Lady of the Garter (The Plantagenets Book 4) Read online

  Lady of the Garter

  JULIET DYMOKE

  THREE CASTLES MEDIA

  First published in Great Britain in 1979 by Nel Books

  This edition published in 2016 by Three Castles Media Ltd.

  Three Castles Media Ltd

  Copyright © 2016 Juliet Dymoke

  The moral right of Juliet Dymoke to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

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  Jacket design by Fourteen TwentyThree

  The main character in this book is a work of fiction and the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Other names, characters,

  businesses, organizations and places are based on actual historical events. In such cases, every effort has been made to make such information as accurate as possible.

  Three Castles Media Ltd hereby exclude all liability to the extent permitted by law for any errors or omissions in this book and for any loss, damage or expense (whether direct or indirect) suffered by a third party relying on any information contained in this book.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  There was a maze of yew bushes in the garden at Woodstock high enough to be a safe trysting place for lovers and here Joan Plantagenet came after the dinner hour. Her mother would be dozing, the Countess of Salisbury was busy with the reeve, the other children playing in the gallery, and it was a good time to slip out unnoticed. She let her hair fall a little loose from its white veil, rubbed at her lips to give them colour, and under her tight-bodiced gown she pushed forward her young breasts to give herself more the shape of a woman. She felt herself truly a woman, and in love, but at not quite thirteen she knew she lacked the poise of the countess or the oddly mysterious knowledge of her mother, the Lady Margaret. She envied them their assurance and she wished she understood the whisperings of the Countess's women, Agnes Soughden and Mary Pique. They talked always of men and laughed at her for not knowing what they meant. She did not guess at the truth of their jealousy nor did her steel mirror reveal to her the extent of her dawning beauty. Only she must be beautiful, she thought, for Tom to have looked at her in that strange way last night, his brown eyes eager as they held hers.

  She made her way into the first line of bushes and knowing the maze well came easily to the centre. He was not there and she clasped her hands together in momentary anguish. Perhaps he could not come, would not come. Perhaps it had all been a moment's folly, the hot squeeze of his hand in the dance last night, and the urgent whispered request for this meeting. Why had he asked to see her alone? And had she been foolish to come? She wondered whether to wait or to run back to the palace before her absence was noticed. She would be shamed if Tom Holland was teasing her, laughing at her youthful innocence in keeping this tryst. Perhaps he had drunk too deep at supper last night and made mere play with her? Yet somehow she did not think so. Of late he had sought her company, made his way to her side when the hawks were out, laughed with her at the jester in the evening, his attitude subtly changed, or so it seemed to her. Yet what did she know of such things?

  She ran her fingers along the dark green of the yew, pulling the leaves from a stem with the old rhyme 'he loves me, he loves me not'. That brief contact of last night seemed to separate her from the child she had been yesterday. Most of that childhood had been spent here with her royal cousins, she and Edward out-racing the little princesses, to Isabella's fury and the gentler Joanna's sighs, and the Countess called her a hoyden. Well, she could not be a hoyden any more for she had recently flowered into womanhood, or at least that was how her mother had put it. And she wanted to give her love, this first hot, inexplicable feeling that robbed her of her appetite and filled her with longing, to Tom Holland. Where it might lead she could not begin to think; her mind was filled only with the ardour she had seen in his face last night. Yet he was not here.

  In a gesture of despair she threw the torn yew leaves on the ground, turned to go, and found herself wrapped in his arms, his step so silent that she heard nothing.

  'Lady,' he said and his voice was low and eager, 'lady, do you know how beautiful you are become, how desirable?'

  'Master Holland!' She endeavoured to keep her voice steady. 'Indeed you should not – I ought not to have come.'

  He laughed. 'What is this? Master Holland? Who have I ever been to you and the children but Tom?'

  It was true. He had romped with them all, cheerful and popular, since the day he had come to the Salisbury household; but now it was all changed, Joan thought, for he was not playing and though he smiled down at her there was a look in his face that sent shivers of anticipation through her. He bent towards her and began to kiss her. At first his lips were gentle and caressing and she stood tensely, longing to respond yet not knowing how, half eager, half fearful. Then as fear or modesty, she was not sure which, caused her to try to draw back a little, his arms tightened, his fingers caressing the back of her neck until she felt herself stir responsively and she reached up towards him. Then he grew more intense, his mouth more searching. At last he raised his head. 'Joan,' he said and she thought his voice sounded thick as men's did when they had drunk too much, yet there was no taste of wine on his lips. 'Joan, I said last night I loved you and I meant it. I must have you.'

  She was trembling, and feeling herself greatly daring, reached her fingers into his black curling hair. 'How, Tom, how? My mother – the Countess – you know they want me to wed William . . .'

  He stopped her incoherence with two fingers placed on her lips. 'My heart, I know all that. But a thing done cannot be undone.'

  'What do you mean?' she whispered. 'Are you asking me to be your – your mistress, so that I must marry to hide my shame? Tom, I could not do that.'

  He held her away from him, looking down at her. She was eight years younger than he and she seemed to him part woman, part child. 'Sweet Jesu, would I love you truly if I asked that of you?'

  'They say sometimes it is all men want of a maid. Marriage is for other reasons.’

  'Oh, wise one!' His eyes were alight with amusement. 'Do you know men so well?'

  'I don't know them at all.' A deep flush stained her cheeks.

  'Then I must teach you.'

  'But not to my shame. Mary Pique slips out of the bower at night sometimes and once she had to go to an evil woman to get a potion to rid her of her sin. It made her sick and the Countess beat her.'

  Tom began to laugh. 'Foolish child. Do you think I would want that for you?'

  She hid her face against his chest, her cheek against the blue velvet of his jacket. 'How should I know?'

  'Sweeting,' Tom raised her face, 'I want to wed you – surely you understand that? Would you take me for your husband?'

  'Yes, oh yes!'

  'Then we must not fear, however difficult it is. It is not the way marriages are made, I grant you, and the King may have plans for you but –'

  'The King? Oh!' She gave a gasp. 'I had not thought – Tom, he would not permit it, I'm sure. I am – ' She broke off again, blushing even more deeply.

  'I know,' he said, the smile gone from his eyes. 'You are his cousin, the grand-daughter of King Edward I, while I am plai
n Tom Holland. But even if my father added no lustre to our name, I mean to make my way, to serve the King and rise in the world.'

  Vaguely she remembered having heard that Sir Robert Holland had shilly-shallied between King Edward and his enemy the Earl of Lancaster in their bitter quarrels. Sir Robert had ended up by drawing ignominy from both sides, but what did that matter to her? It was Tom, here and vitally alive, who mattered. 'I would not care,' she said, 'if you came from the meanest manor in England.'

  He gave her a swift kiss. 'Dear love! But we must be practical. The King is going to fight the French soon and I may have my chance. When I can approach him with honour and my spurs perhaps he will look kindly on us. And maybe you could speak with her grace.'

  'Perhaps,' she said doubtfully. 'I was only two when the Queen adopted me and she is always so gentle. But my mother has ambitions for me, I know that, and the Countess wishes me for her daughter-in-law.'

  'William is a good fellow, but he's only a boy and she will find him another bride. You don't love him, do you?' The words were spoken half teasingly, and with his arms holding her firmly, his cheek against hers, there was no resistance in her. She felt young and afraid, yet her body was responding in a manner utterly new to this robust young man who wooed her so persuasively.

  'I love only you,' she whispered, 'only you, Tom, but I am afraid.'

  'There's naught to fear,' he said, 'not if we are together.'

  She supposed he was right, but to defy all the rules of convention, to flout the wishes of her mother, of her governors the Earl and Countess of Salisbury, let alone the possible wishes of the King himself, was enough to terrify a girl not yet thirteen. And yet here was Tom looking down at her with adoration in his brown eyes, his warm hands on her shoulders, his mouth hovering over hers, and she knew suddenly that she would brave anything for him.

  'I will wed you,' she whispered, 'whenever you can arrange it.'

  His kiss was less gentle this time, evoking wild sensations. 'I'll find a way, leave it to me and don't fret, my little love. I'll not let harm come of this and when I have made my fortune you shall have an emerald ring for a betrothal in May.'

  'But we can't be betrothed.' She was half scared, half exalted by this tide that was carrying her away, and she added, dredging up a childish excuse to escape something that she nevertheless wanted so desperately, 'some say it is unlucky to plight one's troth in May.'

  'Never believe that,' he said, laughing. 'May is the best time of all with the summer to come. Didn't I make you a garland on Mayday?'

  She nodded. That was only a few weeks ago when she and all the royal nursery had gone out into the lovely woods beyond Woodstock – Prince Edward and William de Montague racing each other among the pale green beeches, Isabel and the younger children kept firmly in charge by their nurses, while she, the eldest by two years, had turned aside to gather an armful of primroses and bluebells and white windflowers. Tom had come after her and taken the flowers to weave her a little crown. Later she had pressed it under a heavy book, seldom opened, and it was there now, dead and flattened, but the colours still clear, blue and yellow, white and green.

  He put up a hand to touch her cheek, sharing the memory. 'You and I are in our Maytime, beloved.'

  She believed him, her hand entwined in his. 'But it is only our promise to each other, Tom, no more.'

  He said nothing, and if she had been more experienced she might have understood his expression, the determination, the need flitting cross his face. As it was she went on, the words tumbling out, 'I must go back. I've been gone too long. Dame Phoebe will wonder – let me go first.'

  His answer was to catch her to him once more and for a moment she felt as if her knees would give way, so great was her love for him, a love that seemed to her to have come straight from the tales of King Arthur which she had been reading to Isabel only last night.

  Then, as suddenly, he let her go and laughed. 'My darling, you do not know what delights are in store for us. We shall be such lovers, you and I, when your body is mine. Your heart I have now, I think.'

  'Oh yes, yes!' The fugitive colour deepened in her cheeks and then she turned and ran from the maze.

  Emerging, she thought she must walk more sedately as if nothing had happened with those green hedges, for there might be eyes at the windows of the great turreted palace of Woodstock. Once a simple hunting lodge, it had been enlarged to become a favourite royal residence, and as she walked across the grass she glanced at the tower by the gate. The famous and beautiful Rosamund Clifford, the adored mistress of Henry II, had lived there, and with the taste and feel of Tom's kisses still on her lips Joan was caught up in wonder that she too should know such love. What did it matter that he was a simple steward not yet knighted while she was among the most nobly born ladies at the court?

  She had come to the pools, three of them with water falling one into the other, the spikes of water lilies yet to flower showing above green depths, and she leaned forward to look at her reflection. Tom had said she was beautiful and gazing down she saw rich auburn hair so thick and curling it had to be coaxed into plaits, heavily-lashed blue-grey yes, a straight nose and a wide mouth, and Dame Phoebe had told her she was fortunate to have skin like the feel of velvet. She wished she did not colour so easily, so that at one moment she could be pale, at another sense a deep pink suffusing her cheeks. They were still flushed now and she put up one hand, remembering how Tom's fingers had run down to the slope of her neck, how her skin had tingled beneath his touch. She was still gazing into the water so intently that when a voice broke the silence she jumped up, startled as a fawn.

  Her cousin Edward stood behind her, hands on his hips, the sun glinting on hair of Plantagenet gold, and his blue eyes were snapping with excitement. With him were two other boys, arm in arm. 'We've been looking for you,' Edward said. 'Where have you been?'

  'Walking,' Joan retorted with surprising ease. 'I don't want to be always with the children.'

  Edward grinned at her, knowing she did not include him in this statement although he was two years her junior. 'We've escaped from our tutors, haven't we, Roger? Simon will get the first beating.'

  'He always does,' she agreed. She had grown up with these boys; they were like brothers to her and in her eyes infinitely preferable to her own.

  The dark boy, Roger Mortimer, picked up a stone and threw it into the pool, scattering some young carp, but said nothing while Simon Burley, their tutor's nephew, shrugged his shoulders. He was a gangling lad with tow-coloured hair and an amiable nature that nothing could ruffle. 'I'm used to being beaten for his grace,' he said resignedly. 'Anyway, what's a caning? We want to know what is to happen,' he explained to Joan, 'and my uncle would not interrupt the lesson to let us hear.'

  Edward pulled out a parchment that was stuck in his belt. 'My father writes he is to sail soon for Flanders and I am to be Regent and head of the Council while he is gone.'

  'That doesn't mean anything.' His sister Isabel, hot from her chase after the boys, joined them in time to hear the last words. 'You're only ten, you can't do anything.'

  Edward looked down his long nose at her. 'I am my father's heir. They must listen if I choose to speak.'

  Isabel burst out laughing. 'All the best men will go to war with father. You'll be left with the grey­beards and have Archbishop Stratford shaking his head at you.'

  'Oh be still,' he said. 'Don't you want to hear what our lord says? I wouldn't read it to them until we found you,' he added to Joan and opened the paper. 'He writes in French. I suppose he thinks my Latin is a burden to me – like Burley's lessons, to be taken as physic three times a day.'

  'Do read it, brother,' Isabel begged impatiently. 'Everyone knows that because of Grande Dame father has a better claim to the throne of France than Philip of Valois, but is he really going to try to take it at last? Oh,' her eyes lit, 'then I should have every prince in Europe seeking my hand.'

  'As if that was more important than the war!'


  Edward scoffed. 'He writes that it is a just war. The Flemish people will uphold our cause – of course they will, mother is one of them – and he talks of betrothing me to one of the Count's daughters, but that's nothing to the point now. There's a great fleet ready to take our soldiers across the water.'

  'Am I going to Flanders?' Isabel asked. 'Mother did say –'

  'No, you're all to stay here, except me. Mother will stay in Ghent until after the baby is born. I hope it's a boy. I've enough sisters.' He dodged a cuff from Isabel who plumped herself down on the grass, scowling.

  'It isn't fair. I would have liked to see all those great ships and the knights and horses going on board. I shall ask if I may go and stay with Grande Dame while you are gone. At least that will be less tiresome than staying here. She's always arguing with those fat burghers in Lynn or quarrelling with her neighbours about something.'

  Joan gave an involuntary shiver. She had known the Dowager Queen Isabella all her life but every time the plump, rather irritable woman who was the King's mother came to court from her retirement in Castle Rising, Joan regarded her with something like horror. It was whispered that Queen Isabella with her lover, Roger's grandfather, had been responsible for the murder of her own husband, King Edward. Some folk said her son only held his hand from investigating the facts fully for the sake of her honour. And it was certainly true she and Mortimer had ordered the execution of Joan's own father on a palpably false charge when Joan was only two years old. He had been Edmund, Earl of Kent, and half-brother to the murdered King, and Joan hated the old Queen for that wicked deed.

  'I would not want to go to Castle Rising,' she said. 'Don't ask if I may go with you, Isabel.'

  'I won't,' Isabel was beginning when her brother broke in.

  'They won't let you anyway. You're still in the nursery.'