Secrets at Court. Blythe Gifford

      Lady Joan turned her smile on Nicholas. ‘All was done correctly in the nullification of my marriage to Salisbury.’

      Most women would never have risked a clandestine marriage. This woman had dared two. Her first, to Thomas Holland, twenty-one years ago, was ultimately validated. As a result, she was allowed to put aside her subsequent union with Salisbury and return to Holland instead.

      All enough to confuse even the most learned of church scholars.

      ‘His Holiness is not only interested in that one,’ Nicholas said, dreading what would come next.

      They stared at him as if he had spoken Greek.

      ‘What do you mean?’ Lady Joan’s voice had an edge he had not heard before.

      Obviously, they had not grasped the full meaning of the message. ‘He wants more than the nullification investigated. He wants confirmation of the legitimacy of your secret union with Holland.’

      Her eyes widened and narrowed. A woman unaccustomed to being questioned, even to prove something as simple as what had already been blessed by a previous pope. ‘I don’t understand. The Pope, all his people...it took years, but they were satisfied. Surely there could be no question now.’

      ‘A formality, no doubt.’ The King, near as adept at government as he was at war. ‘The Archbishop will assemble a panel of bishops. They will review the documents. It will be done.’

      ‘The Archbishop is in his seventh decade,’ the Prince snapped. ‘I doubt he can even find the documents, let alone read them.’

      ‘If not,’ Nicholas said, ‘perhaps he could question those involved.’

      For the first time, Joan’s lips tightened and he could see the fine lines radiating from them like the rays of the sun. The woman was, after all, beyond thirty. ‘My husband is dead. There is no one to question but me.’

      No witnesses, of course. The very definition of a clandestine marriage was that the participants made their vows to each other alone. But there must be other ways. There always were. ‘Perhaps someone remembers the two of you together at that time.’ Perhaps someone witnessed the Lady Joan and Thomas Holland kissing in corners.

      He looked to the Queen, trying to assess her thoughts. The young Joan had been part of her household back then, near a daughter. Awkward, but they had been through this before. The Queen, no doubt, could satisfy any questions.

      Fortunately, it would not be his concern. He had delivered his message. By next week, he would be on his way to France, with no responsibility other than to stay alive.

      ‘I don’t understand,’ Lady Joan said, looking at the Prince as if he might save her. ‘What can be the purpose of this?’

      Queen Philippa leaned over to pat her hand. ‘There must be no question.’

      ‘Question about what?’ The Countess, plaintive as a child. And as naïve.

      Did love make everyone so? All the better that he refrained.

      The Queen looked at her husband, then back. ‘About the children.’

      There must be no question that the Prince and his bride were married in the sight of God and that their children would be legitimate, with free and clear rights to the throne of England. If a woman over thirty were still fertile enough for children.

      Lady Joan coloured and her lips thinned. ‘I see. Of course.’

      The Prince took her other hand and tucked it against his side. Still a mystery, to see this man of war smile like a silly child when he gazed at this woman. ‘Nicholas will conduct the investigation himself.’

      No. He was weary of carrying burdens for others.

      He had worked his last earthly miracle. He wanted only to be a fighting man whose sole duty was to survive, not to conjure horses or wine or papal dispensations. ‘Your Grace agreed that there would be no more—’

      But the King’s expression closed that option. ‘Until they are wed, your task is undone.’

      Nicholas swallowed a retort and nodded, curtly, wondering whether the King had wanted him to succeed so completely. There had been other women, other alliances, that would have suited England’s purposes better than this one. ‘Of course, your Grace.’ A few more weeks, then. All because some clerk in the Pope’s retinue wanted an excuse to extract a final florin. ‘I shall leave for Canterbury tomorrow to meet with the Archbishop.’

      The Prince looked at Nicholas, all trace of the smile gone. ‘I shall ride with you.’

      Chapter Two

      Usually, Lady Joan floated into a room and settled on to her seat as lightly as a bird alighting on a branch.

      Not today. Had the news not been to her liking?

      ‘What is wrong, my lady?’ Anne bit her tongue. She should not have spoken so bluntly.

      The Countess was rarely irous. When she was, Anne knew how to coax her with warm scented water for her hands and her temples, with a hot fire in winter or an offer to bring out her latest bauble to distract and delight her eye. If that did not work, she would summon Robert the Fool to juggle and tumble about the room. Sometimes, if they were clean and not crying, seeing her children could restore the balance of her humour.

      Normally, her mistress buried all beneath a smile and behind eyes that gazed adoringly at the man before her. But today...

      Anne put aside her stitching as her lady paced the room like a skittish horse. Then, she remembered the ambassador’s face. The news must not have been all Lady Joan wanted. ‘The decision of the Pope? Will you and the Prince be allowed...?’

      ‘Yes, yes. But first, they think to investigate my clandestine marriage.’

      Relieved, Anne picked up her needle. Well, thus was the reason she had been roused from her bed in the middle of the night. ‘I witnessed it, of course. And will tell them so.’

      The large blue eyes turned on her. ‘Not that one.’

      Her hands stopped making stitches and she swallowed. ‘What? To what purpose? You have no enemies.’

      Lady Joan laughed, that lovely sound that captivated so many. ‘Even our friends find it difficult to countenance the marriage of the Prince to an English widowed mother near past an age to bear. They think we are both mad.’

      Mad they were. But then, her lady had always been mad for, or with, love. It was a privilege most women of her birth were not allowed, yet Joan grasped it with both hands. She was the descendant of a King, born to all privilege. Why should this one be denied?

      Anne swallowed the thought and kept her fingers moving to create even stitches, as her lady liked them.

      ‘But we could not wait,’ Joan said, speaking as much to herself as to Anne. ‘You know we could not wait.’

      ‘No, of course,’ Anne agreed by habit, uncertain which of her weddings Lady Joan was thinking of. For what her lady wanted could never, never wait.

      ‘The pestilence is all around us. It could fell us at any time. We wanted...’

      Ah, yes. She spoke of Edward, then.

      This time, the pestilence had struck grown men and small children hardest. Even the King’s oldest friend had been taken. The Prince, any of them, might be dead tomorrow.

      The reminder stilled her fingers. Since birth, Anne had needed all her strength just to cling to survival.

      ‘Do you think we’re mad, Anne?’ The voice, instead of commanding an answer, was wistful, as if she hoped Anne would answer no.

      She sounded once again as she had all those years ago. Just for a moment, no longer a woman with royal blood, born to command, but a woman in love, desperate for reassurance that miracles were possible.