The Lord of Greenwich (The Plantagenets Book 5)

by Juliet Dymoke

  'They seem to be mostly our men, sir, from Pembroke, I think.'

  'Then find Lord Berkeley. Holy Cross, do I have to settle every foolish quarrel?'

  He saw the hastily suppressed surprise. Well, William was not the only one who could be disillusioned. 'Get on with it,' he said roughly and turned away down the passage.

  There was only one consolation for him now and finding the chamber he sought he went in without ceremony. Eleanor Cobham was with her serving woman but she sent the girl out at once and when the door closed came to Humfrey. 'My lord, what is it? You look harassed to death.'

  He took her in his arms and without answering began to kiss her, his hands moving over her body, sliding the dress from her shoulders. 'I am beset by trouble,' he muttered, 'all I wanted here is slipping through my fingers – except you. Eleanor! Eleanor!' His passion rose and hers to match it. She clung to him, their kissing wild, her arms about his neck, her fingers tugging at his hair. He pushed her back against the bed and in between his kisses she whispered, 'My lord, it is nearly the supper hour.'

  'Damn the supper – and every Hainaulter to hell.'

  She met his mouth avidly, yielding and demanding both at once. His head throbbed, the blood was hot in his face. He had never had a woman quite like Eleanor before. From the first time they had lain together, during the Christmas revels, she had been eager, abandoned, predatory and he knew himself trapped in a love and desire more intense, more compelling than he had ever known. Even his passion, once slaked, rose again and would not let him rest. That there was love too was beyond doubt and it made his love for Jacqueline seem colourless. He wanted Eleanor for the rest of his life.

  'You'll not leave me,' he demanded. 'Swear it, my heart.'

  'I swear.' She lay looking up at him, her beauty beyond all other women's to him and he laid his head between her breasts.

  'I am going home, back to England to prepare for this duel. I must have new armour made, everything of the most costly. Burgundy shall not outshine me. But I'll not go without you.'

  'I could not bear that you should, but there will be talk.'

  'Then we must find some reason for your return.'

  She smiled, her hands about his face. 'I will tell the Duchess my mother is ailing, that I have been long enough from home. It is at least part true, and my brother will vouch for that.'

  She did not protest or argue, he thought, she was one with him in what he wanted to do, reading him as no one else did and her ambition equalled his. He was not sure whether Jacqueline knew of the liaison, but if she did then she was shutting her eyes to it as many wives had done before and would no doubt do again. There was after all nothing out of the ordinary in taking a mistress of quality. Even his prosaic brother John had a couple of bastards by a knight's lady.

  As for this girl in his arms, he would have her before all the world and the devil could take the scandalmongers. He raised his head and looked intently into her face. 'I love you,' he said. 'I know now that what I took for love was not. But you are the very bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.'

  She twisted her body, stretching arms and legs and her slow smile drew him. He remembered with astonishment that he had once thought her cold. 'I wanted you,' she said, 'from that day you came to Sterborough, so long ago.'

  'You must be with me,' he said, 'always. I do not live when you are not with me. I wish to God I could marry you. But I can't turn my back on Jacqueline.'

  'No?' It was half a query. 'I am content with your love, for now,' she added. 'Yet I think when the time comes we shall find a door opened to us. I believed from the very first that it would be so.' She pulled him against her once more and he thrust away the physical weariness of being ill. The doctor might have been right and if so, he thought ironically perhaps the best medicine would be the cause of it. He let himself go, covering her breasts, her shoulders, her beautiful mouth with kisses, and in her greed for him the memory of Jacqueline's gentler ways faded into insignificance.

  Half an hour later he was at supper, having kept the whole company waiting for a considerable time. He smiled on Jacqueline and his mother-in­law, apologizing gracefully, and if Jacqueline knew what had so dispersed his anger, she gave no sign of it. The truth was she was not sure and keeping her suspicions to herself, joined in the general talk.

  A week later Humfrey sailed for England and Eleanor went with him in the nominal care of her brother. What she had told him Humfrey did not know, but he himself had said outright, 'When we reach London I wish you both to come to Baynards,' and Reginald had bowed and answered cryptically, 'Are we not your friends, my lord?'

  He was a sensible man, Humfrey thought, and had accepted the situation. He wished Jacqueline had done the same but before they parted, she had dismissed the servants from their chamber in a peremptory manner and asked, "How soon may I look for your return?'

  Relieved to be going he found it easy to be pleasant and said, 'When I have made my arrangements and the time and place are set for the joust I will send to you and we can meet wherever it is to be.'

  'Do you think I want to watch?'

  'I am very sure you will.' Teasingly he touched her cheek with one finger. 'Do you not want to see Burgundy brought down?'

  She gave a little shiver. 'I wish I was as sure as you. And I do not hate him, despite everything. We were children together.'

  'He has forgotten childhood days,' Humfrey said. 'Good God, Jacqueline, he makes war on you!'

  'I know,' she agreed wretchedly.

  'And would you yield to him without a fight?'

  'No – but without you it would all be worth little.'

  'Then trust me,' he said and kept his voice light.

  She moved a little away from him and sat down on the bed. 'Assure me I may do so.'

  He was startled by the unusual intensity in her tone. 'Have I not proved it?'

  She had her hands clasped tightly together, uncertain whether to speak. Then she said in a constricted voice, 'Mistress Eleanor begs leave to go too. She says her mother is ill.'

  'So I believe.'

  Jacqueline gave a little angry shrug. 'And so I suppose must I! I'm sure she does not want to be parted from her brother.'

  Then she knew! He could not doubt it now. He went to her and sitting beside her on the bed kissed her lightly. 'A short parting for you and me,' he said, 'no more, my dear.' He did not mean it to be a lie but he was not sorry when the moment came. His last sight of her as he led his men down the road to Valenciennes was of her small determined figure, the wind blowing her scarf about her neck as it had done when she first landed in England and he had been there to meet her.

  He has glad to be going and as he rode past sullen unfriendly faces he reflected how unlike they were to those of his loyal Londoners.

  Behind him his knights and men followed in a long column. No pretence made of an army remaining to continue the fight.

  'Will the Duchess's enemies honour an unspoken truce until the duel is over?' Elys asked, riding as always beside the herald, and was answered by a doubtful shake of the head.

  'I'd not trust any of them,' William said. 'But if he'd left men behind there'd be trouble.'

  'We were not welcome,' Elys said. 'In fact,' he added with rare bitterness, 'I wish to God we had never come.'

  William held the Duke's banner steadily in his right hand and he did not turn his head but he answered, 'In more ways than one?'

  'Aye,' Elys said. 'That poor lady – from the first day we saw her I liked her.' He looked ahead to where Humfrey rode between the Cobhams. 'As for that one, it was a wretched day when her brother brought her to join us.'

  'Do you dislike her so much? She seems to me a gracious lady and very beautiful.'

  'Beautiful? Oh aye, but what will she do to our lord? She's already taken him from Lady Jacqueline.'

  'What nonsense you talk,' William said sharply. 'He's had mistresses before.'

  'This one is different. Can't you see it? I feel it. I wish she mig
ht fall off the ship and drown.' And then, aghast at what he had said, Elys closed his mouth and rode the rest of the way in silence.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Humfrey came home to further trouble. At first, back in Baynards Castle he rested, cared for by Eleanor, and his indefinable sickness began to pass. Within a short while he was feeling better, glad to be back among his books, sending for John Lydgate whom he had commissioned to write his dead brother's life – 'and a true life,' he had added, 'that all in the future may know what sort of man he was.' He discovered two Italian scholars visiting London and invited them to stay with him and show him what books they had, revelling in their conversations. He received a rapturous welcome from his city friends and dined with Sir Richard Whittington, his wife Lady Alice, and a number of merchants who presented him with a set of gold plates. And once more he took his place at the head of the Council table where he turned a bland face on the horror expressed at the prospect of his duel. 'My brother the late King once challenged the Dauphin,' was his retort. 'Do you think he would not have fought if it had been accepted?'

  His uncle said shrewdly, 'Do you imagine for one moment that he thought it would? It was a mere gesture and he knew it.'

  'What did you know of him?' Humfrey flared, but the Bishop had known a great deal as Humfrey was well aware, and he wondered why his uncle always made him put himself in the wrong.

  'Such duelling is not for princes,' Bishop Beaufort said. 'I think His Holiness will forbid it. The matter must be settled by treaty.'

  'And what will satisfy either Burgundy or myself?'

  The argument went on. During his absence the Bishop had had control of these men round the table and did not like yielding the chair at its head, but it seemed to Humfrey that his uncle had not won many friends during that time. On the whole the Council appeared to approve what he had done to aid Jacqueline, and to consider his return merely a preparation for the next phase of the conflict. 'Though I pray it will not come to shedding blood,' the Bishop of London said gravely. 'If your grace wishes a representative at any talks I offer my services most humbly.'

  'I thank you, my lord,' Humfrey said in surprise. He had never liked John Kemp who was Bishop Beaufort's man and he was not sure whether the offer was made in friendship or for some ulterior motive.

  Lord Cromwell leaned forward to say that in his opinion the whole business would cost a deal of money and for once Humfrey agreed with him.

  'I am much in debt,' he said plainly, 'and I consider my salary of eight thousand marks inadequate.'

  'Maybe so, my lord, but may I point out that you have been out of the country for six months and have not a tended any Council meetings in that time.'

  'Good God!' Humfrey exclaimed, 'I am well aware that Council members are only paid for the meetings attended but that does not apply to me in my office as Protector of the realm.' He surveyed them all, his two uncles, the Bishop and the Duke of Exeter as always opposing him and angrily he wondered why Exeter looked sick and not fit to be out of his bed, but he had dragged himself from Greenwich to be present, a stickler for what was right in his eyes and, for reasons different from his brother's, unyielding in any matter of principle.

  Westmoreland was there, an old man now – twenty-three children would have worn anyone out by this time, Humfrey thought – but he had always been a friend. The Earl Marshal too could be counted on. Suffolk, he thanked God, was in France. Northumberland in his slow way admired him for his learning, and it was he who said now, 'My lords, surely we can give some positive aid to the Protector who went abroad on a matter touching his honour and our own.'

  'Ours?' Ralph Cromwell gave him a supercilious stare. 'How so, Percy?'

  'Would you have it said we refused assistance to a lady given sanctuary by the late King? No, my lords, the Duke has done what any chivalrous knight would be expected to do. Surely in return we can do something?' Having delivered himself of one idea his slow mind had nothing further to suggest.

  However the Earl Marshal took up his proposal. 'Of course. It occurs to me, my lords, that since the Earl of March, may God give him rest, is dead and without heirs, all his property and title go to the son of his sister and the late Earl of Cambridge. Richard is only a boy – I suppose he must be fifteen by now, but not yet of age – and so I propose that his wardship and all the very considerable revenues accruing to him should be held by the Protector.'

  Humfrey turned one approving glance on him and then sat silent. Edmund Mortimer had been in trouble while he was away, a Mortimer relative packed off to the Tower for treason, and Edmund sent to Ireland where he could do little harm, only to catch plague and end his short life there. Humfrey felt sorry for him. Given time he might have made something of himself. The Bishop's face seemed a little red, the veins standing out on his cheeks, but he could put forward no objection to this and his brother, drumming his fingers on the table said, 'Well, well, let it be so and perhaps a further sum for the Protector's expenses. Parliament will approve it if we stand surety, and we do not want it said that we abandoned a lady in her distress, surely?'

  The rest of the Council agreed and their generosity surprised and gratified Humfrey. For the moment it seemed his friends had the upper hand, even his uncle of Exeter approving in principle. A matter of precedence was brought up next, the Earl of Warwick apparently petitioning for his own rank to be judged above that of John Mowbray, and Humfrey, fond though he was of Warwick, came down firmly on the side of the man who had stood by him and commanded his troops in Hainault.

  'My lord of Warwick may own half the country,' he said, 'but the Earl Marshal by right of office is the premier lord in this realm after the King, my brother and myself. I do not see there is any further need to discuss this.'

  No one saw fit to argue with him and presently the meeting broke up and he and Mowbray went off to dine together, each pleased with the outcome.

  Afterwards Humfrey went to visit the Queen mother and his little nephew. Henry was sitting solemnly with an abacus on his knee and looked up at his uncle out of blue eyes that were too serious for a child of four.

  'Well,' Humfrey said and after saluting Catherine and his aunt Joan, lifted the child into his arms, 'I swear you have grown since I last saw you, Henry. Have you begun to learn sword play yet?'

  The Queen smiled and answered for her son. 'Why yes, Master Owen Tudor, one of my gentlemen has begun to teach him.' Humfrey became aware of a dark young man standing behind her chair in a manner he thought over-confident in such company. The Welshman bowed and Humfrey gave him a cursory nod. 'I will take you out myself, child, and my fletcher shall fashion you a little bow. Would you like that?'

  'Yes, uncle,' the King answered gravely, 'but I'd as lief you showed me some of your books. My aunt Joan says you have so many and with drawings of animals and flowers.'

  Humfrey laughed and set him down. 'Indeed I have, you serious fellow. Very well, you shall come to Baynards and we will sit at our lessons together, eh?'

  He turned to Lady Westmorland. 'I sorrow, aunt, to see your husband look so unwell. I trust it is nothing to cause you too much anxiety.'

  'It is a low fever,' she said. 'It will pass, as it has before. But tell us about your lady's troubles. Poor Jacqueline, I fear you have left her on a thorny bed.'

  'It will all be resolved soon,' he answered casually. 'I shall ride against Burgundy and when was a Plantagenet not better than a Burgundian?' He listened to their questions, their fears for him overcome by family pride, but the truth was he was no longer eager for the duel. Perhaps, he thought in a moment of self-truth, he never had been, perhaps it had been a way out of a situation which had become untenable.

  In June he received an anguished letter from Jacqueline, begging him to return at once and bring troops to aid her, for the Duke of Burgundy, not waiting for the duel, had over-run her lands as soon as Humfrey's back was turned. He threw the letter down in a spurt of anger. However Philip might protest he was only aiding Brabant for that spinele
ss Duke could not have initiated this stab in the back nor could Jacqueline stand out alone against her ruthless cousin.

  A qualm of conscience stirred in him. He had failed her and yet had he not involved himself, challenged Philip on her behalf'? It was not his fault that Burgundy had broken his word. And what could he do now? In a mood of indecision he let a week slip by until at the end of it he sent a page to summon Sir Elys Foxton. In clipped phrases he explained the situation. 'Go to the Duchess for me – bid her hold out until this duel is over.'

  Elys had listened in silence. Then he said, 'Do you not wish to go to her yourself, my lord?'

  'If I did, would I have ordered you to do so?' Elys had heard that icy tone before, though never yet directed towards him. He felt strongly enough however not to heed it. 'Sir, forgive me, but only your presence can aid your lady. Can we not muster all the men from your manors? You have ships enough at Dover.'

  'So!' Humfrey sneered. 'Because Burgundy breaks his word must I do the same?'

  'His treachery releases you, my lord.'

  'And if I do not choose to be released? If I choose to keep my honour?'

  'Your lady is in danger.' Elys felt as he had done once before as a boy when he had trodden on a different sort of ice on a pond, daring it, wondering if it would give way beneath him. Yet he must speak. 'And the time for the duel isn't yet fixed.'

  'That is neither here nor there. And she has her own people. Great God, they didn't exactly welcome me last time, did they?'

  'No sir, but for good or ill it is she who needs you, not them.'

  'By St James!' Humfrey paused in his angry pacing. 'Are you taking me to task, Elys Foxton?'