Secrets at Court (2 page)

Well, that was not the worst of it. ‘And there is one more thing,’ he said.

Hard silence fell again. They quieted, knowing he had more news to deliver and that it would not be as pleasant as the last.

‘What?’ The King, of course. He would ever be allowed to speak first. ‘What more?’

‘A private message will accompany the document. His Holiness asked that I tell you what it will contain.’

It took only a glance from the King. The few attendants with them withdrew, leaving him alone with the royal family.

‘Go on,’ the King said.

‘Before they marry,’ Nicholas began, ‘His Holiness requires...’ Now for the words he had rehearsed. ‘The Lady Joan’s marriage to Salisbury was annulled.’

The Prince frowned. ‘Years ago. That is ancient history.’

Nicholas glanced at Joan, amazed to see her half smile unshaken. ‘But it was annulled,’ he continued, ‘when a previous, secret marriage was upheld.’

‘All here are aware of my past,’ the lady said.

The King and Queen exchanged glances. Everyone in England was aware of Joan’s past. It had not made the Prince’s case for marriage any easier.

Nicholas gritted his teeth. There was no easy way to say what he must. ‘Lady Joan, you were once married to two men, one of whom still lives.’ He saw a flush on her cheek. ‘His Holiness asks that before your marriage to the Prince proceeds, an investigation be conducted in the matter of your previous marriage.’

‘Why?’ It was the Prince who asked, blinded by love to the obvious.

‘To be sure,’ Nicholas said, unable to keep the irritation from his voice, ‘that all was in order.’

The Prince stepped toward him, fists raised, and for a moment Nicholas thought the man would, indeed, punish him for the news he brought. ‘You dare imply—’

The King stayed his hand. ‘Sir Nicholas is not the one who asks for the enquiry.’

Spared, Nicholas waited until the Prince folded his fists into his elbows, then continued. ‘I am bringing this news to you ahead of the Pope’s official notice so that you may have time to prepare.’

The Lady Joan’s smile never wavered. Her face was so lovely you did not bother to wonder what lay behind it. ‘So that when the Pope’s official decree arrives, we can wed immediately.’ She turned to the Prince. ‘He does us a kindness. The matter is easily resolved.’

So the Pope expected, Nicholas was certain. His dispensation would arrive in little more than two months, scarcely time to conduct a thorough investigation.

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

U
sually, 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.

Joan had worn the same face then. Blue eyes wide, fair curls about her face, pleading, as if one person were all the difference between Heaven and Earth.

How could she answer now? Joan
was
mad. Playing with the laws of God and men as if she had the right. And suddenly, Anne wished fiercely she could do the same.

Such choices did not exist for a cripple.

‘It is not for me to say, my lady.’

Joan rose and gathered Anne’s fingers away from her needle, playing with them as she had when they were young. ‘But I want you to celebrate with me. With us.’

Ah, yes. That was Joan. Still able to wind everyone she knew into a ball of yarn she could toss at will. So Anne sighed and hugged her, and said she was happy for her and all would be well, succumbing to Joan’s charm as everyone did. It was her particular gift, to draw love to herself as the sea drew the river.

‘It is settled, then,’ Joan said, all smiles again. ‘All will be as it must.’

‘Of course, my lady.’ Words by rote. A response as thoughtless as her lady’s watchwords.

But her lady was not finished. ‘Have you seen him? The King’s ambassador, Sir Nicholas?’

Anne’s heart sped at the memory. ‘From afar.’

‘So he has not seen you.’

She shook her head, grateful he had been spared the sight of her stumbling as she stared after him.

‘Good. Then here is what you must do for me.’

Anne put down her needlework and listened.

An honour, of course, the life she lived. Many would envy a position at the court, surrounded by luxury. And yet, some days, it felt more like a dungeon, for she would never be allowed to leave her lady’s side.

She knew too much.

* * *

Nicholas stood in an alcove on the edge of the Great Room of the largest of the King’s four lodges, watching Edward and Joan celebrate as if they were already wed in the eyes of God and his priests.

All evening, men had come up to him, slapping him on the shoulder as if the battle were over and he had won a great victory.

He had not. Not yet.

A swig of claret did not help him swallow that truth, though Edward and Joan seemed to have no trouble ignoring it. Still, the Pope’s message had been private, not his to share. Nothing more than a formality. A few more weeks of inconvenience, then he’d find freedom.

He scanned the room, impatient to be gone. The treaty with France was a year old, but Nicholas had spent little of it in England. King Edward now held the French King’s own sons as hostages and Nicholas had been one of those charged with the comings and goings of men and of gold.

Now, instead of meeting the French in battle, King Edward, as chivalrous as Arthur, treated them as honoured guests instead of prisoners of war. He had even brought some of them to this forest hideaway to protect them from the pestilence.

Well, a live hostage was worth gold. A dead one was worth nothing. And Nicholas’s own French hostage, securely held in a gaol in London, would be worth something.

One day.

The King had called for dancing and some of the French hostages had joined in, laughing and flirting with Princess Isabella, who was nearly the age of the Prince and unmarried. Strange, that such a wise ruler as Edward had not yet married off his oldest children. Unused assets, too long accustomed to living as they pleased, both of them were strong willed and open to mischief.

Someone bumped into him, hard enough that his wine sloshed from the cup and splashed his last clean tunic. He turned, frowning, ready to call out to the clumsy knave.

Instead, he saw a woman.

Well, he did not see
her
exactly. The first thing he saw, he felt as it brushed over his hand, was her hair. Soft and red and smelling vaguely of spices.

A surge of desire caught him off guard. It had been a long time since he had bedded a woman, or even thought of one.

She had fallen and he swallowed the sharp retort he had planned and held out a hand to help her rise. ‘Watch yourself.’

She looked up at him, eyes wide, then quickly looked down. ‘Forgive me.’

Humble words. But not a humble tone.

She raised her eyes again and he saw in their depths that she was accustomed to serving the rich. He knew that feeling and wondered who she waited on.

‘I am sorry,’ she said, in a tone that implied she had used the words many times. ‘Usually there is no one here and I can catch a moment of quiet.’

‘I spoke too harshly.’ Life at court demanded strength and courtesy in a different mix from the work of war and diplomacy.

He grabbed her hand to help her up, ignoring the fire on his palm, thinking she would let go quickly.

She did not.

Her fingers remained in his, not lightly, as if she were attempting seduction, but heavily as if she would fall without his support.

‘Can you stand now?’ Eager to have his hand returned.

Her eyes met his and did not look away this time. ‘If you hand me my stick.’

Too late, he saw it. A crutch, fallen to the floor.

He looked down at her skirt before he could stop himself, then forced his eyes to meet hers again.

Hers had a weary expression, as if he were not the first curious person who had sought a glimpse of her defect. ‘It is a feeble foot and not much to look on.’

He did not waste breath to deny where his gaze had fallen. ‘Lean against the wall. I’ll get your stick.’

She did and he bent over, feeling strangely unbalanced, as if he might topple, too. The movement brought his hand and his cheek too close to her skirt and he caught himself wondering what lay beneath, not the foot she had spoken of, but the more womanly parts...

Abruptly, he stood and handed the smooth, worn stick to her, straight armed, as if she might catch sight of his thoughts if he got too close.

She reached for the staff, tucked it under her arm, then stretched her free hand to brush the stain on his tunic. ‘I will have this washed.’

He grabbed her fingers and nearly threw her hand away from his chest. ‘No need.’ Ashamed, with his next breath, that he had done so. She would think it was because of her leg.

It was not. It was because her fingers lit a fire within him. ‘Forgive my lack of chivalry.’ He had been too long at war and too little around women.

She laughed then. A laugh devoid of mirth, yet it rolled through her with the deep reverberation of a bell.

A bell calling him not to church, but to something much more earthly.

When her laughter faded, she smiled. ‘I am not a woman accustomed to chivalry.’

He studied her, puzzled. She would not have drawn his eye in a room. Hair the colour of fabric ill—dyed, as if it wanted to be red but had not the strength. An unremarkable face except for her eyes. Large, wide set, bold and stark, taking over her face, yet he could not name their colour. Blue? Grey?

‘What are you accustomed to?’ he asked.

Not a serving woman. She was too well dressed and, despite his first impression, did not have the cowering demeanour of those of that station.

‘I am Anne of Stamford, lady-in-waiting to the Countess of Kent.’

The Countess of Kent
. Or, as she would soon be known, the Princess of Wales. The woman whose want of discretion had sent him to Avignon and back.

‘I am Sir Nicholas Lovayne.’ Though she had not shown the courtesy to ask.

‘The King’s emissary to His Holiness,’ she finished. Her eyes, fixed on him. ‘I know.’

He shifted his stance, moving a step away. His mission was no secret, but her tone suggested she knew more of his news than the courtiers who had slapped his back in congratulations.

He wondered what the Lady Joan had told her.

‘Then you know,’ he said, cautiously, ‘what a celebration this is.’

She looked out over the room, without the smile he might have expected. ‘Not until they are wed in truth. Then, we will celebrate.’

We
. As if she and her lady were the same person. So they were close, this maiden and her lady.

Why would Lady Joan choose such a woman as a close companion? If one discounted her lameness, this Anne would not draw a second glance. Perhaps, then, that
was
the reason. Perhaps the Countess wanted someone who would not distract from her own beauty.

If so, she had chosen well.

‘Then let us hope we truly celebrate soon,’ he said. Celebrate and let him leave for the unencumbered life he wanted.

‘That will depend on you, won’t it?’

Close indeed, if she had been told so much.

He threw back the last swallow of claret. An unpleasant reminder of the task still before him. A waste of time, to look for things that had been proven to the satisfaction of God’s representative on earth long ago. ‘It will depend on how quickly the Archbishop can locate a dozen-year-old document.’

‘Is that all that must be done?’

He certainly hoped so. ‘His Holiness can expect no more. Except to prick the King’s ease.’

‘And will it be difficult?’

Full of questions. He glanced at the table at the end of the Hall. His answers, no doubt, would go directly to her mistress. ‘No.’

‘We are all just...’ The pause seemed wistful. ‘Ready for it to be over.’

‘As am I,’ he said. He felt like that Greek fellow. Hercules. One labour ended, another began. Surely he had reached his dozen.

They exchanged smiles, as if they were old friends. ‘A few weeks only,’ he assured her. ‘Less, if I can make it so.’

‘You sound as eager for the conclusion as I. What awaits you, when all this is over?’

Nothing
. And that freedom was the appeal. ‘I will head back across the Channel.’

‘Another duty for the Prince?’

He shook his head. He was done with duties and obligations. ‘Not this time. Rather a duty to myself.’ Bald to say it. He looked down at his empty cup. ‘And now, I leave you to the peace you sought here.’

‘Do not leave on my behalf. The Countess will have missed me by now.’ She took a step, steadying herself with her crutch.

‘Do you need help?’ He waved his hand in her direction. How did one assist a cripple?

There was steel in her smile. ‘I do this every day.’

Maybe so, he thought, but as she left, her lips tightened and her brow creased. Every day, every step, then, lived in pain.

We are all waiting...
Ah, yes. The Prince and Lady Joan were not the only ones depending on him for a quick resolution. So was her lady-in-waiting, he thought, as he watched her leave, rolling and swaying with her awkward gait.

He wondered why she cared so much.

* * *

Anne made her way back to the dais, then waited until Lady Joan could break off and they could speak unheard.

‘So?’ Beneath the smile, her lady’s whisper was urgent. ‘What did he say?’

Anne shook her head. ‘No suspicions.’ She had become sensitive to such things. Shrugs, tones of voice. It compensated for other weaknesses. ‘He gives little thought to the task except that it be over. He thinks that the Pope only wanted to create one final obstacle in exchange for his blessing.’