‘The servers will come with my dinner at any moment,’ I warn him.

He makes a careless gesture with his hand. ‘Have you thought about our talk?’

Every moment of this afternoon. ‘Yes.’

‘Would you like me to be your champion in this matter?’ Again he smiles at me as if he is proposing the most delicious game, as if asking me to conspire against my guardian and my sister is like inviting me to dance.

‘What would we do?’ I try to be serious but I am smiling in reply.

‘Oh,’ he whispers. ‘We would have to meet often, I am sure.’

‘Would we?’

‘Once a day at least. For a proper conspiracy I should want to see you once a day, probably twice. I don’t know that I wouldn’t need to see you all the time.’

‘And what would we do?’

He pulls a stool towards the chair with the toe of his boot and gestures that I should sit near him. I obey: he is mastering me as he would pet a hawk. He leans towards me as if to whisper, his breath warm on my bare neck. ‘We would talk, Lady Anne, what else?’

If I were to turn my head just a little then his lips would touch my cheek. I sit very still, and will myself not to turn to him at all.

‘Why? What would you like to do?’ he asks me.

I think: I would like to do this, all day, this delicious play. I should like to have his eyes on me all day, I should like to know that he has moved at last from a nonchalant childhood acquaintance to lovemaking. ‘But how would this get my fortune restored to me?’

‘Oh yes, the fortune. For a moment I had quite forgotten the fortune. Well, first I must talk with you to make sure that I know exactly what you want.’ Again he draws close. ‘I would want to do exactly what you want. You must command me. I will be your cavalier, your chevalier-servant – isn’t that what girls want? Like out of a story?’

His lips are against my hair, I can feel the warmth of him.

‘Girls can be very silly,’ I say, trying to be adult.

‘It’s not silly to want a man devoted to your service,’ he points out. ‘If I could find a lady that would accept my service, who would give me her favour, a lady of my choice, I would pledge myself to her safety and happiness.’ He moves back a little so that he can study my face.

I cannot stop myself looking into his dark eyes. I can feel the colour rising in my cheeks but I cannot take my eyes from him.

‘And then I will speak to my brother for you,’ he says. ‘You cannot be held like this against your will, your mother cannot be held against her will.’

‘Would the king listen to you?’

‘Of course. Without a doubt. I have been at his side ever since I was strong enough to hold a sword in battle. I am his faithful brother. He loves me. I love him. We are brothers in arms as well as in blood.’

There is a tap at the door and Richard goes in one fluid motion to stand behind it so that when the serving man bangs it open and comes in, with another behind him, carrying half a dozen dishes and a pitcher of small ale, they don’t see him. They fuss at the table, putting out the plate and pouring the ale, and then they wait to serve me.

‘You can go,’ I say. ‘Close the door behind you.’

They bow and leave the room, as Richard steps out of the shadow and pulls up a stool to the table. ‘May I?’

We have the most delightful meal together, just the two of us. He shares the cup for the ale, he eats from my plate. The dinners I have endured in loneliness, eating for hunger with no pleasure, are forgotten. He picks little pieces of stewed beef from the dish and offers them to me, and mops up the gravy for himself with a piece of bread. He praises the venison and insists that I have some, and shares the pastries with me. There is no awkwardness between us, we could be children together again, with this constant bubble of laughter, and something beneath it – desire.

‘I had better go,’ he says. ‘Dinner will be over in the hall and they will be looking for me.’

‘They will think I have grown greedy,’ I remark, looking at the empty dishes on the table.

He gets up and I stand too, suddenly awkward. I want to ask when we will see each other again, how we are to meet? But I feel that I cannot ask him that.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he says easily. ‘Will you go to mass early?’

‘Yes.’

‘Stay behind after Isabel leaves and I will come to you.’

I am breathless. ‘All right.’

His hand is on the door, about to go. I put my hand on his sleeve, I cannot resist touching him. He turns with a little smile, and gently bends to kiss my hand where it rests on his arm. That’s all, that’s all. That one touch, not a kiss on my mouth, not a caress, but that one touch of his lips that makes my fingers burn. And then he slips from the room.

Wearing my widow’s gown of dark blue, I follow Isabel into chapel and glance towards the side of the church where the king and his brothers sit to hear mass. The royal box is empty, nobody is there. I feel a sickly lurch of disappointment and think that he has failed me. He said he would be here this morning and he is not. I kneel behind Isabel and try to keep my mind on the service but the Latin words roll on and I hear them as if they were meaningless, a patter of sounds which say: ‘I will see you tomorrow. Will you go to mass early?’

When the service is finished and Isabel rises I don’t get up with her, but lower my head as if in prayer. She glances over at me impatiently, and then leaves me alone. Her ladies follow her from the chapel and I hear the door close behind them. The priest arranges his things on the altar behind the screen, his back to me, as I kneel devoutly, my hands together and my eyes closed, so I don’t see Richard as he slips into the pew and kneels beside me. Tantalisingly, I let myself sense him before I open my eyes to see him – the light scent of soap from his skin and the clean smell of new leather of his boots, the little noise as he kneels, the smell of lavender as he crushes a flower head beneath his knee, and then the warmth of his hand over my clasped fingers.

I open my eyes slowly, as if I am waking, and he is smiling at me. ‘What are you praying for?’

This moment, I think. You. Rescue. ‘Nothing, really.’

‘Then I will tell you that you should pray for your freedom and for the freedom of your mother. Shall I ask Edward for you?’

‘Would you ask for my mother to be freed?’

‘I could do. Would you want me to?’

‘Of course. But do you think she could go to Warwick Castle? What is there for her here? Or could she go to one of our other houses? Do you think she would still stay at Beaulieu even if she were free to leave?’

‘If she were to decide to stay in the abbey, in honourable retirement, then she might keep her fortune and you would still have nothing, and still have to live with your sister,’ he says quietly. ‘If Edward will forgive her and set her free then she will be a lady of great wealth, but never welcome at court: a wealthy recluse. You will have to live with her, and you will have nothing of your own until her death.’

The priest cleans the cup and puts it carefully in a case, turns the pages of the Bible and puts a silk marker on the page, then bows reverently to the cross and goes out of the door.

‘Iz will be furious with me if she doesn’t get my mother’s fortune.’

‘And how would you manage if you had nothing?’ he asks.

‘I could live with my mother.’

‘Would you really want to live in seclusion? And you would have no dowry. Only what she chooses to give you. If you wanted to marry in the future.’ He pauses, as if the idea has just occurred to him. ‘Do you want to marry?’

Limpidly I look at him. ‘I see no-one,’ I say. ‘They don’t allow me to be in company. I am a widow, in my first year of mourning. Who would I marry, since I meet no-one?’

His eyes are on my mouth. ‘You’re meeting me.’

I see his smile. ‘I am,’ I whisper. ‘But it is not as if we are courting or thinking of marriage.’

The door at the back of the chapel opens and someone comes in to pray.

‘Perhaps you need both your share of the fortune and your freedom,’ Richard says very quietly in my ear. ‘Perhaps your mother may stay where she is and her fortune be given equally to you and your sister. Then you could be free to live your own life, and make your own choice.’

‘I couldn’t live alone,’ I object. ‘I wouldn’t be allowed. I’m only fifteen.’

Again he smiles at me and moves a little so that his shoulder is against mine. I want to lean on him, I want his arm around me.