The Scandalous Duchess

by Anne O'Brien

She lifted her chin. ‘No.’

  ‘Do I not honour you, before all women, as my wife?’ She looked away, lips pressed tight.

  ‘Have I not vowed to restore Castile to you and your descendents? To our descendents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do I not show you every respect, furnish you with everything you desire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you lack for anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I spend the time I can with you…’

  ‘As you should,’ she snapped back now. ‘But now I learn that you spend time with her!’ She pointed a derisive finger at me. ‘I am Queen of Castile. I am your wife.’

  ‘But you do not always act as one, if that implies an intimacy in our lifestyle.’

  I held my breath. So, I could see, did Constanza. The stillness echoed. Such a criticism in so few words

  ‘My behaviour as a royal wife is beyond criticism.’

  There was a frown between her brows.

  ‘If by that you mean acting with propriety in public, then that is so, but when did you last express a desire to spend time with me? Travel with me when I visit my properties? Have you ever shown a desire to visit the King or my brother Edward?’

  ‘I am not at ease away from my household…’

  ‘Then take them with you. There is no need to shut yourself away at Hertford or Tutbury. I think you were even reluctant to come here to Kenilworth.’

  ‘You should stay with me.’

  ‘But that is not the manner in which we live. I have a duty to my father the King, and to England.’

  ‘And I know which comes first!’

  ‘As it must. You knew that, Constanza. You knew the way of life for such as us.’

  I saw his regret, his compassion for this difficult woman. But I also saw the harsh ruthlessness that would always come into play when his authority was questioned. There was the inflexible, driving ambition that could make him appear merciless in the eyes of some, and I wished myself elsewhere. I felt as if I was spying on an impossible marriage. I should not be there. They did not need me as witness to such personal and passionate recriminations.

  The Duchess shook her head. ‘I did not expect you to take a mistress within the first year of our marriage!’

  ‘I will not excuse what I did. It was a choice for me to make.’ I heard him take a breath in a little pause, and then I heard the deepening of his regret. ‘When did you last welcome me to your bed, Constanza? Much less invite me? We do not love each other.’ Soft-voiced, infinitely gentle, but the questions were applied with dire precision. ‘I will support you and honour you. But Katherine remains in my household.’

  It was as if he had set a flame to a torch. Constanza’s fury leaped into vibrant life.

  ‘I will not allow this. How can I tolerate her presence here? She has usurped what should have been mine. I demand—’

  ‘No,’ responded the Duke and raised his hand to touch her wrist, to still her.

  Allowing his hand to fall to his side, the Duke turned on his heel, a strangely brisk movement as if driven my some inner compulsion, to face me and look at me. And that is what he did. For what seemed to be endless moments of time his gaze encompassed me, moving steadily, slowly over me as if seeing me, Katherine de Swynford, for the first time, and finding something in me to claim his interest. There was no change in his expression at first. His face remained stern, his eyes alight with the wild mood of the moment, his lips firm pressed, while all I could do was stand there under his regard, entirely at a loss. I thought I knew his moods well, but I could not interpret this disconcertingly dispassionate appraisal.

  As the emotion in that magnificent hall built and built, so that I could scarce take a breath, I felt warm colour flooding my cheeks and I smoothed the palms of my hands over my skirts, which little gesture of unease on my part the Duke must have seen, for at last his face softened. Not into a smile but suddenly all the tension in him was gone.

  He looked as if he had been lacerated by the point of a lance.

  ‘Katherine.’ He spoke my name softly, as if weighing it in his mind, on his tongue.

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘I have a debt to pay to you.’

  ‘There is no debt,’ I denied, caught up in the moment.

  ‘But there is.’ And then: ‘No,’ he addressed Constanza, but his attention was all for me. ‘She will not be sent away. For here is the truth, Constanza. Katherine is the woman I love. She is the woman I wish to have beside me.’

  Katherine is the woman I love.

  Such a declaration, made to me as much as to Constanza, made with such apparent restraint, was too much to take in. My heart gave a single unruly bound, my throat tightened with disbelief at what he had done, and the manner of its doing, as the Duke turned back to his Duchess.

  ‘I love Katherine, Constanza. You must accept that.’

  And, as the Duke’s words sank in, my heart shattered within me. He loved me. He had chosen me. Still holding her position on the dais, eyes glittering, Constanza flung back her head as if he had struck her. If she was wounded, so was I. Astounded, incredulous, I felt my nails dig deep into my palms. The air between us was rent with agony.

  ‘No…’ she whispered. ‘Do not say that.’

  ‘I love her, Constanza. I always will.’

  And with those few words, even as exhilaration sparkled in my blood to my very toes, my heart was moved with a sharp pity for Constanza. How would she face this momentous declaration that brought me happiness and her nothing less than degradation? I had not truly envisaged the full scale of this difficult relationship, but now it was writ clear. How could I not have compassion for the Duchess when her marriage was one of pure ceremony? Perhaps she did not love the Duke, but her resentment of me and what I meant to him was fierce, and I understood that resentment, as one woman would understand another.

  I moved a step backwards, so that the Duke turned his head to look at me. Still in command of voice and actions he might be, but his face was as pale as death.

  ‘I need to go, my lord, my lady.’ Curtsying, I forced myself to be formal, to bring them back to the reality of the three of us.

  Coolly decorous, as if the matter were of no moment, the Duke took my hand and without another word led me to the door, where he kissed my fingers and bowed me out, but his hand had been rigid under mine and his lips icy cold, a wash of rare colour chasing along his cheekbones.

  ‘Forgive me. You should not have been asked to be a part of this.’

  And he pushed me gently through the door.

  ‘I will not have her in my household—’

  The final words I heard, the Duchess’s voice rising dangerously as the Duke closed the door behind on me.

  What would pass between them now? That was not for me to know. The only thought of any importance was that the Duke, in such a tense moment, had proclaimed his love for me. Had spoken it aloud, as if it was a discovery that needed to be made known.

  Katherine is the woman I love. The woman I wish to have beside me.

  With that declaration before the most crucial audience the Duke had ripped apart all my doubts and insecurities. How could I doubt his love now? It blazed indelibly in my mind but there was still this for me to face: would Constanza’s need for the Duke’s reassurance, for his loyalty, force his hand? What man of true compassion would be able to withstand the Duchess’s tears, her pleas, as I could imagine them as soon as I had left the room? His duty to her was far greater than it was to me.

  Would I be prepared to wager on my still being at Kenilworth by the morn, in the face of Constanza’s hatred?

  I would not.

  ‘That,’ the Duke announced, ‘was worse than facing a charge of French cavalry.’ There was no humour in this caustic statement, only an intense tiredness. ‘My wife has lapsed into Castilian, and with nothing more to throw, has retired to her chamber to curse my name and yours.’

  It had taken two hours before there had c
ome the peremptory rap of knuckles on the door that I had not barred, and the Duke entered, still clad incongruously in festive magnificence. I gave no words of welcome but waited, my breathing shallow as he stood before me, the candlelight layering glints of red through his hair, deepening the lines between his brows. I could almost see the remnants of energy shimmering around him as I acknowledged the same in my blood. Much had been made clear in the ragged emotions of that formal chamber. Much had been laid bare, and now we must acknowledge the repercussions.

  The Duke looked unutterably weary. I had no idea what he saw in me. The air around us crackled with tension, while incredulity held me, silent, in its power. I would not admit to impatience.

  The Duke pre-empted any question I would ask.

  ‘It is not in the Duchess’s power to dismiss you,’ he said, harsh in the aftermath of Constanza’s turbulence. ‘The power is mine, and mine alone. And I will not.’

  For a long moment I allowed relief to sweep through me. Then, because my heart and mind were full of what he had said:

  ‘You said that you love me.’

  ‘I do. God help me, I do.’

  ‘Not once,’ I continued relentlessly, ‘have you ever said that you love me, in all the months we have been together. Until tonight.’ My mind was still trying to catch hold of the magnitude of his announcement.

  ‘And it is to my regret,’ he said. ‘How long has it taken me to recognise my love for you for what it is?’ He might speak of love now, but the Duke’s voice remained rough-edged. ‘Tonight, when I saw you standing there alone, defending yourself with such composure, such courage, I knew what you had come to mean to me. That you are as necessary to me as the air I breathe.’

  I took a laboured breath of that air. ‘Say it again,’ I said. ‘Let me hear it again. Unless your words are indeed only troubadour’s fripperies and I need set no store by them.’

  He was in the act of lifting the heavy livery chain over his head, but that stopped him. The Duke’s shoulders braced.

  ‘Am I facing another angry woman?’

  ‘It depends.’

  His answering smile was wry as he tossed the chain onto my bed. ‘Should I be pilloried for a day, outside the walls of The Savoy?’

  ‘Or even two days.’

  The rings, stripped from his fingers, followed the chain. A vagrant smile touched his eyes, the weariness lifting.

  ‘But would such penance absolve me of my sin? I think I need to kneel at your feet in reparation.’ He had the grace to blush as he crossed the space between us and gathered my hands into his. ‘I am deep in love with you, Katherine de Swynford. I love you in every way known to man. Before God, you are my soul, and I will love you and serve you as long as there is breath in my body to do so.’

  The Duke might not kneel but the tension between us was beginning to dissipate and I could breathe again. The sheer intensity of that avowal made me shiver, which he felt through our joined hands, so that he raised them to his lips, softening his tone, but his words remained unsparing of himself.

  ‘My insensitivity unmans me. Tonight it had to be laid out in plain sight, for Constanza to know. And for you too. This life of constant subterfuge and pretence that we were forced to lead was hurting you. I could not permit it.’ He raised a hand to my cheek, the gentlest of caresses with the tips of his fingers. ‘My beloved…I need Constanza as she needs me, to preserve a public face for my household and for England. You know that she must always have a place in my life—it is vital that you accept that.’ His clasp on my hands tightened painfully. ‘Because if you cannot it will continue to damage what is between us.’

  His sigh was barely perceptible, as he sought for the words to state what he knew he must.

  ‘All I know is that you, Katherine de Swynford, are a constant flame of light in my life. You are as necessary to me as the sun rising at the start of each new morn. You are the one I think about at the end of a day when we are apart. You are the one who is there in my mind on waking. You are ever-present when my mind slides from the demands of duty. Never think that I do not love you, or that you mean less to me than the woman joined to me by law. You mean more.’ His kissed my lips, the most fleeting of caresses. ‘So much more. I cannot help myself. Nor would I wish to.’

  ‘Hold me,’ I said, completely overwhelmed.

  And he did, but lightly, as if still uncertain of the events he had set in motion.

  ‘I know you doubt me. I understand now why you believe your feet to be on an unsafe path. I did not see the difficulties for you at the beginning when I took you simply because I wanted you. You intrigued me, you roused a need to protect you, I desired you with a passion that scorched like a strike of lightning fire. But, to my everlasting shame, I had no intention of laying my heart at your feet. You once accused me of lust, and so it was. Will you forgive me? But here my heart is: I give it to you.’ He flattened our joined hands against the gilded emblems on his breast. ‘My love for you will never die, that I swear. Let your heart rest, Katherine. You are mine, and I am yours.’

  He tilted his head, as if to read my expression.

  I doubted that he could. My own thoughts were still in turmoil.

  ‘But if remaining here is too hard for you to bear,’ he continued, ‘then you must leave me. I will not ask you to withstand more than you are able. My love for you is great enough to let you go, if that is what you wish, my dearest love. And whatever your decision, you will have my regard and my loyalty until the day that death claims me. You will have my love for all time.’

  There it was, the offer to soothe my heart, even though, in denial of his words, his fingers linked with mine as if they would never release me. Was it not the supreme extent of his love? To give the choice back to me, with all his magnanimity.

  And what of me?

  Freeing myself from the embrace I had desired, creating a necessary distance, I looked at the man who offered me all I could ever dream of, seeing first the unquestionable authority of a royal Plantagenet in the ceremonial tunic, the jewelled chain, the layering of fur on silk damask, the sword still clipped to his side. And then the handsome man who drew all eyes, fine features, dark hair highlighted with russet tones, compelling eyes. And at last the man I knew when passion claimed him, a man with clever hands and outrageous pride but an understanding that few would guess at. He was the man I loved.

  I saw it all. I heard the Duke’s avowal of love. All I had ever wanted was here in the palms of his hands, offered to me. The depth of love that the Duke had once given to Duchess Blanche, that I had believed could never be mine, had been expressed so plainly for me—for me!—that I could not mistake it. It was like unwrapping a Twelfth Night gift, to discover a treasure I had coveted but believed I could never own. And there it was, shining and impossibly precious. The Duke of Lancaster loved me.

  Raw astonishment, and a strange incapacity to absorb what I had desired for so long, still rendered me mute.

  By now the Duke of Lancaster’s eyes were alight with singular impatience.

  ‘Tell me, Katherine. Tell me what you wish to do. Can you live here with me, in the same household as my wife, with some degree of peace of mind?’ The lines between his brows became even more clearly etched. ‘Don’t, in God’s name, tell me you need to borrow a book of French poetry to help you decide. I won’t lend it. You must know your own mind by now.’

  Which made me inhale sharply in exasperation. Had I not lived with the knowledge of my love for him for so long, afraid to speak of it aloud? I had controlled my words, my responses, masking any emotion as dangerous as love behind light dalliance, for fear that he did not desire something so oppressive as love from me, and here was the Duke, in this moment of his own blinding awareness of love’s power, demanding an instant response from me.

  ‘No, I don’t want a book of French poetry,’ I said with enough asperity to catch his attention. ‘And yes, I do know my own mind. I have known it longer than you, it seems. There’s no need for yo
u to berate me for being astounded by your ducal decree.’

  ‘What have I said? Can you not love me enough?’ he demanded, unconsciously arrogant, brows flattening ominously. ‘Or will you go back to that benighted spot in Lincolnshire that owns your allegiance? By the Rood, Katherine! I think I should never have offered you your freedom, because you might just take it. I think, in fact, that I will rescind it and command you stay with me.’

  ‘Command me? What of this love you have just discovered, that is strong enough to let me go if that is my wish?’ With laughter in my heart as I acknowledged that the Duke would never change, I stepped forward to grip his sleeves. ‘I cannot leave you. You know that I cannot,’ I cried, the words tumbling from my lips. ‘For I love you, John. I have always loved you, and I always will, however hard it is to live with you.’ And then, when I allowed the exasperation to return and hold sway: ‘How could you not know it? It must have been written on my face, in every kiss, every caress. I carried a son for you. How could you be so very blind?’

  ‘I have no excuse to offer,’ he replied tersely. ‘You never said that you did.’

  ‘Because I couldn’t compromise you with a burden that you might not want. But I say it now, so that you are blind no longer and must, perforce, carry the burden as I do, for I declare that my love for you is not a negligible offering. I love you, John. I return your love in equal measure. And I will live with you. Is that what you wish to hear?’

  For a long moment he stared at me as I had stared at him.

  ‘Tell me, John,’ I ordered, as he had demanded from me.

  And at last there was a smile in his eyes. ‘I deserve your censure, don’t I? I have been so very wrong, Katherine. Do you have the generosity of spirit to forgive my blindness?’

  ‘Do you have to ask?’

  The distance between us was closed, his hands clasping my shoulders.

  ‘There will be no turning back for either of us. There can be no more insecurities between us. Yes, we will continue to hold fast to discretion, but my people will know that you are the woman I have placed at the centre of my life, because, before God, I realised tonight that my love for you is more precious than even the crown of Castile.’