‘He has lungs like a blacksmith’s bellows.’

And John laughed. Arm in arm, we were reconciled. The love we shared remained strong, if not untouched. Did I ever regret the life-changing step I took when I rejected the tranquillity of the Pembroke marriage for the upheavals of my life with John Holland? No. He was still the one true love of my life, the solid foundation of all my happiness. And beneath the strains of family rivalries, I knew I was his. He would always be driven, always ambitious, but I had known that from the start, had I not? Perhaps I truly saw it now for the first time. But I was older and wiser and, with good fortune, would keep his ambitions from destroying us. Did love make a woman less selfish? Perhaps it did.

I must be circumspect, treading carefully, to keep the peace. Not impossible as the reign settled and loyalties were no longer questioned at every step. Perhaps the New Year festivities would help to calm the family storms.

‘Well, here we are. About to step into the lion’s den. Let’s hope the lion is asleep.’

John leaned from his saddle to draw back the curtain of the travelling litter that had kept the younger children contained, as it had when we left London before the birth of Edward. We were at Windsor.

‘Will we see lions?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘Not here,’ John said, then to me: ‘Is King Edward’s lion still alive?’

Taking a firm grip on Alice, I shook my head and led the long walk from the lower ward to the royal apartments.

‘But a King will need a lion to protect him from his enemies,’ I heard Elizabeth announce.

‘Your Uncle does not need an lion. He has your mother to roar for him,’ my caustic husband replied, but there was laughter in his voice and I smiled. It was an image that pleased me, and John’s mood augured well for the occasion.

We had travelled from Dartington to Windsor, the children excited and John making a good face of it as we settled into our accommodations. For me, in spite of all assurances to the contrary, a strange hovering uncertainty invested the rooms, thick as a miasma over a noxious marsh, however much they might be festooned and tricked out for the masques and merriment that Henry had planned.

Henry, trying hard, was warm and welcoming.

‘Elizabeth. Huntingdon.’ Clasped hands. A fleeting kiss on the cheek. A sup of warm ale and a cushioned settle after days over rutted roads. All was as it should be, and Henry’s greeting was the perfection of a welcoming and generous host. ‘It’s good to have you here. It is a time for family to rejoice and celebrate. We have much to celebrate. It’s time to put the past behind us.’

How benign. I preferred Henry when he was boisterous. It had been many years since I could read his enthusiasms, his expressions. The smiling lines on his face might have been engraved with a knife.

‘Of course we would come,’ I said, returning his embrace.

‘I could not refuse your invitation, sire’ John added, careful of ceremony. ‘An invitation to a royal property is a rare and fine thing.’

He had not been invited to Hertford. That had been a compulsion under guard. I nudged John as Henry turned his head. I could sense that John seethed behind the benign exterior, but he shrugged and, as he had promised me, set himself to play the role of loyal brother to the newly crowned King.

‘I have had a lifetime of experience,’ he had observed dryly. ‘I will do it to perfection.’

Pray God he meant it.

We hunted and hawked, enjoyed the mummers and minstrels, the games of the young people. The name of Richard was not mentioned, and although his absence hovered over us, I relaxed into the family traditions of the past. It was so easy to slide into the court life that I knew, all gossip and ostentation and unthreatening friendship.

We had been there barely a week, celebrating early Mass in the great chapel of St George as the family did, our children in a row, fidgeting under my eye and that of their nursemaids. Until Charlotte, sharp-eyed as ever, leaned across brother John:

‘Where is Father going?’ she whispered during the priestly preparations.

‘Your father isn’t going anywhere. He has promised to take you hawking along the river since the ice is too thin for skating.’

‘He is,’ Richard, on my other side, said. ‘He ordered his horse to be ready. He wouldn’t take me with him.’

I considered. ‘Perhaps it’s an errand for the King.’

And perhaps it was not. I turned my head, but John was nowhere to be seen. Where was he going, at this moment, when a Mass was to be held in commemoration, for the quiet rest of Mary’s soul and that of her ill-fated first born child.

‘Is he still here, Richard? In the Castle?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes.’ This was Elizabeth. Did all my children listen to adult conversations? ‘Father said he had to …’

I hushed her as heads were turned in our direction. ‘Stay here,’ I ordered. And I left with a genuflection. What an excellent time to choose for some purpose I could not define. Had he intended to tell me? I thought not.

I found him in the stables, already shrouded against the winter cold in felt chaperon, a fur-lined cloak, however unfashionable it might be, and heavy gloves, one foot in the stirrup. There was a squire, a page, but no escort.

‘John!’

He abandoned his reins to his page and approached, his hands held out to take mine, quick repentance in his face. ‘Forgive me, Elizabeth.’

‘I’m uncertain what I have to forgive you for as yet. Where are you going?’

‘London.’

‘Why?’

He pulled me out of the path of his squire who was leading a spritely animal from stable to courtyard. At the same time, I could only note, he manoeuvred me to where we could not be overheard.

‘Why are you going to London,’ I repeated. ‘When you should be with me, kneeling with everyone else to give thanks for God’s blessing on our King and his family?’

For a split second he looked away, his brows meeting heavily, but any discomfort was momentary, for within a breath he was planting a kiss on my lips and rubbing my cheek with the back of his glove.

‘A matter of business. I doubt I’ll be missed.’

‘I think you might be.’ And then: ‘Is it legitimate business?’

His smile was quick and assured, before becoming a grimace of disgust. ‘Of course. Did you not know? Your royal brother, my love, since he has stripped us of the duchy of Cornwall lands, has made a gift of them to his eldest son. I need to see my man of law. There are legal matters to attend to before the transfer to Prince Henry. Not something I appreciate, but a necessity.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I could understand John’s irritation. Yet my suspicions were still lively, my fingers curled like claws into the fullness of the fur edging of his cloak. ‘I don’t like this,’ I said. ‘You are taking no escort.’

‘There’s no need for concern. I’ll be back within two days. Now return to the Mass and pray for me. And our children.’ He all but pushed me through the stable door.

‘And for the King?’ I asked dryly.

John kissed me, firm enough to shut me up, but fleeting. ‘Certainly for the King. What could harm him now that he wears the Crown and we are all loyal subjects?’

‘John …’

He shook his head, mounted with habitual fluid grace, and rode out, leaving me to disbelieve every word he had uttered.

But true to his word, John was back in our midst within the two days. Eyes bright, face flushed with cold, he strode into the chamber where we were gathered to enjoy an afternoon with chess and frivolous gambling, lifted me off my feet and kissed me. There was a rustle of laughter around us.

‘Did you miss me, Countess?’

‘Not at all. Too much going on here to miss someone so unnecessary as a husband.’

Henry strolled across towards us.

‘It must have been important business.’

‘It was. The little matter of my erstwhile Cornish estates.’ John’s reply was brittle but at least brief. ‘And now I must make my apologies to my wife, who is still scowling at me for abandoning her to all this indulgence.’

I laughed, suspicions momentarily allayed by the light mood. ‘It’s good to see you back, my lord.’

He took my hand. ‘Come and tell me what you have been doing.’

He led me from the room, indulgent comments following us. Yes, I had missed him. His return filled me with hot desire, but I was troubled by that air of shimmering excitement about him. A nervous energy. Whatever the legitimate business, it had stirred his blood, which had excellent repercussions, for he restored the intimacy between us with verve and drama, reminding me of the early days when we still had much to discover about the passion that held us. John kissed and caressed me into insensibility, and as all my fears were swept away, I reciprocated in kind.

‘I must leave you more often,’ he groaned when I had destroyed all his self-control with a crow of delight.

‘Don’t you dare!’

I proceeded to relight all the fires anew.

‘What’s Henry doing?’ he asked as, slowly, with some youthful endearments, we put our clothing to rights, John taking it upon himself to pin my hair into passable order beneath a simple veil.

‘Planning his grand tournament. He has in mind something spectacular on the lines of his grandfather’s extravaganzas.’

‘Perhaps I’ll offer my services.’

‘Which will surprise him. But please him as well, I think. Are you truly reconciled to him?’

‘Why not? He could have had my head. Many say I should be thankful it was only my dukedom. I can live with it.’

‘I’m sorry about the Cornish estates. I know you valued them.’

‘I’ll live without them. But not without you.’

It was the sweetest of reunions, touched with all the magic of the seasonal glamour. Yet it did not quite smooth out my days and I found myself watchful, wakeful, alert for any wrong step in the pattern of the festivities.