‘He was wrong. You were wrong! John has given immeasurable happiness.’ I tried to reassure her, to reassure myself, when all around us was suspicion and enmity. How could she be so blind to the deep love that united John with me, and would hold fast whatever the future held in store?

‘And can you say that you are happy now? With all the acrimony between Richard and Henry, and Exeter his brother’s most fervent supporter?’

She called him Exeter. How damning she was.

‘Where do your sympathies lie in the ruinous dissention, Elizabeth?’

I could not answer, simply standing there, the cold rising through the thin soles of my shoes, but no colder than the hand around my heart.

‘Perhaps it was my fault, too,’ the Duchess continued, her tone reflecting the chill around us. ‘I had hoped I had given you a keener sense of morality.’

I kept my regard level and unambiguous. ‘Keener than your own?’ How cruel I was in my personal hurt.

‘Yes. Of course. I don’t make excuses for myself. Or for the Duke. We did not live by the dictates of morality. But you, as a royal daughter, should have known better.’

Every certainty in my life seemed to have been cut away from beneath my feet, but pride in my Plantagenet blood held me firm. I was answerable to no one. Certainly not to Duchess Katherine.

‘So I should have foresworn love and remained wed to Jonty.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you have done that?’

‘That is an irrelevance. You had a duty to your family, Elizabeth. You had a burden of conscience.’

I swept the argument aside with an abrupt, angry gesture. ‘I love John. He wanted me and I wanted him. You of all people should understand that.’

‘Yes I do. Who better? But where do you stand now, Elizabeth? With Henry banished and Exeter preening in glory of his new pre-eminence, where do you stand now? Beware, Elizabeth. Don’t be blinded by the sun of Exeter’s rising. Don’t you see? Richard may never allow your brother to return.’

Had I not already considered this? I was not so naïve as to believe in my cousin’s goodwill, but nor was I willing to admit any fault.

‘He must allow it,’ I responded, anger reined in until once again I was as cold as she. ‘Richard has promised.’

‘And promises are empty air in Richard’s mouth. If he banishes Henry for good, will you still remain ecstatically hand-clasped to Exeter? You should never have wed him. You were always wilful and irresponsible, and I failed to change you.’

‘I don’t regret it. What right have you to put this burden of guilt on my shoulders?’

‘I have every right. Because it is true. Your father grieved for you in his final days of pain, but you thought of no one but yourself. Was that not always the case?’

‘No …’ My grip on the slippery reins was becoming harder to maintain.

‘I think it was. Now you will have to live with the consequences.’

‘John will not abandon me. He loves me still.’

‘I’ll pray that it is so. My faith in Exeter’s constancy is not as strong as yours. I have more faith in his driving ambition. And you can’t argue against that, Elizabeth, however hard you try.’

On which caustic note she turned and walked away, the rift between us growing with every step across the heraldic animals that pranced across the patterned tiles of the cathedral floor. I would not tell her that I was carrying another child.

Alone, I was forced to acknowledge the truth in some of her accusations. I had always considered my own needs first. Had I indeed brought pain to my father? Perhaps I had, but the Duke had been the first to acknowledge John’s value as soldier and leader of men. I would not regret those long ago events that I had fought so hard to set in motion. Anger built again. The Duchess had driven a sword between us, making me doubt myself. I could not forgive her, when grief for father and brother commanded every sense. So be it. I no longer needed Duchess Katherine in my life. I was strong enough to beat my own path and I would do it.

Yet my heart felt the sting of a physical wound as I left the empty church, where John was waiting for me.

‘What did the Duchess have to say?’ He took my arm.

‘Nothing. We shared our grief.’

I did not think that he believed me as he led me to where our horses waited. His hand was warm and firm on my arm and his smile understanding as he helped me to mount. Whatever the clash of family and temper I would not let our love falter. I knew it was worth fighting for. One day all would be smoothed over and this new child, created in our reunion in the aftermath of Arundel’s bloody end, would be born into a period of golden tranquillity.

In my heart I did not think I truly believed that either.

Somewhere in the distant reaches of the Pultney house, growing closer by the second, was a blistering rant of raised voices, the loudest that of Master Shelley, our steward. Unable to ignore it, John flung himself across the antechamber where we were removing our outer garments into the hands of our servants, to open the door.

‘Now what? Do we have insurrection in our house?’

‘Yes, my lord.’ There was Master Shelley on the threshold, one hand gripping the arm of one of the FitzAlan boys, hard. Behind them walked his brother. ‘Of a particularly invidious nature too, my lord. I’ve brought the culprit here for justice.’

Hat and gloves still in hand, John frowned at the boy. We had absorbed them into our household with our own children, the pages and squires, but indeed the young men were old enough, and resentful enough, to be put under the training of a Sergeant at Arms. It was John’s intention to do so but had had little time to consider their future. Perhaps we had been tardy.

‘Which one are you?’

The lad scowled back, his habitual expression. ‘As if you care.’

While Master Shelley dealt him a cuff to his shoulder, I saw John take a breath, placing his hat and gloves gently on the chest, and knew he would strive to be patient with a boy whose temper had undergone no mellowing. Understandably, perhaps. John had been granted much of the Arundel inheritance, while these two young men were landless and penniless, dependent on our charity until Richard said otherwise.

‘Mind your manners, FitzAlan. You know better than that,’ John advised evenly.

‘As if you care, my lord.’ The curl of his lip was striking and crude.

‘I might care if I knew what this is about.’

It was the younger of the two boys, as I knew. The more surly, the less amenable to what they undoubtedly saw as imprisonment.

‘It is Thomas,’ I said.

‘So what has Thomas done?’ John asked.

‘This misbegotten creature. Caught pissing in the soup pot. I just prevented your cook from cleaving his head with the axe he happened to have in his hand.’ Master Shelley, seething with righteous anger, dragged the lad forward. ‘Not cowed by the lash of the cook’s tongue, he swore he’d do it every day until you died of poison. And if that didn’t work, he’d piss over the hog on the spit. And over your cook as well if he tried to stop him.’

I caught a reluctant gleam in the steward’s eye. But there was none in John’s as he addressed himself to Richard, the older boy who had taken a step forward.

‘Well?’

The boy’s eyes were as defiant as his brother’s. ‘I am to blame, not my brother, my lord.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘I swear that I am.’

‘As heir to your father, would you swear on his innocence, which you claim so often and with such vehemence, that you were the one to defile my kitchens?’

Face flushed, the disinherited Earl’s eyes fell.

‘As I thought. You cannot take an oath on your father’s good name, can you?’

Richard FitzAlan shook his head.

‘Then let your brother take his punishment. At seventeen years he is of an age to do so.’

‘I’ll not be punished by you,’ Thomas muttered. ‘You have no right …’

On which note of defiance John raised his hand and dealt Thomas a flat handed blow that dropped him to his knees, while I, unwilling to interfere, moved swiftly to grip John’s arm. Not that it was necessary. John’s temper might be explosive on occasion but his blow had held more flamboyance than weight, and I knew that he had some compassion for the disinherited and orphaned FitzAlans. Their mother had been dead for more than a decade. I walked across to lift the boy to his feet, but he pushed me away.

‘I’ll be beholden to no one in this house,’ he hurled his challenge from his knees. ‘Not until the day of my death.’

‘You are not beholden,’ I tried. Surely reason would have more effect than a beating. ‘You are only here until the King sees fit to restore your father’s lands and titles to you.’

But John’s patience was at an end. ‘Would you dare to dishonour my wife? With behaviour more suited to a beggar in a gutter? Even he would know better than to contaminate good food. Get up. You are not hurt. You will make your apologies.’

‘I will not.’

John hauled Thomas to his feet. ‘Whatever gripe you have with me, this is the Lady Elizabeth’s home and you will treat it and her with the courtesy I presume you were raised to understand.’

I saw the fire in the boy’s eye. So did John.

‘Do I strike you again for unpardonable ill-manners? Your father, a courageous man and a man of chivalry, would be ashamed of you.’

A blow that got home. Thomas paled and dipped his head.

‘I will apologise if I must. I beg pardon, madam.’

‘And you will not repeat your crime?’ I asked.

‘No, my lady. But I’ll not …’

‘That’s enough, before you spoil it,’ John intervened. ‘Now get out, before I regret letting you off so lightly. But first …’