I relived the moments again in all their glory and all their pain. He had called me Katherine. He had kissed me and I had pushed him away, when all I had wanted was to say, ‘Kiss me again!’ and make use of the bed with the bright woven cover.

You can lust after my body but my birth isn’t good enough for you…

Owen Tudor would despise me, but not as much as I despised myself.

I took a comb to my tangled hair, pulling on the knots as if the pain would dissolve my grief. I could not weep. The guilt was mine, choosing to go to the room of a passionate man then fleeing when he had kissed me.

I looked again, turning my head as I saw the abrasion on my cheek. It was red, with the slightest breaking of skin. Of course. His chain of office had marked me. How appallingly apt.

A terrible memento of a disastrous evening.

Guille drew back the heavy bed-curtains that had been witness to my lack of sleep, and halted with a hiss of consternation.

‘My lady!’

‘What is it?’ My reactions, both of mind and body, were slow.

‘What have you done?’ She disappeared, returned and held out my reflecting glass.

And I looked. The abrasion, a minor blemish the night before, was angry and red with the purple-blue of bruising flaring across my cheekbone.

‘Who did this to you?’

I touched the tender spot, flinching at the pain. Here was truth I could not admit to.

‘It was my own fault,’ I managed smoothly. ‘I fell against the bed foot. I had spent too long on my knees at my prie-dieu.’ It was horribly noticeable. I closed my eyes: the last thing I needed was to draw attention to my reprehensible behaviour. ‘Can we remedy it?’ I asked.

‘A day for some clever disguise, I think.’ And Guille, rummaging, lifted a chest of cosmetics from the depths of my coffer.

I rarely used them. My skin was fashionably pale and close textured, but today I needed subterfuge. Guille and I knew enough from my mother, who had been expert in applying glamour to win the eye of a man. My need was to hide from him. Owen Tudor must not suspect that our meeting had left its mark on me.

We spent a useful hour opening packets and phials, finally applying powdered root of the Madonna lily to whiten my face and hide the abrasion. Ground leaves of angelica added a glow to my cheeks and drew the eye from the bruising.

‘It’s better,’ Guille ventured, a frown between her brows. ‘I suppose.’

‘But not good.’ I cast my looking glass on the bed in despair.

‘We can’t hide it completely.’

‘No.’ I sighed. It was the best we could do. I broke my fast in my chamber and absented myself from Mass, but I would have to join my household for dinner, or my empty chair would cause comment. I would have to scrape up what I could of my poor fortitude and pretend that nothing was amiss.

And I would have to face Owen Tudor.

When I took my place on the dais, with no thought of what was on my plate, and no ear for Father Benedict’s blessings, all I could see in my mind was Owen Tudor’s gaze sweep over me, then return, as I had first walked defiantly into the room. The gaze became a stare, his whole stance taut, until he remembered his duties and stalked away to summon the pages to bring in the serving platters. All I was left with was a memory of his stunned expression, for the much-vaunted cosmetics were not concealing the livid bruise to any degree.

I already knew this. My damsels, meeting with me in my solar, had been sympathetic with my plight and full of suggestions from their own remedies, but nothing could conceal the discolouring. Or my remorse when I saw Owen Tudor’s reaction.

Not Master Owen. He would never be Master Owen again. How could I think of him as a man in a position of subservience to me when he had held me in his arms? When his kisses had turned my blood to molten gold? Unfortunately, such was my nature that the gold had turned to lead and I had dealt him the worst of blows. I had encouraged him, only to repulse him.

Throughout the whole length of that meal contrition stalked me, for what had I seen, for that one breath-stopping moment, before he had masked all thoughts? Shock certainly, for he would not have known. But then a sudden blaze of furious anger. It had made my blood run cold, and added to the muddle of my thoughts.

How dared he be angry with me?

And yet why should he not? I admitted as I picked at the plums in syrup and sweet pastry set before me. Did I not deserve it? I had given him to believe that I was willing, kissing him with a wanton fervour previously unknown to me. I had pressed my body to his in silent demand that he could not have misinterpreted. And then, when his embrace had grown too powerful, I had run away, when I should have had enough confidence to conduct an affair with a man with some self-possession.

If that was what I wanted. Even if he was a servant.

And if I did not want it, I should not have responded to him in the first place. Had he not given me the space to withdraw after my first foolish admission?

You need fear no gossip from my tongue.

The fault was undoubtedly mine, and I deserved his ire.

The meal proceeded. We ate, we drank. We gossiped—or my damsels did. The pages, well-born boys learning their tasks in a noble household under Owen’s direction, served us with silent concentration. Owen’s demeanour was exactly as it should be, a quiet, watchful competence. But he did not eat with us, taking his seat along the board as was his wont. Instead, he stood behind my chair in austere silence, a personal and reproachful statement to me, as if to broadcast the difference in our ranks.

I deserved that too.

I had no requests of him. My whole awareness was centred on the power of his stare between my shoulder blades. It was as if I was pierced by a knife.

I put my spoon down on the table. The pastry sat heavily in my belly, and I breathed a silent prayer that the meal would be soon over and I could escape back to my room. Except that when the puddings were finished and the board cleared, I had no choice but to walk past him since he had not moved. His eyes were rich with what I read as censure, when I risked a glance.

‘Was the food not to your satisfaction, my lady?’ he asked. He had noticed that I had eaten little.

‘It was satisfactory. As always.’ I made no excuse but my reply was brusque.

He bowed. I walked past him, my heart as sore and as wounded as my cheek.

‘Master Owen is come to see you, my lady.’ It was the hour after dinner and Guille entered my chamber where I sat, unseeing, my Book of Hours closed on my knee. ‘To discuss the arrangements for the celebration of the Young King’s birthday.’

‘Tell Master Owen that I am indisposed,’ I replied, concentrating on the page that I had suddenly seen a need to open. ‘There is time and more to discuss the tournament. Tell him to see my Lord of Warwick if there are difficulties.’

My eyes looked with horror at the penitential psalm on the open page, expressing sorrow for sin.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

Before God, I needed His mercy, and Owen Tudor’s, for I had indeed sinned.

‘Master Owen wishes to know if you will mark the day of St Winifred with a feast, my lady. He needs to make the funds available. It should be on the third day of November.’ Guille again. Another hour had crawled by and my self-disgust was no less sharp. Neither was my self-immolation.

‘Who is St Winifred?’ I demanded crossly.

‘A Welsh saint, Master Owen says.’ Guille shrugged her lack of interest. ‘He says that she was a woman who showed herself capable of integrity and fortitude under duress. He says that such qualities are rare in womankind.’

I stiffened at so pointed a comment from my Master of Household.

‘Tell Master Owen that I am at prayer.’

‘As you wish, my lady.’

How dared he? Did he think to discountenance me even more? Kneeling before my prie-dieu, I covered my face and ignored Guille’s speculative stare.

The hour arrived, before we would all meet again for supper.

‘Master Owen has returned this, my lady.’ It was my hood, carefully folded. ‘He says that you must have left it in the chapel.’

‘Yes, I must have. Thank him, if you will, Guille.’ Taking it from her, I buried my face in the soft velvet when she left the room. I could not face my own thoughts.

Our paths must of necessity cross at supper. I considered shutting myself in my room with some feeble excuse but was that not the way of the coward he thought me? I had played my part in this situation and thus I must see it through to the end. I must have the fortitude of the venerated St Winifred. I took my seat, hands folded, appetite still impaired, and set myself to suffer.

And, oh, I did. Not once did he look at me. He stalked about the chamber as if he had the toothache, then became as before, a thunderous brooding presence behind my chair. If he was angry before, he was furious now. I ate as little as I had previously and at the end walked past him as if I had no knowledge of him.

That night I knelt once more at my prie-dieu but after the briefest acknowledgement of the Virgin’s grace I turned my thoughts inward. I must make recompense, I must admit my fault, undertaking what I could to smooth out this tangled mess of fear and desire. After Mass next morning I would summon Owen Tudor and explain that. But what would I explain? I did not understand the turmoil in my heart and mind. But I would explain that the mistake had been mine, and accept that his attraction to me had died a fast death.