I might lure him into my bed. I might put before him a plan to drain the lower terrace and build a new course of rooms at Hertford to improve the kitchens and buttery. He would always respond, but his heart was not in it. It was not his own.

Well, it could be put right. I should have seen to it years ago.

I summoned a man of law from Westminster, and consulted with him. And when he saw no difficulty, I had the necessary documents drawn up and delivered into Owen’s hands. I made sure that I was there when they arrived and Owen opened the leather pouch. I watched his face as he read the first of them. As he looked up.

‘Katherine?’ His face was expressionless.

‘These are for you,’ I stated.

I was very uncertain. Would his independence be too great to receive such a gift from a woman, a gift of such value? And yet it was given with all my heart. I wished I could read something in the sombreness of his eyes, in the firmness of mouth and jaw, but I could not, not even after four years of marriage.

‘It is to commemorate the day that we were wed,’ I said, as if it had been a light decision to make the gift. As if it were no more than a pair of gloves or a book of French poetry.

‘It was a bold move, for you to wed me,’ he said. His eyes were on mine, the first documents of ownership still in his hand, the rest yet to be removed from their pouch. ‘To choose a penniless rebel was foolhardy, and yet you did it.’ He smoothed the deed with his hand. ‘Some would say that this is a bold move too.’

I still did not know if he would refuse or accept it with the grace it was given. ‘I consider it a decision showing remarkable business acumen on my part,’ I responded lightly.

And his mouth curved a little. ‘I did not see business dealings as one of your strengths when I wed you, annwyl.’

‘Neither did I.’ I paused. ‘But now I have considered. These are mine. It is my desire that you have them. They need a master to oversee them and ensure their good governance. It would please me.’ I thumped my jewel casket down onto the table—for I had been engaged in selecting a chain of amethysts to wear with a new gown. ‘Stop staring at me and put me out of my misery. Will you accept?’

‘Yes. I will.’ In the end there was no hesitation. ‘Did you think me too arrogant?’

‘It had crossed my mind—yes.’

‘I’ll not refuse so great a gift.’ The smile widened, encompassing me in its warmth. ‘I am honoured.’

And removing the companion documents, he sank to the settle to read through them all. The custody of all my dower lands in Flintshire. I sat beside him. Waited until he had finished and replaced them in their pouch.

‘Well?’

‘I will administer them well.’ ‘I know you will.’

‘Now I have a dowry to provide for a daughter. As well as three fine sons.’

I had carried a girl. Tacinda. A Welsh child with a Welsh name, all dark hair and dark eyes like Owen. Another confirmation of our love.

‘You are a gracious and generous woman, Katherine.’

His kiss was all I could ask for.

I had another motive for giving Owen overlordship of my Welsh dower lands. Our idyll was magnificent—but with a lowering cloud of ominous destruction gathering force on my horizon. Like a sweet peach, full of juice and perfume, but with a grub at the heart that would bring rot and foul decay. How fate laughs at us when we think we have grasped all the happiness that life can offer us.

I was afflicted.

I denied my symptoms at first, hiding them as much from myself as from Owen for they were fleeting moments, soon passed, merely a growing unease, I told myself, brought on by a dose of ill humours as winter approached with its cold grey days and bitter winds. Had I not been so afflicted in the past? I need not concern myself.

Some days, on waking, my mind scrabbled to grip the reality of where I was, what was expected of me. Some days I found myself just sitting, unseeing, without thoughts, not knowing how long I had been so engrossed in nothingness except for the movement of sun and shadow on the floor.

I felt a tension tightening in my chest, like a fist drawing in the slack on a rope, until I feared for my breathing.

And then such feelings receded, my mind snapping back into the present, and I forgot that I had ever been troubled, except for the faint, familiar flutter of pain behind my eyes that laid its hand on me with more frequency. I forgot and pretended that nothing was amiss. Owen and I loved and rode and danced, enjoying the unfettered freedom that had become, miraculously, ours. Had I not experienced such symptoms in the days following Edmund’s conception? Although I had been afraid then, fearing the worst, they had vanished. Would they not do so again?

Our children ran and thrived in the grass beside the river and I watched them.

But then the darkness closed in again. Minutes? Hours? How long it engulfed me I could not tell. I saw it approaching and, leaving my children in the care of Joan or Alice, I took to my room, my bed, pleading weariness or some female complaint as I had done once before to ensure no questions were asked. Only Guille was aware, and she kept her own counsel.

I managed it well.

And what was it that I hid? A space widening in my mind, a vast crater that filled to the brim with dark mist. I did not know what happened around me in those hours. It could be a black billowing cloud, all-encompassing, or a creeping dread, like river water rising, higher and higher, after a downpour. My hands and fingers no longer seemed to be mine. They did not obey my dictates. My lips felt like ice, clear speech beyond me. My servants, my family were as insubstantial as ghosts emerging from an impenetrable mist. I must have eaten, slept, dressed. Did I speak? Did I leave my room? I did not know.

Was Owen aware of my travails? He suspected, even though he was often away, busy now with his own affairs. How could he not know, when I became increasingly detached from him and our world? He said nothing, and neither did I, but I knew he watched me. And perhaps he told Guille to have a care for me, for she was never far from my side.

‘Are you well?’ he asked whenever we met. A harmless enquiry but I saw the concern in his sombre gaze.

I smiled at Owen and touched his hand, the mists quite gone. ‘I am well, my dear love.’

When he took me to his bed, I forgot the whole world except for the loving, secret one we were able to create when I was in his arms. I denied my inner terrors, for what good would it do to bow my head before them? They would engulf me soon enough.

Alice knew, but apportioned the blame for my waywardness, my increased awkwardness to my pregnancy with Tacinda. When I dropped a precious drinking goblet, the painted shards of glass spreading over the floor, splinters lodging in my skirts and my shoes, she merely patted my hand and swept up the debris when I wept helplessly.

Four children in as many years, she lectured. Why was I surprised that sometimes I felt weary, my body not as strong as it might be, my reactions slow? She dosed me on her cure-all, wood betony, in all its forms—powdered root or a decoction of its pink flowers or mixed with pennyroyal in wine—until I could barely tolerate its bitter taste.

‘It’s good for you,’ Alice lectured. ‘For digestion. For every ache and pain under the sun. And for the falling sickness too.’

My minutes of dissociation concerned her, but it was not the falling sickness. I took the doses, and wished that wood betony might indeed cure all, but my mind went back to my father and his delusional existence. My father, who had sometimes recalled neither his own name nor the faces of his wife and children, who could be violent, running amok as he once had with a lance, killing those unfortunates who had stood in his way and tried to restrain him for his own good.

I tried to shut out the memories but I failed. They muscled their way into my consciousness, forcing me to acknowledge my father’s constant attendants, more gaolers than servants. His guards: to protect him and others from him, as he became more and more divorced from reality and in the end had to be restrained.

‘Drink this,’ Alice insisted. And I did. I clutched at every hope.

Sometimes my father had believed that his body was constructed of glass that would shatter if he was touched. Then he would withdraw into the corner of the room, holding everyone at bay with pitiful cries. Was that the future for me? Was it possible for the miraculous wood betony to cure that? I did want to think so. And I prayed that the frailty of my father’s stricken mind would not come upon me.

I did not tell Owen the full substance of my fears. Did he guess? I could not tell. He permitted me my times alone, treating me with great care. Perhaps he hid his own dread—and I allowed him to do so because if he admitted to it, then it would be all too real.

And what when I could pretend no longer? I considered it as I lay, my cheek in the soft hollow below Owen’s shoulder, while his chest rose and fell in sleep. The day would come when I could dissemble no longer. What then?

I recalled my sister and I, mocking and fearing my father in equal measure. Would my children mock me, fleeing from me in terror?

God help me. I prayed that this madness would not come to me.

EPILOGUE

The day is here.

I am well and lucid but I know it will not last. I know it, with every breath.

‘We are pleased to see you restored, my lady,’ my new steward says, the man who replaced Owen as Master of my much-reduced household. ‘We have been concerned.’

My steward is perhaps less careful with his words than he might be, for no one else speaks of it, as if to ignore it will deny its existence, but I am grateful for his well-wishing. It reminds me that I am becoming an object of interest to those around me, and I vow that I will not be a burden. I will not be an embarrassment. I will not drag Owen to the depths of despair, where he cannot reach me, and I cannot reach him. It is time for me to take the step I have had in my mind for some months.

Owen reads it in my mind.

‘Don’t leave me, Katherine,’ he whispers against my throat when we lie together on that final morning as the sun rises, as if he can read my intent. ‘We have had so little time together. Six years out of a whole lifetime.’

‘My love.’ I kiss his lips. ‘Enough time for me to bear you three fine sons.’

I catch my breath as I do not speak Tacinda’s name. She died, leaving us within the first year of her fragile life. It is a pain in my heart that cannot be healed, but with my lover’s arms around me I smile, my face turned into his hair. How handsome he is. How I love him. This man who has taught me what love can be like between a man and a woman who trust each other infinitely.

I run my hands softly over the fine bones of his face, smoothing the dark brows, combing my fingers through his magnificent hair. I trace the well-moulded lips, the flare of his straight nose; I press my mouth against his. I need to fix his beloved features in my mind so that they will not fade.

‘Stay, Katherine. I will be with you.’

There is more urgency in his voice now, and his arms band tighter round me. So he knows.

‘I am afraid,’ I say.

‘No need. I love you more than life. I’ll let no harm come to you.’

‘But you cannot stop it. How can you stand before the approaching storm and will it to disperse, my dear love? How can you scatter the winds that will destroy all we have together?’

‘Stay with me,’ he insists, lips warm and persuasive. ‘With our children.’

And I allow myself, for that one brief day, to be persuaded. His love is as potent as strong wine. Of course he will keep me safe.

‘I will stay,’ I promise.

His mouth demands, his body possesses with all the old energy and he enfolds me in love.

‘We will live for ever, Katherine. We will grow old and see our children grow strong and wed.’ And then the softest of whispers. ‘I cannot live without you.’

I hear the desperation in his voice.

‘Or I you,’ I reply. How will I exist without him?

Next morning he is gone, on some weighty errand of business, and my thoughts run clear again.

‘I will return by noon,’ he says, his hand on mine. ‘I will return as soon as I can.’

‘Yes,’ I reply. I fashion a smile and return his clasp.

As soon as he is gone, my eyes blind with tears, I order up my litter. I will need no belongings so I pack nothing. While I have my wits, I will determine my future: I will impose no unnecessary grief on those I love. My mind skitters back to that terrible time when I took the decision to set Owen free because I could not contemplate the anguish of his death, only to return to him when we found a way out together, a solution that our minds could fathom and apply.