‘A matter of concern, by God!’ Gloucester’s hands clenched into fists. ‘How can you be so mealy-mouthed? It will not happen.’
‘I will do it,’ I reiterated, as if expressing a simple desire to travel to Westminster. Although sharp fear was beginning to undermine my composure, I braced my knees and spine.
Gloucester huffed out a breath. ‘It is unheard of. An English Queen, crowned and anointed, taking a second husband on the death of the King…’
I allowed myself a little laugh. Was this the best he could do? A matter of precedent, and it seemed to me not a strong one. Why should a widowed queen not remarry? I was nervous no longer.
‘Has there never, in hundreds of years of kingship in this country, been a royal widow who has chosen to remarry?’ I asked. It sounded beyond my comprehension.
‘No. There has never been such—and there will not. The Council will not permit it.’
Bishop Henry cleared his throat. ‘Well—yes—in fact, there has.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly, as if he was enjoying himself. ‘Adeliza of Louvain remarried.’
‘Who?’ Gloucester demanded, momentarily baffled.
‘Adeliza. Wife of King Henry the First.’ The bishop’s smile remained fixed when Gloucester flung up his hands in disgust. ‘It pays to be a reader of history, does it not? Although it has to be said that Adeliza was Henry’s second wife and was not the mother of the heir to the throne. Still, if we are speaking of precedents…’
‘Before God! If she had no connection to the royal descent, she has no importance. This is an irrelevance, Henry. If you’re thinking of supporting your damned nephew in this nonsense…’
I raised my hand to stop yet another diatribe against Edmund, even as horror returned to drench me from head to foot. ‘Are you saying that I must never remarry?’
‘Not exactly,’ Bishop Henry offered.
‘There is no precedent for it,’ glowered Gloucester.
‘I understand.’ A bleak landscape, terrible in its vastness, opened up before me. ‘So I must remain alone.’
When Gloucester nodded, I sensed relief in him that he had won his argument, and his voice became appallingly unctuous. ‘Many would envy your position, Katherine. You have your dower lands in England, your son, an assured place at court. It is all eminently suitable for a royal widow.’
Eminently suitable. But, in my mind, lacking one essential perquisite. I knew in my heart at that moment that it was a lost cause, that I would never rouse sympathy from Gloucester, but still I asked.
‘So I have every comfort, every show of respect, but I am not allowed to love?’
‘Love!’ Gloucester’s lips curled as if such an emotion were a matter for distaste. ‘Private amours are for foolish women of no standing. If you were not the Queen Dowager, then why not, if that is what you would seek? Why not find some innocuous nobleman to wed you and take you off to his country estate where you can devote yourself to raising children and good works? But you are not free to make that choice.’
‘It is not right,’ I said, clinging desperately to the last vestiges of hope as Gloucester stripped away all chance of happiness in marriage.
‘Madam Joanna has found no difficulty in remaining a respectable widow.’
‘Madam Joanna is fifty-seven years old. I am only twenty-five and—’
‘And quite obviously incapable of ruling your carnal passions.’
So harsh a judgement! I could barely believe that he had used those words against me, and I froze.
Gloucester’s eyes raked me from head to foot. ‘You are too much your mother’s daughter.’
It gripped me by the throat. Was my mother’s reputation to be resurrected again and again, to be used in evidence against me? And by what right had Gloucester of all men to accuse me of carnal passions? Anger rolled in my belly, dark and intense, until it boiled up to spill over in hot words, scalding the space between us.
‘What right have you? What right have you to accuse me of lack of self-control? I say that you have no right at all to besmirch my mother’s name, as you have no cause to castigate me. Have I not played my part perfectly, in every degree that has been demanded of me? I have accompanied my son, I have stood by his side, I have carried him into Parliament when he was too small to walk. I have never acted with less than dignity and grace, in public and in private. Will I do any less, will I destroy the sanctity of my son’s kingship if I am wed? No, I will not.’
All my resentment surged again, and my will to make my own choice. ‘I do not accept your decision. I will wed Edmund Beaufort. There is no law that says I cannot.’
Gloucester’s ungloved hands closed into fists at his sides. ‘Why the temper? This should come as no surprise to you. Did I not explain what was expected of you when you returned to England?’
‘Oh, you did.’ Fury still bubbled hotly. ‘I remember. Your timing was impeccable. In the week that I had stood beside Henry’s body in Westminster Abbey, you told me of your wide-ranging plans for me that could only be altered by death.’
