The Scandalous Duchess

by Anne O'Brien

  I lifted my hand.

  I let it fall. I said nothing, made no attempt to recall them to safety.

  ‘Katherine…!’ Philippa’s whisper was harsh, her hand on my arm a grip of steel. She had long ago abandoned calling me formally. At twenty-one she had acquired the maturity of years, and of judgement which at this moment was unsparing. ‘This is wrong. You can’t let it happen. If harm comes to her the blame will be yours to shoulder.’

  I shook her off, already riven as I was with that guilt, walking the length of the battlements to watch the vanishing cavalcade, identification once more hidden. Today I had rejected compassion, good manners, duty. Obedience to those who employed me. Had I not in effect, disobeyed the Duke also? Would he not have expected me to offer shelter and safety to his wife?

  I was horrified at what I had done. But I could not admit her. I could not.

  ‘We should not have done that.’ Philippa, relentless, had followed me. It did not help at all that she had acknowledged the joint decision.

  ‘It is better so, in the circumstances,’ I replied flatly. ‘It is not far to Knaresborough.’

  ‘But if any harm comes to her—’

  The echo of my own words. How devastating they were, stitching in bright colours what I had done.

  ‘Then I will take the blame,’ I said. ‘You had no part in it. I will answer to the Duke.’

  And to God.

  Refusing her company I went to the chapel where I prayed to the Virgin, for her intercession, for forgiveness, my thoughts all the time flitting away from my prayers to scenes invisible to me. My self-justification was like the constant and ineffectual pecking of a bird.

  Constanza would be safe. She would be reunited with the Duke. The country held her in its heart, in the highest of esteem. Constanza would not be seized and done to death as a detested foreigner. No one would wish harm to her. I was the evil one. If anyone dared attack her she had only to reveal her name, and she would be revered, whereas I was the one who would be torn to pieces. She would place her hand once more in that of the Duke and, his reputation salvaged, all would be put right. For her. For him, in the eyes of England.

  I was the one who would be punished.

  What a formidable, vengeful mistress England was.

  I tore my thoughts away, back to the chapel with its candles and the reminiscence of incense. Even the kindly face of the Virgin was closed against me, stern and unsmiling, as I undoubtedly deserved. It seemed that her downcast eyes deliberately turned away from me. I pressed my clasped hands against my lips, begging for her compassion. Shame was a heavy cloak.

  I felt a movement at my side where Philippa was sinking to her knees.

  ‘I will pray with you,’ she said. ‘The Virgin will listen.’

  ‘I think she will not,’ I replied.

  ‘But she will. She will not condemn you for a broken heart. For loving too much.’

  Oh, Philippa! Tears welled in my eyes but this was no time for tears. ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘You had your reasons.’

  ‘Not such that God would forgive. I was vindictive beyond measure.’

  Philippa did not reply but bent her head to her task, her fingers moving over the beads of her rosary. I made to follow her example, then realised as I saw the beads of coral and gold that it was the rosary that the Duke had given me. I closed my fist over the beads. I could not use it. It would make me more of a hypocrite than I already was.

  Philippa eventually raised her head, making the sign of the cross.

  ‘It must be true, then,’ she said, addressing the altar. ‘What my father has done.’

  ‘Yes, it must.’

  I saw a long dark road stretching ahead of me, leading me to I knew not what. For the first time in my life I felt frightened and vulnerable. I felt beyond hope.

  From the chapel I refused Philippa’s companionship and climbed to the battlements once more, despite the darkness, to look north. How often had I done this? Once I would have sensed him. The direction of his thoughts. Sometimes a brush of his emotions. His love.

  Tonight there was nothing.

  It was as if I faced a stone revetment or a wall of shields. A fortified bastion, I decided fancifully, although I was in no mood to be fanciful.

  The Duke had shut me out.

  I lifted my hands in silent plea, in despair, then allowed them to fall as a patter of approaching footsteps grew louder. I knew who they belonged to before he raced up the steps.

  ‘John.’ I took his hand in mine, letting my hand rest on his head. ‘You should be in bed.’

  ‘I escaped from Agnes.’

  ‘I expect you did.’

  And then, predictably, Henry. I lifted him into my arms so that he could see over the wall.

  ‘Where is my father?’ asked John.

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘Will he come soon?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Does he know we are here?’

  ‘Yes he does.’ I lowered Henry to his feet. ‘And now we will go down, or you two will face Agnes’s wrath.’

  They ran in front of me, surprisingly agile on the turn of the stair. I could imagine them both excelling at military skills as they grew older.

  Life would have to go on, for my sake and theirs. I did not know how I could.

  What should I do now? Frightened and vulnerable, I never expected to experience such draining emotions, but the sturdy confidence that had built within me over the years now drained away, no matter how often I told myself that I was not without resources. I had Kettlethorpe and Coleby in my son Thomas’s name, my annuities, my connections in Lincoln. Margaret and Thomas were provided for. My Beaufort children would never lack. I knew the Duke well enough that whatever might stand between the two of us, his sense of honour was far too strong for him to neglect these children of his blood.

  Had I no strength of character to withstand this terrible blow?

  Go back to Kettlethorpe.

  But I couldn’t. I could not yet cut the cord. Caught up in a maelstrom, I remained at Pontefract, wrought with indecision. Until the decision was made for me.

  I was in pointed communication with the cook who was overseeing the messy task of dismemberment of a carcass with an eye to making brawn with the brain and offal. I would have retreated long before this, except that his complaints about the quality of the meat and the lack of it were legion, and so it was there that I received a letter. The courier had been directed to the kitchens.

  ‘I was instructed to deliver this to your hand, my lady.’

  I took it, and the opportunity to turn my back on the chitterlings, except that they no longer seemed to matter. The letter took all my attention for the inscription was in the Duke’s own even script. I opened the cover to find a single page. It was strikingly brief, as if written under duress with haste a necessity. It lacked even a superscription, such as my name.

  Do not leave Pontefract. I command it. You must not leave until I can come to you.

  And, below, a scrawled signature.

  The Duke was coming. He was coming to me.

  Rereading it took no time at all. Nor did my decision-making on the strength of this imperious command. I had no intention of leaving. There were things that I needed to say.

  A movement at my side made me look up to see the cook, cleaver gripped firmly, watching me. So was the courier, if less overtly. It would be far easier to slink away, back to Kettlethorpe, where I might lick my wounds in private without too many prurient eyes watching my every move. Eyes that, as now, were keen to strip the flesh from my bones.

  ‘Will you sit, my lady?’

  What emotions had the cook read chasing across my features? I shook my head but I took the cup of ale he proffered and sipped, feeling the blood flow back beneath my skin at cheek and temple. No, I would not run away to Kettlethorpe. I had been Lancaster’s lover for nine years, I had borne him four children. I would wait and hear what he had to say. I would not w
eep at his feet as, the rumours said, Constanza had done when they met on the road. The emotionally vivid account of their passionate reconciliation had reduced me to unutterable fury.

  It swept through me again now, and I cast the letter into the fire in a fit of pique, noting with satisfaction that the wax image of John of Lancaster, King of Castile, surrounded by all the accoutrements of his authority, melted away to nothing in the flames.

  What could he say to me that would reinstate him in my good graces? Could I ever forgive him for what he had done?

  ‘Was it important, my lady?’ The cook, abandoning his cleaver, nudged me to sit. I must appear to be more fragile than I thought.

  ‘No. Not important at all,’ I said with an attempt at a smile. And I did sit, for my legs seemed to have no strength.

  But I would wait. I would be here when he arrived. And I might listen.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Duke of Lancaster rode with his retinue into the courtyard at Pontefract.

  ‘You waited until I came.’

  ‘As you see.’

  It was not an opening that boded well for what was to follow. The courtyard was grey and glistening with the earlier heavy rain that still pattered on my head and shoulders as if in a final lingering defiance. Much like my own frame of mind. I would not take shelter until he had dismounted, even though it was to my discomfort. I would wait as he had instructed. I would be calm, obedient, open to his persuasion. I forced myself to stand and observe with commendable dispassion as he swung down from the saddle and gave his reins to his squire. Throughout all his movements his eyes had not left my face.

  It had crossed my mind that I should stay in my chamber. That I should keep him waiting. But that, I decided, would be a sign of immaturity. I would acknowledge his arrival, as I had so many times before. I would listen to what he had to say.

  The Duke signalled for his retinue to dismount and take shelter.

  ‘I note the castle is well garrisoned.’

  As well he might. It was bristling with military.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘We received your orders.’

  Apart from my one line of instruction, it had been the only direct communication between the Duke and Pontefract throughout all those difficult weeks. His gaze continued to hold mine as I allowed the silence between us to lengthen. Even in the courtyard with all the noise and bustle of the Duke’s dispersing entourage, I felt the power of his regard. It made me shiver. Not from pleasure, as once it might. I kept the contact, every muscle in my body braced against what was to come.

  I had expected him to look weary, from travel, from the shock of such vehement hatred flung at him by the rebels. From the loss of his most beloved possession, The Savoy. Even from the acknowledgement that his life had actually been in danger at the hands of Englishmen. In the blackest corner of my damaged heart I hoped that he would look at least careworn. If I felt older than my thirty-two years, why should not he, at a decade older? I resented the little lines that had become ingrained between my brows, the smudge of shadows beneath my eyes from lack of sleep. My mirror was no longer my friend. As I stood there in that inhospitable courtyard, growing wetter by the minute, I studied his face, a very female resentment building as my gown clung in sodden folds.

  Why did I not have the sense to go inside?

  Because I had anticipated this meeting for so long. I had longed for it as much as I had feared it. I knew that what had been between me and the Duke of Lancaster, the overwhelming emotion that had encompassed us in the face of all tenets of morality and good judgement, would never be the same again. I could not retreat from it.

  And so I took in every inch of him as he stood a good arm’s length from me, remarking that there was no inordinate sign of strain in his visage, and his movements were as elegantly controlled as I had ever seen them. If the lines between nose and mouth were well marked, I had seen such an effect when he was faced with a problem of moving troops or supplying a garrison. A cup of warm ale would soon smooth away the tension. No, there was no hint here of the man who had begged God’s forgiveness on his knees in public, with tears staining his cheeks.

  The man who had in so cursory and public a manner rejected his lover of nine years, before informing her of his decision.

  I bit down on the little surge of wrath.

  ‘I see you are in health and good spirits, Lady Katherine,’ he remarked.

  Good spirits!

  The flapping of my veil, wetly against my neck, was the final straw. I raised my chin. Without courtesy or any acknowledgement that he had addressed me, I turned on my heel. He would follow if he needed to speak with me. Was I in health? It was the least of my concerns. As for my spirits…I strode on, up the staircase, aware of his footsteps behind me, relieved that he followed me, and yet anger burned through any relief. I flung back the door into one of the chambers used by the family for celebrations, empty now except for a chest and a pair of backless stools, an empty dais at one end. The walls, usually hung with magnificent tapestries, as were the rooms of all the Duke’s accommodations, were bare and grim. In a corner there was a stash of boxes and trestles, on one resting the folded tapestries.

  A bleak place for a bleak reconciliation.

  There would be no reconciliation here.

  I walked to the centre of the chamber, where I turned.

  ‘We will speak in here. Where there is no one to eavesdrop and pass comment on my shame—or yours.’

  The Duke inclined his head, before closing the door quietly at his back, then casting gloves onto the chest, dislodging a swirl of dust as he did so. Something I must take in hand, I thought inconsequentially. The room had not been used of late, nor would be, for we were in no mood for celebrations. What emotion would it witness now? The Duke made no further move to approach me, but stood, hands clasped lightly around his sword belt, the dim light glinting on the breastplate of his half-armour.

  ‘Well?’ When my voice sounded annoyingly shrill to my own ears, I tempered it. ‘I have remained here as ordered. What would you say to me, my lord?’

  The pause was infinitesimal, but I noted it. ‘You will have heard by now.’

  ‘Yes. I think I have been the recipient of every piece of rumour about the pair of us that has run the length and breadth of the country.’

  I would not make this easy for him.

  ‘They have destroyed The Savoy,’ he said.

  I raised my brows. Did not all the world know of that? I would not respond.

  A muscle in his jaw leaped beneath the fine skin, but so it often did when he might struggle with a document from a difficult petitioner. I folded my hands, one on the other, over the clasp of my girdle. I had had many days to consider all that I knew, almost as many days in which the developments had festered like an ill-tended wound. It would astonish him how much I had gleaned from the gossip of passing travellers. I tilted my chin, as if I might be mildly interested in what he had to say.

  I stopped my fingers before they could clench into fists. I would hold fast to composure. I would be reasonable. Understanding. I would, by the Virgin!

  ‘Why have you come?’ I asked.

  ‘I had to know for myself that you were safe.’

  ‘Safe,’ I repeated unhelpfully.

  ‘But I knew you were. God sheltered you from all harm. I asked Him to.’

  My brows remained beautifully arched. ‘I am flattered. Or I suppose I am.’

  ‘And I had to come and tell you myself.’

  He took a step forward as if testing the water, as if there might be an unseen pit below the surface, into which he would haplessly fall and drown.

  My lips thinned and curled minutely. ‘So you said.’

  His spine was as straight as an ash sapling, his voice raw, but that might be thirst after a long journey. I offered him no refreshment. It was his castle. He could summon his own steward if he so wished.

  ‘It would be discourteous,’ he continued in the same limpid but impassive
tone, ‘for you to be the subject of gossip and not know why I did…why I did what I did. I have come to try to explain…So that you would not remain ignorant…’

  Not once had he moved, his breathing as level as if he were purchasing a horse.

  ‘Explain?’ I would be understanding, would I? My fingers clenched anyway, nails digging deep into my palms. I kept my voice low, yet even though, raised as I was to impeccable good manners, I knew it was unforgivably venomous, I chose every word with precise care.

  ‘Explain? And I should thank you for that? I have, of course, to be thankful that you have considered my situation to any degree. In the circumstance of my being—what was it you said?—an agent of Satan? But then, you have always considered the welfare of all your servants, have you not, my lord? How charitable of you to dismiss them from your service in Scotland, so that they need not suffer with you in your painful exile there, far away from friends and family. If I had been with you in Edinburgh, doubtless you would have done the same for me. Would you have wept over me, as I am told you did over them? For it seems I am no better than a servant to you.’

  My tongue hissed on the word servant. I had not realised the true depths of my bitterness.

  ‘That is not so.’ His lips barely moved.

  ‘Ah…Were the rumours then false? I did not think so, but I am willing to be persuaded. Answer me one question, my gracious, chivalrous lord. Are you sending me away?’

  The silence in the room was as taut as a bowstring before the release of the deadly arrow.

  ‘Yes.’ He took a breath as if he would have said more. Then repeated: ‘Yes. I am sending you away.’

  My anger bubbled dangerously, too dangerously, near the surface.

  ‘I don’t think I can ever forgive you,’ I said between clenched teeth, ‘for the manner in which you did it.’

  ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘You would not believe what I have heard. I did not, at first. Until each repetition came as a slap in the face.’