‘Catherine did …’ He repeated her name. He glanced at her. She smiled and again that understanding passed between them.
‘Lord Henry grows apace, my lord,’ she said. ‘You will be delighted with his progress.’
‘I’m getting bigger every day,’ boasted Henry. ‘I shall soon be bigger than you … bigger than the King. Bigger than everybody.’
‘I see you have given my son a fine opinion of himself,’ he said.
She answered: ‘My lord, I believe he was born with that and it was his birth that gave it to him, not I.’
He put the boy down. ‘I am well pleased with your care of the children, Lady Swynford.’
‘Then I am happy,’ she answered softly.
He asked her questions as to their progress. Philippa and Elizabeth kept butting in with the answers; but he was not really listening. He was thinking of her all the time and the dreams he had had of her. She had never been so alluring, so exciting in those dreams as she was in reality.
She took the children away and he stood looking out of the window on to the river at the craft that was plying its way from Westminster to the Tower.
Then he made his way to his bedchamber. There he said to one of his pages: ‘I wish to speak again with Lady Swynford. There is much I have to say to her regarding the care of my children.’
It was the first time he had ever thought it necessary to explain his motives to a servant.
She scratched at the door and he called: ‘Enter.’
He was looking out of the window and he did not turn. He found that he was trembling with excitement.
She was standing close behind him. ‘You wished to see me, my lord?’
He swung round and looked at her. He thought: She knows. She is as much aware of this as I. She longs for me as I do for her.
He hesitated. ‘I … have thought a great deal about you, Lady Swynford.’
She did not express surprise. She merely said quietly: ‘Yes, my lord.’
‘I wonder … if you had thought of me.’
‘The father of my charges …’
He took her by the shoulders suddenly. ‘I think,’ he said quietly, ‘you understand.’
She held back her head. He saw the long white throat. He had never seen such white skin. He looked at her ripe lips and then suddenly he had seized her. He heard her laugh softly and there was complete harmony between them.
They lay on his bed. They both seemed bewildered by what had happened and yet each was aware of its inevitability.
He took a lock of her thick reddish hair and twisted it about his fingers. ‘I have thought of you ever since I first saw you,’ he told her. ‘What did you do to me on that first occasion?’
‘I did nothing,’ she answered. ‘I merely was myself and you were yourself … and that was enough for us both.’
‘I have never felt thus before …’
‘Nor I.’
‘There has never been such perfect union … We were as one, Catherine. Did you sense that?’
‘Yes, yes, my lord. I knew it would be so.’
He held her close to him. In that moment of bliss he thought: We must always be together. I would marry her … The thought came quickly: She is the wife of Hugh Swynford … and with it relief. The son of the King could not marry a governess!
He thrust such thoughts from his mind and dwelt on her perfection. Her sensual beauty, that perfect body which responded unfailingly to his own; her soft musical voice; her complete abandonment to the act of love. She was a rare woman. She was his from the moment he had set eyes on her.
She told him now that she must go. She would be missed. She was right of course. What had happened had been so sudden and so overwhelming and for those moments neither of them had thought of anything but the slaking of their passion. There would be prying eyes in the castle. She was a woman with a husband overseas; he was a man who was mourning the death of his wife.‘Alas of death, what aileth theeThat thou would not have taken me …’
Those were the words Chaucer had put into his mouth, and when he had read them he had felt deeply moved; and yet here he was, with Blanche so recently dead, sporting in the very bed which he had shared with her.
But this was Catherine. There was no one like Catherine. He had never experienced anything like this emotion she aroused in him, this heady intoxication which made him oblivious of everything else but his need of her.
‘Tonight,’ he said.
‘I shall come to you,’ she promised.
He had to be satisfied with that and reluctantly he let her slip out of his arms.
When she had gone he lay for a long time thinking of her.
He was all impatience for the night.
They lay beside each other, limp, exhausted by the force of their passion.
He knew so little of her except that she was the most desirable woman in the world. She knew much more about him, naturally. He had wondered about Hugh Swynford and she told him that the marriage had been arranged for her and she had been a reluctant bride. Everyone had told her that she was fortunate to find a titled land-owning husband; she had felt herself less fortunate.
‘He’s an uncouth fellow,’ muttered John. ‘A good soldier but I shudder to think of you together.’
‘As I do.’
‘And there have been others?’
‘No. I left my convent and almost immediately was married. I am not a woman to break my vows … easily.’
He believed her.
‘I would you had never married Swynford,’ he said. ‘I would you had come to me straight from your convent.’
She was silent.
There was a certain pride in her, he knew. She was the daughter of a Flemish knight even though his knighthood had been bestowed on the battlefield and he had died soon after receiving it. Her mother had been a sturdy country woman of Picardy who had brought up her children in a fitting manner; and when Catherine had become an orphan she had received some education at the hands of the nuns of Sheppey.
He wished that she was unmarried; that she was some princess who would be considered a reasonable wife for him. Yes, his feelings were so strong that he could think of marriage. He had never seen Marie again, though he had made sure that she and their daughter were well cared for. In spite of his ambitions he was a man who was capable of love. He had loved Marie; he had revered Blanche; he had thought himself fortunate to possess such a bride. Yet this feeling he had for Catherine Swynford was entirely different. It was wild, passionate, sensuous in the extreme and yet he knew that tender love was stirring in him too.
If she had been some great heiress … Constanza of Castile for instance … what joy that would be.
But she was not. She was merely the wife of that uncouth squire, Hugh Swynford. If she had not been … what temptation she would have put in his way.
That was his feeling for Catherine. When he was with her it overwhelmed him; he would have been ready to offer her anything.
He was surprised to learn that she had had two children by Swynford – Thomas and Blanche.
‘Do you not long for them?’ he wanted to know.
Yes, there were times when she did. But she had the satisfaction of knowing that they were well cared for in the country.
He said no more of them. He feared she might wish to return to them.
‘How grateful I am to your sister Philippa,’ he said. ‘But for her we might never have met. Where is she now?’
‘She is still in the Queen’s household, but she will have to go, of course.’
‘Bring her here. Let her be of our household. Would that please you, Catherine?’
‘It is good of you, my lord.’
‘Philippa did so much for us, we must do something for her.’