The Scandalous Duchess

And they had. I had made my decision for good or ill.

‘So I am here. To say yes to you.’

‘I think it was supremely difficult for you.’ The timbre of his voice was like velvet, to stroke my senses.

‘To find a rose? Well nigh impossible. This was the only one…’ I smiled when he used his free hand to silence me, his fingers gentle on my lips.

‘To make the decision, my dearest girl! My very dear Katherine.’

‘Yes. It was,’ I admitted, but still I smiled against his fingers for my heart was leaping with joy. ‘Do you remember who it was who helped the Lover in his battle?’ I knew that he would.

‘Oh, yes. All-powerful, all-conquering Venus. The goddess of carnal desire, of all physical delights.’ His hand tightening around mine and the suffering rosebud, he drew me closer. ‘So, Madame de Swynford, you will give yourself up to me and all the pleasures I can bring to you?’

‘I will.’

‘For ever?’

‘For all time.’

‘Then we will be together for all time. And I will extract a promise from you.’

‘Only one?’

‘One will do for now.’ He stroked his knuckles over my embroidered bodice, over the swell of my breasts, in a possessive movement that made me hold my breath. ‘Will you promise me that you will never wear black again?’

‘I promise.’

He kissed me on the lips, as light and insubstantial as that first kiss, as a butterfly’s wing, although I felt the rigid tension of the muscles in his forearms as he tucked the sad rose into the bodice of my gown. It was like feeling the explosive force of a warhorse, held on a tight rein until released into the heat of battle. I was in no doubt of his desire for me. My fingers trembled as I smoothed them over the knap of his sleeve. I needed him to take the next step, for it was beyond me.

Abandoning the map and the forthcoming expedition, he led me to the door.

‘Does Lady Alice expect you?’

‘No, my lord. I am in your employ.’

‘Then I have need of an hour of your time.’ For a moment he hesitated, his eyes studying my face, smoothing my lower lip with the pad of his thumb, a more poignant gesture than any other. ‘Or a month, a year. Even a lifetime…’

‘You must make do with an hour, my lord,’ I remarked practically, even as my heart throbbed. ‘Lady Alice will ask after me.’

‘An hour it shall be,’ he agreed, ‘for I too, unfortunately, have demands on my time.’

And in that moment of perception I knew that this would always be so. The Duke’s duty was to England. Any woman in his life must accept that she would never be pre-eminent, no matter how strong his desire to be with her. I knew that this driving force in him to be pre-eminent, to wield power, would colour all our days together, however long or short our liaison might be. And in that moment, I witnessed the path of my life stretched out before me, with all its shadows, its moments of brilliance.

You can still step back, my conscience whispered in my mind. Are you indeed brave enough? Do you have the fortitude to take what you want, what you have always dreamed of taking? Or will you step back and preserve the moral high ground? If you take this step, there will never be any moral high ground, ever again, for you.

There is no marriage in this for you.

If you accept you will be no better than a court harlot, damned as a fallen woman. What will you say to your children? How will you explain to your son when he asks why those at court point and gossip?

There is still time to retreat. To return to your widowhood, your conscience clear as you kneel before the priest with a clean heart.

There will never be the possibility of marriage for you in this relationship.

Go back to Kettlethorpe and take up the reins of the estates.

But I would not. My decision was made, finally and irrevocably, even when my conscience struck a final blow.

The Duke has never said that he loves you.

I would not listen. Had any woman ever refused him? I could not.

Once outside the library, the Duke broke the contact between us but I walked beside him as he opened the door into his private accommodations and dismissed his body servant who was engaged in laying garments in a clothes press. He did not even glance at me, probably thinking—if he even considered it—that I had come to report to the Duke about one of the children. Yet, even so…

‘Is this discretion, my lord?’ I asked. ‘Coming to your rooms in the broad light of day?’

‘I will not lurk and skulk.’ A vestige of a frown momentarily settled on his brow. He was unused to his actions being questioned. ‘It is not in my nature to hide and dissemble. But nor am I lacking in good sense. You have my word. I will not willingly put you or Constanza into the public eye. Enough! This hour is for us. An hour in which I’ll turn your beautifully ordered world upside down.’

Strides quickening, he led me through the sumptuous rooms to his bedchamber, where he flung the door wide.

‘Welcome, Katherine.’

I stepped over the threshold, entirely of my own volition. I took in the splendour of the furnishings, the polished wood, the silver sconces, the velvet-padded prie-dieu with its heavy silver crucifix, but my mind was not on prayer. And there was the ducal bed.

The Duke shut and barred the door.

‘My bed is cold. Who will warm it for me?’

I did not hesitate.

‘I will, my lord.’

Desire swept away all discretion when the Duke closed his door against the world. Passion ruled, all the words, all the explanations, the warnings, all the anxieties excoriated in a blaze of heat. If any doubts remained in my heart, they would have been obliterated. But since there were none, I let my senses be seduced. There were no uncertainties to undermine my decision to be with him.

His control was superb. Had he not promised to tie my laces? He was equally proficient at unlacing them, although he growled at the row of buttons that stretched from elbow to little finger on my sleeves. He proved to be just as skilled at removing my intricately latched crispinette and veil and loosing the braids of my hair. I shivered under his hands, under the sway of his marvellous expertise.

‘I thought I remembered, but I had forgotten how rich it was,’ he murmured as the length of my hair uncoiled to spread over my shoulder, and his, when I leaned against him. ‘The sun’s burnish…’ He buried his face in it as I rested my head against his breast. It was good to rest against a man taller than I.

There was little rest. He needed no help from me to disrobe, even though I offered to be his squire for the occasion. Nor did he need help to remove my shift.

No restraint, now, he turned my limbs to flame, my heart to breathless excitement, my blood to molten gold. He wakened my body to a sensual pleasure where there were no past shades keep us company.

I adored him.

I no longer cared what doubts the heavenly creatures harboured. It did not trouble me that the Duke never spoke of love. It was enough that he treated me as if, for him, I was the most precious creature in the universe.

An hour was too short to encompass all we wished to say, every emotion that demanded expression.

‘It is a taste of a banquet that will last us a lifetime,’ he whispered against my throat.