And at last John leaned forward, cradling my cheeks in his hands, and kissed me gently, so gently on my mouth.

‘Of course I trust you. Pray God Henry allows us to live in peace to enjoy it.’

We went to his bed where his lips were soft, his hands so fine on my body that my tears flowed when he folded back the linens with such careful precision, when he turned his attention to clasps and laces, then to his own clothing. Here at last were compassion and understanding. Whereas in those lonely weeks I thought that my heart and body had been carved from marble, he kissed me and held me until I became flesh again.

‘It has been a long trial for you and a longer waiting. Rest with me until your strength returns. Let me comfort you,’ he said against my loosened hair. ‘Let me give you solace and hope.’

I rested. And when I could command my breathing once more, and his kisses became a demand rather than a gentling, I allowed myself to be seduced from the hard reality of brutal loyalties to the softness of pure physical pleasure, discovering a return of the old depth of feeling in him, and an answering response in me that I had dreaded might be damaged for ever. No endearments, no poetry, no promises for the future—how could there be? —only a lightness of touch that allowed me to forget for a little while. And so, I believed, did he. My sheets were no longer cold. We enjoyed our reunion, even if John had to stretch his arms to enfold me, before we lay quietly together, not speaking, merely glad that the rifts in our life together appeared to be healed,

All would be well. All would be well. I would strive every minute of every day to make it so. The old tapestry had changed, had been reworked. The stitches were still new, but they would settle into the old weaving until the patching could not be detected. But it was not the old tapestry. It would never be the same.

We were resolved it seemed. A line drawn beneath the terrible events of the past.

But I knew in my heart that I would never see my cousin Richard again.

The next morning John was up betimes. He had, I knew, been awake for some hours, thinking thoughts that I had done nothing to disturb. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, I decided. There was nothing more that we could say to each other, and weariness had overcome me at last.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked drowsily as he donned garments suitable for a day’s travel.

‘Never mind. Get dressed and come down to the courtyard. And don’t dally. Put on sensible shoes and a travelling cloak.’

I did as I was bid, too low in energy and spirits to argue. I heard the noise first. The clamour of children’s voices. And there they all were, the whole Holland brood awaiting me. I surveyed my family, the weariness draining away. Richard was already mounted, as was Constance, now eleven and inheriting all my restlessness as she vied with her elder brother at every opportunity. Elizabeth at ten and Alice at seven were ensconced with their nurses in one of the travelling litters. John was in the act of scooping up his namesake and placing him there too.

I smiled.

For there was a separate palanquin, sumptuously curtained, heaped high with cushions, all for me.

‘I thought you might appreciate some privacy,’ John remarked, coming to take my arm.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To Dartington.’

‘Dartington …!’ Did I need so long a journey into the west?

‘You look tired.’

‘And I won’t be tired travelling?’

Without comment he led me to my transport, before taking hold of my shoulders and speaking severely as if he thought I might still resist.

‘You have had enough. Too much, in fact, of your family pulling you apart. It has to end. Henry can fend for himself, and we need time away from court. You have this new child to consider. We are together, and we are going home.’

It all but reduced me to a bout of weak tears.

‘Do you agree?’

‘Yes.’ And then: ‘What about Richard?’

‘We can do nothing for Richard, so what point worrying endlessly? We will go to Dartington and live there in peace for a little time and make it a home for the future.’

I managed a watery smile and sniffed a little. ‘Until you grow weary of rural solitude and want to dabble in the political pot again.’

‘Yes. Until that happens. We will not argue about it today.’

‘But you probably will tomorrow.’

‘Probably. And if I don’t, you will.’ Wiping my tears away, his smile was tender, lingering, with all the love I remembered from the past, until the girls’ chatter broke in. ‘Get in the litter, woman. My intention is to be at Dartington before this child is born.’

He kissed me, and then again, reminding me of how few impromptu kisses there had been between us of late. I would not allow it to happen again. The future might still be clouded, but for me, and I thought for John too, it was a day of restored happiness.



Chapter Thirteen

‘Build me a new Kenilworth,’ I said to my husband in a perverse moment of homesickness.

And that is what he set out to do on the vast estate in the soft fields and wooded inclines of Devon, all glowing stone and seasoned timber, high windows letting in the light much as those in the Duke’s banqueting hall.

‘I will build you a bower of roses too,’ he promised, in romantic mood.

‘I doubt you’ll be there to sit in it with me.’

In unity we might be, a seamless calm of love restored to us, but neither of us was of a mind to sit in a rose bower. Did we expect to live in a mood of everlasting happiness and contentment?

Yet why should we not? John directed his energies to the building of Dartington, into long discussions with the vast array of craftsmen needed to create a house for a great magnate while I gave birth to a large, placid child, a son, whom we named Edward after my grandfather. The child watched the dust motes dance in the sunshine above his cradle, snatching at them with tiny fists. Did he know of the period of rebellion and upheaval that accompanied his growth my womb?

‘He looks as if nothing will disturb him,’ John observed as Edward slept under the eye of one of his nurses. ‘Pray God nothing will.’

His prayers were not to be answered, since Henry had decided to repay John’s difficult loyalties by imprisoning him at Hertford and then bringing him to trial with the rest of the lords whose past leanings—in effect their support for Richard—gave my brother cause for concern. Had John’s ultimate defection from Richard not been enough? No, it had not.