The Scandalous Duchess (47 page)

‘I think you know everyone here present? You ought to do.'

‘Yes, Sire.'

‘Good, good.' He rubbed his hands together with a flash
of jewels. ‘You arrival is most timely. I have ordered garter robes to be made for you for the ceremony next week.'

I had forgotten. Or not given it a thought. Now I felt my face flush, knowing exactly why Richard had mentioned it. The royal kitten, full grown into a stately cat, was flexing its claws. He allowed his glance to pass over those who stood as audience around us, inviting them to respond to his magnanimity towards me. Then, when faced with a tense silence that spoke volumes, he raised his hand in a wide gesture.

‘I have need to speak with my lord uncle of Lancaster about the French truce. And my proposed marriage to the Valois lady.' His glance at Gloucester and York, neither of whom supported the proposal, was supremely innocent. ‘And you too my uncles of Gloucester and York. Perhaps Lancaster can persuade you of the value of this union.' Then to me: ‘I will leave you, my lady, to renew your acquaintance with the ladies of my court.' Richard stood and bowed to me, before snatching up my hand to bring it to his lips, murmuring wickedly: ‘They have all come here to meet you with you, you know.'

As I knew only too well. As John walked away in Richard's wake, I faced the little cluster of court women, Richard's playful malice a hard knot in my belly. And waited. Etiquette demanded that they curtsy to me. What a strange turning of the world on its head, where I could command their respect. But would they honour my new status? I looked directly at the Duchess of Gloucester, every one of her fine-boned fingers heavy with precious rings, knowing that her response would be watched by all. Boldly I kept my gaze—level and cool—on her face.

Eleanor de Bohun returned it, all expression governed, her lips a slash of anger.

I raised my chin infinitesimally. But it was enough.

Her curtsy was made, as an essay in brevity, but she bent the knee.

I shifted my regard to the Countess of Arundel, who copied the welcome to an inch but had the grace to say in the tightest of tones: ‘My lady.'

Well, that was a step forward.

And then the Countess of Hereford, whose disaffection had given me sorrow. It took much on my part to anticipate the rejection in her taut stance. After all we had lived through together, at Mary's bedside in childbirth, at her tragic death.

‘You are right welcome, my lady,' she said softly.

And after the briefest of obeisances, she stepped neatly across the floor and folded me into her arms.

For a moment I stood rigid in incomprehension, and then I knew what she had done, and allowed her to pull me a little distance away from the rest, where I gripped her hands, relief sweeping through me.

‘We have been looking for you for the last month, Katherine. I have missed you. And such a shock when we heard.' I saw the loss of her daughter in her face, but nothing would silence her obvious delight. ‘You look happy. I don't need to ask…although how you can be so, surrounded by this sour flock of vultures. As for the King's mischief, who knows what he's at these days?' And then, as emotion robbed me of speech: ‘Have you nothing to say? Or has your marriage robbed you of your tongue—and your sense of the ridiculous?'

And at last I laughed. ‘Are you sure you should do this?'

‘What?'

‘Welcome the black sheep into the pure white of the royal fold?'

‘Why ever would I not?'

‘I was under the strongest impression that I would be taught a sharp lesson.' I looked back over my shoulder, at the expressions of those who intended to do exactly that. ‘I was told that you were one of them…' I admitted.

‘And you believed it? Nonsense, Katherine! My name was attached where it should not have been.'

‘And I am grateful. I have missed you too.'

‘Good. We will talk later.'

For Richard, his discussion apparently at an end, was at my side, beaming indiscriminately on all.

‘It is my intention to travel to France, to complete the negotiations for my new wife, the French Princess Isabella.' He continued to smile. ‘I would invite you, my lady of Lancaster, and your daughter Joan, to accompany me. I can think of no one more fitting.'

My surprise masked, my courtly graces back in play, I curtsied my thanks. ‘I am honoured, Sire.'

‘My intended bride is very young—no more than six years. She will value your knowledge of life at the English court, and your friendship. I will wed her in Calais,' he was continuing, despite knowing that most of his audience were listening to his plans with strong disapproval. ‘I know that as her primary lady in waiting for the ceremony—with my lady of Gloucester, of course,'—he bowed to the stiff-backed Duchess—‘my wife will be made most welcome.'

‘Thank you, Sire,' I murmured. ‘I will do all in my power.'

‘I know you will. I rely on you.'

And then with a bow he had walked on, while I took advantage of this situation deliberately created by Richard.

‘So we work together to welcome our new queen,' I observed to the Duchess.

She managed a bleak curve of the lips. ‘So it seems, my lady.'

‘We will meet after supper,' I said, matching John's effortless supremacy.

‘Of course, my lady.'

The Duchess of Gloucester would never call me sister. I saw no softening in her face, but it had been made as clear as day that it would be unwise for her to shut me out of the hen-roost. As I turned away I caught John's stare from where he conversed with his brother of Gloucester. It was full of pride for me, and of satisfaction which matched my own, yet there was no smile on his face, which conveyed a stark warning. Richard's games were obvious, even risible, but infinitely dangerous. I must never allow myself to be seduced.

Richard, watchful, brimful of devilry, beckoned to me. ‘I would be honoured if you would accompany me, Lady Katherine—to give me your opinion of the apartments that I will have refurbished for my little bride. I know your taste in such matters to be beyond question.'

And I moved to walk at his side out of the Painted Chamber, my hand resting in his, which of course opened for me every door in the palace.

‘Are you satisfied?' Richard whispered, the sibilants loud as we walked so that all must know that he exchanged confidences with me.

‘Yes, Sire.'

‘It gave me inordinate pleasure,' he chuckled, ‘to stir the waters a little.'

And I nodded. We understood each other very well. He had put himself out to smooth my path, and done so with considerable skill. From that moment, no lady of the court who valued either her position or the King's goodwill for herself or her husband could afford to brush me aside.

‘Well?' John asked when it was all done and we could escape to our rooms.

‘Good,' I said. ‘It was Richard who came to my rescue.'

‘It was your own good sense.' John was at his most sardonic. ‘And I know you have enough of it not to trust our mischievous king too much. He is guided purely by his own wishes. Today it pleased him to twitch the tails of the tabbies. Tomorrow—who knows?'

I cared not. My acceptance was assured, my role at court for the welcoming of the little queen made plain. I stared into my mirror, admiring the jewelled net that anchored my hair, thoroughly enjoying the prospect of my future role. I would travel to France and welcome the child bride. Joan would accompany me and might find a position in the royal household. John too had taken his rightful place at Richard's side. None of my fears had been realised.

‘Why are you smiling?' John asked.

‘Because I have persuaded Richard to take down the Halidon Hill tapestry from the new bride's chambers.'

‘I always liked that one.'

‘You were never a six-year-old girl. At this moment a pretty scene of a lady with flowers and a hawk on her fist is being hung.'

‘Is that important?'

‘Not to me. It might be to his little wife who would have nightmares if faced nightly with scenes of death and mutilation. But Richard paid attention to me.'

‘Now what?' For I had laughed.

‘It's even more important that you pay attention to me.'

‘About what?'

‘This.' I cast my mirror onto the bed and kissed him. ‘The Duchess of Lancaster demands your attention.'

He gave it willingly. And yet as I lay in his arms in the aftermath of our lovemaking I could not help but agree with the Duke's assessment. Why did I think that Richard was playing games with us all? And that he had not finished? It might be that he had not even started.

But that was a matter to be pushed aside as I fell into sleep, for John, in his ultimate wisdom, had promised me one final step in eradicating the transgressions of our past and awarding me glorious recognition as the Duchess of Lancaster.

‘What of our children?' I had asked. ‘Will their legitimacy always be questioned?'

‘Certainly not,' he had replied.

Chapter Twenty-One

P
ride filled my breast so strongly that I could barely take a breath. The antechamber at Westminster was broodingly cool and for once empty. Usually it seethed with hopeful petitioners but today it was ours, this Beaufort gathering that seemed to fill it from wall to wall. My Beaufort family was a force to be reckoned with, and today was our day. Today a final seal would be placed on my life with John, in this most public recognition of our children.

There we stood. John and I and the four children that I had born him out of wedlock, all clad in white and blue. Lancaster colours, for that was what they were, bastards no longer. Fair of colouring, dark of hair, with a red burnishing when lit by the sun, they were without question their father's children, and never had I see four young people so comfortably at ease with what life had handed them. Bastard or legitimate child, their confidence was a mirror image of John's. It never failed to astonish me. Perhaps it was the
care and love I had lavished on them for their own sakes as well as that of their father. Perhaps it was that they had never had need to question their place in the world. John had been openhandedly generous to them, cherishing them since the day they were born, even when we two were estranged and I could not speak of him without heaping curses on his head. If ever a family had felt loved, here it was, fully legitimised since His Holiness had finally been persuaded to sanction our offspring. I had not asked if John's purse of gold had been necessary.

Today the final jewel was to be set in their combined diadem.

The official awaiting us at the door cleared his throat loudly. Joan smiled complacently. Young John—with all the dignity and importance of being a knight as well as a new husband to royally connected Margaret Holland—firmed his shoulders. Henry looked for a moment uncomfortable out of clerical garb, before grinning at me with a little shrug. Thomas was simply Thomas, irreverent and still growing into his limbs with all the adolescent grace of an autumn crane fly.

The pride in John's face echoed mine. He took my hand, bowed and led me forward.

The Lords, fully assembled in the Parliament chamber, were waiting for us, every seat occupied, the whole assembly gleaming with a patchwork of colour beneath the boldness of the arches. Forcing my fingers to lie lightly in John's hand, I inclined my head left and right, acknowledging the faces I knew. And there Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop of Canterbury, waited to receive us, ushering us into the centre of the chamber where we made our obeisance to the
Lords. The silence of solemnity fell on us as four lords approached at a signal from the cleric, one of them holding the folds of a mantle over his arm.

‘We are here this day to perform this heavy and age-old ceremony granting legitimacy to these mantle-children.'

The mantle, of white damask to signal purity, gold fringed and banded with ermine to speak of royal authority, was spread, a corner to be taken by each of the four lords, who lifted it high above our heads on gilded poles, until we were entirely covered by its shadow.

‘Richard by the grace of God, King of England and France to our most dear cousins…'

John was looking at me. The Archbishop, his voice suitably sonorous, was using the words from the King's own Letter Patent. There would never be any doubting the authority of this ceremony. Our children would be fixed into the legal structure of England for all time.

‘We think it proper and fit that we should enrich you…'

For here was the case. His Holiness's recognition ultimately in writing, might have removed the taint of bastardy from our Beaufort children, but that was insufficient to give them any position under the laws of inheritance. If they were ever to have the right to inherit land or title, to establish their own families with provision for their own children, they needed this ceremony under the spread of this mantle.

‘We think it proper that we enrich you, our most dear cousins, who are begotten of royal blood, with the strength of our royal prerogative of favour and grace…'

We emerged into the same antechamber we had left only an hour before, newly resplendent with legitimacy. The
sapphires stitched on my bodice glimmered as I drew in a breath of sheer delight at the sweeping away of all the shadowy illegalities of the past. My life with John had been given legal sanction and I could ask for nothing more. Unable to express my sense of ultimate fulfilment, I simply smiled at my children.

‘You now legitimately exist as dear cousins to the king,' John remarked with not a little cynicism. ‘And your mother is very happy.'

‘I have always existed.' Young John did not recognise irony.

‘And I doubt Richard is any more a dear cousin than he has ever been. He has a chancy temper,' Henry added, who did.

‘What more do you want?' Joan asked. ‘Letters Patent, a white and gold care-cloth and an Act of Parliament promised for tomorrow.'

The delight that bubbled within her was catching. Wedded, widowed and wedded again, even though only nineteen years old, mother of two tiny daughters and stepmother for the past year to the twelve children of Ralph Neville, Baron Raby, Joan had become a woman in her own right and I admired her composure. It took much to rattle my daughter's stalwart heart encased today in embroidered damask.

John and I looked at each other. We wanted nothing more. Not for us. We had all we needed in each other. But for this quartet of handsome Beauforts, born out of love and sin? There would be no obstacle for them now.

It was for me a ceremony of great joy.

‘I'm hungry,' Thomas announced.

‘Then we must eat,' John laughed. ‘Are we not worthy of a celebration?'

It was a happy day. What would life hold for these Beaufort children? Not the crown, of course, for royal inheritance was barred to them, but what did that matter? The world of power and politics was theirs for the taking, and I could not have asked for more. John the soldier, Henry the cleric, Joan the managing wife and Thomas—who knew what fate would hold for my youngest child?

How transitory is happiness. It would be the last time I was so free from anxieties, so caught up in my family's recognition. I did not know what lay in wait for me or for John. I thought we had been fully blessed, and could see no end to the blessings.

‘John!' I leaned forward, elbows planted on the wall coping, narrowing my eyes at the road, which was obscured by morning haze. I was standing on the wall-walk at Kenilworth, looking out towards the south, leaving John to the detailed—and tedious—inspection of a section of crumbling stonework, deep in conversation with his Constable.

‘John!'

I raised my voice, informal in sudden concern. I was not mistaken. There was a cloud of dust, heralding a fast-travelling retinue.

What was it that made me alert John? Some presentiment, perhaps, for it brought a strange sharp jolt to my heart. ‘My lord,' I called out again, but there was no need. John and the Constable were at my shoulder, the expression on John's face indicating that he was already alert for trouble of some kind.

‘It's the Earl of Derby, my lord.'

The Constable confirmed what we could now make out in the pennons and banners bearing Henry's deer and swans. Henry was travelling fast.

‘Something's afoot.' John was already halfway down the steps before I hitched the fullness of my skirts and followed him.

We met Henry in the Great Hall. Eyes still wide with bafflement despite the hours spent in the saddle, voice raw with patent disbelief, he had not even taken the time to divest himself of hat, gloves or weapons, but stood there in the centre of the vast room, feet planted, spine braced, one hand clenched on his sword hilt. Making no attempt to mute his voice, he brought every servant within range to a halt.

‘There's a plot, father. Murder. And it's Richard.'

‘A plot to murder the King?' I asked, astounded. Voices might be raised in criticism of Richard's use of power, but this uncontrolled announcement presaged treason.

‘No!' Henry dragged in a breath to make sense of what held no sense for any of us. ‘There's a plot to destroy Lancaster.' He flung out his hand to encompass the three of us. ‘A massacre, by the Rood! You, sir. Me—you too, my lady—and probably my sons if he can get his hands on them. It's to happen on the road to Windsor, when we go there in the New Year.'

The moment of silence in that vast space disintegrated into impassioned response.

‘No!' I heard myself breathe as my belly clenched.

‘On what grounds would he plan this?' John snapped. I noted that he did not ask the owner of the hand behind this outrage.

‘He accuses us of treason,' Henry responded. ‘But there'll
be no arraignment before a court, sir. He'll kill first and question later.'

Nor did John question this interpretation. ‘Who told you this?'

‘Thomas Mowbray. I'd not cast aside his warning lightly,' Henry replied.

Thomas Mowbray, the powerful Duke of Norfolk, together with Henry, was of the dangerous coterie of Lords Appellant with Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford and royal favourite, in their sights. Was Mowbray to be believed? Henry thought so, but I looked to John, to test my own reaction. It had caused him to frown, but he was not a man given to foolish rumour. Perhaps it was nought but a piece of mischief, to stir up more strife between John and the King.

‘Do you believe it?' I asked Henry now that he had recovered some of his equanimity along with his breath.

‘Mowbray believed it. He stopped me on the road to Windsor to tell me. To warn me.' Shaking his head, Henry, gloves now cast onto a bench with his hat and sword, stretched out his hands palm up, as if he might divine the truth there, before he clenched them into fists. ‘What do we do?'

John studied the floor at his feet. Then: ‘Come. We'll talk about this in private.'

And when the door of an inner chamber was closed.

‘We tell Richard what you've heard,' John stated.

Henry's grunt of dissent was answer enough. ‘If Richard's hand is on it…'

‘If it is.' As he gripped his son's arm I saw that the bones of John's face were stark beneath his skin, despite the authority in his decision. ‘If Richard thinks to turn against
his own flesh and blood, the fact that we know his plan might give him pause. We offer him a chance to see sense and draw back. I think Richard's courage is a finite thing and unpredictable. Given the incentive, he might enjoy the opportunity to turn about, to dispense royal justice with an easy hand and win goodwill all round, including that of Lancaster. He might pronounce that he knows nothing of it. And that could be the end of the matter. If he knows that we are forewarned and so forearmed, it might conceivably force him to realise that to declare war on his own family will raise a storm that he cannot ultimately control. And might conceivably damage him.'

It seemed to me to be good sense, but I could see the troubled working of Henry's mind. It flitted like shadows over his features.

‘Would he back down? I wouldn't wager my life against it. Richard puts no value on family loyalty if he sees it as a threat to his own power, or a chance to pay back past grudges. He had my uncle of Gloucester murdered quick enough.'

‘For which I blame myself with every breath I take,' John growled, sinking back into a chair, the sudden expression of grief in his face so tangible that I had to resist moving to stand behind him, my hand on his shoulder. Then I did not resist at all. How could I? The muscles in his shoulder taut, John looked up at me with a glimmer of a smile but the regret was still there in his words and I knew the guilt would always lie on his heart. ‘I should have done something to stop it and instead I turned my back and hoped it was just Richard demanding attention, as he does. And I
was wrong. My brother paid with his life for my inaction. You are not telling me anything I do not know, Henry.'

It had been a time of simmering danger, Richard claiming that Gloucester was plotting against him and begging John for advice. John had tried to pour oil on troubled waters with stern words: Gloucester would never harm either the King or the little Queen Isabella of France. But Richard had had the suspected plotters, Gloucester together with Warwick and Arundel, arrested, and his uncle of Gloucester done to death, smothered in his bed in Calais.

‘Do you believe the evidence that Gloucester was plotting against Richard?' Henry demanded, taking a seat opposite.

‘No,' John responded softly. ‘I think it a ruse by Richard to be avenged. Because my brother Gloucester was one of the Lords Appellant.'

Henry raised his eyes to John's face.

‘So was I one of the Lords Appellant.'

And I felt the muscle in John's shoulder tense further, and in that tension, which he made no attempt to disguise, I learned the depth of John's fear for Henry, for all of us.

‘I know you were involved. Why do you think I played the diplomat—or some would say the coward—and made little comment on Gloucester's death? Why do you think I tread carefully now? Every day I await the next step in Richard's plotting to rid himself of every man in the kingdom who has the blood and the strength to challenge his power. And most of all I fear that Richard has his next arrow trained on you, my son. He'll never forgive you for what happened at Radcot Bridge.'