‘Where is my father?’ asked John.

‘I wish I knew.’

‘Will he come soon?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Does he know we are here?’

‘Yes he does.’ I lowered Henry to his feet. ‘And now we will go down, or you two will face Agnes’s wrath.’

They ran in front of me, surprisingly agile on the turn of the stair. I could imagine them both excelling at military skills as they grew older.

Life would have to go on, for my sake and theirs. I did not know how I could.

What should I do now? Frightened and vulnerable, I never expected to experience such draining emotions, but the sturdy confidence that had built within me over the years now drained away, no matter how often I told myself that I was not without resources. I had Kettlethorpe and Coleby in my son Thomas’s name, my annuities, my connections in Lincoln. Margaret and Thomas were provided for. My Beaufort children would never lack. I knew the Duke well enough that whatever might stand between the two of us, his sense of honour was far too strong for him to neglect these children of his blood.

Had I no strength of character to withstand this terrible blow?

Go back to Kettlethorpe.

But I couldn’t. I could not yet cut the cord. Caught up in a maelstrom, I remained at Pontefract, wrought with indecision. Until the decision was made for me.

I was in pointed communication with the cook who was overseeing the messy task of dismemberment of a carcass with an eye to making brawn with the brain and offal. I would have retreated long before this, except that his complaints about the quality of the meat and the lack of it were legion, and so it was there that I received a letter. The courier had been directed to the kitchens.

‘I was instructed to deliver this to your hand, my lady.’

I took it, and the opportunity to turn my back on the chitterlings, except that they no longer seemed to matter. The letter took all my attention for the inscription was in the Duke’s own even script. I opened the cover to find a single page. It was strikingly brief, as if written under duress with haste a necessity. It lacked even a superscription, such as my name.

Do not leave Pontefract. I command it. You must not leave until I can come to you.

And, below, a scrawled signature.

The Duke was coming. He was coming to me.

Rereading it took no time at all. Nor did my decision-making on the strength of this imperious command. I had no intention of leaving. There were things that I needed to say.

A movement at my side made me look up to see the cook, cleaver gripped firmly, watching me. So was the courier, if less overtly. It would be far easier to slink away, back to Kettlethorpe, where I might lick my wounds in private without too many prurient eyes watching my every move. Eyes that, as now, were keen to strip the flesh from my bones.

‘Will you sit, my lady?’

What emotions had the cook read chasing across my features? I shook my head but I took the cup of ale he proffered and sipped, feeling the blood flow back beneath my skin at cheek and temple. No, I would not run away to Kettlethorpe. I had been Lancaster’s lover for nine years, I had borne him four children. I would wait and hear what he had to say. I would not weep at his feet as, the rumours said, Constanza had done when they met on the road. The emotionally vivid account of their passionate reconciliation had reduced me to unutterable fury.

It swept through me again now, and I cast the letter into the fire in a fit of pique, noting with satisfaction that the wax image of John of Lancaster, King of Castile, surrounded by all the accoutrements of his authority, melted away to nothing in the flames.

What could he say to me that would reinstate him in my good graces? Could I ever forgive him for what he had done?

‘Was it important, my lady?’ The cook, abandoning his cleaver, nudged me to sit. I must appear to be more fragile than I thought.

‘No. Not important at all,’ I said with an attempt at a smile. And I did sit, for my legs seemed to have no strength.

But I would wait. I would be here when he arrived. And I might listen.




Chapter Fourteen

‘You waited until I came.’