“Who will you send, Sire?” asked Wykeham, who had been an observer throughout of the clash of royal tempers, and the unsettling royal indecision at the end. “Who will go to Ireland?”

“I’ll sleep on it.” Edward stood; so did everyone else apart from the Queen. “I’ll give it some thought, Windsor. Come to me tomorrow, Lionel, and your mother and I will consider the merits of a new bride.…”

The council was over with little to say for itself but a lot of bad blood and no outcome. In his youth, I thought that Edward would not have allowed it to be so. Over Philippa’s shoulder as I helped her to her feet, William de Windsor’s eyes met mine, with a victorious gleam. Glancing up, the Queen noticed.

She said nothing but grasped my hand as tightly as she was able.

After Mass the next morning I found Windsor leaning with studied negligence against the wall outside the Queen’s apartments.

“Mistress Perrers. At last.”

His bow was a study in elegance. Or was it no more than a charade? Undecided, I made little attempt at courtesy, with the merest bend of the knee. The Queen would have condemned me for my ill manners.

“Sir William. I did not see you at Mass.”

“That, Mistress Perrers, was because I was not there. Where are you going?”

I inhaled sharply. “Why?”

“I thought I might escort you.”

“To what purpose?”

“Such grace! I had thought better of you, a queen’s damsel—and other things.” Oh, he was a worthy adversary. “Allow me to accompany you, and you will discover my purpose.”

“If you wish.” I strode ahead of him on my errand for the Queen, but not for long. His energetic stride brought him abreast of me soon enough, closer than I liked. I made a show of tweaking the fall of my sleeve. “Perhaps if you attended Mass, sir, prayer and supplication would aid your future.”

“Do you think? I doubt it.”

“Confession, then? It is said to be good for the soul.”

“I’ve found it overrated. Now, you could do much more for my future, Mistress Alice.”

“I?” I honored him with a glance. “What could I possibly do?”

“Persuade the King to send me back to Ireland, of course.”

Truly perplexed, I stopped and turned to look at him, taking in the uncompromising set of his mouth, the reckless gleam in his eye. “I don’t understand why you would wish to return to the scene of your previous debacle.”

“Debacle? No such thing. Have faith, Mistress Perrers—and tell the King I’m his man. The advantages of having a man of my knowledge there, on the ground, would be invaluable. Will you do it?”

I discovered I was in a mood to be uncooperative. Just to see what he would do.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I knew more about this than I was saying. Should I tell him? Or let him find out for himself? No, I would drop the poison into his ear: It would please me to disturb the smooth exterior. “There would be no purpose in my taking up your petition with the King, Sir William.” He was on guard in an instant. My smile was serene. “The King will appoint the Earl of Desmond as the new Governor.”

“What?” Oh, he was shaken, his flirtatious manner cast aside. “What?”

“Desmond. The King will make him the new King’s Lieutenant,” I reiterated.

“Will he, by God!”

“A man of birth and high principle,” I added.

“And a man with the intelligence of a gnat. So I’ve rid myself of Lionel to be saddled with Desmond!” All the warning I saw in the expressive face was a furious clamping of lips before Windsor strode off, leaving me standing.

I laughed at the success of my ruffling. “I see you did not seek me out for the pleasure of my company, Sir William,” I called after him.

At which he promptly marched back, brow black but the formidable control once more in place. “Forgive me—although I think my behavior might have been unforgivable,” he snapped.

“It was.”

Windsor seized my hand and kissed my fingers, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “At least Desmond—unless he’s changed dramatically in recent months—will stir himself to do as little as possible and leave the ordering of affairs to me. It could be worse. I could be saddled with some interfering old goat who couldn’t recognize an insurrection if it fell on his foot.…”

He was striding off again before I could think of anything else to say.

Windsor was at the Mass next morning. He returned my regard with an atrocious parody of religious solemnity, just as his concentration on the raising of the host was unsurpassed. I was impressed with his apparent unquestioning reverence in God’s presence.

Until the end. His grin was quite satanic.

And I was impressed for quite other reasons.

Edward surprised me. Without any advice from me, he ordered Windsor back to Ireland to aid the newly appointed Governor, the Earl of Desmond. Thus a little subtle balancing, I surmised, keeping all parties satisfied and putting an able man at Desmond’s right hand. A politic move, forsooth. So Windsor was to go. I did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed that so troublesome an influence should be removed from my life. The decision had more than surprised me.

“I thought you did not like him,” I remarked to Edward when he told me he was planning to send the thrice-damned but clever bastard back to Ireland, where he might, with luck, receive his just deserts, skewered to the heart by the sword of an Irish rebel.

“I don’t. But he understands Ireland.”

“And you don’t fear he’ll use your confidence in him to feather his own nest?”

“Of course he will. But he’s not without talent.”

“Will you send him soon?” I inquired.

“The sooner, the better. It’s a conflagration in Dublin, waiting to happen.”

So William de Windsor’s visit to the Court would be a short one. Good riddance! I decided. But I would make the opportunity to see him before he departed. And why would I do that? Had I no sense?

I had no idea. And sense was definitely in short supply.

I did not know where to find him. Pleading a sore tooth to account for my absence from the solar, I tried all the possibilities, and some I knew to be impossible. Chapel—unlikely—stables, audience chambers, a group of hard-drinking knights in one of the antechambers—now, that I would have expected. There was no sign of him. Had he gone already? Had he left at the crack of dawn under royal orders to get back to the source of his ambitions as soon as possible?

My heart, inexplicably, plummeted.

You fool, I remonstrated. He is nothing to you but a thorn beneath the skin. He could not even find the time to bid you farewell. He likes you as little as you like him.

And yet I had found exhilaration in our cut and thrust that gave no quarter.

I returned to the stables, and was told that he had not gone. His rangy roan was still there, and his pack animals. So where was he? Some whore’s chamber, perchance? But I did not think so. Where might he spend his last day at Court?

And I knew.

Within minutes I was standing outside the room, my ear pressed to the door. And beyond the door I could hear the rumble of voices. Difficult as it was to distinguish them, I elected to wait to find out, still wondering why seeing him meant so much to me. Before I had settled on an answer that did not increase my sense of self-delusion, the door opened and there was my quarry stepping into the corridor. He came from an interview with Edward’s treasurer. Of course he would be discussing finance.…

“Mistress Perrers, as I live and breathe!” He bowed.

“Sir William.” I curtsied.

“I leave tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“And you have come to find me to say farewell. How kind of you!”

“Wasn’t it.”

“You could make my final night here memorable. Unless you have other engagements.” His hand was beneath my elbow, and he was leading me toward an unoccupied sunny window embrasure. I pulled my arm away, shocked at the instant physical response that tightened like a fist in my belly. My words were icy.

“Do you think I would slide into your bed, Sir William? Betray my King?”

“I don’t know. Would you?”

“We are not all unprincipled.”

“Oh, I think most of us can be, to one degree or another.” It was an uncomfortable echo of what I had said to Wykeham. Windsor’s stare was brazen. “Is he a good lover? Does he satisfy you?”

“You are impudent, sir. And I’ll not betray the King.”

No, I would not betray Edward with one such as William de Windsor, but he was a damnably attractive man for all his impudence. And he surprised me by a sudden change in direction that I was to discover was typical of him. A clever stratagem to unsettle the listener.

“No. I don’t suppose you will. Will you do one thing for me, Mistress Perrers?”

“Since you obviously don’t desire me in your bed, what would that be?”

“Keep me acquainted with Court opinion and any change in royal policy in Ireland.”

So! His interest was political, not personal. A little piqued at his rapid rejection of my charms—how inconsistent can a woman be?—I asked, “What’s it worth?”

“Do I have to pay you?”

I assayed a simper.

And William de Windsor kissed me. Not a kiss of passion or of affection, but a firm pressure of his lips at the corner of my mouth, like a promise of what might be.

And in instant response, without thought, I struck him with the flat of my hand against his cheek.

Windsor gave a shout of laughter. “Sweet Alice! Such lack of control!”

“Such lack of respect!” I was shocked equally by both his action and mine, and fought to claw back the control. My heart was beating faster; my blood was hot, and not from the heat of the sun through the glass. “I see you’ve learned your manners amongst the sluts of Dublin.”