The Scandalous Duchess. Anne O'Brien

      The harsh judgement shivered over me and as my outrage built, I pondered all I knew of the Duke. A prince with a reputation for high-minded courtesy and chivalry, he had adored his first wife, Blanche, and was plunged into desolation by her untimely death three years before. He would never have strayed from her side. And now he had a new wife, a marriage of three months’ standing, and the prospect of a new child and a new kingdom to rule if he could enforce Constanza’s claim to Castile in his own right. A man of ambition, the Duke would do nothing to jeopardise the authority in that distant kingdom if he wore its crown. He would not take a mistress within three months of bedding a new wife.

      It was all beyond sense. The Duke of Lancaster was not the mindlessly pretty, disreputable young man of the tapestry whose sole concern was dalliance.

      And yet, at the same time I was forced to acknowledge that the puissant Duke of Lancaster, raised in royal indulgence from his cradle, was the possessor of a will as strong as cold steel. I will not be denied, he had said. It is not in my nature to accept so determined a rebuttal.

      It was an uncomfortable thought.

      And my next proved to be an even more disconcerting companion.

      Was the fault mine? Had I, however inadvertently, however cleverly cautious I had considered myself to be, encouraged the Duke to think that I would welcome so impious a request? I could not imagine that I had dropped so careless a word, made so flirtatious a gesture, just as I was certain that I had never led him to believe that I would step so far beyond seemly behaviour. Inappropriate desires and longings, even if I had them, were to be held under restraint and confessed only before the priest.

      I cast my mind back over the three years since I had left the household on Duchess Blanche’s death, when we had all been deluged in mourning black, overwrought with grief. The only occasion on which I had seen the Duke was two years ago at the interment of Queen Philippa in Westminster Abbey, when he had pinned a mourning brooch to my bodice. Hardly an occasion for unseemly flirtation.

      So perhaps I had misconstrued the whole of the past hour, making my present tumbling concerns entirely irrelevant. But of course, I had not misconstrued it. I would have been witless to put a wrong interpretation on his parting shot

      And I don’t like you in widow’s weeds, he had informed me from a distance. They don’t become you. If I were your lover I would clothe you in silk and cloth of gold.

      No, I was under no delusion about that: so intimate, so personal a comment on how I looked, what I wore and how he would remedy it. What right had he, when custom demanded that I wear mourning for a year? Vanity—assuredly a sin—lit a little flame of anger, as I spread out my skirts, disliking the weight of them in the voluminous amount of material, fretting that my wimple and veils leached colour from my skin. I knew I did not look my best, and was woman enough to regret it.

      But how dare he remark on it?

      And why had he laughed at my refusal?

      I was furiously unsettled, for my future was still dependent on the Duke. He had not yet made an answer to my request. Had he changed his mind entirely in the face of my flat rejection?

      With a swish of my hated widow’s weeds I turned my back on the couple deliriously in love, wishing the smug lover buried under his blossoms, and strode off to return to normality and the company of those I knew, a household for whom I had a deep affection. A good bout of common sense and feminine gossip would do the trick. As for the lovers, the cunning rabbits would soon eat up the blossoms—and then where would they be?

      I made my way to the royal nurseries.

      Feeling an urge to knock on a door that I would once have walked through without a second thought, I resisted. Opening it, I walked through. How familiar the scene was: nurse and chambermaid, governess and damsel and sempstress, all intent on the burden of care of the three precious Lancaster children. Once as damsel to Duchess Blanche I had been one of this number, and would wish to be so again. There, at their lessons, were three little girls, two of them with royal blood, all much grown since I last set eyes on them: the ducal daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth at eleven and eight years, eyes trained seriously on their psalters—although it had to be said that Philippa showed more concentration than her sister who cradled a tabby kitten on her lap—while Henry—how he had grown!—all of four years old now, stood at the side of a lady who was engaged in explaining to him the illustrations in a book. And then there was the third little girl, whose age I knew precisely…

      For a moment I simply stood and watched the scene in all its busyness, my heart so overburdened with love that tears welled. It had been an emotional day, one way or another. I swallowed and took another step.

      ‘Good day, my lady.’

      I curtsied.

      The lady with the book looked up, expression arrested between irritation and then gradual recognition. The book was slowly closed and placed out of Henry’s reach. The lady exhaled slowly.

      ‘Katherine, as I live and breathe…’

      Which caused me to smile, it being a well-recognised expression on Lady Alice’s lips, whilst Alyne, wife of Edward Gerberge, one of the Duke’s squires, surged across the room towards me. It brought all eyes to my face in a mix of pleasure and curiosity. Philippa smiled. Elizabeth barely remembered me, Henry certainly did not. As for the other child…

      My eyes on the little girl’s bright face, I curtsied again to Lady Alice. ‘My lady, forgive my intrusion.’

      ‘Nonsense!’

      Lady Alice was on her feet, and then I was enclosed in female arms, patted and fussed over, Alyne relieving me of my cloak and gloves, before both found the words to commiserate.

      ‘I recall the day you were wed,’ Lady Alice said and sighed. ‘Hugh was a good man—and I expect a good husband to you. But for the wife of a professional soldier, life can be very difficult.’

      And I found that, prompted by such solicitous expressions, I was weeping at last, for Hugh and for myself.

      ‘Forgive me, Lady Alice…’ I could not seem to stop the tears falling endlessly, all the tears I had been unable to shed.

      Alice FitzAlan, Lady Wake, merely poured a cup of ale and, as Alyne wiped away my tears, pushed me to sit in her own chair, handed me the ale and dissuaded Henry, gently but deliberately, from climbing into my lap.

      At last I laughed and sniffed, but my eyes were for the third little girl who had come to stand at my knee, her hand now grasping my skirts. She was seven years old, almost eight now. I knew exactly, for this was Blanche, my eldest daughter, honoured with the position of damsel to the Duke’s daughters. My lovely Blanche, named for the Duchess in whose service I had been when she was born.

      Abandoning the cup of ale, I swept her up in my arms and kissed her.

      ‘My daughter,’ I said, touching her face. ‘My little Blanche—not so little now. Have you forgotten me?’

      For a moment she hesitated, as if reflecting on the matter in her solemn way, then Blanche buried her face against my neck. My tears threatened to begin all over again.

      ‘She is a credit to you,’ Lady Alice remarked in her cool manner.

      ‘One day she will marry well,’ Alyne added. ‘She is very pretty, like her mother.’

      I took Blanche’s face between my hands, kissing her cheeks, tucking away her curls beneath her linen cap. It was true she looked like me. Her hair was the same rich burnished gold as mine, the colour of autumn wheat ripened under a hot sun, but her features still had the soft unformed edges of childhood.

      ‘And can you read and write yet?’ I asked her.

      ‘Yes, madam,’ she replied with quaint confidence. Then reached up to whisper in my ear: ‘Better than the Lady Elizabeth. She does not try. She likes the kitten more.’

      For a moment it surprised