10 The Forbidden Queen by Anne O'Brien

Author:Anne O'Brien
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781472010230
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2013-03-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

I fretted, shaking with anxieties, and with fears that built like a thundercloud. Not knowing where Edmund was, I wasted no time in struggling with a pen but sent a courier to Westminster with a verbal message. I must see him.

The days passed, with no word forthcoming from Gloucester or either of the Beauforts. My courier returned empty handed with no news other than Edmund was not at Westminster. All I could do was wait, and worry, the final clash in my verbal bout with Gloucester resounding in my mind.

You cannot prevent us.

Can I not? We’ll see about that.

And so we would. Caught up in the vicious battle with Bishop Henry for power over the Royal Council, Gloucester was set on bringing the Beauforts down. That much I now saw. Perhaps it had not been politic of me to challenge him with his own salacious dabblings in marriage, but it was a wound too late to remedy. I prayed that the desirable Mistress Cobham, commoner though she might be, would sweeten her lover’s temper.

‘I’ll go to Westminster myself,’ I announced, when I could bear the silence no longer, when my feet had all but worn a path to the high vantage point of the Winchester Tower. Madam Joanna had left Windsor for her favoured residence of Havering-atte-Bower even before Gloucester’s arrival, so there was no solace to be had from her calm view of the world.

‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ Alice replied gruffly, when I expressed my intention. ‘Keep a low profile and it might all be swept onto the midden.’ And, with luck, Edmund Beaufort too. I could read her unspoken thoughts but refused to respond. But we both knew it would not happen. The conflict between Gloucester and Bishop Henry had gone far beyond tolerance sealed with a handshake, reaching a climax when Beaufort troops had refused Gloucester access to the Tower of London. The outrage of the royal duke knew no bounds.

‘A pity you could not see your way to be enamoured with a man without name or ambition,’ Alice remarked caustically. ‘If you had, the Council might just leave you alone to be happy.’

I knew that to be a falsehood too. ‘If I had demanded to wed a man without consequence, the Council would object that he was not sufficiently well connected,’ I remarked tartly, weary of it all. ‘Marriage to a commoner would damage my integrity as Queen Dowager. They will not allow me to wed a nobody.’ I frowned. ‘Besides, it’s Edmund I love.’

Alice opened her mouth to reply, then shut it.

‘I do,’ I insisted. ‘I love him and he loves me.’

‘As your ladyship says.’

‘I know what you are thinking. Madam Joanna thinks the same,’ I interrupted the unspoken slight on our love. ‘Edmund’s regard for me is genuine. I am convinced of it. He would not ask me to marry him if he did not love me.’

Alice’s lips tightened, as they did when she reprimanded Young Henry for some lack of courtesy. ‘You might ask yourself, my lady, what he would gain from such a union.

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