Edith was tall like Jeanette, with a sheaf of golden hair woven in two heavy plaits. With her wide-set cornflower-blue eyes and red lips, she could have been Jeanette’s cousin or even a sister. Edward kissed her lips, then went to the cradle and tickled the baby under the chin with his forefinger. Jeanette swallowed, feeling faint. Edward was obviously delighted with himself, his expression sparkling with mischief.
Edith’s maid brought refreshments – crisp little marrow tarts warm from a pastry-seller’s oven. Clearly everything had been pre-planned, but Jeanette was too anxious to eat. Edward, however, devoured two in a moment and brushed crumbs from his recently fledged whiskers.
His squire opened the door to a sharp knock.
‘Sire, you wanted to see . . .’ Thomas’s last word trailed to silence, and he stared at Jeanette as though poleaxed. She stared back, unable to move or speak.
‘Not really,’ Edward said, ‘but someone else does. I have to return my cousin to the Countess of Salisbury before she sends out a search party and for the sake of propriety you only have a few moments, but better than nothing.’ He inclined his head to them, and he and Edith retired to an inner chamber with the baby and servants.
Hawise curtseyed to Thomas and Jeanette. ‘I shall be outside the door if you have need of me, my lady,’ she said, and left the room, deftly taking with her a small stool to sit on and purloining two marrow tarts.
As the door closed, Thomas and Jeanette gazed at each other with longing and disbelief. And then Thomas took a pace forward and pulled her into his arms and they kissed until the only breath they had belonged to the other. Eventually they parted, gasping, laughing, crying. Jeanette’s tears of joy turned to deep, heart-wrenching sobs. Thomas held and soothed her, rubbing her back, and eventually drew her to the bench near the brazier, gently putting aside the cushion cover on which Edith had been working.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘the King has fixed Raoul de Brienne’s ransom at eighty thousand florins which means I have enough to take our lawsuit to Avignon. I have written to my mother asking her to accompany me, and I have received permission to go. The Queen has furnished me with the name of an attorney to represent my case, and I shall leave before Easter.’
Jeanette shook her head, overwhelmed.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘what is wrong? Is it not good news?’
‘Yes, of course it is!’ She tried to swallow her emotion, only half succeeding. It was almost too painful to believe that matters were moving forward at last. She had been hanging on by her fingertips for ever and it was difficult to reach out and make the transition. ‘Is it really true? I thought . . . I thought you might decide it would be more worthwhile to take a different woman towife and use the ransom to settle down with her – that you might not want me any more.’
‘I will always want you, to the end of my days. I have fought my way to this moment, and I will fight on to the next and the next until we are united – unless, of course, you do not want me?’
Aghast, she shook her head. ‘I cannot bear to think of the future if we have to be apart. I have waited and waited, and there is nothing I can do, and I hate it!’ She clenched her fists. ‘What if the Pope does not find in our favour? What then?’
‘I will not think like that. I have not come this far in order to fail. All I ask is that you keep faith. You say there is nothing you can do, but that is untrue. You can stay strong and resist with all you have. You will be called upon to testify that you were a willing party to the marriage and it will be pivotal to our claim.’
Jeanette jutted her chin. ‘I can withstand anything they throw at me,’ she said. ‘Day upon day while you have been fighting your battles I have been fighting mine. My “husband” will put up little resistance. His attorney might stand against us in Avignon before the Pope, but his mother and grandmother are the ones blocking our way. It brings royalty into their bloodline should I bear a son, and they do not want to lose my marriage portion or be made to look fools. William has resigned himself, but he refuses to end the marriage – he is still tied to his mother’s womb and to the family name. My mother will object because she wishes me to remain wed to an earl and thinks you are a common despoiler of women.’ Her brows drew together. ‘Why has the King suddenly agreed to buy the ransom – what has changed his mind?’
‘A miracle?’ Thomas said facetiously, then shrugged. ‘I do not know, save that the Prince and the Queen are somehow involved, but I have not pried too closely – I sense that is an affair conducted behind closed doors too.’
Between kisses and embraces he told her about his preparations to visit the papal court to have their marriage validated. In the next room, Edward loudly cleared his throat, and clattered the latch, before re-entering the main chamber. He regarded them with a wry smile and a gleam in his eye.
‘Thank you, thank you!’ Jeanette cried, her eyes filling again. ‘I can never repay you – neither of us can!’ She ran to him and hugged him.
‘Oh, no talk of that,’ he said, patting her back. ‘I will think of something you can one day do for me.’ He winked to show he was teasing. ‘Messire Holland, you should leave, and I must return my dear cousin to the Salisbury lodging before there is a panic in the henhouse and our goose is cooked.’ He smiled at the pun.
‘Sire.’ Thomas bowed. ‘I am in your debt, and your loyal servant.’ He turned to Jeanette and raised her hands to his lips. ‘I will send word as soon as I may. Hold me in your heart and your prayers.’ He left the room quickly, and Jeanette heard him murmur to Hawise.
‘Come,’ Edward said, ‘I will return you to your lodgings, and we had better look at those puppies on the way lest you are asked about them.’
‘Thank you,’ Jeanette said again as they set out. ‘From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You are my dearest, dearest friend.’
He gave her an almost pained smile and after a single, swift glance, stared straight ahead. ‘How long have we known each other?’
‘All our lives,’ she said. ‘I remember watching you walk to your mother. She picked you up and cuddled you in her lap, and told you how clever you were. I was perhaps four years old, and jealous, for my mother never cuddled and kissed me like that.’ She blinked on sudden tears.
‘I remember playing hide and seek with you,’ he said, tucking her arm through his. ‘You knew the best places and, though I could never find you, you always found me. But you never gave the game away to the others – you still don’t.’
She raised her brows at him, trying to fathom his meaning.
‘You make me laugh,’ he qualified. ‘You take my cares away. You know me. I often wish . . .’ He cleared his throat and abruptly strode out, his complexion flushed.
An awkward silence developed between them, and Jeanette sensed that one more step might lead to revelations from which there would be no going back. Her heart belonged to Thomas. Edward was her dearest friend even if she was a woman and he a man, but that very detail made for a dangerous line should either of them cross it, even inadvertently. He was the heir to the throne and would marry where politics dictated. His wishes would remain dreams, and she was set on a different path.
‘As you know me also,’ she said, using a lighter nuance in her voice to restore the equilibrium. ‘Thank you again – I hope to repay your kindness one day.’
At the door to her lodging, he stopped, and his smile was a little forced. ‘You have incurred no debt,’ he said. ‘Nor ever shall.’ Then he swiftly pecked her cheek, close to the corner of her mouth, and gave her and Hawise into the keeping of the Salisburys’ usher.
