How cold, how flat the statement of our relationship, yet there was fire in his eye. Assuring myself that we had no audience:

‘I am afraid,’ I announced baldly.

‘Afraid? Of what?’

‘Rejection.’

‘God’s Blood, Katherine!’

‘I see your affection for the Duchess growing stronger. I fear I am superfluous,’ I said. ‘I expect it is the penalty a mistress must pay if she is absent for the months of childbirth.’

‘What penalty? There is none, except of your own making. You have closed your door against me!’

‘And you defended the Duchess quite superbly,’ I retaliated. ‘I recall perfectly. She is your wife and mistress in the eye of God and Man.’

‘Ah, so that’s it! Constanza’s childish game-playing!’ His brows continued to express disbelief. ‘What would you have me do? Open you both to scandal through some malicious game?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Constanza is my wife.’

‘I know she is.’

‘She deserves my respect.’

‘I have always known that too,’ I said, withdrawing behind my bulwarks in the face of such obvious statements.

‘And I have always been honest about my marriage to Constanza. What do you want from me, Katherine?’

There was the direct attack I had expected. I thought about this. How difficult to explain, but I did so with all the self-possession I had held to in past days.

‘I share your bed, my lord. I have carried your child. I think I need to know that you still need me in your life, that I am not here as some passing pleasure when the mood takes you.’

‘Reassurance?’ The attack was still dynamic, his jaw taut with annoyance at his inability to wear me down as he had hoped. ‘Is that what you want? You have it, Katherine. I never promised you more than what I give you now.’

‘You did not promise me anything.’ Oh, I was calm, if perhaps not altogether fair.

‘There is no more that I can promise you. What do you ask of me?’

‘Nothing that is not of your own volition,’ I replied bleakly, as I held out the book. ‘Take it. I am in no mood for love poetry.’

‘I never do anything not of my own volition.’ His arrogance was truly impressive.

‘I know. Nor do I question your authority.’ I lifted my eyes to his and held his dark stare and spoke the words that had lived with me for so long. ‘I also know, my lord, that not once in all the time we have been together have you ever said that you love me. You speak of need and desire. Of passion. But not of love.’ I touched my tongue to dry lips, appalled at my courage, yet I repeated the fear at the centre of my heart. ‘You lavish words of romance and yearning on me. You kiss me and cherish me, but never have you spoken of what is in your heart. I have never asked it of you, but never have you offered me love.’

The Duke looked as if I had doused him in icy water, the planes of his face flattening under the unexpected. He was certainly stuck dumb.

‘I expect that is because, for you, it does not exist.’

Then, when he took the book, frowning, rather than have me drop it onto the beautifully patterned tiles at his feet, I walked away, more despairing than I had ever been since I stood in my courtyard with flood-water lapping round my ankles. Nothing was settled between us. The emotion that I took to bed with me that night was one of raw distress that I had compromised my principles for nothing in the end, because he would send me away.

He has given his son into your keeping. He trusts you to educate his daughters and the heir to the great Lancaster inheritance. His physical desire for you is as strong as it ever was. You cannot doubt him.

But I did. He did not love me. I waited for formal dismissal: it might suit the ducal pair very well. My deliberate challenge to the Duke’s legendary sangfroid might just tip the balance.




Chapter Ten

‘To my fair wife who had given me an equally beautiful daughter. Today we celebrate them both, particularly Katalina on this first commemoration of the day of her birth a year ago.’ He smiled down at Constanza who had her eyes trained on her clasped hands. ‘We hope for a restoration of Castile for our daughter’s future dowry when we look for a husband for her.’ He smiled, as did the guests. ‘A little young as yet but one day…’

He drank and passed the cup to Constanza, who at last looked up and, inclining her head graciously at the Duke, she drank too. There was a glow in her eye.

‘And we hope for a son to become King of Castile in my name,’ she added, her voice vibrating with emotion. ‘Do we not, my lord?’

‘So we hope.’ He bowed gravely, raising her fingers to his lips, whilst I clenched mine against an all-too-recognisable bolt of pure envy. What a wearying emotion it was, but I could not shake myself free of it.

‘It is my life’s work to take back your kingdom, my lady.’

‘And to provide me with an heir,’ she reiterated.

‘We would both welcome the birth of a son.’

I sat, conscious of my magnificence in my new rose-pink sleeves, extravagantly embroidered and edged in thick sable, conscious also of Lady Alice’s warning to be wary, to keep my jealous inclinations under control. Consequently my nails dug painfully into my palms, until we were summoned to echo the toast, raising our cups to fill the room with an oscillating sheen of gold as the candles warmed the precious metals.

No sign of Lady Alice’s doom and gloom for the marriage here. At the same time my position was still secure in our removal to Kenilworth. The Duchess was more than content. I was no longer even sure that she saw me as a rival to the Duke’s affections. I began to relax with a cup of good Bordeaux at my elbow. As I sipped it, it seemed that she was not even aware, and that my suspicions of the night of the charade were misplaced.

The banquet was drawing to a close, the musicians and entertainers, jugglers and dancers who had so fascinated the ducal children were praised and paid, and as a final flourish, Katalina was brought in by Alyne, her small form clad incongruously from head to toe in Castilian heraldic motifs. We drank a toast, admired the baby heir to Castile (until a brother was born), and the gathering began to disperse.

For a moment Constanza remained on the dais with her damsels, working the delicate material of her skirt loose from where it had caught in the high carving of her chair. She smiled at her ladies, her voice as it carried to me light and happy. It had been a good evening. The servants were beginning to clear the tables, folding the no-longer-white cloth from the dais table with a snap of fine linen.

I stepped into my place in the procession behind my sister with thoughts on the dancing in the room that had just seen extravagant completion in the Duke’s building schemes.

‘Katherine de Swynford.’

The Duchess’s voice carried from the dais with as great a clarity as the Duke’s.

I turned, curtsied with a polite smile, my senses lulled by good food and music and the potency of the Bordeaux. ‘My lady?’