Bishop Stillington was weak as a rabbit kitten from whatever foul dose had been given him but his heartbeat slowly strengthened. By Monday, he was returning to the brawnier Yorkshire dialect of his childhood, babbling of stealing birds’ eggs at Nether Acaster, but slowly as he whetted his mind on reminiscences, his intellect sharpened. Why would anyone wish to poison him?

‘Were you the shepherdess that sang me back into the earthly fold?’ he asked Heloise. ‘Methinks I was carried by gryphons from my prison, but I suppose it was a dream.’

‘Actually …’ began Heloise. Out tumbled the events of Stony Stratford and the cockatrice. Then, emboldened by the bishop’s dry chortle, she confessed the swordpoint marriage within his diocese and that the chief gryphon was her reluctant bridegroom. Stillington soaked in her tale without a comment, but when Rushden came to visit, the old man studied him with new-grown suspicion as though he might sprout feathers again.

‘Well, my lord bishop,’ drawled Harry, joining Miles next day at the bishop’s bedside. They were alone – Heloise was keeping well clear of Buckingham. ‘I daresay you are feeling more secure about your future now, seeing that the Woodvilles are finished.’

Stillington, propped upon the pillow and bolster, hands limp upon the coverlet, stared at him as though he were an insubstantial mirage over a summer ocean.

‘Who rules this realm is of little consequence to me.’ He did not move his coiffed head, but spoke it like a litany.

“Your pardon, bishop, but that is not the answer I want.’ Harry met Miles’s ironic glance. ‘Dear me, Cysgod, I thought you told me he was sane.’ They watched the bishop’s watery blue gaze rise to evaluate the last lawful heir of the House of Lancaster. Perhaps he did not respect the murrey satin doublet with silver thread acorns and the beading of pearls, for he looked away as though Harry bored him.

‘Did you know our bishop was once Lord Chancellor?’ whispered the duke in mock confidence across the coverlet. ‘I never thought he would become so mouse-like.’

Stillington folded his lips tighter, staring stubbornly at the coverlet. ‘Have I unwittingly committed some offence against you, Buckingham? You have my thanks for dragging me back from my body’s doomsday. Is that not enough?’

‘We have helped you, my lord bishop,’ Miles threw in his pennyworth. ‘We should now like you to help us.’

Harry leaned forward. ‘We have the queen muzzled but, of course, there is not the slightest doubt that if she regains her authority she will have you killed, bishop – thoroughly this time. Why? What is it you know?’

The old man glowered. ‘I was friend to Clarence. Will that suffice? You headed the peers that sat in judgment on him. You heard the testimonies.’

‘But they proved so insufficient that King Edward ordered us to condemn him? Why, Stillington?’ Within the generosity of the night robe’s sleeves, the bishop’s hands were agitated. Harry leaned forward. ‘What was the secret that Clarence died for?’

The grey head drooped. Keep at him, Miles gestured. The arguments were his, but the performance had to be Harry’s.

The duke’s tone softened: ‘Gloucester is a good man, righteous, compassionate. You helped him when he was a youth. He needs your help more than ever now. Will you advise him if I bring him here? Tell him what he needs to know?’

It was whistling in the wind. Miles held his breath as Stillington ran a tongue nervously over cracked lips like a waiting reptile. Harry fidgeted.

The wrinkled Adam’s apple moved finally. ‘A pretty speech, your grace. Some day you may grow famous for your silver tongue. Tell me, is this altruism in you, my lord of Buckingham, or is it the Bohun inheritance that you covet? The Lord Protector cannot give you manors for your friends when he has insufficient to reward his own.’ God’s truth, the old man was shrewd. He guessed that Harry wanted to play the kingmaker. The ancient gaze crawled over Miles’s face like a foul spider, but his question was for Buckingham. ‘Or is this merely revenge?’

‘Why deny it?’ Harry stormed to the foot of the bed. ‘The Woodvilles are parasites, bishop, crawling to riches through the bedclothes.’ Miles frowned at Harry. Perhaps they should come back later – let the arguments mature – but the duke strode back to the bedside. ‘I think about the future, Stillington, the Woodville future. Our new king will be even more a pawn than his father was. Elizabeth Woodville will rule England and when her poison is once more congealing in your belly, it will be my turn to kneel down at the block, and Gloucester’s, and our sons’ after us, not to mention Clarence’s boy.’ The bedchamber was silent. ‘Well, Stillington?’ Harry rasped. ‘I need an answer.’

‘I shall pray for guidance, my lord duke,’ the ecclesiastic replied perversely. ‘It is God’s matter.’

‘It is England’s matter, I believe,’ said Miles to them both, making an end of the conversation as he unlatched the door and bowed.

‘So do I get an accolade for “silver tongue”, my friend?’ Harry flung his arm about Miles’s shoulder as they landed ebulliently on the bottom stair.

‘You deserve the Holy Roman Empire.’ Miles grinned as their horses were brought to them across the courtyard. ‘I doubted whether there was actually any secret at all, but there is, there plaguey well is.’

‘You were right. He was worth the expense.’

‘I think, my lord, you should stir Gloucester into the Stillington brew. Shall you go to Crosby Place straightway before the council meeting starts and apprise his grace?’

‘Yes, but do you not intend to accompany me?’

‘Not yet, my lord, I crave leave to transact some business of my own.’ A caravel named Heloise and it was high tide.

Heloise had not meant to drowse, and the dream must have lasted but a few moments – a dream of a lord, clad in black, dragged struggling from a mighty keep by soldiers. They threw him to the ground and his sleeves crawled like spider’s legs as he fell forwards, and then a bell struck thirteen times.

St Mary Magdalene’s in Old Fish Street was tolling a funeral bell as Heloise awoke, shivering. For an instant, she was uncertain where she was, for the anguish of the prisoner in her dream was still with her. The scavenging kites flying westward over Baynards drew her gaze; their cries had been in her dream too.

‘Heloise, are you ill?’ Rushden stepped out from beneath the mulberry tree.

With a swift denial, she rose, disliking the edge of misgiving in his expression. How long had he stood there? She shook her head, warming beneath the male discerning eyes that were observing her black gown and the stiff reversed front of her cap – silver taffeta that helped disguise her hairline.

He smiled slowly in the maddening way he sometimes had. ‘I wondered if you might like to come and see Crosby Place.’

Gloucester’s London hive? Heloise brightened. ‘As a reward for stuffing cushions up my girdle, sir?’

‘Something like that.’ The hand held out to her assumed her obedience; she did not mind.

‘You realise,’ she pointed out, ‘that all this associating with me is verging on the scandalous.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ushering her towards the stable. ‘Suffice it to say that tail pulling of the noble-and-flattered has some appeal.’

‘I suppose you will not bother to explain that.’

‘Absolutely not,’ and his brigand’s smile tightened the band already round her heart.

The bells for ten o’clock at Crosby Place in Bishopsgate had not yet struck, and Miles had plentiful time to escort Heloise up to the minstrel gallery to watch the royal council assemble below. A chair of estate dominated the long trestle that had been set up down the length of the hall with benches either side.

‘Oh, this is wonderful,’ exclaimed Heloise, tapping her fingers on the rail, her doelike eyes wide with admiration.

‘A gracious dwelling, is it not?’ He was heartened that she beamed at him like an excited child, sharing his pleasure in the lovely symmetry. Unlike other lords, Gloucester kept no house of his own in London. He always rented Crosby Place.

The house, built in the 1460s on wool money, lay on three sides of a courtyard – a great hall and private apartments facing the chapel, kitchen and buttery. At the back was a large garden, protected by a high, crenellated wall. For Miles, the beauty of the dwelling was stolen by the magnificent, five-sided oriel window, set in a framework of wondrous stone tracery, built into the great hall’s southern wall. He watched with pleasure the sunlight surging in through the lozenged glass to play warmly on the black and white Purbeck tiles and the matching clustered councillors. Above the window’s soaring bay, a boss embellished with a crest and helm embroiled the stone ribs that fanned across the arches of the windows into a soft-edged stone sun. Opposite the oriel window was a large wall fireplace. There was a central stone hearth, too, for standing braziers in wintertime. Beams rose with perfect grace to meet each other lovingly beneath gold-leafed bosses. Nor was the hall bereft of hangings fit for a great lord’s pleasure: a French hunting tapestry, its colours glowing against the whitewashed masonry, brightened the parlour wall behind the chair of estate. The sheer perfection of it all started him thinking what changes could be made at Bramley.

‘A pity Bramley is so lofty,’ remarked Heloise disconcertingly. ‘This hall is spacious and yet intimate.’

‘Different purpose and newer, too,’ he answered, disturbed that she might actually have read his mind. ‘Word is that Crosby never actually lived here. Mayhap he overstretched himself. A Lucchese banker, Antonio Bonvice, owns it now.’

‘It is perfect.’ Heloise sparkled, bringing her palms together in sheer exuberance.

Why did she have to be so lovely? It took all Miles’s strength of will to wrench his gaze from her moist parted lips. He should not be standing with her in the common gaze. She was arousing too much attention and she was arousing him. He cursed, wanting to steal his seductive madonna-in-mourning away to a bedchamber and peel the black damascened silk away, inch by inch. He forced himself to stare instead at the lords, spiritual and temporal, amassing below, gratified that there were plenty of lesser nobility like himself diluting the assembly.

‘Others like yourself, sir?’ Hell take her! She must be reading his mind. He frowned at Heloise’s profile and then let out his breath with a self-conscious grin. If the lady was actually tapping into his head, then she should have been blushing, but there were only healthy smudges of rose along her cheekbones.

‘Yes, ability riding on the back of lordly mediocrity for the most part, though I admit some of them were born with brains as well as titles.’

‘Just as well they are talking too loudly to hear you,’ she laughed. ‘Are there any Woodvilles?’ He shook his head. With two in sanctuary, three in prison, one at sea and Dorset, who had been tracked by dogs out on Moorfields, now in hiding, the queen had no glib defenders on the council. He did a swift calculation of how many councillors might still support her.

‘Counting heads for the dukes?’ Heloise’s soft chiding broke through his reverie.

‘Mistress, will you stop—’ He broke off. Lord Hastings had entered the hall and glancing up at the gallery, recognised Miles.

‘Dear God, who is he?’ Heloise’s sunshine pleasure vanished. ‘That man nodding to you?’

‘Ogling you, morelike, madam. The famous Lord Hastings. You might say he was to King Edward what I am to Buckingham.’ Another cysgod.

Heloise stared wide-eyed at the great lord who had summoned the two dukes into alliance against the queen. ‘D-does he always wear sleeves like that?’ The lower ends of the lord chamberlain’s mourning sleeves had been slashed, from heel to mid-calf level, into equal strips, each edged with gold embroidery.

Miles tried to make light of her change of humour. ‘Italian, I should not wonder. Stand here for much longer and you will see him goose a passing maidservant. Keep a league from him, changeling, or he will charm your underlinen off you.’

Heloise gripped the rail to steady herself. Lord Hastings had been the beleaguered victim in her dream! Mercy Jesu! Was she meant to warn or prevent … She watched the late king’s friend move affably through the hall bestowing greetings until he drew level with Buckingham, who had just come in to take his seat to the right of the chair. The air vibrated with mutual jealousy.

‘Do those two know one another well?’ she asked.

‘Harry and Hastings? Well enow. From what I have gathered, Hastings was one of the few who took pity on Harry when he was a pageboy in the queen’s household.’

And haughty Buckingham might have wanted help, but he would have loathed pity. A man who did not like sharing, thought Heloise, wishing now that Rushden had not brought her here. The interplay beneath the gallery was dangerous and the man at her side was revelling in it as though it were a chess game.

‘And which bishop is that?’ she asked sharply. A broad episcopal hat and dewlapped chin perimetered the shrewd face that perused them for a moment, before the man turned his head to observe Hastings and Buckingham with a thoughtful intensity.

‘Morton, Bishop of Ely. He gave up his Lancastrian allegiance in ’71 and became one of King Edward’s councillors.’

Unease tensed Heloise’s body. ‘I do not care for him.’ Like a sentry under fire, she jerked out of the bishop’s range of sight and retreated against a solid door between the tapestries. As if gasping for air, she leaned back, eyes closed.

‘What did you see?’ Against his own will, Miles was beginning to acknowledge her damnable abilities.

‘No. Dear God, I—’ Eyelids lifting, she swallowed uncomfortably at him watching her. ‘I can feel their thoughts.’

Miles’s interest quickened, even though the hairs of his head prickled at such evil. He had not been meant to play the confidant, but some presentiment had overwhelmed her cautiousness. ‘Tell me.’ The words came hoarsely as he watched the glassiness of her gaze return to normal.

‘Feelings. All scrambled.’ Her hand slid up defensively to her throat as if shielding her heart.

‘Are you telling me that you can stare at Morton and reach his thoughts?’ he whispered fiercely, his fingers curling round her cuff.

‘No, no. Their emotions. Greed, envy, fear.’

‘Can you look at each?’

‘To forewarn you?’ Contempt turned down her lips and her answer was vehement. ‘Not for all the gold in Christendom!’ Then fear shimmered, misting her eyes. ‘Your pardon. I should not have spoken so.’

Horrified at her sudden terror of him and at the ancient fear deep within his own being, Miles grabbed her chin, compelling her to look at him. His rational mind rebelled against the superstition urging him to recoil from her. ‘And I? What am I feeling?’

Delicate lashes, with a patina of rainbow, fluttered down in panic. ‘Do not burn me,’ she pleaded, colour seeping back into her pansy face.

So she knew how much he dreaded her other worldliness. ‘It is you who make me burn, changeling.’ His kindness was a visor, hiding the rapid prayers within, and confused by his own emotions, he walked across to the rail, leaving her uncomforted.

‘So it is true,’ the door gave way behind her and Heloise, righting herself, looked up horrified into John Dokett’s satisfied face.

‘Miles,’ she called out in panic, and Rushden turned.

‘Dr Dokett?’ he frowned.

‘Sir Miles.’ The priest inclined his head in greeting and with a tight smile at his prey, disappeared down the stairs.

‘Heloise?’

She was shaking. ‘He – he overheard what I said.’

‘So?’ Rushden made no move to comfort her. ‘You are Gloucester’s ward.’

‘It is not enough. He – Oh Christ, he wants to put me to the torture, I know it.’

‘And you just accused me of that too. Be rational. Is this the courageous knight of Potters Field, hmm?’ She nodded, trying to be brave. ‘That is better.’

Below, the benches scraped to the table; Gloucester had arrived. The guards’ pikes clanked into vigilance outside the lower entrances. ‘Time to go.’ He put an arm about her shoulders and led her towards the stairs.

In the lower passageway, Heloise turned. ‘You do not attend the duke?’ she asked huskily, in an attempt to restore normality between them, but his eyes narrowed.

Miles knew she had not intended to rile him. He had his own means of ensuring the decisions beyond the defended doors; today’s arguments had already been raised last night like targets for Harry to practise upon and the right words sat in the quiver waiting to be loosed. But no, he was not permitted in the council chamber – not yet, unless he chose to play at secretary.

‘I-I should like to inquire whether my sister will be coming to London with her grace.’

‘Of course, an excellent notion.’

To cheer her and safeguard his own sanity, he left Heloise talking with Gloucester’s steward, and made his way alone to the garden in search of solitude. His reluctant wife’s uncanny ability to show his thoughts back to him like a watery reflection disturbed him. If his mind could not stay free of her, might she not enslave him in time, invade his brain by stealth until he knew not whether they were his thoughts or hers that impelled him? What if Dokett hauled her before the church courts?

Air warm and languorous with the perfume of honeysuckle and lavender soothed him as he traversed the cloistered gallery that ran below the duke’s apartments, and he stepped down into a haven that was momentarily free of power-broking or, mercifully, Heloise’s unsettling presence. Beyond a stone wall, too high for enterprising thieves, the slate roof of St Helen’s was bright with sunlight and he heard the sweet voices of the Black nuns creating hills and vales of music for God’s pleasure. This part of the garden was an earthly delight, designed for dalliance and planted with flowers to perfume the air and seduce the senses. Miles passed a fluted birdbath and strode beyond a flowerbed brimming with lilies of the valley to the heart of the garden, a small, fashionable mede bright with white daisies and yellow cowslips, enclosed by a low oak lath trellis heavy with white roses. Crabapple blossom dappled the path and, in the southern corner, a grapevine twined into a canopy above a raised turf seat. Miles did not linger. The gravel path beckoned him beneath an arch, past spiked broom and hawthorn and a flowerbed ready for planting, where someone had left a lady’s waterpot, before he came to the furthest corner hidden by a laurel hedge. There, casting his sleeves back, he sat down, loath to bend his mind to strategies. A ladybird in Stafford colours landed on his shirt cuff and he watched it idly, listening to the plainsong and a blackbird’s descant until the new sound of dibbing from the other side of the laurel hedge invaded his privacy.

Investigating, Miles paled. It was not a gardener but a gentlewoman, and he had a sense of time reversing like a cart. Heloise’s sister knelt, a cloth tucked protectively over her mourning gown, planting seedlings. Sensing herself observed, she raised flirtatious eyes, but recognising him, her amiability fled and she sprang to her feet, the dibber raised threateningly.

‘You!’ she snarled, springing up menacingly. ‘What have you done with my sister? By my soul, if you have done her harm, I will rend your face further, you vile man.’ The girl’s hair blazed gloriously but he felt no warmth for her.

‘Calm yourself! Denise, is it?’

‘Dionysia! If you have murdered her …’

‘Not yet,’ he answered coldly. ‘Despite temptation. What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, trying to allay the tedium,’ she retorted shrewishly as her ruffled feathers settled somewhat. ‘Part of the distaff force under Lady Percy, sent ahead by her grace of Gloucester to womanise this male demesne. We are expecting her within the week. Now perhaps you will answer me! Where is my sister?’ It gave him pleasure to walk away. The weapon was lowered but she chased after him. ‘Is she at Brecknock still? Answer me, you fiend!’

Not looking at her, he paused at the nearest doorway, praying for a corner untroubled by harpies, and nonchalantly stroked a gloved finger along the ribbed stone arching the door. ‘Middleham has not taught you better manners, Dionysia, but I shall see if it pleases her to come and speak to you.’

Oh it did! Delight brought out the sunshine in Heloise’s face as she almost skipped down the stairs to find her sister. Pleased, their go-between leaned out of the casement to watch the reunion.

‘Ah, Miles.’ He turned, annoyed to find Harry holding out a paper to him. ‘My notes of what the council discussed this morning. Let me have your comments by noon.’ The duke halted by the door, ‘Oh, by the way, Dokett still thinks it possible to arraign the Ballaster girl on witchcraft before the annulment arrives.’ Caution lowered his voice, ‘Can’t ruffle Gloucester’s feathers yet, but we should soon have her out of your hair for good. I will leave you to it.’

Stowing the note angrily into the breast of his doublet, Miles left the chamber a few minutes later and sent a page with a message to his groom. High tide.

Dokett was kneeling in the Duke of Gloucester’s private chapel – praying for his employers’ dead kinsmen was part of his duties. And he was alone. ‘Are you here for confession?’ he asked officiously as the door closed, not opening his eyes.

‘Yes, yours!’ In an instant, Miles had the quaking bigot flat-palmed against the wall.

‘R-Rushden?’ Dokett scowled at the eight inches of determined steel pressing into his throat. ‘Are you insane? I am the Lord Protector’s chaplain. How dare you – ooff.’

The air whooshed out of him as he was bounced against a different wall. ‘I do not care if you are chaplain to St Peter and St Paul,’ Miles told him with much satisfaction. ‘Slander Heloise Ballaster’s honour or her faith one more time, and you will not see sun rise.’

‘Oh, I understand you, yes.’ The priest pushed his arm away undaunted, rearranging his chasuble fastidiously. ‘I can read Satan in your eyes, I hear him in your voice. Holy Church destroys heretics and witches, and those who shelter them. I heard her confession to you just now.’

‘You think I jest.’ Miles strode to the altar and slammed his hand down upon the open Gospel, his gaze holding the priest’s eyes. ‘Did I not make myself clear? Bring charges against her and I swear in the name of Christ that I – will – have – you – killed.’

Dokett’s body might be rigid against the wooden panel, but he was watching Miles with all the ferocity of a cornered boar. ‘My Lord Protector and his grace of Canterbury will hear of this, Rushden. This land is not going to be godless anymore, do you hear me! Blasphemers like you will not go unpunished. I am not afraid of you.’ He ran for the door.

Miles hurled the dagger. The priest screamed in pain as it landed with a quivering hiss, snaring his hair beneath its blade. ‘Now do you believe me?’

Pinned to the door like a proclamation, Dokett shook, his skin bleached of blood. His eyes goggled, empty now of courage. ‘I believe you, yes.’ The priest held his breath as Miles wrenched the dagger loose, and then bolted as though all the demons in hell were after him.

Gloved applause wiped the satisfaction. ‘You have ruined the woodwork,’ drawled Sir Richard Huddleston. He was sitting on the colonnade wall outside, his arms folded.

‘How long have you been there?’

‘Long enough. His grace of Gloucester can be quite blind to people’s faults sometimes, but we all have our weaknesses.’ The lazy gaze seemed to say: and now I perceive yours. ‘You were rather precipitate. Dokett is on his way out. A month maybe.’ He sauntered across and ran a gloved finger over the damage and turned. ‘The Loathly Lady … She asked Sir Gawaine the question “What do women most desire?”’

‘Yes,’ answered Miles uncertainly. ‘I know the ballad.’

‘Well, there you have it. Good day, Sir Miles.’

It would be hard to discern who was more surprised, decided Heloise, as she confronted her aproned sibling. Returning Dionysia’s fragrant hug, she wondered with feminine perversity where her sister had acquired such expensive perfume.

‘You look like a skeleton, Heloise, but then you must have been desperate until Father – God rest his soul, though it’s unlikely – offered that loan to Gloucester before he died. You see, I know all about Northampton. The White Boar men are such sillies, too easily bled for gossip. Matillis and I had a wager as to whether you could seduce Rushden, but I suppose everything is settled between you now since you have the lion’s share of the inheritance, not that I begrudge you anything. Certes, you may have your churlish husband to yourself and good riddance, say I! Why, I do not believe there is a gracious bone in his body. I heard Matillis had a girlchild. Fortunate for us, thank God!’ A wonder she was not gasping for breath.

‘Matillis!’ echoed Heloise, her thoughts running the other way like panicked thieves. Loan? Lion’s share? Was that what people thought?

‘Tell me about our father’s funeral. Did Sir Hubert stay sober?’ It was a sure wager that Dionysia would interrupt Heloise’s account but astonishingly she listened. ‘Our father will be trying Satan’s patience now,’ she said when Heloise was finished. ‘But enow, what of the living? Has Rushden got you with child yet?’

‘Dionysia!’ Would a scathing glare be sufficient?

It was. Her sister gave a playful shrug and knelt back down. ‘So tell me this then,’ she separated a seedling from its fellows, ‘are the Welsh men hideous? Is it true they wear leeks in their hats? What is the duke like? I should so love to meet him. I hear he has a garden at Thornbury.’

How could Heloise have forgotten that Dionysia’s mind was planed in one direction? ‘Why are you so anxious to meet his grace of Buckingham?’

‘Because his grace may have some plants at Brecknock or Thornbury which might please her grace of Gloucester. Goodness, what other reason could I have?’ Heloise recognised the worldly purr in Dionysia’s tone. ‘Now there is a handsome fellow coming towards us. I wonder what he is worth.’

‘That is my lord of Buckingham,’ answered Heloise in a fierce whisper.

‘Saints be praised! Introduce me!’ But the duke’s shade had already fell across them. It was obligatory to curtsey.

‘Good day to you, my lady.’ It was a wasted breath for Heloise to answer; his interest was already captivated by the golden hair tumbling across her sister’s voluptuous satin curves. ‘What are you planting, demoiselle?’

‘Marigolds, sir, and I had best get on with it.’

No novice at this art, Dionysia knelt, offering him an over-generous view of her deep cleavage, and, with a coy smile, she stroked a seedling’s roots. Heloise helplessly looked on as the man fluttered like a hapless moth that could not see the web.

‘If you were not clearly somebody in authority, I should ask your help.’ The teasing allure stunned and held him like sticky threads.

‘Important, no.’ Unbelievably the duke went down on his haunches and tucked a plantling snugly into its hole.

‘You have the right hands for a gardener.’ Admiration oozed through every feminine syllable.

‘Are you the creator of all this?’

‘I wish I was, sir.’ Her sister dimpled and sat back on her heels. ‘I have not seen you here before. You do not talk like a northerner.’ Dionysia’s dab of Yorkshire dialect, making fun of the White Boar men, delighted Buckingham.

‘If I spoke like where I live, mistress, I should be encouraging you to plant leeks, see, fy mgeneth.’ The Welsh lilt was perfect.

‘Ha, one of Buckingham’s retinue, yes?’

He took the trowel from her and Dionysia protested: ‘You will get your hose dirty and your lord would not like that.’ The impertinence! Dear God, Heloise thought, folding her arms, one day her sister would charm the Devil to let her out of Hell.

‘No, mistress, his grace would not.’ The hour bell sounded and he rose, dusting the soil off his knees. ‘I wish I had time to stay longer, demoiselle. Believe me, this garden is a little haven.’

‘Only when the sun is shining, as it is now.’ Dionysia’s smile flattered him before she lowered her gaze in sultry fashion. The trowelling began again. He was dismissed.

His embarrassed gaze recalled Heloise’s presence and he touched his hat to her. They heard his boots crunch upon the path, hesitate and then they were alone again. Dionysia looked up, sucked in her cheeks and gave a familiar, irritating, knowing smirk.

‘Didie! That was blatant! How could you?’

‘We all have our ambitions, sister. If you think I am content to wed some boring braggart who thinks of naught but hunting, and expects me to whelp babes year after year …’

‘You would prefer to be a courtesan? Oh Jesu, Didie, not Buckingham, please, no.’

‘Yes, Buckingham, and do not try to stop me either, Heloise, prattling your foolish warnings like a Cassandra.’

It would be like telling the sun not to rise, sighed Heloise. Useless, then, to warn her that women were no better than food or drink to the man.

‘And here is your pitted millstone bowling towards us, sister. Does he hang heavy upon your neck?’

The loan! It was too late to ask Dionysia what she had meant and now Rushden would barrow her back to Baynards until the next time he felt like taking her down from the shelf to be revalued – or discarded. Pitted millstone! she thought angrily as Rushden came towards her, revelling in the power in her husband’s determined mien and lordly bearing. How dared Dionysia be so insolent? Pique, no doubt, because Rushden had not dirtied his knees slavishly with all the rest.

‘Heloise?’ Her husband’s silver eyes smiled down into hers, the question a command to leave. She would miss these squirings and jaunts, his hand in the small of her back, the freedom in his company, the friend looking out for her safety.

‘I shall see you soon, I expect, sister,’ she exclaimed, setting her hand in Rushden’s with a sunshine smile. When she looked round, she discovered Dionysia had gone.

Rushden was leading her not to the outer courtyard but past the hedge that lay beyond the mede to a bench within a honeysuckled arbour. She wondered painfully what he might have to say. Had he spoken with Stillington about the annulment?

Miles was thinking how Heloise’s ethereal quality reduced her sister to a mere spangled creature. The princess-elegance of her damask, the covered curves, firm and young, pleased him more than the displayed flesh, the opulent breasts.

‘This garden is one of London’s treasures.’ Miles made himself comfortable on the wooden seat, and set an ankle across his knee, appraising his wife as though she were a concubine sent for selection. He patted the seat and she sat down, wriggling her toes out from beneath her hem, suddenly shy and maidenly.

‘I have spoken with Stillington, just as you have.’

So this was the reckoning, thought Heloise. A cock robin and his more-reserved mistress landed hopefully in front of her.

‘How do you see …’ No, not see. With Heloise, Miles must make it doubly clear. ‘How do you desire your future, Heloise?’

Tossing her veil back, she answered uneasily: ‘Wishing is one thing—’ Her unspoken words were bitten back as he shifted to face her. She was terrified of Dokett, but she did not dare raise her fears again. How could a man as self-assured as Rushden come close to understanding?

‘Tell me.’

As if uncomfortable at his closeness, she stood up abruptly. Miles watched her step into the dappled shade, and waited as she searched for words to light her future.

‘How can I answer you?’ Heloise replied. ‘After the annulment, unless I choose to shut myself away from this world within a holy order, another husband will be found for me. And … and he will want to blow the candle out at night so he cannot see my hair, and he will take care not to wake beside me lest he hear my dreams in the morning.’ Slender arms rose to cradle her heart; her hands fled to the taffeta refuge of her sleeves. What was the use of this? She had no more say in her destiny than Traveller. ‘I do not think of myself as a beast to be sold at market, and yet it is so, save that marriage bargaining is more discreet and done out of the common hearing. If women …’ she faltered.

Her answer devastated Miles, bombarded the battlements he had built two years ago. He could not let Heloise go. No! Not to some cur who would not protect her, nor to the torture either. He no longer minded her silver hair. He liked it, liked her being different. He not only wanted to savour the candlelight shining in her eyes, he wanted to wake beside her and feel her hair like gossamer across his pillow, touching his cheek.

‘Go on,’ he prompted huskily. ‘If women …’

Heloise, seeing the midnight head tilted, his mouth stern, was astonished that he was still listening. ‘What use to continue, sir? Must I be meek to be a woman? I fear you mock me by even asking me to dare to dream.’ As if she expected him to argue, she hesitated then, emboldened by his silence, continued wryly, ‘Even if the queen was esteemed as much as my lord of Gloucester, you still would not accept her as regent, would you, because of her gender? It would be setting a perilous precedent.’ He nodded, and as if she feared her time was run out, she shook her head with a little shrug. ‘Even a queen has no say in her future. Anyway,’ she whispered and sank down defeated upon the bench, her head back, ‘there is my answer.’

‘That is no answer, changeling. I thought for once that I had asked the right question.’

‘Asking does not change things.’

‘Then it would be a waste of breath to argue with you, Heloise.’ He sat forward leaning his elbows on his knees. ‘Besides, changing the way the world thinks may take centuries, and we have but a little lifetime.’ As if to underscore his thoughts, the bells began to ring the new hour in. He stood and, staring at the honeysuckle with its adoring bees, redirected his life. This woman, of all the women he had made love to, needed his name and protection against a hostile world. She had not gone to Brecknock to force him to acknowledge her, she had fled to him out of desperation. Nor had she demanded aught save friendship. Maybe that was all she wanted. ‘You do have a choice, Heloise.’

Aware of her stillness – her breath held as if she feared more words from him might snatch back the gift – Miles waited a few heartbeats and then could no longer resist turning for her reply. She was gazing at him as if he had just rid her of a crutch. Gentler now, her eyes were cleared of the brief glaze of tears, but her chin rose questioningly.

‘Are you saying that I can choose whether to stay wed to you, that it is for me to decide?’ Incredulity rendered her as sweet-faced as a surprised kitten.

‘Upon my very soul.’

Heloise bit her lip. Was this out of contrariness or charity? Oh, he thought himself magnanimous, did he? A choice? When she was frightened to her very soul, that pious Gloucester would not save her from Dokett’s determination to break her.

If I wrap a silver bell about your neck, sir cat, and send you forth, there may come another cat in your place …

Rushden was waiting, fingers plucking at his tight cuff, the dark lashes moving patiently. His tarnished face pleased her; the black hair and steel eyes that had almost stolen her courage on the tourney field now robbed her of breath. Did she have a choice? Her destiny lay with him. The dream of him at Yuletide had told her so and yet here was no gentle husband. When he was in good humour, her heart danced with happiness, but there were dark rivers running in him that she wondered if she had courage to cross. Was it the Ballaster wealth that was making Myfannwy weigh too light now in his balance?

She would not make it easy; aloud she answered, ‘If it content you, sir, I had lief our marriage stand.’

His chin rose with his usual touch of arrogance, or conquest, maybe, but if he was astonished or pleased, he gave no sign. She made no curtsey on her part to tenderise the decision, no obeisance of thanks, but took her own cue from his iron control.

‘My hand upon the bargain then.’ He set his heel to the ground. His expression kindled to a sagacious smile, losing its edge of laziness.

No words of love then. With fingers that trembled as they touched, Heloise placed her hand in his. He raised it, firmly held, to his lips and she read the satisfaction in his eyes and a growing heat. What had she done? Was this wise?

‘Ohhhhh!’

Strong arms whirled her up into the air and spun her round. Laughing up at her, Miles Rushden snatched her soul. This was right. It might be for the wrong reasons, but it was meant. He had chosen her! He had actually chosen her!

Held so, she beamed down at him with love, all her fears stashed away at last like a forgotten coffer.

‘You should have had trinkets and poems, and a nosegay on your pillow.’

‘But I have a psaltery.’ Her fists crushed the velvet gathers of his sleeves. ‘Oh!’ A rosebriar snagged the airborne damask, and her husband – yes, husband – harnessed, slid her slowly down his stomacher, his body hardening as he held her.

‘Hungry?’ he asked, smiling like a successful night thief and kissed her with such tenderness that she could have wept with joy.

‘Oh, always,’ she whispered, opening her lips to him and cuddling him tightly lest he turn to vapour and vanish from her arms. ‘Only the household officers at Baynards may breakfast.’

‘Yes, you feel …’ his hands gave ardent testimony, ‘bird frail to me. But that shall be remedied right fast.’ His hand slid across her belly with proprietary freedom. ‘A babe beneath your girdle, hmm.’

Heloise gasped, catapulted from maid to wife. He was laughing at her blushes as he stooped to free her from the rosebush. Then he stilled – voices, Buckingham’s. No, she pleaded, no, not now.

‘Quickly.’ Her lord’s hand took hers. ‘Can you run, changeling?’

Yes! Oh yes! They sped along the path, hurtled behind a hawthorn, where he kissed her again, before he peered out along the path. ‘This way! Now!’ Along the waist-high trellis they slunk low like assassins, out into the stableyard where the stable boys held Traveller and Cloud waiting side by side like faery steeds. Rushden lifted Heloise onto the sidesaddle and swiftly paid off their grooms with ale money.

He took the leading rein of Cloud along Threadneedle Street for his lady seemed quite unable to take charge, utterly and wondrously bewildered that she had surrendered herself to his good lordship.

Busy Cheapside, loud with the shouts of apprentices and strolling vendors, made conversation an impossibility. Heloise had taken back Cloud’s reins, letting the mare drink from a trough at West Cheap before they battled through the throng. Miles was as exuberant as any bridegroom untroubled by guests and family, but the lady suddenly was brewing with something he could not fathom.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked uneasily as they turned south-east towards Queenhithe. Did she fear he might immure her somewhere other than Baynards?

‘To feast, lady-knight. Mayhap hen in pastry will put you in good cheer.’

‘And then what?’ she asked, cynicism weighing every syllable.

‘And then I think there should be no turning back.’