The Scandalous Duchess. Anne O'Brien

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      Duty, honour, loyalty. Hard words to cling to when my thoughts were with a man who could wield the power, with the faintest smile, the most innocuous of requests, to make my heart lurch. But I swore that I would go to my death without his knowing how the hand of desire touched me that day with such fervour that the need still growled in my belly. Nor would Duchess Blanche ever guess, for my disloyalty to her was unthinkable.

      And yet sometimes when the Duke laced his fingers with Blanche’s, kissed her lips with his, the longing was a raging fire in my veins.

      I had never spoken of it, nor would I. Some sins were best kept between the sinner and God. I had been the perfect damsel, and I learned to keep my distance, to hide my thoughts. I was not without intelligence or the ability to dissemble when the need arose and I saw the right sense of it. It was a relief when the Duke went to France to fight at the side of his brother Prince Edward.

      But what now?

      I sank to the edge of the bed.

      As a widow, as a mother with a duty to her children, duty and honour still guided my steps. Acting on the stark awareness that beat beneath my bodice was still not a choice I could ever contemplate. My respectability was assured and inviolable. It was bearable for had I not been the perfect mistress of self-command for more years than I wished to count? I knew what was expected of me and what was due to me and to my family name. I would never follow my chosen path in life with anything but propriety and courtly dignity.

      Easy to say. I found that once again I had clutched the hangings, for now all was changed. The Duke’s statement of intent had made it unbearable, and if he would trifle with my emotions, it would undermine all I had done to keep my thoughts under strict discipline. I did not understand how a man of such erstwhile integrity could place this burden at my feet. I did not need this complication. I did not want it.

      But he wanted me.

      I want you. I want you for my own.

      My feelings for him were so complex as to defy definition, my heart and mind in severe conflict: to take care, or to throw care and discretion to the wind. To refuse a priceless gift, or seize it with both hands. To condemn what was a gross sin, or claim it as my heart’s desire. How I wished that he had not spoken, yet when I closed my eyes, the words were written on the darkness of my vision, shimmering there in gold, and horribly seductive.

      A light knock, the click of the latch that encouraged the finches to trill briefly, and there was Agnes at the door. ‘We have a problem, Katherine.’

      ‘Not another.’ I stood, banishing the Duke to where he properly belonged, waiting at The Savoy for the arrival of Duchess Constanza. I had enough to worry about without malingering in the past.

      ‘The reed thatch on the stable block has collapsed in the inner corner. It’s brought down a portion of the hay loft. Master Ingoldsby says the rest is sure to follow if this rain continues, so we must move the horses to dry accommodations. He says do we send to our neighbours? Then there’s the little matter of water seeping into the well in the court-yard…’

      ‘And I need the funds to put it all right. I know.’ I must have succumbed to dismay, for Agnes approached, eyes narrowed on my face, but I essayed a laugh to deflect her concern. ‘The Duke’s offer could not have come at a more opportune moment. Do you suppose that he foresaw our thatching difficulties?’

      Agnes snorted at my levity. ‘A pretty thing.’ She nodded at the rosary clutched in my hand.

      Lifting it, I allowed the light to play along its length, picking out the carving on the crucifix. ‘Yes. It’s beautiful.’

      Beautiful, but the implications of its giving were dangerous.

      ‘A gift?’ Agnes probed.

      She knew I could not afford to purchase an item of such value.

      ‘Yes.’ How easy it was to be drawn into deception. ‘From Lady Alice.’ And as if to hide my guilt I closed my hand over the beads.

      ‘Nice if you have the money,’ Agnes sniffed. ‘Did I see coral there? And gold?’

      ‘Yes.’ It was as I knew, too valuable even for Lady Alice’s giving.

      ‘I thought you said Lady Alice gave you nothing.’

      ‘Did I?’ Beware, those who lie. I tried a rueful smile. ‘I forgot.’

      ‘Heaven knows you could forget that!’ I squirmed with discomfort but just shook my head. ‘You could sell it and re-roof the stables. Unless you are absolutely fixed on joining the new Duchess?’

      I returned her puzzled stare for a moment, suddenly calmly assured, quite certain in my own mind.

      ‘Yes, I am fixed on it. I will earn enough from my position with Duchess Constanza to re-roof the whole house,’ I said. ‘What possible reason would there be for me to refuse such open-handed generosity?’ I began to slide the paternosters into their leather pouch.

      ‘It’s a very costly gift,’ Agnes remarked, looking at me rather than at the beads.

      ‘Then I must be sure to be worthy of my hire.’

      Tucking the rosary into a coffer, with unwarranted impatience I cast a cloth over the finches whose singing had picked up in volume.

      ‘And you’d better take those with you,’ Agnes continued in the same sceptical tone, as if she did not believe one word I had said, ‘or Margaret will never forgive us. I don’t suppose the Duke will mind.’

      ‘No, I don’t suppose he will,’ I responded briskly.

      And since there was so much to organise, I extinguished the scene I had just conjured up as efficiently as if I had used a candle snuffer, yet there remained with me a complicated interweaving of thoughts, lingering like a final wisp of smoke.

      What would I say to the Duke when our paths next crossed? Would it not be for me like stepping into a hornets’ nest? If he demanded again that I be more than a lady-in-waiting to his wife, as he surely would, what would I say?

      So many questions. I knew the answer to none of them, but my mind was resolved to go to The Savoy, whatever fate might hold in store for me.

      I refused to admit what was in my heart.

      Chapter Four

      My first impression, as she was helped to dismount from the gloriously swagged and curtained palanquin, was how young and insubstantial she was. Or perhaps it was just that she resembled nothing more than a drowned rat. The heavens had inconveniently deposited a torrential downpour of sleety rain on the crowds of gawping bystanders as she was welcomed into the city of London by Prince Edward of Woodstock, struggling from sick-bed to horseback for the occasion. She was not so very young for a royal bride. The noble lady, Constanza of Castile, was after all only five years younger than I, and hardly some protected, pampered child with no mind of her own.

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