No one believed it would last beyond the length of the Princess’s sojourn with the aggrieved parties, even though hands were briefly clasped between uncle and nephew and smiles forced.

‘Like new cloth stitched to an old gambeson, that will rip apart the first time you raise your arm to draw a sword,’ John Holland grimaced. ‘Which Richard is more than capable of doing, by God.’

In blind rage, Richard had drawn cold steel against the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Never again would I close my eyes to what was happening to the disparate strands of our family. Yet, anxious as I was, I snatched at happiness and clung with a bold tenacity. Why would I not? I had learnt the frailty of life, the chancy basis of power, when faced with the King’s intolerance. I had no influence to bear on the rift between King and Duke, all I could do was watch and worry, and I did.

My education in the art of giving and receiving kisses was thorough. And highly enjoyable.



Chapter Six

1385, Windsor Castle

It was not a gentle courtship, for what we were intent on was forbidden and perilous. How to conduct a dangerous intimacy in the public eye, with absolutely no privacy to be had within the royal court in those days when we were swamped with preparations for Richard’s Scottish war? Not a love affair on my part, I argued, but an increasing fascination, an entrancement, a fiery passion that heated my blood and drenched my dreams in longing. But what of John Holland? He was hunting impatiently and in earnest, and left me in no doubt of it.

‘An annulment!’ he breathed sacrilegiously at High Mass under the soaring roof of St George’s Chapel, as the host was raised. ‘Get an annulment and wed me.’

My silence was my refusal. Too far. Too fast. I might yearn to know more than chaste kisses with this man, but annulment was impossible. The Duke would never agree. As for committing the great sin of carnal knowledge in the Holland bed, the imagining was one thing, the doing of it quite another.

‘I’ll be the husband you need, a man who will treasure you, revere you. Not a boy who sees you as sister rather than wife.’

How alike his voice was to that of Princess Joan when intent on persuasion. Smooth and melodious, impossible to withstand. How many times did he urge me to seek an audience with the Duke, a request with which I could not comply? I would not present my father with yet another burden. There must be no further scandals to stir the witches’ broth of court intrigue. For the Duke’s daughter to become embroiled in lascivious marital complications would be selfish indeed.

‘You’re not afraid of my temper, are you?’ he demanded with more than a hint of it.

‘Certainly not!’

‘I’ll never let it harm you. And I won’t give up. I’ll hound you until you give in.’

‘I know you will.’

‘I’ll tumble you into my bed before you can blink.’

‘But not today.’

‘What do you want from me, Elizabeth?’ How many times did he pose that question, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with an edge of impatience. More than once in anger.

‘I don’t know.’

How many times did I reply in kind, my future being a swirl of grey mist where nothing was certain. All I knew was that I wanted what we had at that moment.

‘Let me show you how much I love you.’

I could not take that final step.

‘Then do I let you go?’

‘No.’

I could neither live with him nor without him. So this half-life was all I had.

‘Will I still be sneaking into corners to meet you when I am too old to climb onto my horse?’ he asked, not entirely in jest. I felt his desire in his hands, his mouth, and the quizzical expression as he gripped my shoulders and dragged me close. ‘Why do I love you when you are so intransigent? Could I not find an easier woman to love?’

‘Perhaps you could,’ I challenged, a little disconcerted, turning my face away. ‘I’m certain you would entrap a goodly number of handsome women who would fly to your lure. Perhaps you should go and do it now, before you march north. I will not hinder you, but accept our light liaison as a mere pleasant experience.’

Which made him grin, all irritation vanished in a blink of an eye. ‘You wouldn’t like that at all if I did, Countess. Nor would I, God help me. I am forced to admit that for reasons I cannot comprehend, you are the one woman I love. I might wish it otherwise but you are lodged in my heart.’ He turned my chin with his hand and planted a final kiss on my lips. ‘And you’ll regret spurning me if I meet my death on a Scottish battlefield.’

‘You wouldn’t have the temerity to die in battle!’ I replied smartly.

Yet it was a worry that wriggled under my skin, for unseeing though I was of the future, I was helplessly trapped in the net of his deliberate campaign. And what an adventurous campaign it was, unfolding day after day through the endless banquets hosted by Richard, when my importunate lover and I were seated under the canopy of state on the dais as royal family, and I, forsooth, did nothing to spurn him.

What could not be achieved under the auspices of a formal banquet?

It astonished me, and I participated with relish.

The words we exchanged between this and that interminable course might be innocent, but our gestures were heavy with meaning. My appetite for food fled; for the company of John Holland it burgeoned, as in the days after a Lenten fast when the tongue craves rich sweetness. We might indeed fast from physical touch, but his wooing of my senses wound them tight, like a thread on a distaff, so that all I desired was to be in his company. I was lured to him with every breath, every clever ruse employed by John Holland to weaken my resolve not to cast myself entirely into his power.

‘May I tempt you, my lady?’

A gobbet of delicate roast heron presented to me on the point of a knife. A spoonful of spiced quince dumpling handed to me—who was to know the spoon, the silver prettily chased with an E, was a gift from him to me? It made me laugh, although I would not explain. Would this spoon be long enough for my supping? Oh, I prayed that it was. And then there was the stare that caught mine and would not release me, shielded by the magnificent tail of Richard’s stuffed peacock.

‘You are the most beautiful creature here today. Except for this poor bird before us, stripped and stuffed back into its skin.’

Which made me laugh. And if that were not enough, it was the comfits and hippocras of the voidee, served only to the pre-eminent guests, that heated my limbs with an inappropriate stroke of lust. And the wordless toast in the spiced wine.

I was truly enamoured.

And finally: ‘God keep you safe, Elizabeth, when I cannot.’ A mark of possession, uttered as the chaplain brought the feast to an end with fulsome prayers. The solemn pronouncement stirred my senses as the chaplain’s did not.

‘May the Blessed Virgin keep you in her heart and smile on you,’ I replied in a furtive whisper, when I would rather be kissing him and he kissing me. ‘May she bring you back safe from war, without harm.’

And then innocence was abandoned, along with the bones thrown to the dogs, for Richard’s march to intimidate and harry the Scots was imminent.

‘And if I’m so preserved, perhaps you might consider celebrating with me between my sheets,’ he murmured sotto voce, under a swell of minstrel enthusiasm from the gallery above our heads.

‘I am a respectable wife,’ I mouthed back.

‘Sadly not mine.’

Thus the tenor of what was for me an illumination, like entering a light-filled room from dark antechamber, into how physical desire could colour every action, every sentiment uttered; and what for John Holland was a determined seduction.

‘You are my Holy Grail.’

‘I am no such thing!’

‘I am embarked on my life’s quest to win you. No castle will be impregnable to my assault.’

My cheeks were on fire. I could find no denial. Silently I wished him every success in storming his castle walls.

Ultimately, lingeringly, forlornly, clinging to what solace I could, I kissed John Holland, safe from prying eyes at the foot of the outer staircase to his room. In public I made a decorous farewell to the King, my father and brother and my would-be lover as they rode out to war. Generations of Lancaster women had been waving their menfolk off to war, as did I, with a bright smile and dread in my belly. I forgave John his preoccupations.

Philippa kept her own council other than to remark at regular intervals: ‘I don’t know what he means to you, but why will you still play with fire? I pray that you will not be singed beyond bearing.’

‘And I pray for you a husband, as soon as the Duke returns,’ I replied, my own temper short in those days when we received no news. ‘Then you will know that sometimes playing with fire is as essential as breathing.’

I was already mightily singed. Jonty, far to the north in Kenilworth, retired into the shadows. John Holland, even further away in Scotland under the royal banner, stood in my mind in the full rays of the noon-day sun.

Our military force finally departing to the north, I prayed daily for their deliverance from our enemy the Scots. Not that I needed to wear out my petitions on my knees, when the proud advance fast deteriorated into a humiliating retreat, Richard being the first to return to London. Relief laid its hand on me. The rest of our men would follow and soon I would see John again.