A Dangerous Inheritance (7 page)

“I did not love your mother,” her father said, “and she did not love me, but she was very beautiful, just like you.”

Kate did not like to meet his furrowed gaze—it did not seem fitting—so she stared at the crackling flames instead. The duke, taking quick sips of his wine, continued his tale.

“I was her knight, paying my addresses to my chosen lady. But my chosen lady was married, and matters went too far. She told me she was with child. She had to tell her husband too, and he forbade her ever to see me again. Give him his due; he arranged for her to go away to a nunnery to be delivered, and although he forgave her, he would not bring up another man’s child as his own, and so you came to me, as was only meet. I had done a dishonorable thing, but I did all I could to remedy it. I paid for your mother to stay at the priory, I arranged for you to go to a wet nurse, and then I brought you here. And I have been rewarded a thousandfold.” His visage creased into one of his rare smiles. “I can only excuse myself by saying that I was young and ardent, and that I forgot myself and my knightly oath.”

“What was my mother’s name, sir?” Kate ventured.

“Katherine. You are named for her.” And then he told her all he thought she needed to know about her mother: the few bare facts of her
name, her station in life, and where she lived. He did not tell Kate what she burned to know. Did Katherine Haute think often of the daughter she had been forced to relinquish? Had it torn her apart to give her child away, or had her shame made her anxious to get rid of it? Had she ever felt love for her baby? Did she wonder what Kate was doing, and if she thought about the woman who had brought her into the world?

“What did she look like, my mother?” Kate asked, thinking this a safe question.

“She was brown-haired like you,” her father said, “with blue eyes and a pretty mouth. She dressed well, as I remember. But in truth, Kate, I knew her for such a short time that my memory of her has faded. Suffice it to say she was a charming lady with a ready laugh and high spirits. And she was quick-witted, I remember. In fact, she was much like you.”

Kate could not help herself. “Will I ever meet her?” she implored. “I would love to know her, even just a little.”

The duke shifted in his chair and frowned. “No, Kate. I fear it is out of the question. I gave my word that I would never try to see her again. I did it for the sake of her marriage and her future happiness. I cannot go back on it. I am sorry.”

“No matter,” she mumbled. And in a way, when she thought about it in bed that night, it didn’t matter, not too much. She was loved. She had a father, and to all good purposes a mother, and two brothers. Her real mother was a stranger. With sudden grown-up insight, she realized that Mistress Haute might not wish to be confronted with the living evidence of her sin, and that it might have disastrous consequences for her, given that her husband sounded a stern, vengeful man. And Kate was bound to honor her father’s promise, as he did. So she tried very much to lay her inner yearnings aside and forget about her mother. But that did not stop her from wondering about her, and spinning fantasies about meeting her unexpectedly, or Katherine sending for her, or even secretly contriving to see her.

Being bastards both, John and Kate shared a common bond. When she judged him old enough, they would whisper together about their mothers, and speculate about them. John was an easygoing, unimaginative
boy, though, and did not display the same lively curiosity as Kate did—and maybe it was just as well. For John was the fruit of adultery: he had been born not two years after their father’s marriage. No one had ever spoken openly of this, and Kate sensed that it would not be wise to inquire about his mother. She thought it showed exceptional kindness on the part of the duchess to have taken him in and cared for him as tenderly as she did, for the news of his birth must have caused her great pain, and he was a constant living reminder of her lord’s infidelity.

And yet, Anne loved the duke. That was as plain as day to anyone. They seemed as happy as any noble couple should be, with their shared interests and their great wealth, much of which had come to the duke by their marriage. He showed his wife every respect and courtesy; he deferred to her wishes; he looked to her comfort. In fact, he did all the things you might expect a good husband to do. But did he love Anne? As Kate grew older, she began to wonder.

She had overheard the damsels whispering one night in the maidens’ dorter, which she shared with them after she became too old to sleep in the same chamber as the boys. They must have thought she had fallen into slumber, and in truth she nearly had, but what she heard made her prick up her ears.

“My aunt at court says it is no true marriage.” That was Joan Tankerville, recently returned from visiting her kinsfolk near London.

“Really?” Thomasine Vaux sounded shocked.

“It’s no secret, apparently. The duke did not seek a dispensation. They are close cousins, you know, and they should have had one before they wed.”

The duke? Kate was bewildered. Were they talking about the duke her father?

“But why did he not get one?”

“Aunt Lucy said it was in case she bore him no heir, then he could get an annulment and marry someone else.”

“But she brought him great lands, which he would stand to lose if he divorced her.”

“Great lords like Gloucester don’t easily let go of what is in their grasp. He would find a way, make no mistake about it! Force her into a nunnery probably, or shut her up, like he did her mother.”

“What did you say?” Thomasine nearly squealed.

“The old Countess of Warwick. My aunt said he seized all her lands and lured her out of sanctuary at Beaulieu. Then he had her brought here, and locked her up in a tower. He had Parliament pass an Act declaring her legally dead, so that he could keep her lands.”

Kate was outraged. How dare they speak of her father so! She reared up in her bed and took pleasure in seeing their faces aghast in the candlelight.

“If I reported you, you could be whipped for what you have just said, or worse!” she warned, her voice icy. “The duke my father loves his wife. I should know, and I will hear no more! And my grandmother is not locked up: she wanders in her mind, and is cared for by a servant,
and
she goes out sometimes. So get your facts right before you spread evil gossip! Now can we get some sleep?” And with these words, she turned over and presented her back to them.

Yes, her father loved his wife. Of course he did. She had been wrong to doubt it. And all this talk of dispensations was nonsense, for the duchess had borne him an heir, and even if she hadn’t, it would surely never have occurred to him to put her away.

But how could she really know the truth of it? Kate wondered. No one could be privy to all the secrets between husband and wife. And she was no longer as naïve as she had once been. She knew that her father had not always been faithful: John was the living proof. And she remembered that there had been some dark mystery, and muttered innuendos, about Isabel Burgh, who had lodged in the household for two years as Edward’s wet nurse and now lived over Knaresborough way. Was Isabel John’s mother? She had never believed it. Isabel had been as correct in her conduct as any servant could be, and Kate had never once seen her lift her eyes to the duke or show any interest in him. And she was not the kind of woman one could imagine inspiring lust: in fact, as Kate recalled, she was rather plain.

But she’d heard that Isabel Burgh had a sister, Alice, who had once worked as a chamberer to the Duchess Anne until, suddenly, she left. Later, she had been appointed wet nurse to the son of the Duchess of Clarence. Over the years, Kate had become aware that voices became even more hushed and secretive whenever Alice Burgh’s name was
mentioned; there had been gossip—quickly but belatedly silenced when Kate appeared—about the duke awarding the woman a pension, and she had deduced that Alice Burgh left her employment some months before John was born. Could it be that Alice was his mother? That would explain many things.

If so, she reasoned, John must have been the result of a passing fancy on her father’s part. Had it been more, matters between the duke and duchess would hardly have mended to the point where they could appear so contented together. And Kate had seen her father grip Anne’s hand and look at her with dark passion in his eyes as she stood at his stirrup in the courtyard at Middleham and bade him farewell.

No, there was nothing wrong with their marriage, and the duke’s brief fall from grace had meant little. He was a sinner, like everyone else, and no one had the right to throw stones. His lapse made no difference to Kate’s feelings for him. He was her father, and she could not have loved and revered him more.

As for her grandmother, that sad, feebleminded figure who lived in the southeast tower and rarely ventured out of it, the duke had given her a refuge. She could not manage her estates, he had explained, so it was better that he had charge of them. And it was clear that he had provided well for the old countess, for she was housed in good comfort, and provided with a servant and an allowance for her small pleasures, and sometimes Kate and the boys would visit her. But they never stayed long because she often forgot who or where she was, or would rant and rage against their father, who had been such a succor to her.

“She is losing her mind,” he had said sadly, after they told him of one especially vitriolic outburst. “Pay her no heed. She imagines herself at odds with the world, and with me in particular. Alas, she has had a sad life; it must be hard to be so reduced in circumstances when she was once the wife of great Warwick. Small wonder her mind is gone.”

And small wonder too that silly girls made up silly stories about an old lady locked up in a tower!

The news that filtered piecemeal through to Middleham was relentlessly disturbing.

In London, the duke wrote, the Wydevilles were busy trying to
consolidate their power in the face of strong opposition from Lord Hastings and other powerful barons, and the hatred of the commons, who had always reviled the Queen and her faction as upstarts.

My Lord Hastings has proposed to the council that I should govern
, the duke informed them.

“And he is right to do so,” said the duchess, looking up from the letter, “because King Edward, in his will, directed that the government of the realm ought to devolve on my lord until the King attains his majority.”

“When will that be?” Kate asked.

“When he is fourteen or fifteen, perhaps. Kings are often declared of age long before ordinary mortals. It’s not a very long way ahead, but it’s long enough for your father to make a difference, and to wean His Grace away from the influence of his mother’s blood. I fear he is entirely their creature.”

“Then he probably hates my father,” Kate said.

“That is a very shrewd observation.” The duchess smiled, although the fact that the smile did not reach her eyes betrayed her anxiety. “It is what my lord greatly fears, and why the boy must be removed from their care.”

Kate felt a pang of sadness for her cousin, who might be the King, and hostile, but who was also a boy of twelve about to be deprived of his mother and the kinsmen who had brought him up.

“But will my father succeed in becoming Lord Protector? Has it been agreed?” She was twisting her embroidery in agitation.

“When he wrote this letter they were still arguing about it, and for all we know, they still are.” Anne sighed, leaning her weary head against the chair back. She essayed a weak smile. “Mind that altar cloth, Kate, you are ruining it!”

The next news was better. Gloucester had been assured he now had many supporters, with more people declaring for him each day. But still the Wydevilles were asserting their power and refusing to agree to his being named Lord Protector.

“But why?” young John had asked.

Anne laid a gentle hand on his curly head. “Because they know he
considers them upstarts, and that he will remove the King from their clutches. And without the King, they are nothing.”

Then events had begun to move ahead dramatically. Gloucester met up with the Duke of Buckingham at Northampton, and they had ridden south together, their combined strength at their heels. In the meantime, the little King, escorted by his uncle, Earl Rivers, and his half brother, Sir Richard Grey, was making for London, where he was to be crowned.

My plans are complete
, the duke wrote.

There had then been a few agonizing days without news. Kate was painfully aware of the possibility that her father could be lying dead somewhere, killed in battle, for all they knew. The duchess was brooding about that too, going about with a drawn face and spending many hours on her knees in the castle chapel, praying for her lord’s safety and gazing heavenward through the soaring tracery windows in near despair. Sometimes Kate would join her before the altar, and they would beseech God together to spare the man they loved.

The news, when at last it came, was sensational. Gloucester and Buckingham had intercepted the King’s party at Stony Stratford; they had been forced, for safety’s sake, to arrest Rivers and Grey, and had taken the boy Edward into custody. They were now on their way with him to London.

Not a single drop of blood was shed
, the duke assured them, in a letter written at an inn late one night.
Yet you may be sure that, after expressing to the King our grief and condolences at the death of his sire, my late brother, of happy memory, we took care to impute his early demise to wicked ministers who had corrupted his morals and ruined his health. We referred, of course, to the Queen’s blood
.

That sounded like her father! He might have fallen from grace in his youth, but he was now the most moral of men, upright and God-fearing, and quick to condemn those who fell short of his high standards.

Anne continued reading: “He goes on to say that, lest these same ministers should play their old game with the son, he has removed them from the King’s side, because he, being a child, would be incapable
of governing so great a realm by means of such puny men. I like the way he puts it.” She smiled, but then her face clouded. “He also writes that the Wydevilles were conspiring his death. They had prepared ambushes on the road, and in London. Oh, dear God, I wish I could know that he is safe!”