And if the Duke asked me to free him, so that he might restore his good name and his place at the young king’s side, what would I say? Could I step back and let him go? Would I have the strength to do that?

I trembled at it.

As I stepped towards him, the Duke raised his hands a little, palms turned out, his gesture as disciplined as his face. His cheekbones were sharp, the skin pulled taut, as if he had ridden far and fast. The familiar lines that I knew so well, that I had frequently traced in the aftermath of passion, were engraved more deeply than usual.

The words, yet unsaid, hung in the air between us with the smoke from the fire.

‘Are you going to invite me somewhere more comfortable than this hall? Have you a room where, just at this moment, I don’t have to face your scowling sister?’ He spoke with something that might once have passed for a brush of humour, but not today.

What was he thinking? No matter how carefully I searched his face, his eyes that were dark agates, I could not tell. I never could unless he wished me to know. He would not talk about the effect Walsingham’s attack had had on him. That was not why he was here. But what then did he have to say to me, which had brought him this great distance to Kettlethorpe when his whole concentration had been engaged by the invasion? I was full of fear as I opened the door into the inner chamber.

One inside, I faced him and said, ‘My sister says the sky has fallen on our heads.’

‘So it would seem,’ he replied with a lift of a shoulder.

Here was tension. I asked: ‘What did we do that was so very bad?’

‘We drew attention to ourselves.’

‘I am so sorry.’

‘It was my fault, not yours.’

‘That’s not what Walsingham says.’ How the words had hurt, and did so again as I repeated them. ‘He says I am a seductive whore.’

The Duke’s mouth tightened. ‘I should have been aware. I took your bridle and led you through the streets of Leicester, under the eye of every merchant, tradesman and gutter urchin.’ His hands had clenched into fists, but his voice was without inflexion. ‘For those who would make trouble for me—and for you—it was translated as a symbol of our disgrace, that I have control over you. That I have possession of your body. It was no better than shouting it from the rooftops. It might be one thing for me to take you to bed privately at The Savoy or Kenilworth or Leicester Castle, but to show ownership of you in public could not be tolerated.’ He took a deep breath, as if he had not breathed deep for some time. ‘We forgot to be discreet, Katherine. We forgot.’

I could see all the damage we had done, so heedlessly, on that bright morning when I had daydreamed and he had prompted a flirtation over a barrel of oysters and an iron pan.

‘I had been warned,’ the Duke said. ‘I should have taken heed.’

‘Warned?’ I was startled, and not a little angry. ‘So I had already been singled out as a blight on your life.’

He did not reply. It did not need saying. His priest, his advisers, even Sir Thomas Hungerford in his role of steward of all the southern Lancaster estates would have warned him against me. How many jibes and slights could there be to wound me?

‘Why did you not tell me?’

‘It was not important.’

Taking cognisance of his shuttered expression I knew he would say no more.

‘Can Walsingham harm you?’ I asked.

‘There is nothing new in his firing arrows at me,’ he replied, again avoiding my question.

‘It seems to me that he has more and heavier ammunition now.’

‘Perhaps. I will look to my defences.’ All the pride of a Plantagenet prince rested on his brow like a glittering coronet. ‘But I am not here to talk about Walsingham.’

It was my turn to take a breath. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Why do you think, Katherine?’

And I read the sudden blaze of fire in his eye, the physical desire in his face. No, he was not here to talk about calumnies and reputations. He was here to see me, to show me that Walsingham could not sunder what existed between us. Whatever the future held, whether we lived together or apart, our love would remain inviolate.

In my bedchamber, where Philippa was not scowling, there was no place for a complex exchange of words, for soul-searching, for regrets. Here was no place for what the future would hold for us. I would not think that our parting on the following day might be our last, if the Duke decided to repair the damage to his own standing.

I would not consider that this was the tender precursor to his leaving me.

Of course he will sever your relationship, if he has any sense, Philippa opined in my ear.

I banished her.

You have degraded me. And still do, spat Constanza, lurking in the shadows beside the clothespress.

I banished her too.

You are an evil seductress, intoned Walsingham from the bed tester.

I turned my back on him.

I warned you, did I not? Even Agnes had a face of stone. My breath caught that she too would condemn.

‘What are you thinking?’ The Duke had quietly closed the door and was watching me as I walked a circuit of the room.

‘That this room has suddenly become entirely too crowded.’

‘It looks empty enough to me.’

He approached me for the first time.

‘Of course it does.’ I forced myself to rest, although it was not difficult with his arms enclosed around me, and I laughed a little as I leaned my forehead against his shoulder. ‘Even the mice have been cleared out in my rebuilding.’ My breathing was already shortened. ‘John, my life, my love. I have had such a need of you these past days.’

His heart leaped beneath my hands. ‘I love you. I adore you,’ he replied.

I held his hand in mine, as I took him under my dominion in a chamber where there were no shadows, only ours.

‘I think I should not be with you,’ I whispered, but despite all Walsingham could do to destroy us, desire thrummed through my blood, as if I were a new bride, united for the first time to the man she worshipped. I allowed him to lead me to the bed with no coy resistance.

‘What is it?’ he asked, detecting some nuance as he busied himself divesting himself of his own clothing and mine, impatient as ever over the buttons on my sleeves.

I would have denied what was in my mind. Instead: ‘I could not look at myself in my mirror,’ I confessed, the words tumbling out, even as my breath caught at the slide of his hand on my skin. ‘I was afraid of what I would see. I have committed a great sin, you see. I have always known it was, but I did not fully understand…’

Eyes fathomlessly dark, the planes of his face severe, the Duke looked at me as if discerning for the first time the essence of the sacrifice I had made. With one finger he traced the outline of my lips, before running his knuckles under the line of my jaw. Then finally framed my face with his fine hands and kissed my lips, soft as a promise.

‘I owe you every apology, Katherine de Swynford, from the depths of my soul. I took you for my own pleasure, without thought, as I have taken everything in life. Who has ever thwarted me? Who would gainsay me? We are both guilty of sin, but I did not consider how vastly a woman of such integrity would suffer. I regret that. I wonder that you can ever forgive me for my placing your feet on this particular path that many would say leads to the fires of hell. I did not consider how the world’s condemnation would wound you. I should have. You should have been my first concern.’

The contrition in his eyes, bleak and cold, took my breath, and in the face of so brutal a confession I could do no other than raise my hands to his cheeks, to return the kiss.

‘I’ll tell you what you would see in your mirror,’ he said when our kiss was ended, ‘because I have the true image here before me. You would see a woman with the courage to accept what is between us, whatever the world says. A woman with the fortitude to love me. A woman with the spirit to allow me to love her. I can only honour you for the choice you made to link your life with mine. Nothing I can do or say can ever express the love that is in my heart for you.’

‘My love. My dear love…’ Never had I thought to hear the Duke place himself at my feet. Emotion threatened, but I would not weep, for an inner joy was unfolding. ‘I thought Walsingham had destroyed our happiness,’ I said, kissing him again. ‘I thought that when we came together, his words would taint what we have.’

‘No. He cannot. You are lodged in my heart. Are we not complete in each other?’

As so often before, we shut out the world, even Walsingham. I even succeeded in banishing the fearful anguish, although our lovemaking had a strange quality of despair about it, as if we should snatch all the fulfilment we could before storm clouds threatened. And yet there was such an exultation, such a sense of triumph that we were untouchable, that there was no possible room for regret.

I was awake when he rose at dawn. I had been awake for some time, taking note of each beautiful feature as the daylight strengthened, committing all to memory. Then I kissed him and allowed him to dress without comment. What was there to say about our love that had not been said throughout the dark hours? That had not been proved by the drift of his hands, the power of his body as he took ownership of mine in earnest.

As for what still had to be said between us, I would not pre-empt it.

Hosed and shod with fine, elegant lines, his tunic laced and belted, he came to sit on the bed beside me, to wind his fingers into the turmoil of my hair.

‘I always forget the magnificence of your hair. Its richness takes my breath.’ He barely paused. ‘I cannot stay. Not even for a day.’ He released my hair, as if it seared his flesh.