The Forbidden Queen (70 page)

But as I sipped a cup of wine and ate the evening bread, I shivered at the memory of Owen Tudor’s hands holding me, preventing me from falling.

‘You are tense tonight, my lady,’ Guille observed as she removed my girdle and untied the laces of my houppelande.

‘Yes.’ I laughed softly. ‘Weary, I think. My son is not a natural dancer.’

The thick damask slid to the floor and I stepped out of it, lifting my arms so that Guille could attack the side lacing of my under-tunic.

‘You dance well, my lady,’ she said, head bent over her task.

I would like to dance with Owen Tudor
. The thought slid into my mind, followed fast by another.
He can never be for you. You will never dance together
.

I considered this.
He is a man who, for some reason I cannot define, speaks to my heart
.

I did not like the reply, which came in a style of forthright Alice.
You cannot wed such a man
.

Who speaks of marriage?

You would take your Master of Household as your lover?
The denunciation rubbed my emotions raw.

How should I? He has no feelings for me
.

So why bother thinking about him at all? He has touched your hand once…

And my waist!
I added.

And dropped you like a hot pan. You are a fool, Katherine
.

I scowled at the invisible Alice. So I was. I glanced down at Guille.

And don’t even think about asking Guille what she thinks about the whole miserable affair. Unless you want your household marvelling at the antics of their queen, you will not say a single word
.

I will if I wish
.

I looked back over my shoulder to where Guille was still struggling with a knotted lace, huffing at her inability to loosen it. Her head was bent, her attention focused.

‘Guille, in your opinion, would it be very wrong of a woman of rank to…?’ This was more than difficult. ‘To wish to speak alone with a servant?’

Guille looked up, brows as knotted as the lace, then lowered her regard to her task again.

‘I’d say it depends, my lady.’

‘On what does it depend?’

‘On what this lady of rank wishes to say to her servant. And to which servant she wishes to say it. If it was to give instructions for a banquet or a journey…’

‘And if it was more of a personal matter?’ It was like wading through thick pottage, choosing the least guilt-ridden words. ‘Would it ever be right?’

‘No, my lady. I don’t think it would.’

‘So it would be wrong.’

There! I told you it would be
.

‘It might give rise to gossip, my lady.’

‘Yes.’ I sighed. ‘It would be foolhardy in the extreme.’

‘But still you wish to meet with Master Tudor?’

She stood, the knot untied, her question leaving me directionless. Had I been so obvious, when I had tried so hard to preserve at least a modicum of dignity?

‘Does everyone talk of it?’ I whispered.

‘No, my lady. But I know you well, and I see what you would wish to remain hidden.’

‘It is true,’ I admitted. I would dance around it no more. ‘I join the ranks of many. How foolish women can be!’ I plunged the dagger further into my flesh, into my heart. ‘Does he have a special woman, Guille?’

‘Not
one
, my lady.’ Guille’s mouth pursed but her eyes twinkled.

I laughed, picking up her implication. ‘So many.’

‘As many as he smiles on. He has great charm.’

But he did not use it with me. I was his royal mistress, he was my minion. ‘So you like him too?’ I asked.

‘I would not refuse if he invited me to share his kisses,’
Guille said, not at all abashed. ‘It must be the Welshness in him.’

‘So it must.’

‘Your rank stands in the way of such knowledge, my lady.’

‘I know it does.’

But I could not leave it alone.

Oh, the excuses I made to hold conversation with him—for I could not be direct. I was never a bold woman. How appalled I was at my subterfuge when I found myself drawn to him, like a rabbit to the cunning eyes of the hunting stoat. Yet Owen Tudor was no predator. My desire was of my own creation.

‘Master Tudor—I wish to ride out with my son the King. Perhaps you would accompany us?’

‘I will arrange for the horses, my lady. An armed escort would be better,’ he replied promptly, my judgement obviously found wanting in his eye. ‘I will arrange that too.’

And he did, being there in the courtyard to see that all was as it should be. But when I needed a helping hand into the saddle—what woman did not, hampered with yards of heavy damask and fur?—he kept his distance, instructing one of the young grooms to come to my aid. When we returned, there was Master Tudor awaiting us, but the same groom helped me to dismount.

How to provoke a reaction—any reaction—from an unresponsive man?

‘Master Tudor. My rooms are cold. Are we lacking in wood? Have you made no provision for this turn in the weather?’ How unkind I was.

‘There is no lack, my lady,’ he replied, his tone as caustic as the east wind that gusted through the ill-fitting windows. ‘I will remedy the matter immediately.’ He bowed and stalked off, no doubt irritated that I had called his organisation into question. It was August, when fires were rarely lit. I refused to feel remorse.

And again. ‘My son is old enough to own a falcon, Master Owen. Can we arrange that?’ Surely he would show some interest in hunting birds. Did not every man?

‘It shall be done, my lady. Your falconer will, I imagine, have a suitable raptor. I will speak with him immediately and send him to wait on you.’

Or even, with a smile and light request: ‘Do you sing, Master Owen? I understand that Welshmen are possessed of excellent voices. Perhaps you would sing for us?’

‘I do not sing, my lady. Your minstrels would make a better job of it. Do I send one to you?’

No response other than a denial. Always courteous, always efficient, always as distant as the moon and as unresponsive as a plank of wood. I failed to rouse any response other than that of an immaculate servant who knew his position and the courtesy due to his lady. I imagined
that if I had said, ‘Master Owen—would you care to share my bed for an hour of dalliance? Of even chivalrous discourse? Or perhaps an afternoon of blazing lust?’ he would have replied: ‘My thanks, my lady, but today is not possible. It is imperative that the sewers are flushed out before the winter frosts.’

Calm, cool, infinitely desirable—and utterly beyond my reach.

I tapped my fingers against the arm of my chair as we dined. It was like trying to lure a conversation out of the untouched stuffed pigeon in the dish in front of me. Bowing again, the Master turned to go. Not once had he raised his eyes to mine. They remained deferentially downcast, yet not, I thought, in acknowledgement of his status as one employed in my household. I did not think, after watching him for the past hour, that he gave even a passing nod to the fact that he held a servile position. I thought Master Tudor might have a surprising depth of arrogance beneath that thigh-skimming dark tunic. He carried out his tasks as a king in his own country, with ease and a certainty of his powers. He was…I sought for the word. Decorous. Yes, that was it: he owned a refined polish that overlaid all his actions.

I would discover what invisible currents moved beneath the courtly reserve.

‘Master Tudor.’

‘Yes, my lady?’ He halted and turned.

A breath of irritation shivered over my nape. I would make him look at me, but what could I say that would not make me appear either foolish or too particular? ‘I am thinking, Master Tudor, of making changes to my household.’

‘Yes, my lady?’ There he stood, infuriatingly straight and numbingly deferential, as if I had asked him to summon my page.

‘I have been thinking of making changes to those who serve me.’

His features remained unyielding as I rose from my chair and stepped down from the dais so that I stood before him.

‘Are you quite content in your position here, Master Tudor?’ I asked.

And at last, finally, Master Tudor’s eyes looked directly into mine.

‘Are you dissatisfied with my service to you, my lady?’ he asked softly.

‘No. That was not my meaning. I thought that perhaps you might choose to serve the Young King instead. Now that he is growing, he will need an extended household. It would be a promotion. It would allow more scope for a man of your talents.’

I stopped on a breath, awaiting his response. Still he held my gaze, and with no hint of self-abasement he replied:
‘I am quite content with my present position, my lady.’

‘But my household is small, and will remain so, with no opportunity for preferment for you.’

‘I do not seek preferment. I am yours to command. I am content.’

I let him go, infuriated by his demeanour, angry at my own need.

‘Give me your opinion of Master Tudor,’ I said to Alice when she visited my rooms one morning with Young Henry, who was immediately occupied in turning the pages of the book he had brought with him.

‘Owen Tudor? Why do you need my opinion, my lady?’ she asked, folding her hands neatly in her lap, and with something of a sharp look, as if settling herself for a good gossip.

‘I think I have underestimated him,’ I replied lightly. ‘Is he as efficient as he seems?’

‘He is an excellent man of management,’ Alice replied without hesitation, but her expression was disconcertingly bland. ‘You could do no better.’

I considered what I wished to say next. What I ought, or ought not, to say.

‘And what do you think of him, as a man?’

Alice’s smile acquired an edge. ‘I’d say he knows too
much about flirtation than is good for any man. He could lure a bat down from its roost with his singing.’

‘He does not talk to me,’ I admitted sadly. ‘He does not sing to me.’

I knew he was not always unapproachable. I had seen his ease of manner, smiling when the maids passed a coy remark, making light conversation with one or another of my household. Neither was he slow to come to the aid of even the clumsiest of servants. I had seen him leap to rescue a subtlety—a device of a tiger, accompanied by a mounted knight holding the tiger’s cub, all miraculously contrived from sugar—the work of many hours and much skill in my kitchens—with no remonstration other than a firm hand to a shoulder of the page who had not paid sufficient attention. My cook would have laid the lad out with a fist to the jaw if he had seen the near-catastrophe, but Owen Tudor had made do with an arch of brow and a firm stare.

As for the women…Once I saw him slide a hand over a shapely hip as he passed, and the owner of the hip smile back over her shoulder, eyes bright in anticipation, and I knew jealousy, however ill founded.

‘Owen Tudor knows his place, my lady.’

I read the implication in the plain words. ‘Do you think that I do not?’

And Alice reached forward to touch my hand with hers. ‘It will not do, my lady.’

I thought of launching into a denial. Instead, I said, ‘Am I so obvious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’ And I thought I had been so clever. ‘What if…?’ But I could not say it.
What if I were not Queen Dowager?
In the end I did not need to—Alice knew me only too well.

‘You are too far above him, my lady. Or he is too far below you. It comes to the same thing—and you must accept that.’ She frowned at me, a little worried, a little censorious. ‘And it would be wise if your thoughts were not quite so open.’

‘I did not think I was…’

Alice sat back, refolding her hands. ‘Then how is it that I can read your interest in this man, as clearly as the page your son is reading now?’

I gave up, and we turned our conversation into more innocuous channels. Until she left.

‘He is a fine man. But he is not for you.’

Her wisdom was a knife with a honed edge.

‘I never thought that he was.’

‘There is a way, my lady,’ Guille whispered in my ear as I dressed for Mass the next morning.

‘To do what exactly?’ Regretful of what I had revealed, ill grace sat heavily on my shoulders, exacerbated by the
knowledge that I would have to make some confession to Father Benedict.

‘To meet with Master Owen.’

‘I have changed my mind.’

‘Perhaps that’s for the best, my lady.’ She began to brush and coil my hair. I watched her face, waiting to see if she would say more. She didn’t, but busied herself with the intricate mesh of my crispinettes and a length of veil lavishly decorated with silk rose petals.

‘What would you suggest?’

‘That you meet him in disguise, my lady.’

‘And how would you suggest that I do that?’ I asked. Had I not, in my fanciful meanderings in my dreams, already considered such a scenario—and discarded it as a plan that could only be composed by an idiot? Temper bubbled ominously.

‘The only way I can see is for me to dress as a servant and waylay him—he talks to servants, does he not? But how would that be possible? He would recognise me. Do I have to meet him in a dark cupboard, my face swathed in veiling? Do I have to be mute? He would recognise my voice. And even if I did accost him as some swathed figure, what would I say to him? Kiss me, Master Owen, or I will fall into death from desire? And by the way, I am Queen Katherine!’ I laughed but there was no humour in it.

‘He would despise me for tricking him, for the shallow
woman that I undoubtedly am, and that I could not bear. What’s more, I would look nothing more than a wanton. Am I not already suspect, that I am too rapacious, too caught up in sins of the flesh?’ I stood, too agitated to sit, and prowled, my petal-covered veils still half-pinned.

‘I suppose my lord of Gloucester would say that.’

‘Of course he would. And not only Gloucester. What would my damsels say? The Queen Dowager, clothing herself as a kitchen maid, to waylay a hapless servant who had no wish to be waylaid? It would be demeaning for me and for him. I’ll not have trickery. I’ll not lay myself open to ridicule and humiliation.’

‘Forgive me, my lady.’

Instantly remorse shook me, so that I returned to where Guille stood and placed my fingers on her wrist. ‘No. It is I who should ask forgiveness.’ I tried a smile. ‘I have no excuse for ill humour. I promise I will confess it.’