It could not have been stated more succinctly, even though his voice was rough-edged as he came to stand before me.

‘Does that satisfy you?’

‘Yes.’

Lightly I ran my fingers over the gleaming links, but, still in the grip of emotion, he pulled away to stride to the empty hearth.

‘So. To return to your presence here. Are you returning those?’ he asked over his shoulder as he retrieved his cup and refilled it, then emptying it in one long swallow, wiping his mouth with his hand. ‘If so, you’ve done it, so go away and leave me in peace.’

And this time he tossed the empty cup on the hearth where it shattered, shards of the glazed pottery spread wide. It could all end here, all the tantalising dreams demolished. Is that what I wanted? Would that not be the best outcome after all?

Go. Go back to Hertford.

There was not one of my family that would advise me otherwise.

‘I was going to return the gifts,’ I stated carefully, still holding the infuriating birds. ‘I thought it was a complication I did not need in my life. But I need to know.’

‘What do you need to know, apart from whether I murdered the hapless friar?’

‘If you meant what you wrote with the worthless trifles.’

‘Yes. Why else would I write them?’

‘Were they worthless?’ Abandoning the finches, walking forward to stand in front of him again, I looked up into his face. Our eyes were not quite on a level. I had forgotten how tall he was, how effortlessly he could dominate a room, a conversation. But I did not want flippancy. I wanted honesty.

‘Were they worthless to you?’ John Holland looked at me, questioning me, the careless violence now in check, the anger gradually draining, so that I could see the tension in his body relax, the tempestuous passions gone at last. ‘What do you want from me, Elizabeth?

‘I am not entirely sure. But I thought I should put you right on one matter.’ He tilted his chin as I drew from my sleeve a bunch of rue that I tucked into the links of the livery chain. ‘You were wrong to send me rue with no inscription. Rue is not only an expression of regret and goodbye. It is powerful protection.’ I had used my time well amongst the ancient works in my father’s library at Hertford. ‘It claims a healing power against all manner of poison and the evil eye. I think you might need it, as matters stand at court.’

He laughed softly.

‘So you came to put me right, Madam Elizabeth.’

‘I thought I should.’

I was trembling at what I had done, at what I was hoping for.

‘You might not know your own mind, but I know what I want.’ His voice had become as gentle as the soft paw of a kitten. How silver-tongued he could be when he chose. ‘There is no ending, no regret between us. There is only what we choose to make of the future.’

‘I think I am afraid,’ I admitted.

‘What need? Our future is ours for the making.’ My hands were back in his, held firmly. ‘Get an annulment and let us join hands. Enough of wooing. Let me show you our future unwinding before us.’

Drawing me forward he bent his head and touched his lips to mine, a momentary brush of mouth against mouth, when I had expected something of an onslaught.

‘I have discovered a desire in me, a desire far too strong for my own good, I expect,’ he said. ‘I would sweep you up, but must remind myself of your inexperience.’

Never had I expected him to offer such a declaration. ‘Do you desire me?’ I asked, startled into so clumsy a question.

He kissed me again, lingeringly this time, invitingly, and I allowed it with warmth spreading down to my feet, until he raised his head, and waited.

‘You have to reply in kind,’ he advised when I remained mute, conscious only of the jolt of pure desire. ‘Have the troubadours taught you nothing?’

I struggled to explain, helplessly. ‘I think that I have … that I have a desire for you too.’

Which made him laugh. ‘Well, that will not move the earth as a declaration. Another kiss perhaps.’ Which he applied with some fervour. And another until all thoughts were driven from my head. Then: ‘What made you change your mind?’

‘I didn’t. I haven’t.’ How foolish such a denial when my lips were warm, my blood a drum-beat in my ears. ‘Even at the last moment, as I stood outside your door, I came to say it must stop.’

‘How you compromise the truth, Countess! I don’t believe you. Why not just kept the fairings without any commitment, or send your serving woman to deliver them and leave them outside my door?’

His smile was like a blessing, the return of his seductive tone a joy to me.

‘I always tell the truth.’ I smiled.

‘Then you are unlike any other woman I know.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you. The finches are a nuisance. I had to return them.’

‘You could have given them to Constanza rather than bring them all the way to Sheen.’ He kissed me again, tempting me to kiss him back, which I did. My education in the arts of love was being extended by the minute.

‘What made you change your mind, my wanton love?’ he asked, placing me a little distance away from him.

So in the end I told him as much as I was prepared to say, only a portion of the truth, but all I would admit to him.

‘It was the glove. You returned it, to restore the pair, two halves of a whole.’ It seemed to me a reasonable argument that he might accept.

‘Is that what we are?’ The tilt of his head was encouraging.

‘So I think. I might be certain if you kissed me again.’

I did not tell him the full truth of it, as he was pleased to humour me with a succession of kisses. I would not. As I knew full well, there was the threat of too much pain in this relationship, for both of us, and yet I was drawn into it beyond all the teachings of my young years. All my good intentions had been cast aside.

What was it that I had seen that day at Sheen that had shaken my determination to reject John Holland’s gifts and his professed desire to know me more intimately? Standing in the doorway of Richard’s audience chamber, I had become aware of such bitterness, such strife that would destroy the unity of those I loved. Henry deliberately absent. Constanza lonely, succoured only by prayer and futile ambition at Hertford. Richard and the Duke at lethal odds. Philippa unhappy in her unwedded state. Dame Katherine rejected and isolated in Lincoln. And I in the grip of a loveless and hopeless marriage.

Was happiness to be discovered anywhere, for any of us? What an untrustworthy emotion it was. And how ephemeral in its power. In the face of such a vast well of despair, how could I not decide to seize the chance of happiness with a man I believed had more than an affection for me? A man who might just touch my soul?

And so my father’s warnings were swept aside along with my brother’s disapproval, my new political awareness tucked away in a coffer like an unwanted gift of a bodice that did not become me. Yes, it was wrong. Yes, it would bring down a maelstrom of horrified accusations upon us if we were anything less than discreet. And yes, there were clear bounds to this relationship beyond which I would not yet go. But the delight when John Holland kissed me erased all sense of duty and honour and loyalty. All I had been raised to believe to be acceptable for a daughter of the Duke of Lancaster was scattered like blossoms in a high gale, and all for the sake of John Holland. As our families strained under increasing acrimony, we would acknowledge our attraction to each other.

And here was the true reason for my present embrace within the confines of John Holland’s arms. The Duke would be appalled if he knew the exact moment when this change of heart had been born. He would condemn me utterly, but there he himself stood at the very centre of my decision, for I had seen the pain on my father’s face as he had walked from that audience chamber. A proud man, a clever man, a man who wielded authority with all the confidence of his royal blood, never had I seen the Duke wear his years with such anguish as when his life’s work to guide Richard seemed to be over with such a brutal exchange of accusation and counter accusation. I had seen how alone and isolated he was in that Great Hall at Sheen, ripped apart from his royal duty on one side, and from the woman he loved on the other.

How important was Dame Katherine to my father?

She was the reason he lived and breathed, and how ardently he mourned her loss. It was written in the grooves that marked his brow and indented his lips. And now, searching John Holland’s saturnine expression, I let my thoughts settle, fitting together into a plain pattern. How important was this enchantment that called to my heart? If I was fortunate to discover it I must not let it go. I would never find it with Jonty. But it seemed that I had found it, even in the few hours we had spent together, with John Holland.

Oh, I was not blind. John Holland had a temper that could gallop like a frenzied horse, coupled with an ungovernable restlessness more powerful than mine. He was a law unto none but his own ambitions. He could use words to flatter or destroy. Could I love a man such as this? Could I ever, with a whole heart, trust him?

But there was also, I believed, an unquestionable streak of loyalty in him. In receipt of my father’s annuity, he had stood for him against his own brother. How hard must that have been? Here was a man of some tenacity of mind, a man I could admire.

Then again—did I want a man to woo me who had blood on his hands, by his own admission?

‘One thing …’ I said, closing my fingers around his wrist as he finally led me to the door.

‘Another question?’

There had to be, a final laying to rest of the events of that day, but I hoped I could read John Holland accurately enough to anticipate his reply. If I could not, then all my decision making was in vain ‘Was there any evidence at all that the friar’s tale was true? That my father was involved in a plot against Richard? Was the friar’s death worth the doing?’

‘None.’ His eyes were without shadow, without deceit. ‘There was none at all. It was a plot against the Duke by his enemies. Your father is without blame.’ A final kiss, still beautifully controlled but with the promise of more. ‘Now go, before we compromise your sparkling reputation further.’

He filled my youthful heart with joy. It was as if a candle had been lit to illuminate every vista as I walked back to my own rooms, my waiting woman carrying the coffer and the finches, to hang them once again in the window, their twittering a symbol of my choice.

‘I see we are still saddled with those creatures,’ Philippa observed. ‘Does that mean that your meeting with Sir John was to your liking rather than mine?’

‘Perhaps.’

I would tell no one. Not yet. Not while it was still so new and bright and yet so dangerous.

‘I will pray that the Blessed Virgin protect you.’

But from what I was entirely uncertain.

I fell into pensive mood. Why this man? Why was John Holland, of all the courtiers I knew, able to demand my attention? Even to lure me into impropriety?

Was it his unquestionably handsome features? I did not think so. There were many pretty creatures at Richard’s court who stirred no emotion within me unless it was envy of the gleam of their hair or the length of their eyelashes.

Perhaps, then, it was his presence, the impact of his will, even when unspoken. But I had been used to that all my life. No one could compare with my father for making an entrance, and Henry bode fair to match him. Why should I be drawn to John Holland’s bold demeanour?

His skills in the jousting were incomparable. The lithe, muscular strength, the practised agility, the flamboyant display of pure talent all made other women sigh too, but that was no reason for me to abandon all I knew of behaviour suitable for a Plantagenet daughter. Why not just sit and admire? No need to endanger my reputation for kisses with a tournament champion who had a host of women willing to humour him.

A reputation for wild intransigence, was, of course, always attractive in a handsome man, but was that enough?

John Holland was beautiful, intemperate and self-aware. He was clever and headstrong and mercurial and …

And it came to me, so that I laughed a little. He was very like me. Was I not the same wilful creature? Was this, then, a simple matter of like attracting like?

I gave up on my tortuous thoughts. Whatever the cause, when John Holland entered a room I was aware of no one else.

Meanwhile, in the environs of the court, it was like walking on icy pathways, a fatal slide and slip possible at any moment to cast us all into a welter of blood and treason. But, in the usual manner of courtly circumspection, when the alternative was too dangerous to contemplate, relations were patched and mended when we left Sheen to take up residence within the stark walls of Westminster Palace. The chill formality of the rooms might match the general mood, but Princess Joan, descending in a glory of green silk, heaved herself from her litter and took her royal son to task, not mincing her words. Of necessity the Duke swallowed his pride to meet the King in a sour spirit of reconciliation.