But I loved him. And pretended I did not.

“Glad to hear it.” He kissed my mouth, his desire evident. “Do I come with you?”

“No. I’ll go alone.”

“I still say you shouldn’t.…”

I placed my fingers over his mouth. “Will, don’t.…”

His teeth nipped at my fingertips. “Do you want me to stay tonight?”

“Yes.”

So he did.

“I’ll keep you safe, you know,” he murmured against my throat, his skin slick, his breath short, when I had proved to him that his jealousy had no grounds.

“I know,” I replied as I fought against the dread that threatened my contentment. The powers ranged against his protection of me might be too great. The royal hospitality in the dungeon in the Tower might not be a figment of my imagination.

“I’ll not let any harm come to you.”

“No.”

His arms held the black fears at bay and we enjoyed each other; my heart was lighter with the rising of the sun.

“Don’t go!” he murmured.

And still the dangerous word love had not been uttered between us. I was forced to accept that it never would be.

I ignored Windsor’s advice and went to Westminster.

Anonymous in black and gray—posing as nothing more than a well-to-do widow, for I was not completely lacking in good sense—I took myself to Westminster, to the Abbey, with two stalwart servants, who forced a way through the crowds. I would be there. I would let the mysticism of the monastic voices raised in Edward’s requiem Mass sweep over me, and would thank God for Edward’s escape from the horrors of his final days. I would not be kept out—not by Joan, not by the devil himself. The crowds were predictably ferocious but no impediment to the elbows of a determined woman.

We approached the door. A few more yards, and then it would be possible to slip inside. A blast of trumpets brought everyone around me to a halt, apart from the usual haphazard pushing and jostling, until those at the front were thrust back by royal guards, each applying his halberd as quarterstaff. I edged my way as close as I could, and there, walking toward the great door, was the new King, not yet crowned, pale and insubstantial in seemly black, his fair hair lifting in the wind. What a poor little scrap of humanity, I thought. He had none of the robust presence of his father or grandfather, nor, I suspected, would he ever have.

And at his side? My breath hissed between my teeth. At his side, protective, self-important, walked his mother. Joan the Fair, her sour features unable to restrain her final triumph. Stout and aged beyond her years, wrapped around in black velvet and sable fur, she resembled nothing less than one of the portly ravens that inhabited the Tower.

Damn you for standing in my path to Edward’s side!

She was so close I could have touched her. I had to restrain myself from striking out, for in that moment of blinding awareness, I resented her supremacy, her preeminence, the power that she had usurped, which was once mine. A power against which I had no defenses.

I hope your precious son rids himself of your interference as soon as he’s grown! I hope he chooses Gaunt’s influence over yours!

Did she sense my hostility? There was the slightest hesitation in her footstep, as if my antagonism gave off a rank perfume, and she turned her head when she had come level with me. Our eyes met; hers widened; her lips parted. Her features froze, and I was afraid of the threat I saw writ there. It was within her authority to bring down the law on my head, despite the solemnity of the occasion. My future might rest in those plump, dimpled hands. What had possessed me to risk this meeting? I wished with all my heart that I had heeded Windsor’s caustic warnings.

Joan’s mouth closed like a trap and her hesitation vanished. How sure she was! With a little smile, she placed one hand firmly on her son’s shoulder, all the time urging him forward into the Abbey. So much was said in that one small gesture. And then they had moved past me, so the frisson of fear that had touched my nape eased. She would let me go. And I exhaled slowly.

Too soon! Too soon! Joan stopped. She spun swiftly on her heel. The men-at-arms lining the route stood to attention, halberds raised, and fear returned tenfold, flooding my lungs so that I could not breathe. Would she?

Our eyes were locked, hers in malice, mine in defiance, for that one moment as immobile as the carved stone figures that stared out with blind eyes above our heads. Would she punish me for all I had stood for, all I had been to Edward? For this ultimate provocation in the face of her express orders?

Joan’s smile widened with an unfortunate display of rotted teeth. Yes, she would. I almost felt the grip of hard hands on my arms, dragging me away. But she surprised me.

“Close the door when we are entered. Let no one pass!” Joan ordered. “The proceedings will begin now that the King is come.” She turned away as if I were of no importance to her, yet at the end she could not resist. “Your day is over,” I heard her murmur, just loud enough so that I might hear. “Why do I need to bother myself with such as you…?”

For the briefest of ill-considered moments, spurred by brutal insolence, I considered following in the royal train, slipping through before the great door was slammed shut, and taking my rightful place beside my royal lover’s tomb. I would insist on my right to be there.

Ah, no!

Sense returned. I had no rightful place. Sick at heart, I fought my way out of the crowd and back to my water transport, where I was not altogether surprised to find Windsor waiting for me. Nor was I displeased, although furious with Joan, but mostly with myself for my impaired prudence. In true woman’s fashion, I took my embittered mood out on him.

“So you’ve come to rescue me!” I said with a nasty nip of temper.

“Someone had to.” He was suitably brusque under the circumstances. “Get in the barge.”

I sat in moody, glowering silence for the whole of the journey; I had been put very firmly in my place, more by Joan’s final words than by anything else. Windsor allowed me to wallow, making no attempt at conversation to discover what had disturbed me. He simply watched life on the riverbank pass by with a pensive gaze.

Why do I need to bother myself with such as you…?

I had always known that the days of Edward’s protection would end, had I not? But to be cut off quite so precipitously…It had been frighteningly explicit. There was a new order in England in which I had no part. I must accept it, until the day of my death.

My personal mourning for Edward was far more satisfying, to my mind, and what he would have wished me to do. On my return, I did what he had loved, what he had reminisced over even when he could barely sit upright against his pillows, much less climb into the saddle. I took a horse, a raptor on my fist, Braveheart at my heels—older but no wiser—and hunted the rabbits in the pastures around Pallenswick. The hunting was good. When the falcon brought down a pigeon, my cheeks were wet with tears. Edward would have relished every moment of it. And then, retired to my own chamber, I drank a cup of good Gascon wine—“dear Edward, you will live forever in my memory”—before I turned my back on the past and looked forward.

But to what? Isolation. Boredom! They were better than being hunted down by a bitter woman bent on vengeance, despite her words that I was nothing to her. I knew it was not in Joan’s nature to abandon the chase. Thrusting myself under her nose had not been one of my wisest choices.

“I shouldn’t have gone, should I?” Wrapped in a heavy mantle, unable to keep warm, I huddled over the open fire when the weather turned unseasonably wet and wild.

“I told you not to,” Windsor remarked, entirely without sympathy, except that his hands were astonishingly warm around my freezing ones.

“I know you did.” I was moody and out of sorts, much like the high winds and sudden squalls of heavy rain that arrived to buffet us.

“Don’t worry. They can’t get to you, you know. Your banishment was rescinded by Gaunt himself.”

“Do you believe that she’ll forget?” His optimism was unusual.

“No.” So much for optimism! He scowled down at his fingers encircling my wrists, with the cynicism I appreciated in a world of flattery and empty promises. “How much did the King leave her in his will?”

I answered without inflection. “A thousand marks. Not enough to crow about. And Richard gets Edward’s bed with all the armorial hangings.”

Scowl vanishing, Windsor guffawed immoderately. “Far better that you should have had the bed!”

“Joan will probably have it burned to rid herself of the contamination of my presence. She’ll not let the boy sleep in it.”

“Are you mentioned?” he asked.

“No.” I had not expected it. I had no place in Edward’s will. He had given me all that he could, all that he had wished to give.

“At least that should give her cause for rejoicing.”

“I doubt it! When I left Sheen I made sure I had Philippa’s jewels packed in my saddlebags and Edward’s rings safe in the bodice of my gown. Short of searching my body in full public view, she couldn’t get her hands on them!”

Windsor laughed again, then sobered. “Enough of Fair Joan. We can’t spend the rest of our lives worried out of our minds, can we? So we won’t.”

Which I had to admit was the best advice I could get.

Windsor released my wrists and raised his cup of ale in a toast.

“To the storms. Long may they last. May they flood the roads and riverbanks between London and Pallenswick until Joan forgets.”

“By the Virgin! Until hell freezes over!” But I took his cup, finished the ale, and echoed the sentiment. “To the storms.”