I’m not proud of myself. I’m a married man. I knew I was laying up months, if not years, of regret and guilt, but at the time it seemed worth it.
But then, it always does. Doesn’t it?
Twenty
Eloise and I descended to the parlour for dinner, both trying to appear composed and as innocent as if we had been discussing the weather, but I saw John Bradshaw glance at us and then glance again, a longer, more searching look that eventually produced a small, knowing, half-embarrassed smile. His eyes slid away from us as he turned to study the fire burning merrily on the hearth, and he stooped, holding out his hands to the blaze.
Marthe bustled in with the pot of stew, which she placed on the table, made certain we had everything we needed, then trotted out again. There was no sign of Philip, although I heard his voice upraised in the kitchen saying a few words in what even I could tell was execrable French, and which Marthe had evidently been teaching him. I was thankful to be spared his beady gaze. He was always more astute than people gave him credit for, and would have interpreted in a minute Eloise’s suppressed air of triumph and my own faintly guilty look.
John took his seat and helped himself to a generous serving of stew before addressing the lady. ‘So, mistress, you managed to see your cousin, or so you implied when you first came in. Since when, you seem to have been busy upstairs — as you ladies so often are.’ He concentrated on the spoonful of pottage he was conveying to his mouth, refusing resolutely to look at either of us. He went on, ‘Did you learn anything from Maître le Daim? Anything of what King Edward wants to know?’
‘Oh, it wasn’t difficult to gain access to him,’ was the airy response. ‘He recalled my mother and we talked a little of family matters. But after that, I asked him openly — simply as a woman who takes an intelligent interest in affairs of state — if the rumours that King Louis is to make peace with Burgundy and marry the dauphin to Maximilian’s daughter are true.’
‘And what was his reply?’
Eloise laughed. ‘He seemed astonished that I didn’t already know the answers, as I had so recently been in England. He thought it must be common knowledge there by now that a treaty is to be signed between France and Burgundy at Arras, at the end of next month. The marriage of the dauphin to Margaret of Burgundy will be arranged at the same time, and a part of her marriage portion will include the county of Artois.’
John Bradshaw drew a deep breath and laid down his spoon, staring before him, lost in thought. I could guess what those thoughts must be, but I waited for him to voice them. ‘So that’s the end of King Edward’s pension from Louis,’ he said at last. He added even more slowly and with conviction, ‘It will kill him. That and the humiliation of his eldest daughter.’
‘Oh, come!’ I expostulated. ‘It surely can’t be as bad as that. It is humiliating, I agree, and the loss of the money is bound to be a blow to him, but as for killing him, that, surely, is overstating the matter.’
John raised his sombre eyes to mine and looked at me directly. ‘I don’t think you appreciate just how ill the king really is,’ he said. ‘He’s lived life to the full and now his health is fragile. And he was relying on a marriage alliance between England and France to secure the money King Louis has paid him, ever since Picquigny, for the rest of his life. My guess is that we shall see King Edward the Fifth on the throne before a twelvemonth has passed.’
Was it my imagination or did his gaze intensify as he stared at me? Had he suspected, or even guessed, what my secret mission might be? I lowered my eyes quickly to my plate and concentrated on eating.
‘But he’s a child,’ I heard Eloise say. ‘A child ruler is never good for a country.’
‘The Prince of Wales is twelve,’ John Bradshaw reproved her. ‘On the brink of manhood. And he has powerful uncles.’
So he did, but which uncles, I wondered, was John referring to? The prince had only one on the spear side of his family, but at least three on the distaff. And Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, had been head of the prince’s household, at Ludlow, for many years now. His influence with young Edward must be predominant.
Eloise’s voice interrupted my wandering thoughts. ‘I told Olivier that I’m in Paris with my husband. He’d like to meet you, Roger, but as he must leave again not later than tonight, I promised I would take you to the Hôtel Saint-Pol after supper.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said abruptly. ‘I can’t come.’
I saw John look hard at me, and this time I met his gaze unflinchingly. He gave an almost imperceptible nod to show he understood.
Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Eloise tried her damndest to make me change my mind. She cajoled, she persuaded, she sulked, she even swore in a most unladylike fashion, and when I finally said that thank God I was not really her husband, she indulged in a minor bout of hysterics that only abated when she saw that I remained entirely unmoved by it. In fact, what had happened between us before dinner might never have been. Our former barbed relationship had been resumed, at least by me, and I think the realization that nothing had changed shocked her. I don’t know what she had expected, and at that moment, I didn’t care. I had other things to think about.
‘Why not?’ she demanded.
‘Why not what?’
‘Why won’t you come with me to meet Cousin Olivier?’
‘Because you have seen him and discovered what you came to Paris to find out. Why visit him again simply to perpetuate a lie? Besides, I have business of my own to attend to.’
She got up from the table, looking extremely white. ‘I wish you were dead,’ she said very slowly and clearly, then left the room.
John Bradshaw raised his eyebrows at me, but forbore to comment. Not that he needed to. His accusatory glance said all that was necessary, and in truth, I was beginning to feel guilty myself. I should have realized that Eloise’s feelings had gone deeper than my own.
John’s voice recalled me to myself. ‘Do you go out this afternoon?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘This evening, after supper.’
‘Then take Philip with you. It’s dangerous abroad after dark.’
‘He won’t come,’ I averred. ‘For some reason or other, I seem to have offended him. I shall be all right. I’m a big fellow and I’ll carry my knife.’
The afternoon lagged past. John disappeared on business of his own — making arrangements for the return journey, he said — and there was no sign of Philip. I tried on three occasions to speak to Eloise, but she had locked our bedchamber door and refused to answer my knock. I ate supper alone, none of the other three putting in an appearance, much to Marthe’s obvious distress, as she had prepared a mutton pie, which smelled and tasted delicious, except that, by this time, I was in no mood to appreciate it as it deserved. My feeling of guilt had assumed enormous proportions, and it was only by telling myself that no doubt this was precisely Eloise’s intention, and that she had been as eager in promoting our lovemaking as I had been, that I was at last able to stop blaming myself alone for what had happened. A revue of my conduct persuaded me that I had never given her reason to believe I harboured any deeper feelings for her than that of a man thrown into close proximity with a pretty woman, nor that she felt differently about me. I consoled myself with the thought that a very few days more, a week at most, would see the parting of our ways.
In the meantime, I must make my way back across the city to speak to Robin Gaunt in one last effort to unearth another sliver of evidence that might give some credence to the Duchess of York’s claim that her eldest son was a bastard. If I had had any doubt to begin with of what was really in Prince Richard’s mind, of what he was hoping to prove, then John Bradshaw’s words at dinner had dispelled them. If King Edward were really as ill as he had indicated — and I remembered his absence from the victory banquet at Baynard’s Castle — then the thought of a child king, brought up in the shadow of his Woodville relations and necessarily influenced by them, could only spell trouble and possible danger for the Duke of Gloucester. If, therefore, he could prove the truth of his mother’s erstwhile accusation, it would make him the rightful king, his brother Clarence’s children being barred from the throne by their father’s act of attainder. Oh, yes, I could see it all quite plainly, and I didn’t know that I blamed him for what he was trying to do. I just wished he hadn’t chosen me to assist him.