‘I was instructed to deliver this to your hand, my lady.’

I took it, and the opportunity to turn my back on the chitterlings, except that they no longer seemed to matter. The letter took all my attention for the inscription was in the Duke’s own even script. I opened the cover to find a single page. It was strikingly brief, as if written under duress with haste a necessity. It lacked even a superscription, such as my name.

Do not leave Pontefract. I command it. You must not leave until I can come to you.

And, below, a scrawled signature.

The Duke was coming. He was coming to me.

Rereading it took no time at all. Nor did my decision-making on the strength of this imperious command. I had no intention of leaving. There were things that I needed to say.

A movement at my side made me look up to see the cook, cleaver gripped firmly, watching me. So was the courier, if less overtly. It would be far easier to slink away, back to Kettlethorpe, where I might lick my wounds in private without too many prurient eyes watching my every move. Eyes that, as now, were keen to strip the flesh from my bones.

‘Will you sit, my lady?’

What emotions had the cook read chasing across my features? I shook my head but I took the cup of ale he proffered and sipped, feeling the blood flow back beneath my skin at cheek and temple. No, I would not run away to Kettlethorpe. I had been Lancaster’s lover for nine years, I had borne him four children. I would wait and hear what he had to say. I would not weep at his feet as, the rumours said, Constanza had done when they met on the road. The emotionally vivid account of their passionate reconciliation had reduced me to unutterable fury.

It swept through me again now, and I cast the letter into the fire in a fit of pique, noting with satisfaction that the wax image of John of Lancaster, King of Castile, surrounded by all the accoutrements of his authority, melted away to nothing in the flames.

What could he say to me that would reinstate him in my good graces? Could I ever forgive him for what he had done?

‘Was it important, my lady?’ The cook, abandoning his cleaver, nudged me to sit. I must appear to be more fragile than I thought.

‘No. Not important at all,’ I said with an attempt at a smile. And I did sit, for my legs seemed to have no strength.

But I would wait. I would be here when he arrived. And I might listen.




Chapter Fourteen

‘You waited until I came.’

‘As you see.’

It was not an opening that boded well for what was to follow. The courtyard was grey and glistening with the earlier heavy rain that still pattered on my head and shoulders as if in a final lingering defiance. Much like my own frame of mind. I would not take shelter until he had dismounted, even though it was to my discomfort. I would wait as he had instructed. I would be calm, obedient, open to his persuasion. I forced myself to stand and observe with commendable dispassion as he swung down from the saddle and gave his reins to his squire. Throughout all his movements his eyes had not left my face.

It had crossed my mind that I should stay in my chamber. That I should keep him waiting. But that, I decided, would be a sign of immaturity. I would acknowledge his arrival, as I had so many times before. I would listen to what he had to say.

The Duke signalled for his retinue to dismount and take shelter.

‘I note the castle is well garrisoned.’

As well he might. It was bristling with military.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘We received your orders.’

Apart from my one line of instruction, it had been the only direct communication between the Duke and Pontefract throughout all those difficult weeks. His gaze continued to hold mine as I allowed the silence between us to lengthen. Even in the courtyard with all the noise and bustle of the Duke’s dispersing entourage, I felt the power of his regard. It made me shiver. Not from pleasure, as once it might. I kept the contact, every muscle in my body braced against what was to come.

I had expected him to look weary, from travel, from the shock of such vehement hatred flung at him by the rebels. From the loss of his most beloved possession, The Savoy. Even from the acknowledgement that his life had actually been in danger at the hands of Englishmen. In the blackest corner of my damaged heart I hoped that he would look at least careworn. If I felt older than my thirty-two years, why should not he, at a decade older? I resented the little lines that had become ingrained between my brows, the smudge of shadows beneath my eyes from lack of sleep. My mirror was no longer my friend. As I stood there in that inhospitable courtyard, growing wetter by the minute, I studied his face, a very female resentment building as my gown clung in sodden folds.

Why did I not have the sense to go inside?

Because I had anticipated this meeting for so long. I had longed for it as much as I had feared it. I knew that what had been between me and the Duke of Lancaster, the overwhelming emotion that had encompassed us in the face of all tenets of morality and good judgement, would never be the same again. I could not retreat from it.

And so I took in every inch of him as he stood a good arm’s length from me, remarking that there was no inordinate sign of strain in his visage, and his movements were as elegantly controlled as I had ever seen them. If the lines between nose and mouth were well marked, I had seen such an effect when he was faced with a problem of moving troops or supplying a garrison. A cup of warm ale would soon smooth away the tension. No, there was no hint here of the man who had begged God’s forgiveness on his knees in public, with tears staining his cheeks.

The man who had in so cursory and public a manner rejected his lover of nine years, before informing her of his decision.

I bit down on the little surge of wrath.

‘I see you are in health and good spirits, Lady Katherine,’ he remarked.

Good spirits!

The flapping of my veil, wetly against my neck, was the final straw. I raised my chin. Without courtesy or any acknowledgement that he had addressed me, I turned on my heel. He would follow if he needed to speak with me. Was I in health? It was the least of my concerns. As for my spirits…I strode on, up the staircase, aware of his footsteps behind me, relieved that he followed me, and yet anger burned through any relief. I flung back the door into one of the chambers used by the family for celebrations, empty now except for a chest and a pair of backless stools, an empty dais at one end. The walls, usually hung with magnificent tapestries, as were the rooms of all the Duke’s accommodations, were bare and grim. In a corner there was a stash of boxes and trestles, on one resting the folded tapestries.

A bleak place for a bleak reconciliation.

There would be no reconciliation here.

I walked to the centre of the chamber, where I turned.

‘We will speak in here. Where there is no one to eavesdrop and pass comment on my shame—or yours.’