Anne O'Brien - The Scandalous Duchess

For a moment I simply stood and watched the scene in all its busyness, my heart so overburdened with love that tears welled. It had been an emotional day, one way or another. I swallowed and took another step.

‘Good day, my lady.’

I curtsied.

The lady with the book looked up, expression arrested between irritation and then gradual recognition. The book was slowly closed and placed out of Henry’s reach. The lady exhaled slowly.

‘Katherine, as I live and breathe…’

Which caused me to smile, it being a well-recognised expression on Lady Alice’s lips, whilst Alyne, wife of Edward Gerberge, one of the Duke’s squires, surged across the room towards me. It brought all eyes to my face in a mix of pleasure and curiosity. Philippa smiled. Elizabeth barely remembered me, Henry certainly did not. As for the other child…

My eyes on the little girl’s bright face, I curtsied again to Lady Alice. ‘My lady, forgive my intrusion.’

‘Nonsense!’

Lady Alice was on her feet, and then I was enclosed in female arms, patted and fussed over, Alyne relieving me of my cloak and gloves, before both found the words to commiserate.

‘I recall the day you were wed,’ Lady Alice said and sighed. ‘Hugh was a good man—and I expect a good husband to you. But for the wife of a professional soldier, life can be very difficult.’

And I found that, prompted by such solicitous expressions, I was weeping at last, for Hugh and for myself.

‘Forgive me, Lady Alice…’ I could not seem to stop the tears falling endlessly, all the tears I had been unable to shed.

Alice FitzAlan, Lady Wake, merely poured a cup of ale and, as Alyne wiped away my tears, pushed me to sit in her own chair, handed me the ale and dissuaded Henry, gently but deliberately, from climbing into my lap.

At last I laughed and sniffed, but my eyes were for the third little girl who had come to stand at my knee, her hand now grasping my skirts. She was seven years old, almost eight now. I knew exactly, for this was Blanche, my eldest daughter, honoured with the position of damsel to the Duke’s daughters. My lovely Blanche, named for the Duchess in whose service I had been when she was born.

Abandoning the cup of ale, I swept her up in my arms and kissed her.

‘My daughter,’ I said, touching her face. ‘My little Blanche—not so little now. Have you forgotten me?’

For a moment she hesitated, as if reflecting on the matter in her solemn way, then Blanche buried her face against my neck. My tears threatened to begin all over again.

‘She is a credit to you,’ Lady Alice remarked in her cool manner.

‘One day she will marry well,’ Alyne added. ‘She is very pretty, like her mother.’

I took Blanche’s face between my hands, kissing her cheeks, tucking away her curls beneath her linen cap. It was true she looked like me. Her hair was the same rich burnished gold as mine, the colour of autumn wheat ripened under a hot sun, but her features still had the soft unformed edges of childhood.

‘And can you read and write yet?’ I asked her.

‘Yes, madam,’ she replied with quaint confidence. Then reached up to whisper in my ear: ‘Better than the Lady Elizabeth. She does not try. She likes the kitten more.’

For a moment it surprised me, that Hugh’s death seemed not to have touched her to any degree, but then she has seen so little of him in her short life. She would barely recall him, and on this day of our happy reunion I would not burden her with his death.

‘Damsels should not tell tales about their mistresses,’ I whispered back.

‘I know that!’ she replied, her clear voice ringing out. ‘But it is true. It is not a secret.’

I hid my smile

‘Is that true, Elizabeth?’ I asked. ‘That you do not work hard at your lessons?’

Elizabeth considered me. ‘Sometimes I do. I have learned to dance and sing.’ There was a roguish twinkle in her eye—when had she acquired that? And she promptly demonstrated by tucking the kitten under her arm and executing a succession of childishly uncoordinated steps across the room to my side. But one day she would be elegant.

‘And you, Philippa?’ I asked.

‘I always do my best,’ she assured me, smiling so that her face lit as if with a candle within. She would be beautiful one day. ‘You are right welcome, Lady Katherine. We have missed you here. If you returned to us, Elizabeth would mind her books again.’

I laughed, all my tears and previous anger forgotten. I had come home. It was good to laugh again

‘Will you return to us?’ Alyne asked. ‘Now that you are alone?’

‘I had hoped so,’ I replied uncertainly.

‘Have you spoken with Lord John?’ Lady Alice asked.

‘Yes.’ I could feel my cheeks heat, and attempted to hide it by kissing Blanche’s still-escaping curls.

‘The income from Kettlethorpe was never great,’ Lady Alice mused.

‘No, and it’s no better now,’ I admitted with a sigh. ‘And without Hugh’s soldiering…’

‘Lord John will be generous.’ Lady Alice patted my hand as if I were one of her charges.

I was not so sure. I had refused what he had offered me, out of hand, generous or no. And if my present companions knew what that offer had been, they would not now be welcoming me back like a long-lost sister. Lady Alice, governess to the ducal children, was cousin to the Duke and a lady of high principle, strong on morality, firm on good manners. I suspected that she would banish me from the room, if not from The Savoy.

It behoved me to keep my own council.

There was a commotion at the door, an exchange of words in male accents, and then the Duke entered the chamber where, on the morning following my arrival at The Savoy, the children learned their catechism, Lady Alice cast her eagle eye over all and I stitched at a length of linen in the window embrasure. His immediate awareness of me, conspicuous in his glance alighting on my face, made my belly clench and my heart thump beneath the mourning black that he did not like. It was in my cowardly mind to keep my eye on my work, as if stitching the border of an altar cloth would save me from humiliation.

Would he offer me the position I needed? Or would he continue to pursue the startling proposal of the previous day?

Not in public, he won’t , I castigated myself. You are a fool , Katherine!

And indeed there was no need for my fears for it became self-evident, as his regard moved rapidly on from me to the other occupants of the room, that my worries were not his priority.

This morning there were matters of higher business to attend to. The Duke was uncharacteristically brusque, with a line between his brows, even though he found time to smile at the children, kiss the cheek of Philippa and Elizabeth and brush his hand over Henry’s already tousled hair. The smile was, it had to be said, a bleak affair. I rose to my feet, putting aside the sewing, and, with Lady Alice and Alyne, made the requisite curtsy.

‘I will be away.’ His attention was for Lady Alice. ‘I leave the children in your care, Alice, as ever.’

He was dressed for travel in wool and leather, the metal plates of his brigandine masked in fine velvet. In such a garment he was not travelling far.

‘Is it bad news, John?’ Lady Alice asked.

‘It could be better.’ It was impossible to mistake the grimace. ‘My brother Edward’s health does not improve and the King is…’ The Duke shrugged.

We all knew of this terrible cause for concern. The Prince, heir to the throne and with a reputation second to none on the battlefield, was come home from affairs in Aquitaine, gravely ill, and his son, Richard, no older than Henry. Lionel, the King’s second son, was dead in Antwerp these last three years. King Edward’s own powers had waned in the months since Queen Philippa’s death. Suddenly the smooth security of the royal inheritance was under attack: it was not a good prospect for England to have both King and heir ailing and the future king so small a child. Which left the Duke in a delicate situation.