Once again I was holding my breath as Richard stood, to walk slowly forward to his brother, walking round him, his robes brushing against John’s boots. A smile touched his lips. Widened to become a gleam of delight, although not one I would trust. I had seen the same smile when Richard had got his own way as a thwarted child.

‘It seems eminently suitable,’ he murmured.

‘But sire …’ Stafford’s fingers visibly gripped his sword belt.

‘Princess Joan would lie at rest, sire,’ I interrupted. ‘She was greatly troubled and this would give her soul peace.’

‘Good, good.’ And there was Richard in our midst, all graciousness, as if there had been nothing to disturb his untrammelled existence. ‘I will order a Mass to be said in her name. As for you, brother … You must make recompense. You must establish three chaplains to pray for Ralph Stafford’s soul in perpetuity.’

‘Gladly, sire.’

‘Will that satisfy you, Stafford?’ I knew it did not but it would be an unwise man to gainsay his King. ‘Stand up,’ Richard commanded his brother.

John stood.

‘I will restore your property to you, of course. I can’t have my brother living on my generosity, can I?’ He enfolded John Holland’s stiff shoulders in an embrace. ‘You should not do this, John. It unsettles me. You should curb your temper. I don’t wish to be at odds with you.’ All his ill-temper blown away, Richard was unnervingly friendly. ‘I need to know that I can rely on you.’

John returned the embrace. ‘I am your man. Now and forever.’

The relief in the room was tangible, except for Stafford whose stare at John held a quality of hatred.

‘I will hold the pardon over your head, you know.’

‘My future behaviour will be without stain, sire.’

‘Then come, John, and drink a cup of wine with me.’

He was swept off by the King, Richard’s arm looped through his as if nothing had ever occurred to undermine their closeness, leaving the Duke and me to watch them go. At the last John turned and his eyes, wide and dispassionate, met mine, reminding me of the venom of his arrival at Wallingford. Then he smiled at the King at his side, and was gone.

‘He looks at me as if he despises me,’ I spoke without thinking.

‘Are you surprised? What did you want?’ The Duke was already following Stafford and the Queen from the room. ‘A herald’s fanfare for coming to his defence? What man of pride wants an audience for his annihilation?’

‘I did not think.’

‘Then perhaps in future you will.’

Of course I remembered, the moment he had registered my presence beside the Duke. He had not liked it. He had not expected this very public audience. He had indeed despised my seeing him on his knees, witnessing the outcome, witnessing his downfall and his humiliation. How much he would detest that I had pleaded for him with Joan’s final words. He did not want me there. Go home to Hertford, he had said. A man of pride, he did not wish to be humbled before me.

‘You don’t understand a man like John Holland.’

Was that it? Did I not understand him? But I thought I did. Pride. That was all it was. But what value pride when a man was fighting for his life?

I exhaled slowly, but the Duke, waiting for me, continued to watch them go.

‘They are both dangerous men, Richard and Holland, in their own way,’ he observed, as well he might.

‘Will you take him to Castile?’

‘Of course. If nothing else he is a brave man and a good one to have at your side. He can mend his reputation with his sword in my service.’ He turned to me. ‘And you, I think, should return to Kenilworth. It’s time you saw that young husband of yours.’

‘Do you think I’ll forget him?’

‘More like he’ll forget you. I’m travelling there in two days. Accompany me. You should see him. He’ll soon be of an age to be a husband to you.’

Or more like Sir John’s charm would tempt me into sin.

But in that charged interlude all intimacy had been swept away.

Forget it. Forget him. The Duke was right. I did not understand him at all.

Oh, but I wanted to. On that day I had watched a man sink his pride and beg for his life. I could not abandon the flame he had lit in my heart because it still lived, faint and flickering under his rejection, but not dead.

I feared that it would never die. I would live with the joy and sorrow of it until my own death when my last breath doused the flame.

Richard kept his brother close, as if to let him out of the royal sight would give him leave to commit some new, monstrous crime. I saw him, as I must, but at a distance, wrapped around by royal favour. No more outrageous communication as the sumptuous dishes of Richard’s cooks passed before us. John Holland sat at his brother’s right hand, his attention demanded wholly by Richard. When we rode to the hunt, John Holland, firmly ensconced in Richard’s intimate coterie, even ousted de Vere from the royal side. It would have been entertaining to watch the favourite’s ire, if it had not been so infuriating.

Meanwhile, throughout the whole, John Holland’s face remained as expressionless as a Twelfth Night mask. If he was playing a role of the regretful penitent, he was doing it with a flourish, while Richard smiled on him. Richard smiled on all of us. It was like the smile of a raptor seeing its prey in the long grass.

John Holland did not come near me, not one step closer than he had to through necessity, and with my new knowledge of him, I understood why. He was too proud. He had been forced to cast himself on his brother’s mercy and bear Richard’s patronising tolerance. John Holland was undoubtedly nursing his wounds.

Preparations went ahead for me to travel north with the Duke whose directive in the months before he embarked for Castile was to personally secure the border against Scottish inundations.

I fidgeted and snapped. I could not leave things like this, even if John Holland could. Had I not risked Richard’s displeasure to plead for him? Following the distant pattern of his thoughts as he bowed with exquisite grace in my direction, accompanied by a fierce smile that had all the charm of a rat, was like trying to follow the path to the centre of a labyrinth. I could not reach him, and in two days I would have retired to the wilds of Kenilworth, to be reunited with Jonty, who was fast growing up. I would no longer be a virgin bride.

I slammed the lid of a coffer in despair.

How could I love a man who holds life so cheap? But I did.

‘I should not even think of him, but there he is, in all the spaces of my mind. It’s a hopeless case, isn’t it? I am caged, just like you,’ I lectured my finches.

They twittered mindlessly.

‘Then I must go to him. If I can find him without the circle of his new friends,’ I remarked sourly. Unless I could fling a bridge across this raging torrent, then we would be apart for ever. Unfortunately that might be exactly what he wanted.

‘Well, if it’s not the little flower of Lancaster!’

This did not bode well.

‘You have been avoiding me.’

Once more I had hammered on the door of John Holland’s chambers and thrust open the door before anyone could prevent me. I did not have one of my women to dance attendance. I had come here as Elizabeth of Lancaster, royalty in every drop of my blood, and I would not be gainsaid by anyone. There might have been an air of desperation in this last resort, but I hid it beautifully behind accusation.

Royally housed though he might be, my quarry did not stir from where he was sitting on the floor—which in itself almost shook my nerve—beneath the oriel window, light flooding down on him as he lounged, one knee drawn up by linked fingers. By his thigh was a cup of wine. There was no temper in his wide-eyed stare today.

‘And very successfully,’ he observed in a chatty tone. ‘I would wish to continue to do so. Perhaps you would close the door as you leave.’

‘I know why you’re doing it.’

He tilted his chin, assessing me lightly from head to toe. ‘Do you? It’s more than I do.’

So he thought he would undermine my confidence. He would not. Should I go and sit with him in the dust? Instead I walked to the single armed chair in the room and sat, my feet on a little stool, as if I would receive an audience. Folding my hands in my lap, I linked my fingers. Sir John watched me with mild interest. Only when I was settled, my skirts falling in elegant folds, did I reply.

‘You know very well why. The Duke asked if I expected a victor’s garland for leaping to your aid.’

‘Did he now?’ All languor, he brushed his hair from his eyes. ‘It always astonishes me, the perspicacity of the Duke. And did you expect it? The victory garland?’

‘I expected nothing.’

‘Then that’s what you’ll get. Will you take a cup of wine with me?’

An insult in the way he cocked his head, he made no effort to pour me one.

‘No. I am not here to celebrate with you. I’m here to apologise.’

‘Then since you have, this interview is at an end. Perhaps you would pour me another cup on your way out.’

This was hopeless. I knew a lost cause when I saw one. All my attempts at constructing bridges were being expertly demolished and thrown into the foaming water below, but I preserved my composure. Was he worth fighting for? At that moment I would have said no. Magnificent his garments might be, embroidered and jewelled, but there was a dishevelled loucheness about him.

‘The wine is on your right,’ he observed.

‘I’ll not pour it for you. If you need more to drown your sins, get it yourself.’

I would find out if he was worthy of my efforts before the end of this exchange, but not in the dregs of a cup of wine.

‘I have come to make my farewell,’ I said.