A Dangerous Inheritance

After di

‘What shall I do?’ is my constant question. My lady the Countess kindly takes time to instruct me in the ordering and ru

With Harry, it is difficult. It is hard to be together, knowing we are man and wife, yet not free to love each other. Yes, we kiss and we embrace, but only furtively or self-consciously, for we are never left alone together: there is always at least one servant within sight or earshot. And at night, my door is locked. My lord Earl will not risk his will being thwarted a second time. It would be easier if I could understand why we are being kept apart, but it still makes no sense to me. If I venture to ask, I am told – not unkindly – that I am too young to understand.

But Harry has of late been taken a little into his father’s confidence. When I suggest, only half jesting, that he attempts to steal the key and come to me at night, he tells me no, it ca

‘Northumberland?’ I echo. ‘What has our marriage got to do with him?’

Harry looks unhappy. There is no one within earshot in the courtyard, only a gardener dead-heading the flowers in the stone urns, but still he bids me lower my voice.

‘Northumberland urged our marriages, ours and that of your sister to his son,’ he mutters. ‘Maybe he feels being allied to royal blood enhances his power.’

There is something that does not make sense. ‘In that case,’ I say, ‘it would make better sense to let us consummate our marriage.’

Harry looks at me admiringly. ‘It would indeed! It would bind our families irrevocably to him. By God, I have it! Maybe Northumberland and our parents don’t want to be committed for good.’

‘That makes sense, given what I overheard my father and mother saying,’ I say.

Harry shakes his head. ‘But why would they not want to be bound? Why agree to the marriages in the first place?’

‘I ca

‘He would not tell me,’ he answers glumly.

Nevertheless, that evening, at the supper table, Harry makes so bold as to bring up the matter.

‘Sir,’ he ventures, ‘why do you and my lord of Northumberland not wish our families to be bound for good by our marriage?’

The Earl appears disconcerted, but recovers himself at once and lays down his knife on his plate. ‘Who said that we do not?’ he asks.

‘We worked it out for ourselves, Sir,’ Harry says. ‘We know that Northumberland suggested these marriages, and that, in some way that you will not reveal, they are advantageous to him. But maybe there are disadvantages too.’

There is silence for a moment, and then the Earl roars with laughter. ‘You’re a statesman, Harry, by God! And you have a good grasp of politics. But rest assured, your mother and I would not bind you in a disadvantageous match. The Lady Katherine here is the King’s own cousin, of royal lineage, and herself in the line of succession. Who could be more suitable? Nay, lad, curb your passions and let wiser heads rule you. You will not be stayed from your wife for long. Be patient, I counsel you.’ And with that, the Earl changes the subject and speaks of hunting. It is an end to the matter. But am I the only one who noticed that, when he laughed, his eyes remained cold?

Harry and I are bored. We have played chess in the garden, read our favourite poems aloud to each other, raided the kitchens for marchpane and comfits, and played hide-and-seek in the great state rooms, always with the inevitable servant keeping a safe distance.

We are getting to know each other. His face, so utterly dear to me, is now as familiar as my own. I try to stop myself wishing that his body could be too, for in every other respect we are becoming closer in our minds and hearts, united in our shared sense of injustice against the world, Northumberland and our parents. It has bound us faster than I could ever have imagined.

I am finding Harry to be not just a loving husband, but a young man of letters and culture. He has been well tutored, which is no surprise, since his mother – dead these two years now, and much mourned by her son – was very learned. After this early grounding, the Earl sent Harry to live with a tutor at the university at Cambridge, yet he is no bookish dullard: he likes a good play too, is passionate about racing horses, and collects books and manuscripts on heraldry.

He snatches every opportunity to touch me, to kiss and caress me, but he always ends up on fire for me, and finds it very frustrating to have to hold himself back. In the begi

So here we are, this hot June day, weary after so much ru

‘I know her,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen her likeness before. That’s the Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, and my great-great-grandmother.’

‘Wrong!’ cries Harry. ‘It’s the old Duchess of York, Cecily Neville. She was the mother of Edward IV and Richard III, and your great-great-great-something-grandmother! She lived here in the last century – ran the household like a nu

‘I heard tell that she was a very venerable lady,’ I say.

‘Not always. It was quite openly said that she betrayed her husband with an archer, and that Edward IV was the archer’s son.’

‘I can’t imagine her betraying her husband with anyone, looking at her picture!’ I giggle.

Harry laughs. ‘I can’t even imagine her having a husband,’ he says.

‘Do you think it’s true, what people said?’ I ask, staring at the portrait and trying in vain to imagine the Duchess Cecily as she would have looked in her younger days.

‘Who can say? My tutor told me that two of her sons, no less, made the accusation. Richard III was one of them.’