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pink, as seductively smooth as a baby’s palm, richly interposed by the larger paternosters of carved jet with gilded flowers.
    This was no trifle. I breathed out slowly, lifting the gift so that the candlelight glimmered along its length. I looked again at the letter and the lovely beads, which I allowed to slide again from my hand to be caught by the fullness of my skirts.
    And there was Mistress Saxby beside me, with her world-weary smile.
    Has he given you a gift? If he does it shows he had designs on your respectability
.
    So I should refuse any such gift?
    I’d say accept any gift he makes you. It may well be that it is the sign of a true regard, if he is willing to spend money on you and he has matched the gift well to your inclination
.
    He had given me a rosary. He knew that such a gift would be close to my heart.
    Unless he merely wishes to lure you into his bed
. Mistress Saxby was still needling with her observations.
    But a rosary, with its exquisitely carved silver crucifix. Did he make light of my strong faith, which would make the position of mistress, no matter how important the lover, anathema? Were these gifts, a string of beads, a purse of coin and a preserved heart, nothing more than lures to buy my compliance?
    Or was he concerned merely to give me what I needed? What would please me?
    How could I discover the answers to such impossible questions? For the briefest of moments I covered my face with my hands, then knelt upright and squared my shoulders.
    â€˜Dear Hugh, I want you to know. I honoured you. I was loyal to you in thought and deed through all the years of our marriage. But…forgive me.’ I stuffed the letter and beads back into my overgown and placed my hand flat on the carved coffer lid. ‘I was never unfaithful to you. I was a good wife. But now…’
    And because I could no longer stay there in that holy place with my thoughts in such wanton turmoil I stood, genuflected and hurried out.
    Will God punish us for snatching at happiness in a world that brings a woman precious little of it?
    I pushed Mistress Saxby’s questionable wisdom aside, but shame and desire kept joint pace with me. Returned to the manor, I made excuses—I knew not what—to Agnes and Master Ingoldsby and took refuge behind the closed door of my chamber.
    And there, for the first time for almost eight years I allowed thoughts of John of Lancaster to flood in without restraint, and take possession. This was the man. This was what he meant to me.
    I stood by the head of my bed, in the shadow of the thick damask hangings, once a lustrous blue, worn and faded now into a uniform greyness. I stood as if I were an onlooker, for the walls of my chamber grew dim in my sight, to be replaced with the rich severity of the chapel at The Savoy where I had been wed to Hugh.
    How powerful memory could be. Instead of the dusty silence of my chamber, broken only by occasional rustles and cheeps from the singing finches in their cage, bright little birds that I had bought for Margaret’s amusement,the scene was peopled with faces and figures from the past that I knew well, a little gathering to celebrate an old and sacred rite. The candles were bright, the high quality wax perfumed with incense, the altar heavy with gold, but it was a quiet, intimate scene, without display as was fitting. I, fourteen years old and newly delivered of my daughter, stood with the child in my arms.
    It was as if I had stepped into the ceremony already underway with prayers said and promises made. With the appropriate words, the priest lifted the infant from me, allowing the linen covering to fall to the floor, before lowering her into the font where the shock of the cold water caused her to drag in a breath and expel it in a cry of pure anguish. Her hands beat on the water, her dark eyes wide and staring with distress, and I, new mother as I was, was stricken.
    It was the Duke, standing as my child’s