It might not be suitable, but I knew a craving to touch him, imagining what his arms might feel like around me. My cheeks were as hot as fire, my thighs liquid with longing, even as my heart ached with shame. Was this how I would spend my life? Lusting after servants because they were beautiful and young?
Returned to my parlour, I ordered Cecily to fetch wine and a lute. We would sing and read of true heroes. We would engage our minds in higher things. Perhaps even a page from my Book of Hours would direct my inappropriate thoughts into colder, more decorous channels. The Queen Dowager must be above earthly desires. She must be dull and unknowing of love and lust.
And if she was not?
Think of the gossip, I admonished myself, the words deliberately harsh to jolt myself into reality. If nothing else will drive Owen Tudor from your thoughts, think of the immediate repercussions. How could you withstand the talk of the Court with its vicious darts and sly innuendo? To succumb to my longings would brand me as a harlot more despicable than my mother. What was it that Gloucester had said of me? A woman unable to curb fully her carnal passions. A wanton child of Isabeau of Bavaria, the Queen of France, who everyone knew could not keep her hands and lips from seducing young men.
No, I could not bear the knowing looks from my damsels, the judgemental stares when I accompanied Young Henry to Court. My reputation, already tattered and shabby in some quarters, would be in rags. And would it not be so much worse if I looked at Owen? At least my mother, lascivious as she might well be, drew the line at seducing her servants.
I stifled a groan. How shaming. Gloucester would lock me in my bedchamber at Leeds Castle and drop the key into the river.
‘Are you well, Lady?’ Beatrice asked.
‘I am perfectly well,’ I croaked through dry lips.
‘It is very hot,’ she said, handing me a feather fan. ‘It will be cooler when the sun goes down.’
‘Yes. Yes, it will.’
I shivered uncomfortably in the heat, my cheeks flushed despite the breeze from the feverishly applied peacock feathers. If Beatrice knew what was in my mind, she would not be so compassionate.
‘Perhaps you have a fever, my lady,’ Meg suggested solicitously.
‘Perhaps I do.’
Fever! For that was what it was, a passing heat of no importance, I decided. I was victim of an unfortunate attack of lust, of base physical longing for a handsome man, brought on by the hot weather and a lack of something better for my mind to focus on. Such obsession died. It must. If it did not die of its own accord, I would kill it.
Out of sight, out of mind. Was that not the best remedy? At Gloucester’s command I travelled to Westminster with Young Henry, leaving my own household, and Owen Tudor, at Windsor. For a se’ennight I enjoyed the festivities, the bustle and noise of London. Every day I rejoiced in the sight of my little son growing more regal under Warwick’s tuition. I gloried in the fine dresses and even finer jewels, something I had forgotten in my quiet, retired existence.
And every day I erected bulwarks against any encroaching thoughts of Owen Tudor. I would not think of him. I did not need him. I smiled and danced and sang, laughed at the antics of the Court Fool. I would prove the shallowness of my attraction to the man who had ordered the details of my daily life since Henry’s death.
When I could exist a whole day in which he barely stepped into my mind, I sighed in relief at my achievements. My obsession was over. The wretched loneliness that fuelled my dreams was of no account. My infatuation was dead.
But we must, perforce, return to Windsor.
The hopeless futility of my plan was cast into bright relief not one hour after our return. My household met briefly for livery, the final mouthful of ale and bread at the end of the day and the giving out of candles. It was served under the eye of Master Tudor with the same precise and efficient self-containment that he showed in my company, whatever the task.
He handed me my candle. ‘Goodnight, my lady.’ The epitome of propriety and rectitude. ‘It is good to have you back with us.’
For me the air between us burned. Every breath I took was fraught with a longing to touch his fingertips as they held the candlestick. To brush against him as I handed back my cup. My absence had done nothing to quench my thirst.
‘May God and His Holy Saints watch over you, my lady,’ he said, with a final inclination of his head.
Did he feel nothing for me? Obviously not. He regarded me simply in the light of Queen Dowager.
