The Queen's Lover (50 page)

"But," she said, shocked that his existence could be so utterly without hope, or that he could take his punishment so lightly, "isn't there anything...?" She stopped. She was a prisoner of fate, too, she thought. Everyone was. What power did she have to change the terms of his imprisonment?

He shrugged, and smiled with only a hint of wistfulness. "I don't want to complain," he said lightly. "Not on a night that has brought me a reunion with you. I want to give thanks!"

He bowed again, murmured, "We'll talk again, I dearly hope; perhaps we will dance, later"--but without trying to pin her down to a promise she might be embarrassed to keep, she realized, touched by his delicacy--and vanished to the place assigned for him. In spite of his glorious rank, she saw with chagrin that it was below the seats of princes of the English blood.

She'd been so absorbed in these last conversations that she'd lost sight of Owain, she realized, once she was left to herself again. The thought surprised her. Even if she didn't spend much of her day talking to Owain, she was almost always aware of where she could find him if she needed him; as if he were the north on her compass. Not knowing where he was now disoriented her. She peered down the table at the shadowy heads sitting out the dance, rather than at the dancers, hoping to see him. She wasn't altogether surprised when, a moment later, another hand touched her shoulder.

She turned round to greet him with a warm smile.

The smile stayed uncertainly on her lips as she saw it wasn't Owain.

How could she not have realized? The hand on her shoulder was big and meaty--with nothing like Owain's careful touch--and it had grabbed her shoulder as if grabbing its prey. It was Humphrey of Gloucester standing above her, with a hand still clamped onto her bare shoulder.

There was something proprietorial and vaguely threatening about his smile. For the first time, too, she could see he was tipsy, or worse--which hadn't been obvious during the meal--and
looking lecherous. The heavy-handed courtesies of dinnertime, the awkward pauses, had passed. The wine had made him overconfident. Now, she could see, he seemed to think he could just come and claim her as his, with no more fuss and bother.

It was the last thing she wanted. Turning up the corners of her mouth in an imitation of a smile, she quickly looked down, but there was no escape in modesty. Her downcast eyes could see nothing but the close-up swell and bulge of tree-trunk legs and privates. Hot-faced, she looked up again.

"Rediscovering old friends, eh?" her brother-in-law said, nodding toward Charles of Orleans. Heavily, he propped himself against the table beside her. There was no need, Catherine thought with another hot burst of shame, for Duke Humphrey to press himself quite so close.

It was only after several minutes of whiskery, difficult, onion-breathed conversation, as Duke Humphrey leaned practically into her face to question her about her household, which he'd omitted to do earlier, and rumble disapprovingly that it had been a mistake to let Mistress Ryman go, and what was the point of the Butler woman, and was the Welshman utterly incompetent, and, patting her repeatedly on hand and arm, complimenting her on the red velvet robe, that Catherine became aware, with relief, of Bishop Beaufort moving elegantly by in the dance, glimmering at her with quiet, mocking laughter that he was inviting her to share. She dimpled at him and watched the corners of his mouth go up. Suddenly, it didn't seem quite so bad. A little later still, after Duke Humphrey abruptly got up to rush off to the shadows and relieve himself, half tripping over a dog on the way, Catherine managed to locate Owain's still, dark, watchful presence. He was halfway down the table, perched on a bench, looking at the dancers. He must have felt her eyes on him. He nodded just once in her direction. He wasn't smiling.

Duke Humphrey didn't let her out of his sight or stop pawing at her all evening. But it was only when he'd managed to get her to dance with him, and, sweating heavily, was leading her around the floor, that he breathed noisily into her ear, "Time you thought about marrying again, now you're out of your
weeds, don't you think?" and edged the hand sweating on her back round her rib cage toward her breasts.

She winced and, pretending to be adjusting her neckline, dislodged his hand. "Oh," he muttered, with the beginning of a dirty guffaw, "no need for that; the view is lovely as it is."

Ignoring that disrespectful last remark, she said with no great warmth, "It's too soon to think of marriage. The memory of my husband is still as dear to me as that of my cousin's wife, long dead in France, is to him." She nodded in the direction of Charles of Orleans, moving by in the dance with Jacqueline of Hainault.

"Lovely girl, that," Humphrey said inconsequentially, and to Catherine's amazement he seemed to be literally licking his lips as his eyes followed Jacqueline of Hainault. "One of the finest. I hope that Frenchman isn't thinking..." and he glowered at Charles of Orleans.

Was there no difference between the way the English treated princes of the noblest blood in Christendom and the contemptuous way they might behave to slaves and whores? She shook her head brightly, as if Humphrey's idea was absurd but charming, but inside she couldn't help the stirring of anger at his disrespect.

Then, gently disentangling herself, she added, "If my lord will excuse me...so much excitement after a year of solitude...I'm worn out." And she left him standing in the middle of the dance floor, mouth open.

Not that Duke Humphrey was disconcerted for long. By the time she'd pushed between the dancers to the edge of the crowded hall, the dance had come to an end. Charles of Orleans was nowhere to be seen. Catherine was amused, when she looked back, to see Duke Humphrey already had his hand on Countess Jacqueline's arm, and he was leaning in toward her, eyes fixed on her breasts, grinning.

Quietly, with an economy of movement that, even under his dark robes, suggested his athleticism, Owain followed her out. They walked up the stone stairs, away from the din and echo. Owain and half a dozen lesser servants were to sleep near her rooms. Catherine was laughing rather hysterically at her escape
from the Duke. She started to giggle her story out: "...you wouldn't believe the look on his face...staring at me...staring at Jacqueline of Hainault too...the
crassness
of it."

If she expected an answering laugh, she was disappointed. Owain's face stayed somber. "It would be a mistake to make an enemy of Duke Humphrey," was all he said. "Even if you don't want to marry him...treat him with respect. Don't go too far."

Bowing from a safe six feet away as he took his leave of the Queen Mother and tried not to be moved by the trust in her long, lovely eyes, Owain clenched his hands into fists inside his robes and prayed for fortitude. There'd been peace, of a sort, in the certainties that had taken shape in the royal household. Whichever castle it moved to, the routines, always exactly the same, were comforting. He knew he had a place. He felt he understood his life. Catherine, so helpless, so absorbed in her role as a mother, needed him. The little boy too. Those facts were simple enough for him to believe that the needs of the flesh could be overcome; the yearnings of the heart ignored. But here, in the grandeur of Westminster, people and events were buffeting painfully into him, and he felt helpless--as bitter as poor Maredudd, and as invisible.

Now--now she'd gone and he was alone--Owain recognized the agonizing writhe and flex of jealousy in his gut. It was so obvious that this entire festivity had been arranged to allow Duke Humphrey to press his suit for Catherine's hand as soon as decently possible. Far too soon for real decency, in Owain's view; it was his own dead brother's wife the shameless goat was lusting after, after all. Had the man no respect?

Yet she'd been so excited about coming to Westminster--calling in tailors, insisting most of the household trail off to the dance in her wake. Like a child with a glittery toy.

Had she no idea?

No wonder Humphrey had got so drunk and started groping at her with his butcher's hands. Humphrey had understood her dressing herself in bright sinful scarlet and decking herself out in her wedding jewels just as everyone else in the hall had--as a signal she'd accept his advances, when they came.

But then she hadn't accepted his advances. She'd kept him dancing attendance all evening, then taken offense at some trifle and humiliated him by walking away in full view of the entire court. He could see now that she wasn't the strumpet they'd all taken her for. But was she an utter fool?

Owain was walking so fast he felt he was on air. When he reached the spiral stairs up to his own rooms, he took them four at a time.

Worse yet, she'd practically fallen round the neck of the Frenchman. Owain had never been proud of having taken Charles of Orleans prisoner all those years ago. He'd liked the Frenchman's thin, sensitive face, and he'd felt the same fear of battle that the Frenchman had. It was just dumb luck that had allowed him to come second to that God-forsaken copse, when the Frenchman was already caught in mud and undergrowth, and play the captor while the other man stumbled before him, tied with a rope. Once back in England, Owain had read the French Duke's wistful verse and found it elegant. He'd always kept back from Charles of Orleans in any situation in England where their paths might have crossed, fearing the other man might be humiliated by meeting him again, or even by having been captured by a man of lesser status. Still, he'd sometimes wished that things were different, and that somehow, one day, he and this man of graceful words might have a conversation. The fact that they couldn't he put down to the ugliness of war.

But tonight, when he'd seen how Catherine had devoured Charles of Orleans with hungry eyes, gobbling up the faded blondness of him, nuzzling up close...

Owain banged his door behind him. He was trembling with fury. He wished now that he'd had the sense, back at Azincourt, to take his sword and run the thing through the bloody man's heart.

Even Bishop Beaufort, who usually so enjoyed a cruel little laugh at Humphrey's expense, wasn't as lighthearted the next day as Catherine had expected.

"You do have to remarry," he said seriously, coming to her rooms in the hot midmorning, as she watched the packing of
chests and trunks begin. They'd set off for Windsor soon after midday. "You're a
parti.
There will be suitors. And Humphrey wants you for his wife. True, that's partly so he can score off Duke John, but he might take tremendous offense if you turn him down too harshly. So tread carefully."

A little startled, Catherine nodded. She hadn't considered the risk.

"You need to give this real thought," the Bishop emphasized, looking at her with none of his usual sardonic humor. "Your remarriage is probably the most important decision you'll ever have to make. If there's someone you want to choose, you should put the idea firmly into your mind now. Choose your own candidate, if there is one. Don't be girlish; forget modesty. Don't run the risk of finding yourself married off to someone you don't want."

He leaned forward. "Think," he pressed, without a smile. "Is there someone you would choose?"

She was acutely aware of Owain in the shadows behind the Bishop, sitting with one leg laid over the other knee, arms concertinaed over each other, closed in on himself, scowling. All blacks and blues and angles. He looked like an angry god. She didn't know why he looked so angry.

"If there's no one," the Bishop went on, "but you'd still rather not marry Humphrey, we should find another candidate...it's always better to choose for yourself..."

Catherine continued trying not to look at Owain, tight-lipped and unspeaking, behind the Bishop. She didn't know why she felt so guilty.

Or did she? She'd received a message from Charles of Orleans at first light, by manservant. It was a poem called "The Return of Spring." The lovely gay words were still dancing in her head.

The Bishop was raising his eyebrows at her, looking for her attention.

"Otherwise..." he said.

She didn't answer directly. But, with a little smile on her lips, still reluctant to leave the pretty shallows where her mind wanted to dwell, she said, "Did you see my cousin last night? Charles of Orleans? It was the first time I'd seen him since...long ago...in France."

She paused. She'd thought she wanted to ask the Bishop if there was really nothing they could do to help poor Charles of Orleans return to France. But now she saw that by mentioning him here, in this conversation, she'd somehow seemed to suggest him as a marriage candidate.

Perhaps that hadn't been entirely unintentional, she thought a split second later. Perhaps...

"Suicide," Bishop Beaufort replied swiftly, answering both her questions. "Madness. Don't think of it. Don't even correspond with him. You may only mean to help him, but you would be wasting the goodwill you've begun to build up here if you started fretting about marrying a French prisoner. Don't get caught up in...Frenchness. Don't throw yourself away. It means nothing, the old familiarity you feel for your cousin; though it's all too easy to mistake the shared memories of youth for love." He twinkled kindly at her, but she saw it as a warning. "That isn't the kind of association you need."

"But," Catherine stammered, "Charles of Orleans is my blood. My cousin. He was my brother."

"Trust me," the Bishop said. He didn't even want to discuss it anymore.

"Trust him," Owain confirmed, and his face was as sharp and cold as steel. "He is the guardian of your honor."

Catherine bowed her head. There was a muted kind of pleasure in self-denial. She could see the force of their argument. She would not pursue a friendship with her sad, lovely, long-suffering
cousin, she thought; just in case. She could see it would be misconstrued as not wanting to become part of England. And she would not harbor thoughts of marrying Charles of Orleans just to feel more at home. She should probably not even seek him out to thank him for the poem.