The Scandalous Duchess

by Anne O'Brien

  I would not consider that this was the tender precursor to his leaving me.

  Of course he will sever your relationship, if he has any sense, Philippa opined in my ear.

  I banished her.

  You have degraded me. And still do, spat Constanza, lurking in the shadows beside the clothespress.

  I banished her too.

  You are an evil seductress, intoned Walsingham from the bed tester.

  I turned my back on him.

  I warned you, did I not? Even Agnes had a face of stone. My breath caught that she too would condemn.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ The Duke had quietly closed the door and was watching me as I walked a circuit of the room.

  ‘That this room has suddenly become entirely too crowded.’

  ‘It looks empty enough to me.’

  He approached me for the first time.

  ‘Of course it does.’ I forced myself to rest, although it was not difficult with his arms enclosed around me, and I laughed a little as I leaned my forehead against his shoulder. ‘Even the mice have been cleared out in my rebuilding.’ My breathing was already shortened. ‘John, my life, my love. I have had such a need of you these past days.’

  His heart leaped beneath my hands. ‘I love you. I adore you,’ he replied.

  I held his hand in mine, as I took him under my dominion in a chamber where there were no shadows, only ours.

  ‘I think I should not be with you,’ I whispered, but despite all Walsingham could do to destroy us, desire thrummed through my blood, as if I were a new bride, united for the first time to the man she worshipped. I allowed him to lead me to the bed with no coy resistance.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, detecting some nuance as he busied himself divesting himself of his own clothing and mine, impatient as ever over the buttons on my sleeves.

  I would have denied what was in my mind. Instead: ‘I could not look at myself in my mirror,’ I confessed, the words tumbling out, even as my breath caught at the slide of his hand on my skin. ‘I was afraid of what I would see. I have committed a great sin, you see. I have always known it was, but I did not fully understand…’

  Eyes fathomlessly dark, the planes of his face severe, the Duke looked at me as if discerning for the first time the essence of the sacrifice I had made. With one finger he traced the outline of my lips, before running his knuckles under the line of my jaw. Then finally framed my face with his fine hands and kissed my lips, soft as a promise.

  ‘I owe you every apology, Katherine de Swynford, from the depths of my soul. I took you for my own pleasure, without thought, as I have taken everything in life. Who has ever thwarted me? Who would gainsay me? We are both guilty of sin, but I did not consider how vastly a woman of such integrity would suffer. I regret that. I wonder that you can ever forgive me for my placing your feet on this particular path that many would say leads to the fires of hell. I did not consider how the world’s condemnation would wound you. I should have. You should have been my first concern.’

  The contrition in his eyes, bleak and cold, took my breath, and in the face of so brutal a confession I could do no other than raise my hands to his cheeks, to return the kiss.

  ‘I’ll tell you what you would see in your mirror,’ he said when our kiss was ended, ‘because I have the true image here before me. You would see a woman with the courage to accept what is between us, whatever the world says. A woman with the fortitude to love me. A woman with the spirit to allow me to love her. I can only honour you for the choice you made to link your life with mine. Nothing I can do or say can ever express the love that is in my heart for you.’

  ‘My love. My dear love…’ Never had I thought to hear the Duke place himself at my feet. Emotion threatened, but I would not weep, for an inner joy was unfolding. ‘I thought Walsingham had destroyed our happiness,’ I said, kissing him again. ‘I thought that when we came together, his words would taint what we have.’

  ‘No. He cannot. You are lodged in my heart. Are we not complete in each other?’

  As so often before, we shut out the world, even Walsingham. I even succeeded in banishing the fearful anguish, although our lovemaking had a strange quality of despair about it, as if we should snatch all the fulfilment we could before storm clouds threatened. And yet there was such an exultation, such a sense of triumph that we were untouchable, that there was no possible room for regret.

  I was awake when he rose at dawn. I had been awake for some time, taking note of each beautiful feature as the daylight strengthened, committing all to memory. Then I kissed him and allowed him to dress without comment. What was there to say about our love that had not been said throughout the dark hours? That had not been proved by the drift of his hands, the power of his body as he took ownership of mine in earnest.

  As for what still had to be said between us, I would not pre-empt it.

  Hosed and shod with fine, elegant lines, his tunic laced and belted, he came to sit on the bed beside me, to wind his fingers into the turmoil of my hair.

  ‘I always forget the magnificence of your hair. Its richness takes my breath.’ He barely paused. ‘I cannot stay. Not even for a day.’ He released my hair, as if it seared his flesh.

  ‘I know. I would not ask it of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, his lips against mine.

  ‘For what?’ My heart thundered against my ribs. Surely he would hear it, or feel the vibration of it as he cupped my face and placed a succession of soft kisses on my lips.

  ‘For not asking. I can see the question circling in your head.’

  ‘There is only one for which I need an answer. And which I will not ask.’

  ‘You do not need to ask it. You know the answer. The answer is no. It is too late for that. Far too late. Do we not both know it?’

  No, I did not have to ask it after all. I held tightly to his hand, raising his palm to press a reciprocal salute there.

  ‘Will you stay here?’ he asked.

  ‘Where else would I go?’

  I doubted I would be welcome with Constanza. How could she turn a politic blind eye, now that the whole country knew of the depth of sin between her husband and his daughters’ governess? What had been a brave tolerance could no longer be preserved under the condemning eye of every man and woman in England. My role in the Lancaster household was at an end.

  ‘And you?’ I asked, thinking that he would tell me which port he would make for.

  Instead: ‘Constanza and I are estranged.’

  That was all he would say. Such a momentous step explained in so few words. I imagined the blow to his pride, and to hers, but I made no comment. He never would discuss her with me and I honoured him for it.

  ‘I will pray for you,’ I promised.

  He kissed me. ‘God keep you.’

  He walked to the door, then returned, surprising me by lifting my rosary from my prie-dieu before coming to kneel beside the bed.

  ‘Did I not promise that I would protect you? I swear that I will. I will never again allow you to suffer from the choice you made to join your life with mine.’ He sighed, an infinitesimal exhalation that I noted because I knew him so well as he pressed the crucifix to his lips, then folded the coral and jet and silver into my hand. ‘Remember me. And God keep you.’

  And I carried it to my own lips in acknowledgement of his vow.

  Bundled into a chamber gown, my hair roughly braided and lightly veiled, I was watching the Duke ride out when Philippa came to join me, in no better mood than on previous days.

  ‘Where is he going?’

  ‘To The Savoy and then Southampton.’

  ‘So he has left you,’ she observed with a cruel complacency.

  I was fretful. Whatever the Duke might say to reassure me, I knew that Walsingham’s attack could do nothing but harm to John’s already unstable reputation. Parliament would take every opportunity to sharpen its claws since Walsingham had accused me of being the cause of the Duke’s failure to accompany his
fleet. The Duke of Lancaster had been so weak as to allow me to seduce him from his duty. I knew it was all lies. He did not sail with them because he was commandeering extra ships, but there were many who would give credence to Walsingham.

  ‘He has left me because he must,’ I replied, swallowing my anxieties in front of Philippa. ‘I do not hold him back from going to war.’

  ‘I did not mean that.’

  ‘I know you didn’t. But I felt that it needed saying. It was an unfair assertion, on both of us.’ My eye remained fixed on the distant Lancaster colours until the last possible moment when distance enclosed him. Walsingham had had the temerity to accuse the Duke of cowardice in not sailing with his men.

  ‘I meant,’ Philippa persisted, ‘that he has cast you off. Has he given you an annuity for past services and wished you well for the future?’

  Since the Duke was out of sight, I turned to look at her.

  ‘Sometimes I wish there was more charity in your soul, Philippa.’

  ‘What have I said that is not the truth? He did not even kiss you when he left.’

  I would say no more. I did not have to. All our kisses had been exchanged in private. And the question that I had not asked, and had not, in the end, needed to:

  ‘Do we part for ever, to put you and England right with God?’

  And his answer: ‘No. It is too late for that.’

  The Duke had not left me. He had not cast me off. How could we be parted, when our love was indestructible, resilient enough to withstand the brutality of Walsingham’s particular brand of warfare. Our love could never be denied.

  Eyes narrowed as if I might still catch a final glimpse of Lancaster banners, I recalled comparing my long-ago existence to a line of plainchant, predictably moving along familiar paths, without highs or lows. How different was this love with which we had been blessed. This love, breathtaking, unsettling, held the complex interweaving of the glorious polyphony from St Stephen’s Chapel at Westminster. Unpredictable, extreme in its ability to move to joy or tears, superbly glorious, the power of this music of our hearts overwhelmed us both.

  Whenever the Duke came home, from war, from Parliamentary debate, from negotiation, he would come to me because I was at the very centre of the intricate harmony of his life, as he was of mine. I would stand at the last before God’s throne and proclaim my love for him. As I knew he would for me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  June 1381: The Manor of Kettlethorpe, Lincolnshire

  ‘It’s bloody insurrection, m’lady,’ Jonas, my blacksmith, informed me with lugubrious self-importance before going about his business.

  ‘No it’s not,’ I replied firmly to his back.

  Jonas regarded me over his shoulder, scratching his nose with a black-nailed finger.

  ‘You mark my words, m’lady. Bloody insurrection!’

  ‘Well, don’t tell the diary maids,’ I called after him. ‘They’ve enough to gossip about without this. Cheese is the last thing on their minds as it is.’

  The foundations of the world I knew had begun to shake.

  My sister Philippa had ultimately left me to return to Duchess Constanza’s service, with some relief on both sides. Constanza had decided that she approved Philippa’s companionship more than she detested her as the sister of the ducal whore. I wished Philippa well. She would be far happier at Tutbury or Hertford—or anywhere the Duchess chose to live apart from the Duke—than at Kettlethorpe. Their estrangement continued, meeting only for ceremonial and family purposes.

  Yet I was not lonely for female companionship, for I had the other Philippa, the Duke’s lovely daughter now grown to adulthood, for company. Usually a confident young woman, self-possessed behind the facade of her striking features, she had decided to put distance between herself and her sister Elizabeth, who although the younger daughter, had recently engaged in a dynastic marriage with the youthful Earl of Pembroke. It had made Philippa restless for her own future.

  And then the rumours began to reach us. At least they took our collective mind off Elizabeth’s crowing, Philippa’s disappointment and the loud demands of my new son, Thomas, born in the depths of a wintry January with a voice fit to raise the dead.

  At first we listened in disbelief, strengthening into sheer denial.

  Surely the stories were mere fabrications, magnifying out of all proportion a spark of disgruntled opposition over a tax demand that would be quickly stamped on by local magistrates. I would not give the rumours credence.

  Yet the news continued to be carried by every group of travellers passing our door, of trouble-making peasants massing in Kent and Essex. I listened and worried but in a mild way. Kent was far from us in Lincolnshire, where the days passed in unrelenting monotony with no unrest other than a squabble over the slaughter of chickens by an unleashed hound. What had this uprising to do with me? What damage could they do to us? We were safe, isolated and unnoticed, as we always were. No need for us to jump at every shadow.

  Besides which, I informed my household, the defences of London were strong enough to stop a parcel of peasants even if their complaints sounded horribly familiar. Had they not been voiced at any time over the past dozen years? Hatred of the poll tax, failure to win battles in France, restrictions on wages when labour was in demand after the Pestilence. What was so different now?

  My reassurances had their effect, leaving my mind free to follow the Duke. It was a month since I had parted from him at Leicester. He was going to Scotland. With the Scottish truce about to expire, Richard had sent the Duke to open negotiations. He would probably now be at Knaresborough or Pontefract or even at Berwick, so he would be in no danger.

  The distant clatter of hooves on the road took my attention.

  I sighed, handing sleeping Thomas over to Agnes, taking Joan by the hand. ‘Another party to spread fears of death and destruction, if Jonas has not done enough…’

  I walked slowly, through the door into the courtyard, shielding my eyes from the sun, keeping Joan firmly anchored, to her annoyance, and any complacency vanished. A small escort of soldiers had muscled their animals, dusty and well-lathered from hard riding, into the confined space before me. I stiffened, pushing Joan behind my skirts, for there was no identifying mark on them. Had I been careless in believing us to be safe in the depths of Lincolnshire? Then as the leader, obvious by the quality of his half-armour and weaponry, dismounted and strode up to me, I recognised the face beneath the shadow of his helmet.

  One of the Duke’s captains.

  I exhaled my relief, retrieving Joan to lift her up into my arms, but my relief was short lived when the man gave the briefest of bows and barely paused for breath.

  ‘An order from my lord of Lancaster, my lady.’

  An order? I smiled and extended my hand. ‘Come within. There will be ale for you and your men. You look as if you need it—’

  ‘No!’ He shook his head as if to deny his abruptness, and I realised that he had kept his troop mounted. ‘No, my lady. You are to pack up what you need—only enough to be carried on horseback—and come with me.’ He cast an eye on Joan who, unexpectedly shy, hid her face against my neck. ‘All of you. You need to take refuge. The country’s in the hands of rebels and your safety cannot be ensured here.’

  ‘Tell me—’ I gripped his sleeve as the warnings of the past days rushed back in full vigour, yet still I would not believe that I stood in any real danger. I needed proof if I was to agree to a full-scale upheaval.

  ‘No time,’ he replied, and as if he had read my mind: ‘My orders are to be gone from here within the hour. You are in danger.’

  It did not make sense. The countryside lay about us, basking at peace in the June heat. All I could hear was the usual clamour of a household at work and Thomas’s lusty yells.

  ‘But why? Why am I in danger?’

  ‘It’s the Duke who’s in danger,’ the captain responded with an impatient exhalation at women who would not obey a simple order. Then even more brusquely: ‘
And all who belong to him. My lord says he cannot risk your staying here if the rebels’ accusations turn into actions.’

  So the rebels were flinging their accusations at the Duke. I frowned at the captain. Had the Duke not weathered all the past storms with Parliament, despite the nagging problems of taxation and failure to win any notable victory in France? Would he not mend the toppling fences once again? I saw no need for my own household, including all the children, to be uprooted.

  ‘But why can I not stay here? We are isolated enough. Or if you consider us too vulnerable, we could go to Lincoln.’

  Now the captain grunted in frustration. ‘Have you had no word of the uprising, my lady? You’re a marked woman. You are known here for your…your closeness to my lord.’ His skin flushed but his gaze remained direct. ‘And in Lincoln too I warrant. You are to come with me to Pontefract.’ Then he added, as if this made all beyond argument: ‘By my lord’s orders. You must lie low at Pontefract, until things change.’

  I looked round at those who, alerted by the voices and crush of soldiery, had followed me out into the courtyard. Philippa standing anxiously at my shoulder, holding tightly to Henry. Agnes carrying the baby Thomas whose cries had subsided. John who had emerged from the stable, smudged with charcoal. Were we truly in danger?

  And then there was my other family. Thomas would be well protected in the Duke’s own retinue. Margaret would be safe enough surely, within the convent at Barking.

  Still I was reluctant to accept that my life was in any real danger. Was not the Duke the most powerful man in the country? No one would dare to lay his hands on me. The rabble, stirred up by Walsingham, might deplore my lack of morality as a royal mistress, but I could never accept that they would attack me or my family. I said as much.

  ‘Do you say?’ responded the captain with laconic patience fast running out. ‘They are at this moment murdering Flemings in London—and elsewhere. You are labelled foreigner. Will your fate be any better, lady?’

  ‘I am not a Fleming. I am from Hainault. It is no secret.’