“Wash your hands? You young fool! Did you think it would be an easy task? What in God’s name have you been doing?” Edward strode down from the dais to strike the young courtier on the shoulder, a punch of a fist, not entirely a sign of affection. “Are you trying to destroy all my good work in that damned province by leaving as soon as you meet opposition? Before God, Lionel…!”

So this was Lionel, Edward’s second son to survive the rigors of childhood. Handsome, stylish, ambitious, and King’s Lieutenant of Ireland for the past handful of years, he possessed an abundance of charm, so smooth and slick as to be like a coating of goose grease on the chest of a sniveling child. Still, his unwarranted return had brought a flutter of excitement to stir the dark days of the Court. At least Lionel, newly made Earl of Clarence in Edward’s birthday generosity, had brought a smile back to the Queen’s face. For that I could look on him with more favor than I was at first inclined.

“That’s unfair, Sire! I met opposition from the first day I set foot there!”

“I’ve a good mind to send you back as soon as you can saddle a fresh horse.…”

“No, Edward…No!” Philippa could not stand. It was a bad day for her. “He is our son!”

“And a thorn in my flesh! No son of mine would have abandoned his charge. We’ll have the whole place up in arms before we can sneeze.”

“I see no cause for the peasants to object.…” Lionel’s voice had acquired an unpleasant whine.

“Of course they will object!” Edward continued to stand eye to eye with him. “Your job was to keep the peace, not stir the hornets’ nest!”

“Oh, Lionel…” The Queen stretched out her hands.

The young man promptly evaded his father and fell to his knees before the Queen, where he bowed his head in unctuous regret. “Mother. Forgive me.…”

“My dearest Lionel.”

“I can explain.…”

“I’m sure there were reasons.…”

“But will my father listen?” He angled a sly glance from his mother’s face toward the King. As for the rest of us, we might not have existed in this complex throwing down of a family gauntlet.

Ah…!

The chill, that same strange sensation of awareness, brushed along my spine again. And again I shivered, an unpleasant prickle of cold on nape and arm. It fluttered over my skin, strong enough that it was almost a knowledge. Someone in this room was taking note of me, watching me. Someone had more than a passing interest in me. I looked around, over the men of Lionel’s entourage, but nothing came to snatch at my interest. I could see no face turned toward me. All were intent on the standoff between king and errant son. And why should anyone single me out? Here I was simply one of the damsels, anonymous, faceless, to serve and support the Queen.

Yet the feeling remained. Someone had an eye for me.

“Your father will listen,” Philippa urged, soothed. “But not now. Later. When we have celebrated your homecoming. Five years—it’s five years since I saw you last.” Her face was luminous with maternal delight.

Edward expressed as little delight as he had admiration, but he exhaled on a grunt. “I suppose the recriminations can wait. Your mother’s glad to see you. You need some lessons in managing a difficult province—not everything can be solved with a show of force and sharp-toothed legislation. It needs…” He closed his teeth on what was about to become a lecture in high politics. “But we’ll feast your return first.”

He gave the signal for the audience to end. As I began to help the Queen to her feet, I felt that same scrutiny, as if it were stripping away my skin to peer into my soul. But only Wykeham was interested in my soul, and he was still constructing battlements at Windsor. Quickly I looked up, around, determined to catch the culprit who dared to stare at me—and there he was. One of Lionel’s coterie, he pinned his gaze on me in a vulgar stare.

I refused to return the contact. I would not be intimidated. I allowed my gaze to rove innocently over the ranks as if I sought someone I knew. And all the time I was aware that his gleaming appraisal did not waver.

Who was he?

How dared he!

So be it. Without pretense, I returned his regard, stare for stare.

He was a bold man, for sure. He neither looked away nor smiled in apology. He was older than the Prince but by no more than ten years, to my assessment. He had a harsh face, but was not unattractive—if it were not for the saturnine lines drawn from nose to mouth. No, he was not a handsome man. Clean shaven, I noted, not the usual fashion of the day, and his dark hair closer cropped than the prevailing mode. His eyes were unremarkable in color, dark rather than light, but direct and with no embarrassment at being detected staring at one of the Queen’s damsels. His jaw was disfigured by a faint scar that showed white against skin ruddy from recent campaigning. His clothes were of fine quality but functional, as was his sword, a good steel blade without decoration. As for the jewels of a courtier, alone of all the company he wore none, but I did not think that he lacked the means, rather the inclination. His mouth was set in an uncompromising line. I imagined he gave away no secrets—unless he wished to.

He was a soldier rather than a courtier, I decided. And no, I did not know him.

I lifted my brows, forcing him into a reaction, and he made a curt little inclination of his head. It pleased me to give no acknowledgment whatsoever; I turned my back on him to take the Queen’s missal into safekeeping as she made her slow progress to her rooms, Lionel beside her. I followed, feeling that stare continuing to stab between my shoulder blades until we had left the room.

Well! I did not like Lionel overmuch. I liked even less this man in Lionel’s company who had had the impudence to single me out. He had too many dark corners for my liking.

In regal style, the King ordered a celebration. Edward reveled in celebrations. It was his delight to glory in splendor in which he could play the central role. Was there ever a king to match him, one who could prance and flap with supreme confidence in the gilded costume of a gigantic bird, purely for the entertainment of his children? But not on this occasion. This was a feast with a scant nod in the direction of music and dancing but little else: barely enough of a spectacle to drain the contempt for Lionel’s failures in Ireland from Edward’s face. Edward handed a purse of coin to Andrew Claroncel, his favorite minstrel, to end the singing barely before it had begun. All in all it promised to be a long evening. I took my seat below the high table with a sharp glance at the man who had been placed beside me on my right.

My companion for the feast was the insolent man from the audience chamber. And I would have wagered my sables that it was no coincidence he had the stool next to me. How had he achieved that? A bribe passed smoothly into the palm of Edward’s steward? His eyes that raked my face—dark gray, I noted now at far too close quarters—were as audacious as I had first thought.

“Mistress Perrers.”

He stood until I had taken my seat, and it pleased me to make him wait, shaking out my skirts and disposing them elegantly. And wait he did, forcing me to admit that his manners were excellent. With a bland courtesy and a neat bow he finally sat, his actions brisk and controlled, but with a surprising elegance. So he had not spent all his life in the saddle; he had absorbed some of the skills of the courtier, even in Ireland.

“You know my name, sir.” I met his open appraisal with studied disinterest. “How is that?”

“You are not unknown at Court, mistress.” His voice was smoother than I had expected, and his reply interestingly enigmatic. I thought he masked the full truth. “You are even spoken of in Ireland,” he added.

So he hoped I would ask what was said of me. I would not. I picked up my cup and drank from it.

“What I don’t know,” he pursued, imperturbable, “is what is your family?”

And I remembered, the past suddenly stark and bleak in my mind. The gossip of my infancy. The abandoned child. The bastard of a whore and a common peasant. The purse of gold coins that might or might not have ever existed. And I shrugged. None of it mattered now. But I resented his stirring of the memories.

“I have no family,” I remarked.

And I turned my back, leaning over to exchange views with an elderly knight who sat on my left. It was astonishing, the range of topics I could find to discuss with this aging soldier, who looked askance at me and showed more interest in his food. I sighed, weary of his monosyllabic responses. And was unwise enough to glance in my silent companion’s direction. He was watching me with rare humor.

“Well?” I should not have responded, but I did.

“Have you finished at last?” he asked, showing his teeth in a smile that made me instantly wary. “I would not have believed your conversation could be so fatally dull, lady. Sir Ralph must have fallen asleep with the excitement of it. Even I could find it difficult to be enthusiastic about the length of time it takes the Court to transport itself from Havering to the Tower of London!”

“At least I had the good manners to talk to my neighbor, sir,” I retaliated. “You have failed lamentably.” He had not exchanged one word with the damsel on his other side.

How did I know? Well, I had listened, hadn’t I?

“I thought you might wish to know my name,” he remarked inconsequentially.

“Not particularly. But since we are trapped here together for the length of this meal…Who are you?” I could not resist after all. Oh, I knew who he was well enough—I had used my time effectively between audience and feast—but it would not hurt to dent his male pride. “Since you know my name, sir, it would be only common courtesy to tell me yours. And since you arranged to sit beside me…”