The Forbidden Queen (66 page)

My self-control snapped like a worn bowstring. He was my lover, the man who would wed me. There must be some terrible misapprehension that had taken hold of my mind, some mistake that Edmund could rectify and then all would be well again. All I needed to do was speak with him, to step to cross the space between us and demand…Demand what? An explanation, I supposed. How could he not approach me, his professed love? How could he not smile and tell me of his heart’s desire as he saluted my fingers with his lips? Throat dry, I determined that I must know.

‘Don’t.’

Barely had I taken a second step than a hand closed lightly around my wrist.

‘Richard!’

It was Warwick, standing at my shoulder, his gaze following the line of my sight.

‘But I must—’

‘Don’t go to him,’ he responded gently. ‘It is useless, Katherine. To cause a scene would be—’

‘He said he would wed me and defy Parliament,’ I interrupted, careless of any such scene yet still managing to keep my voice low.

‘He won’t do it. He won’t wed you now.’

‘How can you say that?’ I resisted the gentle pull on my arm, but Warwick was intent on manoeuvring me out of the throng, towards the tapestry-hung wall.

‘I know he will not. You have to know what has been done. Listen to me, Katherine.’ In the little space he had created for us, Warwick gripped harder so that I must concentrate. ‘There have been new moves. Gloucester has locked every door, barred every window against you.’

‘But I know.’ Still I remonstrated. How could it be so bad? ‘I know the law says that I must ask my son’s permission to marry but surely—’

‘There’s more. Another clause.’ There was barely a pause. ‘It will have serious consequences for your remarriage. To any man.’

‘Oh.’ Now I was afraid.

‘Any man who risks the ban and takes you for his wife without royal consent will lose everything.’ Warwick’s face was stern, his words savage in the message they delivered, but his eyes were soft with infinite compassion. ‘He will effectively be stripped of his lands and his possessions, his appointments in government.’

‘Oh,’ I said again, almost a whisper, absorbing the enormity of this.

‘Such a man will forgo all promotions, all favour and patronage. All opportunity for his further advancement would be stripped away.’

‘I see.’

‘For any man to wed you—’ Warwick was inexorable
‘—would be political and social suicide. Do you understand? If he took you as his wife, Edmund Beaufort would be ruined.’

‘Yes,’ I heard myself say. ‘Yes, I do understand.’

My throat was full of tears as Warwick’s bald statements, delivered one after the other, were like nails hammered into the coffin of my hopes and dreams. I stood for a while in silence, my hands still enfolded within the Earl’s, as the pieces fell into place, finally driven to accept the impossibility of my union with any ambitious man by the neatest, most vindictive piece of legislation. No specific name had been mentioned, but the intent behind it as clear as the signatures written on the document. My heart was wrenched with hurt as I absorbed the inevitable in that one inexorable warning.

For any man to wed you it would be political and social suicide
.

That was the end, was it not? Would Edmund Beaufort run head first into marriage with me, risking the loss of political and social advancement? Would he prejudice his ambitions for me?

Head raised, chin held high in a determination not to appear trampled beneath the weight of what I now knew, I looked to where I had last seen him. And there he stood, deep in conversation with the men who held power in the kingdom in my son’s name, just as his uncle Bishop Henry would once have done. Gloucester, Hungerford, Westmorland, Exeter, Archbishop Chichele.

Edmund knew where his best interests lay, and as I took in his carefully selected, august company, so did I. The Beauforts were political animals through and through. Advancement would take precedent over all other interests. If I had still been of a mind to cling to any foolish hope, Edmund’s present company confirmed all Warwick’s warning.

‘It is better if you do not approach him,’ Warwick said gently.

‘I understand. I understand perfectly.’ I looked up into his face. ‘How could he have been so cruel?’

‘Did he not tell you?’

I shook my head, unable to put my sense of utter rejection into words.

‘I am so sorry. He will not see it as cruelty but as political necessity. A pragmatic decision. All Beauforts would. They have been raised from the cradle to do so.’

‘Even at the cost of breaking my heart?’

‘Even at that.’

‘He wrote that he would remain true to our love.’

‘I am so very sorry, Katherine,’ Warwick repeated.

‘You did warn me.’ My mouth twisted into what was not a smile.

‘I know. But I would not have had you hurt in this manner.’

I looked across to where Edmund was laughing at something Gloucester had said, responding with a dramatic gesture with one arm I recognised so well. Oh, I
was hurt. I floundered in desolation that all my visions of happiness were no more than straws in the wind, to be scattered, leaving me empty and broken.

That night I took anguish and tears with me to my bed. Bitter bedfellows indeed to keep me company through the sleepless hours. But I rose in quite a different mood.

‘My lady. May we speak?’

His bow was the epitome of elegant respect, early sun making russet lights gleam in his hair as he flourished his velvet cap.

Anger beat softly in my head. He had found me of no value, and had rejected me as he would a crippled warhorse when no longer fit for purpose. And as he drew himself to his full height, his expression a winning combination of self-deprecation and rueful apology, I felt my simmering temper come dangerously close to the edge of boiling. I had not been aware that I could be possessed by such rage.

I was on my way to Mass, Guille accompanying me, crossing an anteroom where pages and servants scurried to and fro at the behest of their masters. There was no privacy to be had at Westminster, neither would I grant him that luxury. If he had wanted privacy with me, he should have come to Windsor.

‘You will stay with me,’ I ordered Guille as she slowed her step to drop back, at the precise moment that Edmund
Beaufort made that bow with all his considerable charm, striking a dramatic pose.

And in that moment, beneath the green and gold panels of his knee-skimming tunic, the sleek hose and velvet-draped hood, I saw him for what he was: all picturesque pretence and show to win my regard, all driving ambition to play a vital role in England’s politics. He was a Beaufort through and through. Yet he was still impressive enough to cause my silly heart to quake.

His stare, bright and confident, sought and held mine and he smiled, but then my heart quaked no more and I did not return it. I did not even consider a curtsey. I simply stood, straight-backed, hands folded neatly at my waist, and waited to see what he would say to redeem himself. Yesterday he had treated me as Queen Dowager. Today I would act as one, and ride the fury that was a burning weight in my belly.

‘Queen Kat. You are as lovely as ever.’

How despicable he was. Did he consider me so shallow that I could be soothed by empty flattery?

‘Why did you not tell me?’ I demanded.

I had startled him with my directness, but he did not hesitate. ‘I would tell you now. But I would still say that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever known.’

The conceit of the man. I could almost see his wily Beaufort brain working furiously behind his winning smile as he resorted to flattery. My temper leapt in little flames. I did not lower my voice: today I was in no mood
for either compromise or discretion. ‘You should have come to me and told me yourself that you could no longer wed me. You should have come to Windsor.’

‘May we speak alone?’ His brows rose with charming intimacy.

‘No.’

His smile slid impressively into an expression of abject contrition. ‘I should have come. It was wrong of me, entirely deplorable. I deserve your disdain, my lady, and I can only beg forgiveness. I thought you would understand.’

So he would try to win my sympathies. He held out his hand, expecting me to place mine there, as once I would have. I kept my fingers lightly laced.

‘You are not making this easy for me,’ he said.

‘Nor will I,’ I replied. ‘And I would have liked to have been told of the circumstance that made you break your promise to me of undying love. I did not enjoy having to discover it from Warwick under the interested gaze of the entire court. Or to have you ignore me through the whole proceedings.’

And I was astonished. Where had this confidence, this impressive fluency, this desire to wound come from? Born out of irrepressible outrage at my lover’s public rebuff, I was not subtle. I was not sensitive to the comings and goings around us. I wanted to hear it from his own lips, to see his discomfort as he explained that ambition made my love superfluous.

My tone attracting attention, bringing glances in our direction, Edmund’s brow darkened and the contrition vanished, replaced by a flash of anger. He took a highly un-lover-like grip of my arm and pulled me out of the general flow of people into a window embrasure, waving Guille aside.

‘There’s no need to make public our personal differences.’ I watched his struggle to contain his irritation and admired his success as his lively features became almost benign with compassion. How remarkably plausible he was. Why had I never suspected it when I had believed every word he had uttered? ‘I understand your disappointment in me.’

‘No, you do not,’ I retorted smartly. ‘And I was not aware that we had any personal differences. Our
differences
, as I understand it, are political.’

He sighed. An exhalation of deepest remorse. How well he was able to run through the gamut of emotions. ‘You read it perfectly. But still—I thought you would understand.’ He made a languid gesture with one elegant hand, which roused my temper to new proportions. There was nothing languid about Edmund Beaufort. This was all for effect, playing a role to relieve his conscience, if he possessed one.

‘What is it that I would understand, Edmund?’ I asked prosaically.

‘I think it is obvious, Katherine.’ At last an edge coloured his voice. ‘I never thought you obtuse.’

His deliberate use of my name, which had once made me shiver with desire, left me unmoved. I found myself observing him, as Young Henry might sit for hours and watch the scurrying of ants beneath the painted tiles in the garden at Windsor. Without doubt he was a master of words and emotions, weaving them to his own purpose. My heart, which had once burned for him, felt as cold as ice in my chest.

‘I think my appreciation of the situation is sound,’ I informed him, without heat. ‘My belief that you loved me was destroyed yesterday. By Warwick’s kindness and your distance that was little short of insolent—’

‘Katherine, never that! You must see.’ His voice was softly seductive, urging me to be won over.

‘I do see. I now see astonishingly well. I suppose I am honoured that you have taken the time to seek me out.’

Suddenly the charm was gone, temper returned. ‘Then if you know the terms of the statute, what can I say that you do not know for yourself?’

‘What indeed. But I think you should have had the honesty to tell me that you have placed politics before love.’ For the first time in my life I felt in control of my emotions as I provoked the man I had once loved. ‘I am sorry you were not able to explain for yourself that your desire for office and promotion must take precedence over my hand in marriage.’

Edmund’s face paled, a little muscle tightening at the side of his mouth. ‘They made it impossible for me to
do otherwise,’ he responded curtly. He was angry, but so was I.

‘So they did. Love, it seems, even after such splendid promises of life-long fidelity, appears to be finite, my lord of Mortain.’ I noted that his compressed lips paled further under my blow. ‘Such an honour as the lordship of Mortain could not be thrown away, could it? You would have lost it before you had even set your foot on the territory if you had held out to marry me.’ My mouth curled. ‘I have been put very firmly in my place, have I not?’

And Edmund’s features, once pale as wax, became engulfed in an unflattering tide of red that rose to his hairline, and his response was vicious as he admitted to everything I knew of him.

‘Are you a fool, Kat? You know the terms of the statute. To wed you would cripple me. Would you expect me to give up my land, my titles? My ambitions as a soldier? I am a Beaufort. It is my right to hold office in this realm. Would you really expect me to jettison my ambitions for marriage?’

‘No. What I would expect is that you would have the grace to tell me.’ He shrugged a little. I considered it a crude gesture, and drove on. ‘You have taught me a hard lesson, Edmund, but I have learnt it well: to trust no man who might be forced to choose between power and high politics on the one side and matters of the heart on the other. It is too painful a decision to expect any man to make.’

I tilted my chin as I watched his jaw tighten, my mind suddenly flooded with Madam Joanna’s warnings. Had he indeed used me? Oh, yes, he most definitely had. My naïvety horrified me.

‘Perhaps it was not such a painful decision for you. Perhaps you did not love me at all, except when I might have been your road to glory. Marriage to me would have given you such authority, wouldn’t it, Edmund? There you would have been, standing at the right hand of the Young King. His cousin, his adviser, his counsellor, his superb friend. His father by marriage. Now, that would have been a coup indeed. I expect you thought that I could be tolerated as a wife if I brought you such a heady prize.

‘I’m sorry your plan shattered into pieces at your feet. Gloucester had the right of it when he saw your promotion as no good thing.’ And I hammered home the final nail. ‘I expect he was right to suspect all Beauforts. They seek nothing but their own advancement.’

The flush had receded under my onslaught and Edmund was once more as pale as new-made whey.