The Scandalous Duchess

‘Love is soft and love is sweet, and speaks in accents fair;

Love is mighty agony, and love is mighty care:

Love is utmost ecstasy and love is keen to dare,

Love is wretched misery: to live with, it’s despair…’

She leaned to nudge me with a knowing elbow.

‘But to live without it is even worse,’ she added in an aside accompanied by an arch look.

I was sorry to see her go at Lincoln.

‘I need to offer a prayer for inflammation of the knees,’ she said with a roguish wink. ‘And other bits of me. I’ll not be able to go on pilgrimages for ever.’ The badges on her cloak glinted in the cold light. ‘Make the most of your youth, my girl. You’ll regret it if you don’t.’ With broad fingers, surprisingly agile, she unpinned one of her badges showing the Virgin seated in Majesty under a canopy, with the Christ child in her arms. ‘Take this. One of my better ones—pewter rather than lead—can’t afford the silver. From Our Lady’s Shrine at Walsingham. She’ll keep you safe.’

Mistress Saxby patted my hand as her face grew sombre. ‘If you do take this man, what I would say is: beware of the wife. It’s easy to be carried away by the glamour of stolen kisses, but a wife can make your life a misery. Take my word for it.’

‘I have no intention of crossing the path of his wife.’

Mistress Saxby’s sharply cynical smile returned.

‘As you wish, mistress, as you wish. Depends how fervent his kisses are, I’d say. Or how bottomless his purse!’

A hitch of her broad shoulders and she was gone, but her advice occupied my mind, all the way to Kettlethorpe. And then I abandoned it, because what Mistress Saxby might choose to do with her life was not for the Lady of Kettlethorpe. Besides, there was no choice for me to make. The Duke, in typical Plantagenet manner, had swept me aside as if I were no more than a young hound under his feet. Something much desired in one instance could become a matter for boredom in the blink of an eye.

Chapter Three (#ulink_07340b78-63c3-535b-86d9-9ff9468191a4)

The rank poverty of Kettlethorpe settled over me in a desolation, as thick and dark as one of the boiled blood puddings that my cook was too keen on stirring up. Three thousand acres my son held here, and all of it either sand or stone or thick forest. Of good soil there was none; the land was incapable of producing anything other than a poor yield of hay, flax or hemp, and the meadows flooded regularly. Ruinous was the only word to come to mind as the mean houses came into view. The village looked run down, grim with deprivation, and so did my manor.

No surprise then that Hugh had sold his soldiering skills. Not that life as a soldier was anything but his first preference. If it was a choice of riding off to war or tilling the land, farming came a long way second, even if it meant being absent from me for most of our short married life. I considered, not for the first time, how I had managed to conceive three children. But I had, and they were my blessing.

For a moment the hall was silent except from the drip of water into a wooden bucket and the distant irritable bark of a dog. Then a rush of feet, followed by an authoritarian voice. I opened my arms, and into them fell Margaret, growing awkwardly at six years, and Thomas who at four had more noisy energy than he could control. I kissed Margaret, as self-contained as Blanche, and hugged Thomas until he squirmed for release. Hugh’s heir. Hugh’s pride and joy and hope for the future.

And there was Agnes Bonsergeant, my own nurse, who had come with me to Kettlethorpe, and did not mince her words as she clasped her hands on my shoulders and kissed my cheeks.

‘I thought we might not see you for a little while yet. You were not offered a position with the new Duchess then?’

‘No.’ Stripping off my gloves enabled me to hide my expression.

‘Why not?’

I sighed silently, hoping she did not notice. ‘The Duke was busy. The Prince is ill, the King fading.’

‘Nothing new in that. I thought that he might have valued your service—his wife carrying a child and all. Nothing like a mother with healthy children to give good advice. I’d have snapped you up.’

‘So I hoped. Her own childhood nurse attends her. And her sister travels with her. Why would she need more?’

I did not want to answer any more questions.

‘Still…you look pale, Katherine.’

‘Tired, that’s all,’ I admitted, allowing Margaret to pull me into the private chamber.

‘And Blanche? How is my little Blanche?’ Agnes asked, collecting up Thomas with an experienced arm.

‘Well. They are all well. Lady Alice sends her best wishes to you and wishes a fine husband on you.’ I sank onto a settle by the fire. ‘It’s good to be home.’

Agnes grunted at the suggestion of a husband, fine or otherwise. ‘We have some problems.’

I raised my brows. ‘Some wine first, I think. Then the bad news.’

And while I drank, Agnes told me of the leaking roof, the pest that had affected the chickens, the poor quality wood, and lack of it, set aside for burning. We were short of ale, the last delivery being sour. A request that the road over towards Coleby should be improved at my expense—the list went on.

‘It’s not good,’ I said.

‘Nor is this place good for your health. Or the children’s. You could go into Lincoln. Hire a house there for the winter.’

‘I have no money to be spent on hiring houses. If I have no money to mend the roof, or pay to bring Hugh’s body home, I have no right to squander what I have where it is not necessary.’ I watched Thomas. We had given him a wooden sword for a New Year gift, which he wielded with dangerous vigour. Would he choose to be a soldier like Hugh? ‘How would I forgive myself if I had nothing to give Thomas but a worn-down inheritance, and me sitting in luxury in Lincoln?’

‘Hardly in luxury…’

‘We must do what we can. I suppose the roof is the first priority.’

‘A position at court would have solved the problem.’

‘But I haven’t got one,’ I snapped, then immediately regretted it when Agnes scowled as if I were an ill-mannered child. ‘I ask pardon, Agnes. I am more weary than I thought.’ Then on impulse: ‘Mistress Saxby said I should take a man to my bed.’

‘Did she now. And who is Mistress Saxby?’

‘A pilgrim with a practical turn of mind.’

‘A man would double your problems, some would say!’

And at last I laughed. She was doubtless right. Agnes had never married nor ever would. Her opinion of Hugh had not been high.

‘I have not come home empty-handed,’ I announced before Agnes could consider asking me if I had any particular man in mind. And from my saddle bag I brought sweetmeats for Margaret and Thomas, a length of fine wool of a serviceable dark blue, well wrapped in leather for Agnes.

‘From Lady Alice. She thinks we live in dire penury. I think she assessed the value of the clothes on my back and found them wanting.’

‘She would be right. Did she give you anything?’

‘No.’

I kept the pilgrim’s badge in my scrip, even when I had considered pinning it to Margaret’s bodice. I would keep it for myself, a memento of a very female heart-to-heart.

‘And how was Lord John?’ Agnes asked as, much later, we sat at supper, an unappetising array of pottage and beans and a brace of duck. ‘Apart from being busy.’

‘Why?’ I was immediately on guard.