John Holland was beautiful, intemperate and self-aware. He was clever and headstrong and mercurial and …

And it came to me, so that I laughed a little. He was very like me. Was I not the same wilful creature? Was this, then, a simple matter of like attracting like?

I gave up on my tortuous thoughts. Whatever the cause, when John Holland entered a room I was aware of no one else.

Meanwhile, in the environs of the court, it was like walking on icy pathways, a fatal slide and slip possible at any moment to cast us all into a welter of blood and treason. But, in the usual manner of courtly circumspection, when the alternative was too dangerous to contemplate, relations were patched and mended when we left Sheen to take up residence within the stark walls of Westminster Palace. The chill formality of the rooms might match the general mood, but Princess Joan, descending in a glory of green silk, heaved herself from her litter and took her royal son to task, not mincing her words. Of necessity the Duke swallowed his pride to meet the King in a sour spirit of reconciliation.

No one believed it would last beyond the length of the Princess’s sojourn with the aggrieved parties, even though hands were briefly clasped between uncle and nephew and smiles forced.

‘Like new cloth stitched to an old gambeson, that will rip apart the first time you raise your arm to draw a sword,’ John Holland grimaced. ‘Which Richard is more than capable of doing, by God.’

In blind rage, Richard had drawn cold steel against the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Never again would I close my eyes to what was happening to the disparate strands of our family. Yet, anxious as I was, I snatched at happiness and clung with a bold tenacity. Why would I not? I had learnt the frailty of life, the chancy basis of power, when faced with the King’s intolerance. I had no influence to bear on the rift between King and Duke, all I could do was watch and worry, and I did.

My education in the art of giving and receiving kisses was thorough. And highly enjoyable.



Chapter Six

1385, Windsor Castle

It was not a gentle courtship, for what we were intent on was forbidden and perilous. How to conduct a dangerous intimacy in the public eye, with absolutely no privacy to be had within the royal court in those days when we were swamped with preparations for Richard’s Scottish war? Not a love affair on my part, I argued, but an increasing fascination, an entrancement, a fiery passion that heated my blood and drenched my dreams in longing. But what of John Holland? He was hunting impatiently and in earnest, and left me in no doubt of it.

‘An annulment!’ he breathed sacrilegiously at High Mass under the soaring roof of St George’s Chapel, as the host was raised. ‘Get an annulment and wed me.’

My silence was my refusal. Too far. Too fast. I might yearn to know more than chaste kisses with this man, but annulment was impossible. The Duke would never agree. As for committing the great sin of carnal knowledge in the Holland bed, the imagining was one thing, the doing of it quite another.

‘I’ll be the husband you need, a man who will treasure you, revere you. Not a boy who sees you as sister rather than wife.’

How alike his voice was to that of Princess Joan when intent on persuasion. Smooth and melodious, impossible to withstand. How many times did he urge me to seek an audience with the Duke, a request with which I could not comply? I would not present my father with yet another burden. There must be no further scandals to stir the witches’ broth of court intrigue. For the Duke’s daughter to become embroiled in lascivious marital complications would be selfish indeed.

‘You’re not afraid of my temper, are you?’ he demanded with more than a hint of it.

‘Certainly not!’

‘I’ll never let it harm you. And I won’t give up. I’ll hound you until you give in.’

‘I know you will.’

‘I’ll tumble you into my bed before you can blink.’

‘But not today.’

‘What do you want from me, Elizabeth?’ How many times did he pose that question, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with an edge of impatience. More than once in anger.

‘I don’t know.’

How many times did I reply in kind, my future being a swirl of grey mist where nothing was certain. All I knew was that I wanted what we had at that moment.

‘Let me show you how much I love you.’

I could not take that final step.

‘Then do I let you go?’

‘No.’

I could neither live with him nor without him. So this half-life was all I had.

‘Will I still be sneaking into corners to meet you when I am too old to climb onto my horse?’ he asked, not entirely in jest. I felt his desire in his hands, his mouth, and the quizzical expression as he gripped my shoulders and dragged me close. ‘Why do I love you when you are so intransigent? Could I not find an easier woman to love?’

‘Perhaps you could,’ I challenged, a little disconcerted, turning my face away. ‘I’m certain you would entrap a goodly number of handsome women who would fly to your lure. Perhaps you should go and do it now, before you march north. I will not hinder you, but accept our light liaison as a mere pleasant experience.’

Which made him grin, all irritation vanished in a blink of an eye. ‘You wouldn’t like that at all if I did, Countess. Nor would I, God help me. I am forced to admit that for reasons I cannot comprehend, you are the one woman I love. I might wish it otherwise but you are lodged in my heart.’ He turned my chin with his hand and planted a final kiss on my lips. ‘And you’ll regret spurning me if I meet my death on a Scottish battlefield.’

‘You wouldn’t have the temerity to die in battle!’ I replied smartly.

Yet it was a worry that wriggled under my skin, for unseeing though I was of the future, I was helplessly trapped in the net of his deliberate campaign. And what an adventurous campaign it was, unfolding day after day through the endless banquets hosted by Richard, when my importunate lover and I were seated under the canopy of state on the dais as royal family, and I, forsooth, did nothing to spurn him.

What could not be achieved under the auspices of a formal banquet?

It astonished me, and I participated with relish.

The words we exchanged between this and that interminable course might be innocent, but our gestures were heavy with meaning. My appetite for food fled; for the company of John Holland it burgeoned, as in the days after a Lenten fast when the tongue craves rich sweetness. We might indeed fast from physical touch, but his wooing of my senses wound them tight, like a thread on a distaff, so that all I desired was to be in his company. I was lured to him with every breath, every clever ruse employed by John Holland to weaken my resolve not to cast myself entirely into his power.