‘But would such penance absolve me of my sin? I think I need to kneel at your feet in reparation.’ He had the grace to blush as he crossed the space between us and gathered my hands into his. ‘I am deep in love with you, Katherine de Swynford. I love you in every way known to man. Before God, you are my soul, and I will love you and serve you as long as there is breath in my body to do so.’

The Duke might not kneel but the tension between us was beginning to dissipate and I could breathe again. The sheer intensity of that avowal made me shiver, which he felt through our joined hands, so that he raised them to his lips, softening his tone, but his words remained unsparing of himself.

‘My insensitivity unmans me. Tonight it had to be laid out in plain sight, for Constanza to know. And for you too. This life of constant subterfuge and pretence that we were forced to lead was hurting you. I could not permit it.’ He raised a hand to my cheek, the gentlest of caresses with the tips of his fingers. ‘My beloved…I need Constanza as she needs me, to preserve a public face for my household and for England. You know that she must always have a place in my life—it is vital that you accept that.’ His clasp on my hands tightened painfully. ‘Because if you cannot it will continue to damage what is between us.’

His sigh was barely perceptible, as he sought for the words to state what he knew he must.

‘All I know is that you, Katherine de Swynford, are a constant flame of light in my life. You are as necessary to me as the sun rising at the start of each new morn. You are the one I think about at the end of a day when we are apart. You are the one who is there in my mind on waking. You are ever-present when my mind slides from the demands of duty. Never think that I do not love you, or that you mean less to me than the woman joined to me by law. You mean more.’ His kissed my lips, the most fleeting of caresses. ‘So much more. I cannot help myself. Nor would I wish to.’

‘Hold me,’ I said, completely overwhelmed.

And he did, but lightly, as if still uncertain of the events he had set in motion.

‘I know you doubt me. I understand now why you believe your feet to be on an unsafe path. I did not see the difficulties for you at the beginning when I took you simply because I wanted you. You intrigued me, you roused a need to protect you, I desired you with a passion that scorched like a strike of lightning fire. But, to my everlasting shame, I had no intention of laying my heart at your feet. You once accused me of lust, and so it was. Will you forgive me? But here my heart is: I give it to you.’ He flattened our joined hands against the gilded emblems on his breast. ‘My love for you will never die, that I swear. Let your heart rest, Katherine. You are mine, and I am yours.’

He tilted his head, as if to read my expression.

I doubted that he could. My own thoughts were still in turmoil.

‘But if remaining here is too hard for you to bear,’ he continued, ‘then you must leave me. I will not ask you to withstand more than you are able. My love for you is great enough to let you go, if that is what you wish, my dearest love. And whatever your decision, you will have my regard and my loyalty until the day that death claims me. You will have my love for all time.’

There it was, the offer to soothe my heart, even though, in denial of his words, his fingers linked with mine as if they would never release me. Was it not the supreme extent of his love? To give the choice back to me, with all his magnanimity.

And what of me?

Freeing myself from the embrace I had desired, creating a necessary distance, I looked at the man who offered me all I could ever dream of, seeing first the unquestionable authority of a royal Plantagenet in the ceremonial tunic, the jewelled chain, the layering of fur on silk damask, the sword still clipped to his side. And then the handsome man who drew all eyes, fine features, dark hair highlighted with russet tones, compelling eyes. And at last the man I knew when passion claimed him, a man with clever hands and outrageous pride but an understanding that few would guess at. He was the man I loved.

I saw it all. I heard the Duke’s avowal of love. All I had ever wanted was here in the palms of his hands, offered to me. The depth of love that the Duke had once given to Duchess Blanche, that I had believed could never be mine, had been expressed so plainly for me—for me!—that I could not mistake it. It was like unwrapping a Twelfth Night gift, to discover a treasure I had coveted but believed I could never own. And there it was, shining and impossibly precious. The Duke of Lancaster loved me.

Raw astonishment, and a strange incapacity to absorb what I had desired for so long, still rendered me mute.

By now the Duke of Lancaster’s eyes were alight with singular impatience.

‘Tell me, Katherine. Tell me what you wish to do. Can you live here with me, in the same household as my wife, with some degree of peace of mind?’ The lines between his brows became even more clearly etched. ‘Don’t, in God’s name, tell me you need to borrow a book of French poetry to help you decide. I won’t lend it. You must know your own mind by now.’

Which made me inhale sharply in exasperation. Had I not lived with the knowledge of my love for him for so long, afraid to speak of it aloud? I had controlled my words, my responses, masking any emotion as dangerous as love behind light dalliance, for fear that he did not desire something so oppressive as love from me, and here was the Duke, in this moment of his own blinding awareness of love’s power, demanding an instant response from me.

‘No, I don’t want a book of French poetry,’ I said with enough asperity to catch his attention. ‘And yes, I do know my own mind. I have known it longer than you, it seems. There’s no need for you to berate me for being astounded by your ducal decree.’

‘What have I said? Can you not love me enough?’ he demanded, unconsciously arrogant, brows flattening ominously. ‘Or will you go back to that benighted spot in Lincolnshire that owns your allegiance? By the Rood, Katherine! I think I should never have offered you your freedom, because you might just take it. I think, in fact, that I will rescind it and command you stay with me.’

‘Command me? What of this love you have just discovered, that is strong enough to let me go if that is my wish?’ With laughter in my heart as I acknowledged that the Duke would never change, I stepped forward to grip his sleeves. ‘I cannot leave you. You know that I cannot,’ I cried, the words tumbling from my lips. ‘For I love you, John. I have always loved you, and I always will, however hard it is to live with you.’ And then, when I allowed the exasperation to return and hold sway: ‘How could you not know it? It must have been written on my face, in every kiss, every caress. I carried a son for you. How could you be so very blind?’

‘I have no excuse to offer,’ he replied tersely. ‘You never said that you did.’

‘Because I couldn’t compromise you with a burden that you might not want. But I say it now, so that you are blind no longer and must, perforce, carry the burden as I do, for I declare that my love for you is not a negligible offering. I love you, John. I return your love in equal measure. And I will live with you. Is that what you wish to hear?’

For a long moment he stared at me as I had stared at him.

‘Tell me, John,’ I ordered, as he had demanded from me.

And at last there was a smile in his eyes. ‘I deserve your censure, don’t I? I have been so very wrong, Katherine. Do you have the generosity of spirit to forgive my blindness?’

‘Do you have to ask?’

The distance between us was closed, his hands clasping my shoulders.

‘There will be no turning back for either of us. There can be no more insecurities between us. Yes, we will continue to hold fast to discretion, but my people will know that you are the woman I have placed at the centre of my life, because, before God, I realised tonight that my love for you is more precious than even the crown of Castile.’

Sliding smoothly, so that my heart quivered with it, the Duke’s hands stroked slowly down the length of my arms to take possession of my hands, and I clung to them as he said all the words I had yearned to hear, savouring every nuance of this breathtaking proclamation of his love for me.

The Duke bared his soul to me that night.

‘What shall I say to you? What troubadour’s fripperies would you like to hear?’

‘“I love you, Katherine,” would be a good place to begin.’

And at last his face was illumined with laughter. ‘I love you, Katherine.’

The fewest words. The simplest, most beautiful words. What a magnificent assertion it was, to fill all the cavities of my mind and heart with inexpressible delight. This was the value of his love, the fortune in gold coin he was returning to me. Joy unfurled its wings within my breast and took flight.

When he held out his hand in invitation, when, without hesitation, I placed mine there, with a little bow he led my towards my bed where the covers had already been drawn back, as if to celebrate a bridal. Turning me again, he began to unbraid my hair, then to untie the laces of my court dress.

‘Would you have refused to let me go?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

It was unequivocal.

‘I am not your legal wife.’

Still I felt the need to say it, to force him to acknowledge in cold reasoning rather than haughty pride what we were doing. Constanza had never intruded so forcefully into our lives as she had that night. Every servant, every official, every member of the household at Kenilworth would know by the morning in whose bed the Duke of Lancaster had spent the night hours.

‘But I will make it as if you were. This night. This moment.’

Laying aside my precious sleeves, folding the weight of my skirts, he proceeded to lavish kisses on my shoulders, my throat, a prelude to the delights that were to follow. Legality was not in my mind, nor the whisperings within the walls of Kenilworth. I had chosen to be with the man I loved beyond all things when I made that decision in the library at The Savoy, with all its promise of present passion but ultimate heartbreak. Now I had made that choice again, with pride, with calm acceptance and clear-sightedness.

‘I will never leave you. Nor will you leave me,’ the Duke said as the light of morning touched the sky.

‘I will not. I will never leave you,’ I repeated.

‘Do you suppose love outlives death?’ he asked.

‘We will prove that it does.’

How love illuminates, so that we shine like the angels in heaven. My love for the Duke was strong enough to carry me through that day and all that followed. His for me, superbly, had been flung down like a gauntlet, and I rejoiced.

We would be together in happiness for as long as fate allowed.




Chapter Eleven

‘What is happening in France? Is Castile invaded yet?’