‘Has he left the castle?’

She took a breath. ‘I think he might have.’

‘Did you see him?’

She affixed a pin with deliberation. ‘No, my lady.’

I inhaled against the blow. However much I had anticipated his leaving, nothing could have prepared me for the force of it. Owen had gone. He had left me. I knew he must have because, unless away from the castle, his routines always brought him back to me at mid-morning. But not today. It felt as if he had taken my heart with him, leaving a space of pain and loss in my chest. And I would accept it because Owen would live.

Now I must begin the impossible task of living my life without him. I inspected my face in my mirror. I straightened the hang of my sleeves, the fall of my girdle, checked the safety and position of the chain that Guille had clasped around my neck. Little details of my existence that I attended to every day.

I stepped outside my door.

‘What time is this to rise from your bed? Your sons are asking for you.’

The question, soft-voiced, slammed into my mind as if it were a roll on a military drum. Collecting my thoughts was almost beyond me. I stared at him, unable to trust my reactions.

‘Guille told me that you were gone.’

What a facile reply, when he was clearly not. When everything I wanted in life was there before me. Within touching distance. Within kissing distance. Owen should not be here.

‘I ordered her to,’ Owen said.

‘Why?’

‘To catch you off guard. So that I could talk some sense into you before you could resurrect the fortifications against me.’

‘I told you to go, Owen.’ To my horror my voice wavered.

‘And I choose not to.’

I could see that he had slept as little as I. Now he pushed himself to his feet, from where he had been sitting on the floor, his back against the wall with his arms resting on his bent knees, outside my chamber. It might have seemed the demeanour of a servant outside his mistress’s chamber, but there was nothing servile in Owen’s stance, as he drew himself to his full height and stretched cramped limbs, or in his expression. It was thunderous. He was wearing, I decided, the same clothes as he had worn when I had delivered my royal command.

‘How long have you been there?’ I asked, inconsequentially. I suspected he had been there all night. He should not be there at all.

‘Long enough.’ His hands were clamped around the broad leather belt that rested on his hips. How easy it was for me to recognise the strength of will in that posture. Far stronger than mine, I feared.

‘You must not make it harder for me than it is,’ I said as I raised my chin.

‘It is my intent to make it impossible for you!’ Yesterday his anger had been cold with shock: today it had the heat of a sleepless night behind it. And I braced myself. ‘I will not go. I will not run off to Wales like a whipped cur. Neither will I let you make a martyr of me, or of yourself, for that matter. Are we made to live apart? I love you. God help me, I love you in all ways known to man and angels.’

‘Owen—’ All my carefully built ramparts were crumbling under the onslaught.

‘You are my soul, Katherine. And I defy you to tell me that your feelings for me have died. Unless you have indeed suffered an aversion to me. Have you? For that is the only reason that would drive me from your door. Is that true?’

‘No.’

Owen drove on. ‘Do we sacrifice everything that binds us, for the sake of what might—or might not—happen?’

‘I cannot bear that you should die because of me. I will willingly bear the pain of our parting if—’

‘But I will not. Better to live a day with you, dear heart, than a lifetime with the breadth of the country separating us.’

Dear heart. His voice might lash at me, but the endearment undermined me completely and I covered my face with my hands, for all my carefully reasoned argument lay in pieces at my feet. Then he was there, in front of me, holding my wrists.

‘Don’t weep, my dear love.’

‘I am not weeping. I vowed I would not.’ I looked up, dry-eyed, furious that he could reach me so easily. ‘Why will you not see the sense of us living apart?’

‘There is no sense. Are we not two halves of one entity? You might be prepared to spend your life in abject regret, but I will not.’ He placed a fierce kiss on my brow. ‘Hear me, Katherine. I will not live a day apart from you or from my sons.’

My hands, clenching into fists, beat in despair on his chest. Without any noticeable effect. Then all it took was the warm enclosing of his hands around mine, the smoothing out of my fingers within his clasp, and I was still. I knew I had lost.

‘I am not the enemy here, Katherine.’

‘I know.’

‘You will not bar your door to me again.’

I felt my skin flush in shame at what I had done. ‘I am so sorry, Owen.’

‘There is no need. I understand.’ And I was drawn into his arms. The anger had gone, and the tenderness had returned, to soothe and restore. ‘You were faced with something too great for you to bear alone, and I should have seen it coming.’ His lips were warm on my face. ‘Together we will face it. Together we will rejoice at our fortitude.’

Owen took me to bed, unpinning my carefully pinned hair, removing the girdle and jewelled chain, casting the embroidered sleeves to the floor. Considerate of my state, he allowed me my shift, holding my body close. This was no time for passion but for a renewal of a closeness that was more of mind and soul than of body. It was healing, of a wound of my making, and in that healing I had no regrets. Whispered words, tender kisses, heartfelt promises, all made me see that my decision had been untenable. I was not made to live apart from Owen. We slept in each other’s arms.

Then, as the afternoon moved on into evening, I awoke and lay to take cognisance of the serenity on my lover’s face. The softly moulded mouth, the relaxed planes of cheek and brow, the untidy fall of black hair. Yet I did not think that he was in any manner serene when I noticed that even in sleep a groove was dug between his brows.

We had solved nothing, except that we could not be separated. Owen had decreed that we could not with a fervency that defied disobedience. How willingly I handed over my will to him because, in the end, it was too monstrous to contemplate. I smiled. Until a little cloud passed over the sun, and I shuddered at the brush of shadow over my skin, but when I looked up through the window I could see no cloud. Perhaps nothing more than a flight of doves from the dovecote beyond the wall. Shaking my head, I leaned over Owen and kissed his brow.

And as I did so, a wave of pure, bright anger swept through me, scouring away every doubt that had led me to sever our union. I had been wrong. We could overcome this together. And, driven by a conviction so urgent that my head was light with it, I made a silent promise. I would fight. I would fight and I would not rest until Owen and my children were free of the stigma brought by their Welsh blood, and free of Gloucester’s long arm. I would restore Owen’s pride and rank before the law, and I would destroy Gloucester’s power to harm him without redress.

I would not rest until it was done. And I had a thought on how it might be accomplished by a determined woman and a clever man, if the woman could be persuasive enough. Why had I thought that the only solution was to admit defeat and send my love away? I would never do that again.

Shouts from the courtyard rising sharply to infiltrate my room, Owen opened his eyes. And smiled ruefully at me.

‘I think neither of us slept last night.’ And when I shook my head he added, rubbing my brow with his thumb, ‘You look thoughtful.’ He grinned. ‘It is always a danger sign when a woman looks thoughtful.’

What a measureless thing it was to me to see him smile again. ‘Perhaps I am.’ I turned my face into his hair so that he might not see my expression. ‘I am content. I am beyond happiness. And I have just made the most important decision of my life.’

‘As long as it does not entail you living in Hertford and me in Wales,’ he growled, his mouth against my throat.

‘No,’ I said softly. ‘Not that. I was wrong. I cannot live apart from you.’

My mind shrank from what it had decided. My heart trembled with it. But I must do it, and Owen must be at my side when I did.

Since Owen’s obstinacy in matters appertaining to his Welsh heritage and his masculine pride could not be shifted, I needed information. Where best to get it? I considered travelling to pay a much-delayed visit to Madam Joanna at Havering-atte-Bower but my pregnancy was progressing apace. Neither did I think she would have the knowledge I needed to draw on. So who would know? Lord John would, of course, but he was, as far as I knew, still in France. That left Warwick.

I sent a courier to ask him to come to Hertford when he next rode north. I used no pretext, merely that there was a matter of some importance to me that I must discuss.

‘You look as if life at Hertford suits you,’ Warwick observed, saluting my hand and my cheek, when he arrived within the week and I caught a private moment with him.

‘It might if Owen were not threatened.’

‘Threatened?’

‘There have been attacks. But it is my intent to put a stop to them. Before Owen arrives, Richard, I need you to tell me what you know about two men. Their names are Llewellyn the Great. And Owain Glyn Dwr.’ I mangled them beautifully.

Warwick’s brows twitched together. ‘Who?’

I tried again and we made progress.

‘Should you not ask your husband? Since they are Welsh?’

‘But my husband will not talk about them, even under strong persuasion. And you, dear Richard, will.’