The Shadow Queen: The Sunday Times bestselling book – a must read for Summer 2018

‘But you do not know me at all well.’

‘As I am beginning to learn.’ He bowed his head curtly. ‘You have assuredly made the most prudent decision.’

By now my anger had achieved a heat all if its own. How dare he denounce me as capricious in the giving of my affections. As for brazen…

I forgot to be regally controlled to match my gilded strawberry leaves.

‘Am I capricious? I was under the strongest impression that I was married to you. I thought that our hearts were engaged. I have had no indication of your heart being engaged by anything but the good health of your livestock for the next tournament.’

I was in no mood to be soothing. I knew exactly the road along which my acknowledged love’s thoughts were travelling. How presumptuous of him, to believe that my sudden change in rank would seduce me. How humiliating. And yet how troubling that I had found myself thinking the same unsettling thoughts. Living as Countess of Salisbury would be far more comfortable than as Lady Holland.

Thomas was scathing.

‘Of course I am concerned for the well-being of my horses. What did you expect? Declarations of my love for you at every opportunity?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘My life depends on the soundness of my horseflesh.’

‘Ha! Thus your priorities.’

‘Hear me, Joan.’ Suddenly he had a fistful of my ermine crushed hard. ‘I feel honour-bound not to address you or touch you until our marriage is recognised. I may not be an Earl but I know what honour is. Just at this moment it’s like being confined in a…’ Thomas was not poetic. ‘… in a dungeon where all is black and formless and there is no way out. Until I can raise enough coin, you are destined to remain chained there as Countess of Salisbury. You might as well enjoy it.’

It was like trying to follow a cat through a maze.

‘I thought you had just agreed that it would be a good thing for me to keep my ermine – for both of us.’

‘I did not agree. I stated what I thought might be in your mind.’

‘You have no idea what is in my mind.’

‘As I know.’ The air shivered between us. ‘I need another war.’

‘Well at least it might relieve me of one husband. Which would be better than having two. And an incomplete relationship with either of them!’

He was preoccupied, and did not respond as I hoped he might, studying his hands where they were now clasped on his sword belt. I smoothed my mistreated fur.

‘I need employment of some kind, Joan.’

Fury drove me, unfortunately, to sneer. ‘What can you do? Other than fight?’

Here we were trapped, in a complex spider’s web of our own making. It might be better if I resigned myself to life with William which would not be unpleasant, but it would not have that spark of exhilaration that had brought me from my bed this morning in anticipation of seeing Thomas, even for a handful of minutes. Life with Will would not have this bright conflict that awoke my senses, even when I was angry with him. Crossing swords with Thomas was heady with possibilities. Arguments with Will were no better than a buffeting with a soft cushion.

I knew which I preferred.

‘Is there nothing else you can turn your hand to?’ I asked.

‘I am a knight. A soldier. A fighting man.’

‘I did not presume you would turn to labouring like a peasant.’

He frowned into the middle distance, as if I had sowed some small seed of an idea.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Nothing that need concern you.’

‘An answer that I dislike.’

‘You’ll get no explanation from me.’ Then he gave a shrug of one shoulder. ‘I’ll say this. That campaigning gives a man many arrows for his bow.’

Which was no more enlightening.

‘I’ve never seen you use a bow.’

‘I am excellent with a bow. I think I see my way to establishing myself.’

‘Until the next battle.’

‘Of course.’ His gaze, suddenly on mine, sharpened. Without warning he pulled me into a corner where there was no discreet shelter whatsoever, looked over his shoulder, then kissed me, full on the mouth. ‘I don’t like being furtive. It goes against the grain, but how long is it since I have done that?’ He kissed me again so that my skin was far too hot within my figured damask. ‘What value honour, Joan? I have just destroyed every tenet of chivalrous behaviour I placed before you.’

Before I could answer that it was far too long, and I did not mind at all, even though it was dishonourable, he was striding away, leaving me none the wiser. What was he planning? I had the feeling that I would not like it.

But I had liked his kiss. It had reawakened all I had forgotten.

So what had I been thinking?

Everything of which Thomas had accused me, because the death of the Earl had stirred up the whole order of my life, dropping it into a completely different formation of shapes and patterns, like a child’s mosaic. Now I was Countess of Salisbury with the future prospect of vast estates and wealth, an enviable position at court, in the close clique around the King and Queen. Not a position to be cast lightly aside if my mind was set on an influential future.

But then I had always been accepted within the King and Queen’s own family. There was no advantage for me in the Salisbury marriage. I did not need it. It would give me nothing that I did not already have as the daughter of the Earl of Kent. Except perhaps a permanence through Will’s foremost rank.

But why would I rank the position of Countess above marriage to the man I loved enough to marry in the face of so much opposition?

There was one supreme advantage, of course. I sighed a little.

‘I am Countess of Salisbury,’ I spoke the words aloud. ‘I am immune from all scandal.’

It made good sense. Take the husband that fate has given you, I advised myself. Cut your garments to suit your cloth. To do otherwise risks untold grief and damage.

All well and good.

Why had I been so angry with Thomas? Because the title and the garments and the coronet did indeed tie me even more securely into this marriage. Escape became unimaginable. And so, being thwarted, my own wishes being overturned, I had aimed my ill humour at my bold knight. Now, in the aftermath, I was full of regret for my selfish attack, forced as I was by that kiss to accept that Thomas still had the power to make me forget myself. To want what I should not.

And what was it that he was planning?

I suspected, recalling his cold plotting, that I might not find it acceptable at all.

‘Joan. Joan!’