‘They’ll make me pay, of course,’ he was continuing as I surveyed the group of young men, his companions, who were making free with the wine at the far side of the room, enjoying the fluttering attentions of the damsels. I recognised most of them—sons of high-blooded English families—but I might have to search for a name or two. There was a loud burst of laughter and in that moment I wished I were there with them, simply a lady of the Court free to flirt and attract the eye of a handsome man.
Wistfully, I turned my attention back to James, who continued to expand on his good fortune. ‘An extortionate ransom of sixty thousand marks.’ He laughed with a sardonic bark. ‘Good to know they see my worth. In their generosity, I get to pay it in annual instalments.’ His cynical smile sat strangely on his youthful features, but he had learned cynicism before all else in his protracted exile. ‘I hope it won’t beggar Scotland. They’ll not want me back if it does.’
‘Of course they will,’ I assured him, my attention snagged by a raucous burst of laughter.
One face in the
‘And do you know the best of it?’ James continued, unaware of my wandering appreciation. ‘I get my wife. I get Joan.’ He leaned to where Joan hovered, close enough to overhear, snatched her hand and pulled her closer still until his arm was wound around her waist. ‘I never thought I’d see the day. Or if I did, we would both be in our dotage before we climbed into the marriage bed together and I would be incapable.’
Joan giggled, her cheeks pink, and I smiled on them, even as claws of jealousy raked at my heart. Joan positively shimmered with happiness and James’s love for her was written on his face far more clearly than it had ever been in his verses. I clenched my fists in the folds of my skirts. I would curb such instincts as base as envy.
‘Have they set a date for your marriage?’ I asked, aware now of a frown between James’s eyes, but again my interest was caught elsewhere.
The young man with russet eyes and hair to match had snatched off his cap, flinging it to one of his friends, and was demonstrating a flamboyant thrust of an imaginary sword. He lunged, overbalanced, righted himself with a graceful turn of foot and burst into laughter. His companions mocked but slapped him on the back in easy camaraderie. He might be younger than most of them but he had a place in their society. When he retaliated with a series of quick punches to those who tormented him, I found myself smiling because I could do no other.
And, of course, I knew those features. When he turned to face me, repeating the thrust with an agile wrist, I saw the Beaufort family resemblance was strong. Joan’s hair might be lighter, her eyes more brown than russet, but the smile was the same, the quick winging brows.
Here was her brother.
‘No, they have not set a date for the marriage yet.’ I heard James remark in reply to my question. ‘They say it will be as soon as it can be arranged—although I have my doubts.’ He shook off his concern, probably for the sake of Joan, who had begun to look anxious again, and he seized my hand and squeezed it. ‘We’ll live in hope—have I not done so for the past dozen years and more? And I’ll expect you to dance at my wedding.’
‘I don’t dance,’ I said flatly. My baser nature was still lurking around my mood, reluctant to let go and be banished.
‘Well, you should.’ For the first time he really looked at my face. ‘What’s wrong, Katherine? You don’t look happy.’ I shook my head. This was no day for my unreasonable miseries. ‘In fact…’ he pursued, frowning.
Immediately I stood, more than a little embarrassed that he should see so great a change in me. ‘Perhaps you should introduce your friends.’
As a distraction it worked well enough. ‘Most of them you know.’ He complied, drawing the young men forward to make their bow. ‘And here,’ he announced, ‘is Edmund.’
‘My brother thought he ought to come to wish me well, my lady,’ Joan said, pulling the young man before me. I saw love and admiration in her face, and was not surprised.
He bowed, more ostentatiously than was necessary in so intimate a setting, and I remembered his flamboyance with the invisible sword. Clearly he was a man to draw attention to himself, as was proved when the feathers of his velvet cap swept the floor, his arms spread in the deepest respect, until he looked up at me beneath his well-etched brows. He laughed aloud, his eyes full of mischief.
