‘As you see.’

It was not an opening that boded well for what was to follow. The courtyard was grey and glistening with the earlier heavy rain that still pattered on my head and shoulders as if in a final lingering defiance. Much like my own frame of mind. I would not take shelter until he had dismounted, even though it was to my discomfort. I would wait as he had instructed. I would be calm, obedient, open to his persuasion. I forced myself to stand and observe with commendable dispassion as he swung down from the saddle and gave his reins to his squire. Throughout all his movements his eyes had not left my face.

It had crossed my mind that I should stay in my chamber. That I should keep him waiting. But that, I decided, would be a sign of immaturity. I would acknowledge his arrival, as I had so many times before. I would listen to what he had to say.

The Duke signalled for his retinue to dismount and take shelter.

‘I note the castle is well garrisoned.’

As well he might. It was bristling with military.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘We received your orders.’

Apart from my one line of instruction, it had been the only direct communication between the Duke and Pontefract throughout all those difficult weeks. His gaze continued to hold mine as I allowed the silence between us to lengthen. Even in the courtyard with all the noise and bustle of the Duke’s dispersing entourage, I felt the power of his regard. It made me shiver. Not from pleasure, as once it might. I kept the contact, every muscle in my body braced against what was to come.

I had expected him to look weary, from travel, from the shock of such vehement hatred flung at him by the rebels. From the loss of his most beloved possession, The Savoy. Even from the acknowledgement that his life had actually been in danger at the hands of Englishmen. In the blackest corner of my damaged heart I hoped that he would look at least careworn. If I felt older than my thirty-two years, why should not he, at a decade older? I resented the little lines that had become ingrained between my brows, the smudge of shadows beneath my eyes from lack of sleep. My mirror was no longer my friend. As I stood there in that inhospitable courtyard, growing wetter by the minute, I studied his face, a very female resentment building as my gown clung in sodden folds.

Why did I not have the sense to go inside?

Because I had anticipated this meeting for so long. I had longed for it as much as I had feared it. I knew that what had been between me and the Duke of Lancaster, the overwhelming emotion that had encompassed us in the face of all tenets of morality and good judgement, would never be the same again. I could not retreat from it.

And so I took in every inch of him as he stood a good arm’s length from me, remarking that there was no inordinate sign of strain in his visage, and his movements were as elegantly controlled as I had ever seen them. If the lines between nose and mouth were well marked, I had seen such an effect when he was faced with a problem of moving troops or supplying a garrison. A cup of warm ale would soon smooth away the tension. No, there was no hint here of the man who had begged God’s forgiveness on his knees in public, with tears staining his cheeks.

The man who had in so cursory and public a manner rejected his lover of nine years, before informing her of his decision.

I bit down on the little surge of wrath.

‘I see you are in health and good spirits, Lady Katherine,’ he remarked.

Good spirits!

The flapping of my veil, wetly against my neck, was the final straw. I raised my chin. Without courtesy or any acknowledgement that he had addressed me, I turned on my heel. He would follow if he needed to speak with me. Was I in health? It was the least of my concerns. As for my spirits…I strode on, up the staircase, aware of his footsteps behind me, relieved that he followed me, and yet anger burned through any relief. I flung back the door into one of the chambers used by the family for celebrations, empty now except for a chest and a pair of backless stools, an empty dais at one end. The walls, usually hung with magnificent tapestries, as were the rooms of all the Duke’s accommodations, were bare and grim. In a corner there was a stash of boxes and trestles, on one resting the folded tapestries.

A bleak place for a bleak reconciliation.

There would be no reconciliation here.

I walked to the centre of the chamber, where I turned.

‘We will speak in here. Where there is no one to eavesdrop and pass comment on my shame—or yours.’

The Duke inclined his head, before closing the door quietly at his back, then casting gloves onto the chest, dislodging a swirl of dust as he did so. Something I must take in hand, I thought inconsequentially. The room had not been used of late, nor would be, for we were in no mood for celebrations. What emotion would it witness now? The Duke made no further move to approach me, but stood, hands clasped lightly around his sword belt, the dim light glinting on the breastplate of his half-armour.

‘Well?’ When my voice sounded annoyingly shrill to my own ears, I tempered it. ‘I have remained here as ordered. What would you say to me, my lord?’

The pause was infinitesimal, but I noted it. ‘You will have heard by now.’

‘Yes. I think I have been the recipient of every piece of rumour about the pair of us that has run the length and breadth of the country.’

I would not make this easy for him.

‘They have destroyed The Savoy,’ he said.

I raised my brows. Did not all the world know of that? I would not respond.

A muscle in his jaw leaped beneath the fine skin, but so it often did when he might struggle with a document from a difficult petitioner. I folded my hands, one on the other, over the clasp of my girdle. I had had many days to consider all that I knew, almost as many days in which the developments had festered like an ill-tended wound. It would astonish him how much I had gleaned from the gossip of passing travellers. I tilted my chin, as if I might be mildly interested in what he had to say.

I stopped my fingers before they could clench into fists. I would hold fast to composure. I would be reasonable. Understanding. I would, by the Virgin!

‘Why have you come?’ I asked.

‘I had to know for myself that you were safe.’

‘Safe,’ I repeated unhelpfully.

‘But I knew you were. God sheltered you from all harm. I asked Him to.’

My brows remained beautifully arched. ‘I am flattered. Or I suppose I am.’

‘And I had to come and tell you myself.’

He took a step forward as if testing the water, as if there might be an unseen pit below the surface, into which he would haplessly fall and drown.

My lips thinned and curled minutely. ‘So you said.’

His spine was as straight as an ash sapling, his voice raw, but that might be thirst after a long journey. I offered him no refreshment. It was his castle. He could summon his own steward if he so wished.

‘It would be discourteous,’ he continued in the same limpid but impassive tone, ‘for you to be the subject of gossip and not know why I did…why I did what I did. I have come to try to explain…So that you would not remain ignorant…’

Not once had he moved, his breathing as level as if he were purchasing a horse.

‘Explain?’ I would be understanding, would I? My fingers clenched anyway, nails digging deep into my palms. I kept my voice low, yet even though, raised as I was to impeccable good manners, I knew it was unforgivably venomous, I chose every word with precise care.

‘Explain? And I should thank you for that? I have, of course, to be thankful that you have considered my situation to any degree. In the circumstance of my being—what was it you said?—an agent of Satan? But then, you have always considered the welfare of all your servants, have you not, my lord? How charitable of you to dismiss them from your service in Scotland, so that they need not suffer with you in your painful exile there, far away from friends and family. If I had been with you in Edinburgh, doubtless you would have done the same for me. Would you have wept over me, as I am told you did over them? For it seems I am no better than a servant to you.’

My tongue hissed on the word servant. I had not realised the true depths of my bitterness.

‘That is not so.’ His lips barely moved.

‘Ah…Were the rumours then false? I did not think so, but I am willing to be persuaded. Answer me one question, my gracious, chivalrous lord. Are you sending me away?’

The silence in the room was as taut as a bowstring before the release of the deadly arrow.

‘Yes.’ He took a breath as if he would have said more. Then repeated: ‘Yes. I am sending you away.’

My anger bubbled dangerously, too dangerously, near the surface.

‘I don’t think I can ever forgive you,’ I said between clenched teeth, ‘for the manner in which you did it.’

‘What have you heard?’

‘You would not believe what I have heard. I did not, at first. Until each repetition came as a slap in the face.’

‘And now you believe what is said? You hold it to be the truth without hearing me? To know why I took the decisions that I did?’ His hands remained clenched at his belt. ‘Do I not at least deserve a hearing from you, of all people? If you love me, you will hear me out.’

For a moment I closed my eyes against the pain of that thrust. But only for a moment.

‘Oh, I will give you a hearing, my lord. I will listen,’ I said. ‘But it is difficult to give you the benefit of the doubt, is it not? When Constanza rode past my door, intent on an emotional and intimate reunion with you.’

He had not expected that from me. His eyes widened a little.