After that kiss in the chapel, soft as a whisper on my mouth, we were forced back into the roles of mistress and servant. My cheek healed with no opportunity for a repetition of such an injury. The exigencies of travel, of endless celebrations, an influx of important guests who demanded my time and Owen’s, and the resulting shortage of accommodation all worked against us. Neither of us was at leisure to contemplate even a stolen moment. There were no stolen moments. Edmund might have seduced me at the turn of the stair with hot kisses, but there was no seduction from Owen Tudor. In public Owen treated me with the same grave composure that he had always done.
So how did I survive? How were my nerves calmed when I was close to him, wanting nothing more than to step into his arms but knowing that it could not be until…? Until when? Sometimes I felt we would remain with this harsh distance separating us, like a stretch of impassable and turbulent water, for ever.
And yet there was a wooing, the most tender of wooings from a man who had nothing to give but the wage I paid him, and who could not pin his heart to his sleeve, even if he were of a mood to do so. I suspected that Owen was too solemn for the pinning of hearts.
There was a wooing in those months when we never exchanged a word in private, for I was the recipient of gifts. None of any value, but through them I knew that Owen Tudor courted me as if I were his love in some distant Welsh village and he a fervent suitor. The charm of it wrapped me around for I had no experience of it. Henry had had no need to woo me. I had come to his bed as the result of a signature on a document. Edmund had engaged me in a whirlwind seduction with no time for anything as gentle as courtship. From Owen, it was the small offerings, the simple thought of giving behind them, that took me by surprise and won my heart for ever.
How I treasured them. A dish of dates, plump and exotic, freshly delivered from beyond the seas, sent to me in my chamber. A handful of pippins, stored since the autumn harvest, but still firm and sweet. A fine carp, richly cooked in almond milk, served to me at my table—served only to me—by Thomas my page under orders from Owen. A cup of warm, spiced hippocras brought to my chamber by Guille on a cold morning when rime coated the windows. Had Henry or Edmund even noticed what I ate? Had they considered my likes and dislikes? Owen knew that I had a sweet tooth.
And not only that. My lute was newly and expertly strung by morning—one of the strings having snapped the previous evening—before I had even asked for it to be done. Would Henry have done that for me? I think he would have purchased a new lute. Edmund would not have noticed. When we suffered a plague of mice in the damsels’ quarters, I was recipient of a striped kitten. The mice were safe enough, but its antics made us laugh. I knew where the gift had come from.
Nothing inappropriate. Nothing to cause comment or draw the eye. Except for that of Beatrice, who observed casually one morning when a basket of fragrant apple logs appeared in my parlour, ‘Master Owen has been very attentive recently.’
‘More than usual?’ I queried with a fine show of insouciance.
‘I think so.’ Her eyes narrowed.
And the gestures continued. A rose, icily preserved and barely unfurled. Where had he found that in January? An intricate hood, the leather fashioned and stitched with a pretty tuft of feathers, for my new merlin. I knew whose capable fingers had executed the stitching. And for the New Year gift-giving, a crucifix carved with astonishing precision from that same applewood, polished and gleaming, left for me anonymously and without explanation on my
And what did I give him? I knew I had not the freedom to give, as he had to me under the cover of the household, but the tradition of rewarding servants at Twelfth Night made it possible. I gave him a bolt of cloth, rich blue damask, as dark and sumptuous as indigo, to be made up into a tunic. I could imagine it becoming him very well.
Owen thanked me formally. I smiled and thanked him for his services to me and my people. Our eyes caught for the merest of breaths then he bowed again and stood aside for others to approach.
My cheeks were aflame. Was no one else aware of the burning need that shimmered in the air between us? Beatrice was.
‘I hope you know what you’re about, my lady,’ she remarked with a caustic glance.
Oh, I did. And after the weeks of thwarted love it could not come fast enough.
‘When can I be with you?’
It was the question I had longed to hear from him.
‘Come to my room,’ I replied. ‘Between Vespers and Compline.’
