‘Forgive me. Forgive me. Self-pity is a despicable thing. I have not drunk so much that I cannot treat a woman with courtesy.’ His voice had softened as he held out his hand for me to take if I wished to. And I did, knowing instinctively that the exhibition of uncontrolled force was over, even when he held them, palm to palm, between his own.

‘My dear love. Here’s my declaration and my apology, if you will hear it …’

I nodded.

‘I am not worthy of you but I cannot let you go. My life is tied up with yours. I love you inordinately. But I should warn you: it is no mild affection. This is nothing selfless, where the knight gives all and expects nothing but the right to adore at the feet of his mistress. My desire for you is sensual and passionate and possessive. It is love of the heart and mind and body. I want everything from you. And I won’t let you refuse me.’ The chain on his breast glimmered as he took a breath, and his grasp of my hands tightened. ‘Unless you cannot, in your heart, love me in the same way. You must say so now, before it is too late for us both to step back from the brink.’

The power of his words struck hard. A choice for me to make. A denigration of his own powerful feelings. All creating a deliberate clarity of what it would mean if I gave my consent to what he wanted from me.

‘I’ll never be your perfect, gentle knight. But I’ll be more. I’ll protect you. I’ll never desert you. I’ll worship at your feet for ever. Flawed and mired in sin I might be, but I will be your knight, Elizabeth of Lancaster.’ He pressed his mouth to my fingers, as gallant as any chivalrous knightly lover. ‘Will you give yourself to me. Knowing what you do of me?’

It was as if he had written the words in gold, offering me a choice to make of my own free will, with no attempt, finally, to force my steps. And what a simple choice it was. A beat of my heart, deep and sure, carried me forward, over the dangerous boundary from immature attraction and infatuation into a physical longing so strong it shook me. This was love as I had never known it. No it was not selfless. It was potent, all-controlling. Every admission he had made to me I could recognise within my own response to him. How had I ever thought my romantic notions of him were real love? Now I knew the power of my acceptance of him, with all his charm and all his complexity. In that moment I knew it: this love would never let me go. Any step I took now would, I accepted in the recesses of my heart, be absolute.

‘Will you, Elizabeth?’ he asked. ‘I’ll not plague you if you decide on a fast retreat.’

But I had seen the glitter of provocation in his eyes behind the courteous approach. And of desire. John Holland would not only plague me, he would hound me unmercifully.

I breathed in. And out.

‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

And I took the words deep into my own heart as I spoke them.

It was such an incontrovertible response to make, that answered every question I had ever asked of myself. Would it make me as wilfully lustful as Isabelle? Would I be as shockingly immoral as Dame Katherine? In all honestly there would be those who would so condemn me, but there were no such fears in my mind. My only thought was how I could have held back from him for so long. And that being said, John did not disparage me by asking if I were sure. Time for words was long gone as, my hand in his, we took occupation of his bedchamber in mutual agreement, where he managed the layers of my outer and undergarments with a not unexpected depth of skill and formidable alacrity. Even so, despite his expertise with buttons, he found room to complain.

‘Could you not have dressed more simply?’

‘I could, of course. But I did not expect to be disrobed by a lover.’

‘Always be prepared, Madam Elizabeth.’

‘Do you mean that this will occur with some frequency?’

I risked a glance at his frowning concentration.

‘As often as I can arrange it.’

I did not need to tell him that this was all new to me. Was that not the reason he talked throughout the whole of my disrobing, when I was unable to prevent my nerves from shivering over my skin? Who would have thought that he could be so very kind?

‘What do I do with all these pins?’ he asked as my hair unfurled like a banner in his hands to cover my shoulders.

‘Throw them on the floor,’ I replied, breathless.

Then there was no talk. And no more kindness. How simple an emotion kindness was, whereas there was nothing simple in what passed between John Holland and me. In that hour—or was it longer? —I received the first steps in a thorough education unlike any I had imagined when my dreams had stretched no further than the pages of the books in my father’s library where knights were courteous and never unclothed. Where love was expressed in gifts and words and chaste kisses.

Here was a new and entirely physical world, spread out for my delectation.

I learned the delights of a man’s body beneath my hands, where muscles were tense with smooth power, well harnessed until need took over. And then it was as if I was tossed into the waters of a mill race, all turbulence and mastery which I was in no mood to resist.

I learned about sleek arms that held me tight, and thighs hard with sinew and some abrasions. What a work of art a man’s body could be, even with evidence of battle. Here there was no conflict, only heat and desire.

I learned about my own response to a well-placed kiss or a trail of fingertips that made me shudder and gasp with astonishment. Just as I learnt about the hiss of pain, and about its transmutation into breathless pleasure. And then I learned about my own skill in initiating the slightest movement to make a man draw in his breath. And groan when I repeated the caress.

I learned about tenderness too. The magic world of words to enhance caresses.

‘You are the brightest jewel I have over owned.’ His hands framed my face.

‘You are the lover I have always desired,’ I replied, for I could see myself reflected in the brightness of his gaze.

And then there was laughter.

‘Don’t hold your breath!’

‘I wasn’t!’ Oh, but I was, for his touch drove me where I could never have imagined.

And in the end I learned about love.

‘I love you.’

I would never be given poetry by John Holland.

‘I love you, too.’

Did it need us to say more, when we had made such a statement of our love? I did not think so, and applied my new knowledge of the seductive power of kisses until his ability to speak was destroyed, and my mind was unfit to learn any more, aware only of the thud of his heartbeat with my own sighs in contrapuntal unity. I had not sought such a depth of love, but it had surely found me.

I gave no thought at all to the enormity of the sin I had so happily committed.

And I was quite sure that John Holland did not.

‘I must leave Windsor. I must leave you’, I said, sharp dismay fast surfacing.

‘And I must return to dancing attendance on my brother.’ John was replacing the garments he had stripped off so rapidly. Hose, tunic, boots, in quick succession. ‘But I have every excuse to travel to Kenilworth between now and our embarking. I’ll need to discuss transportation of troops and equipment with the Duke.’

Doubt suddenly struck home.

‘And will you discuss your inordinate love for his daughter?’

His hands stilled on the buckle of his belt. ‘I will if you give me leave. Get an annulment and I’ll wed you tomorrow.’

But still I stepped back, baffled by my own unwillingness to admit my love for him so openly. Or was it shame in the confession of so blatant a sin? As I watched him, there was not one single regret in my mind. Perhaps it was simply a fear that the Duke would refuse the annulment. If he did, he might force my intimacy with John Holland to come to an end, as it would anyway with his embarkation for the Castilian enterprise. This was all so impermanent, uncertain. As it was, John’s reputation had been discredited. To reveal an inappropriate relationship with me would stand him in no good stead.

I smiled a little. How selfless I had become now that love had touched me. Why ruffle the waters further to create a great storm that might overwhelm us both? Better to enjoy what we had until our future was clearer. Perhaps when John returned from Castile, shining brightly with royal favour …

‘Not yet,’ I said, intent on pushing the problem aside without further discussion as I pulled my shift over my head, fussing over my hair that he had unbound. ‘It’s too difficult.’

‘I don’t see why.’ Buckle secured, he swooped to plant a kiss on my brow. ‘But I’ll do as you wish. For now. I’m gone from here.’

And I was alone in his room, all the passion and heat gone with him, but not from my heart. I might not see the future with any clarity, but the present was as precious as the finest jewel in Richard’s treasury. Slowly I dressed. And then as any woman in a new intimacy might, I investigated the items of John’s property, touching, arranging, to get a sense of my new lover from his possessions. All was neat. Everything in its place as I had once noted before. Clothing folded in coffers. No books, as my brother would undoubtedly have had around him. John was no reader. No jewels or valuable hanaps as my father might have to display wealth, the gifts from friends. Nothing to give me an insight into the man who had filled my whole body with light. I lifted the livery chain that he had left on the coffer lid …

And smiled.

It was a fine gesture, strangely honourable in its execution from a man who in a blast of despair had claimed he had no honour. It caused a warmth to spread through me, rivalling the heat of the sun that had moved across the floor and now touched my hair, my shoulders. What a spectacular choice he had made. My lover might be bowing in contrition before his brother but here in my hand was the chain with the white hart. Today he wore Lancaster livery. Seeing no need to boast of it, or winning my favour by ensuring that I knew of his choice, he had done it without explanation, a silent mark of honour. Today he was mine.