimpers, before ceasing on a sob and a hiccup. Everyone laughed, the domestic replacing, for that one instant, the sacred. As if entranced, little Blanche's myopic gaze fixed on the face above her.