The Scandalous Duchess (21 page)

‘I do not understand you. I do not believe you! Would you not wish to promote your family? Enrich your children? Expand your lands in this bleak and distant Lincolnshire that you talk of?'

The question surprised me. ‘No, I do not seek to promote and enrich.' For that was true enough. ‘It is my desire to hand the estates in good heart to my husband's son, Thomas. That is all. My employment here enables me to do that. But I seek no power.'

‘Then what do you want from him?'

What could I say? I could not, would not say:
I love him
. I could not say;
I am as jealous of you as you are of me
. Instead: ‘I want nothing.'

‘You lie.'

Constanza would never understand that a woman could be drawn to a man for other reasons than wealth and power. She would never understand that I had rejected every moral teaching of my youth simply because the Duke had wanted me and I had been unable to resist his allure.

‘All whores seek advancement,' she stated, now cold as February snow, her eyes glittering like obsidian. ‘I do not want you here under my roof.'

I placed the gloves carefully, palm to palm within my own hands, as I chose my words, hoping that they carried weight. ‘But I am not your damsel, my lady.'

‘You are living in my household and I do not want you in it.'

‘I am in the Duke's employ, my lady.'

Had he known this when he changed the nature of my appointment? Had he deliberately taken that step to protect my position in the ducal home? Perhaps he had foreseen this—as I too had anticipated it—but nothing could spare me the Duchess's righteous anger.

‘I do not want you here,' she repeated, her voice rising to a shriek again as if I were the hapless servant. ‘Get out of my sight!'

Robbed of her gloves Constanza lunged and picked up one of a pair of salt cellars that had still to be collected and returned to the buttery, and drew her hand back to hurl it. I flinched, automatically raising my hands to shield my face as she threw. The salt cellar missed its mark and thudded
to the floor far to my right, leaving a spray of salt crystals over the hem of my skirt that glittered in the candlelight.

Fired with her fury, Constanza picked up a gold platter with both hands.

‘Get out! I want you out of this place before the morning!' She raised the dish.

‘No!' There was a limit to my pity. Anger flickered, even as I cowered, expecting the platter to find its mark. ‘I will not go.'

‘I say that you will!'

‘That is enough, Constanza.'

The quiet voice stopped her as I could not have done.

I turned. Halfway down the length of the Great Hall stood the Duke. In the extremity of emotion run wild, we had not noticed his approach, but now he stood there, motionless, so still that the light barely shimmered over his cloth of gold. His hair was a perfection of ordered waves, his tunic fell in elegant folds to brush his thighs. All was in control and yet, even though his hands were relaxed at his sides, I saw the tautness in the carriage of his head, the set of his shoulders. This would be no easy negotiation, for any of us.

‘Enough, my wife,' he repeated softly.

My wife
. His choice of words made my heart hammer. How understanding of her predicament, as I knew he would be. But what of me? How painful it was for me who could never look for that honour. I turned back to face the Duchess, all emotion stripped from her face, the platter, forgotten now, but still clutched in her hand. The damsels were a frozen backdrop. All I could do was to wait, all senses stretched, uncertain of the outcome. I felt the Duke
approach behind me, heard his measured footsteps grow louder on the painted tiles, then he was beside me, but stepping past until he stood before his wife, as if she were the only woman in the room. He lifted his hand for the platter. Constanza gripped it hard, raising it slightly as if she might still consider hurling it at my despised head. The Duke said nothing, simply waiting with infinite patience.

Then, when she did not respond: ‘Constanza. It is not fitting…'

‘She is your whore,' she hissed, the word slapping at me again.

‘You will show Lady Katherine more respect.'

‘Why should I? She is the source of your sin in our marriage. She should be driven out. Look at her! How unabashed she is in facing me. I demand that you rid yourself—'

‘No, Constanza.'

I waited, caught between his implacable refusal and the Duchess's adamant insistence.

‘No,' the Duke repeated into the little silence that had followed, ‘Lady Katherine will not be sent away.'

‘I demand it. I will not have her here.'

‘It is not for you to decide. Will you throw that? Your aim is not good, and it will spoil a good piece of plate.'

With a sharp movement of distress she released into his hand the platter, which he placed on the table.

‘You will dismiss your damsels.'

‘I will not.'

‘Will you discuss your private affairs before women who have no thought of discretion? They are vulgar and indiscreet.' For the first time the air had become spiked with
his anger although his voice remained smoothly even. ‘It will be better that we have this conversation without them.'

‘Better for her?' The Duchess acknowledged me with a toss of her chin.

‘For all concerned. For the whole of my household. You are not the only member of it, my lady.' He did not wait for her response but swept a hand to encompass the little knot of women who now hovered uncertainly behind the Duchess. ‘You will leave us,' he commanded. ‘Nor will you discuss what has been aired here today.'

The Duke bowed as they stepped from the dais, courteous to the last, but his face had the rigidity of the carvings on the walls of Westminster Abbey.

And then we were alone in the vast hall. Three individuals overwhelmed by the space and height, cast into nothingness by the great hammer beams above our heads and by the oppressive air. I sensed the tension building and knew that these two people would soon fill the space with the clash of their will. They faced each other while I stood, an uneasy third point in the pattern. An unnecessary point. The outcome was as impossible to read as the expression on the Duke's face.

‘Did we wed for love, Constanza?' he asked.

She lifted her chin. ‘No.'

‘Do I not honour you, before all women, as my wife?' She looked away, lips pressed tight.

‘Have I not vowed to restore Castile to you and your descendents? To our descendents?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do I not show you every respect, furnish you with everything you desire?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you lack for anything?'

‘No.'

‘I spend the time I can with you…'

‘As you should,' she snapped back now. ‘But now I learn that you spend time with
her!'
She pointed a derisive finger at me. ‘I am Queen of Castile. I am your
wife.'

‘But you do not always act as one, if that implies an intimacy in our lifestyle.'

I held my breath. So, I could see, did Constanza. The stillness echoed. Such a criticism in so few words

‘My behaviour as a royal wife is beyond criticism.'

There was a frown between her brows.

‘If by that you mean acting with propriety in public, then that is so, but when did you last express a desire to spend time with me? Travel with me when I visit my properties? Have you ever shown a desire to visit the King or my brother Edward?'

‘I am not at ease away from my household…'

‘Then take them with you. There is no need to shut yourself away at Hertford or Tutbury. I think you were even reluctant to come here to Kenilworth.'

‘You should stay with me.'

‘But that is not the manner in which we live. I have a duty to my father the King, and to England.'

‘And I know which comes first!'

‘As it must. You knew that, Constanza. You knew the way of life for such as us.'

I saw his regret, his compassion for this difficult woman. But I also saw the harsh ruthlessness that would always come into play when his authority was questioned. There was the
inflexible, driving ambition that could make him appear merciless in the eyes of some, and I wished myself elsewhere. I felt as if I was spying on an impossible marriage. I should not be there. They did not need me as witness to such personal and passionate recriminations.

The Duchess shook her head. ‘I did not expect you to take a mistress within the first year of our marriage!'

‘I will not excuse what I did. It was a choice for me to make.' I heard him take a breath in a little pause, and then I heard the deepening of his regret. ‘When did you last welcome me to your bed, Constanza? Much less invite me? We do not love each other.' Soft-voiced, infinitely gentle, but the questions were applied with dire precision. ‘I will support you and honour you. But Katherine remains in my household.'

It was as if he had set a flame to a torch. Constanza's fury leaped into vibrant life.

‘I will not allow this. How can I tolerate her presence here? She has usurped what should have been mine. I demand—'

‘No,' responded the Duke and raised his hand to touch her wrist, to still her.

Allowing his hand to fall to his side, the Duke turned on his heel, a strangely brisk movement as if driven my some inner compulsion, to face me and look at me. And that is what he did. For what seemed to be endless moments of time his gaze encompassed me, moving steadily, slowly over me as if seeing me, Katherine de Swynford, for the first time, and finding something in me to claim his interest. There was no change in his expression at first. His face remained stern, his eyes alight with the wild mood of the moment,
his lips firm pressed, while all I could do was stand there under his regard, entirely at a loss. I thought I knew his moods well, but I could not interpret this disconcertingly dispassionate appraisal.

As the emotion in that magnificent hall built and built, so that I could scarce take a breath, I felt warm colour flooding my cheeks and I smoothed the palms of my hands over my skirts, which little gesture of unease on my part the Duke must have seen, for at last his face softened. Not into a smile but suddenly all the tension in him was gone.

He looked as if he had been lacerated by the point of a lance.

‘Katherine.' He spoke my name softly, as if weighing it in his mind, on his tongue.

‘My lord?'

‘I have a debt to pay to you.'

‘There is no debt,' I denied, caught up in the moment.

‘But there is.' And then: ‘No,' he addressed Constanza, but his attention was all for me. ‘She will not be sent away. For here is the truth, Constanza. Katherine is the woman I love. She is the woman I wish to have beside me.'

Katherine is the woman I love
.

Such a declaration, made to me as much as to Constanza, made with such apparent restraint, was too much to take in. My heart gave a single unruly bound, my throat tightened with disbelief at what he had done, and the manner of its doing, as the Duke turned back to his Duchess.

‘I love Katherine, Constanza. You must accept that.'

And, as the Duke's words sank in, my heart shattered within me. He loved me. He had chosen me. Still holding her position on the dais, eyes glittering, Constanza flung
back her head as if he had struck her. If she was wounded, so was I. Astounded, incredulous, I felt my nails dig deep into my palms. The air between us was rent with agony.

‘No…' she whispered. ‘Do not say that.'

‘I love her, Constanza. I always will.'

And with those few words, even as exhilaration sparkled in my blood to my very toes, my heart was moved with a sharp pity for Constanza. How would she face this momentous declaration that brought me happiness and her nothing less than degradation? I had not truly envisaged the full scale of this difficult relationship, but now it was writ clear. How could I not have compassion for the Duchess when her marriage was one of pure ceremony? Perhaps she did not love the Duke, but her resentment of me and what I meant to him was fierce, and I understood that resentment, as one woman would understand another.

I moved a step backwards, so that the Duke turned his head to look at me. Still in command of voice and actions he might be, but his face was as pale as death.

‘I need to go, my lord, my lady.' Curtsying, I forced myself to be formal, to bring them back to the reality of the three of us.

Coolly decorous, as if the matter were of no moment, the Duke took my hand and without another word led me to the door, where he kissed my fingers and bowed me out, but his hand had been rigid under mine and his lips icy cold, a wash of rare colour chasing along his cheekbones.

‘Forgive me. You should not have been asked to be a part of this.'

And he pushed me gently through the door.

‘I will not have her in my household—'

The final words I heard, the Duchess's voice rising dangerously as the Duke closed the door behind on me.

What would pass between them now? That was not for me to know. The only thought of any importance was that the Duke, in such a tense moment, had proclaimed his love for me. Had spoken it aloud, as if it was a discovery that needed to be made known.

Katherine is the woman I love. The woman I wish to have beside me
.

With that declaration before the most crucial audience the Duke had ripped apart all my doubts and insecurities. How could I doubt his love now? It blazed indelibly in my mind but there was still this for me to face: would Constanza's need for the Duke's reassurance, for his loyalty, force his hand? What man of true compassion would be able to withstand the Duchess's tears, her pleas, as I could imagine them as soon as I had left the room? His duty to her was far greater than it was to me.

Would I be prepared to wager on my still being at Kenilworth by the morn, in the face of Constanza's hatred?