‘Let me look at you.’ She narrowed her gaze, scanning my face.

‘What do you see?’

‘You look drawn and there’s a transparency about you.’

‘I will be better after I rest,’ I assured her. ‘My physician—’

‘Your physician is a fool of a man who can’t recognise what’s at the end of his pointed nose. I have come to talk to you, my lady.’

‘I am in no danger.’

‘Danger? That’s to be seen.’

My fears, which I had so light-heartedly cast off, promptly returned fourfold. If what I had suspected was indeed so, that the curse that had laid its hand on my father had touched me also, had Alice seen it too? Had she noticed that sometimes I was distraught?

‘If what I suspect is true,’ Alice remarked, ‘you need some advice, my lady. And from someone who will not mince her words.’

‘What do you fear?’ I dreaded the answer. She must have seen my vagueness, heard my snap of temper, however hard I had tried to curb it. My women must have gossiped about my inconsistency so that it had reached even Alice. I found myself gripping her arm in my fear. ‘What ails me, Alice?’

‘I think you are carrying a child.’

Shock drove all thoughts from my mind: frozen, I sat and stared at Alice. A child. I was carrying a child. So perhaps it was not what I had most feared, the onset of a terrible fragility of mind from which I would never be free. Perhaps it was this unlooked-for child that had unsettled my mind and stirred my body to nausea and my mind to ill temper. But I recalled none of those symptoms when I had carried Young Henry. I had been full of health, calm and hopeful of a golden future, not the weak mewling, snappish thing that had fallen down the stairs. But, without doubt, this child, newly growing within me, was the cause of my sufferings.

In that moment of revelation I experienced relief so strong that I laughed aloud.

‘I see nothing to laugh at,’ Alice lectured. ‘Well, my lady? Have you fallen for a child?’

‘I don’t know.’

She clicked her tongue as if addressing an ignorant maidservant. ‘Have your courses stopped?’

I thought about it. Perhaps they had, but they had never been regular to any degree and my recent mindlessness had impaired my memory. But, yes, it had been at least two months, perhaps three. I was carrying Owen’s child. Owen’s child…A little spurt of delight—but then of fear—began to lick along my arms, so that I shivered despite the heat in the room.

Alice took my hands in hers and squeezed as if she could make me concentrate. Not that her questions made any difference to my predicament.

‘Did you not take precautions?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘But not well enough, it seems.’

I blushed, hot blood rushing to colour my cheeks. I had been wantonly careless. In my brief marriage to Henry it had been necessary to be fertile and conceive as fast as possible, not prevent the possibility. With Owen, between my imprecise knowledge and Guille’s flawed memory of drinking the seeds of Queen Anne’s lace steeped in wine, I had fallen headlong into the net set to entrap all women who indulged in sinful union outside the blessing of Holy Mother Church.

‘You should have come to me,’ Alice said crossly.

‘And admitted to you that I was steeped in sin?’

‘Better to be steeped in sin and safe from conception than carrying the bastard child of a servant!’

I inhaled sharply at her hard judgement.

‘What were you thinking? Do I need to ask who the father is? I don’t think I do.’ She shook her head, her fingers digging into my wrists, her voice anguished with what I could only think was distress. ‘How could you do this, my lady? A liaison with a servant of your own household. A man who has no breeding, no income, no status. How could you even consider it? And now a child, out of wedlock! What will Gloucester say?’ Her eyes widened. ‘What will he do?’

‘I don’t care what Gloucester says.’ I freed my hands from hers and inspected my palms, my fingers spread wide, as if I would see an answer written there. I carried Owen’s child and I could see no future that was not shrouded in uncertainty, yet a strange happiness had me in its grip. I looked up, frowning a little: ‘What do I do now, Alice?’

A significant pause. ‘You would not consider ending—?’

My hand on hers stopped her. ‘No. Never that.’ It was the one certainty. Whatever difficulties this child brought to me, I would carry it to term. After Henry’s death I had been forced to accept that I would never have another child. Now I carried a child by a man I adored. ‘You must never speak of such things,’ I said fiercely. ‘I want this baby.’

Alice sighed but nodded. ‘As I thought. It was a hard burden that Gloucester placed on you. It was not natural.’

‘But what do I do? Advise me, Alice.’

She pursed her lips. ‘You can hide it for a little time. Houppelandes have their uses, even if they are too cumbersome for words. But after that…’ To my astonishment her eyes were moist with tears.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I see no happiness for you in this.’

No happiness? What was the worst Gloucester could do? Take my child from me at birth? Part me from Owen? It was not beyond the realms of belief.

‘Gloucester will persist in preserving your immaculate reputation.’ Alice’s words echoed my thoughts.

‘Rather than allowing me to be seen as a slut who allowed a servant to get a bastard child on her,’ I added, fear making me unacceptably crude. I looked at her, at the tears on her cheeks, although I knew the answer before I asked the question. ‘Do I tell him?’

‘Yes. Tell him. You can’t keep it secret long—not if you intend to continue to share his bed. Ah, my lady…Why did you do it?’

I replied without hesitation. ‘Because I love him and I have no doubts of his love for me. It is given unconditionally. I have never known such joy.’

Alice sniffed and wiped away her tears. ‘What if Gloucester insists that you dismiss him?’

The answer was there, before me. I had never fought for anything in my life, but I would fight for my right to be fulfilled at the side of the man I loved. For the first time in my life I felt a surge of power. In this one crucial battle I would not be dictated to or manipulated by the ambitions of another.

‘I will not dismiss him,’ I said quietly, startled to hear the pride in my voice. ‘He is an exceptional man. I will not give him up. I am Queen Dowager. I am Queen Mother: how can Gloucester force me to dismiss servants from my own household? I will not. I will not live without him.’

Alice scowled, then smiled bleakly through the tears. ‘If I were young again and unwed, neither would I.’

Not once had we mentioned his name between us, but it lay like a blessing in my heart.

Alone again, with Alice’s words stark in my mind—I see no happiness for you in this—as was unfortunately my nature I was not so sanguine.

I am carrying your child.

I imagined saying it to Owen, and quailed.

‘What will we do?’ I had asked Alice before she had left me, but she had lifted her hands helplessly.

‘I don’t know. I have no advice to give.’

A liaison with a servant of your own household. A man who has no breeding, no income, no status…

My throat was dry with apprehension but I rose, dressed in a favourite emerald velvet with miniver cuffs, all worked with gold knot-work, and sent Thomas off to arrange a meeting with Owen in the audience chamber, the scene of our first charged acknowledgement of what we meant to each other.

With Guille in attendance to give me decorous company, I was there before he arrived, seated on one of the stools generally occupied by petitioners who came to ask for royal intervention, aware of the same watchful audience of stitched feral eyes. I stood as he entered and waved Guille to the far side of the room to stand against the leafy forest. Even if she overheard, it would not matter. She would know soon enough.

I thought he looked more than a little severe, formally and richly clad as he was, complete with chain of office, for Young Henry was expected to dine with me. But when he saw me, when he stood from his habitual show of courtesy, his mouth was soft. I resisted blurting out my news but held my tongue, heart thudding against my ribs. What would he say? What would any man say, receiving this awkward confession? All my inner certainty was in danger of leaching away.

‘You have a request, my lady?’

‘Merely to speak with you. Don’t mind Guille,’ as he glanced in her direction. ‘Her loyalty is not to be questioned.’

He moved to stand before me, not to touch me but to survey my face as if he might read all he wished to know there. And he smiled at last, as if a weight had fallen from him.

‘You look restored.’

His beautiful voice washed over me, calming me, restoring my earlier knowledge of what I wanted, what was right. ‘I am.’

‘Before you fell I thought you looked strained and sad.’ His voice was suddenly ragged. ‘Before God, Katherine, I have been torn apart, not knowing, not being able to come to you.’

‘I was sad, but no longer.’ I touched his sleeve. ‘I heard that it was you who carried me to my room. I did not know what was real and what was in my mind.’

He lifted my hand and kissed it. ‘You fell at my feet.’

‘Then that was fortunate.’

‘I hope your maid is discreet. I can no longer be discreet.’

Before he could take me into his arms, for that was clearly his intent, I stopped him, my hand pressed against his chest.

‘Owen…’ I arranged and rearranged the simple words. And finally I stated them baldly. ‘I am carrying your child. That is why I fell.’