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round, counting the number of nursemaids who hovered in the background, ready for any demand on their services should Lady Alice or Alyne call on them. The children were well served, well educated under Lady Alice’s hand. The new Duchess would bring her own women from Castile. How could I possibly think there would be a place for me here? And as things stood it would be better for me if I were not…
    I made my decision. I would return to Kettlethorpe, a most sensible course of action that would shield me from any future enticement. The Duke would build a new marriage with his foreign bride, he would forget me—had he not already done so?—and I would be free to oversee the construction of the best memorial I could accomplish for Hugh. I would administer his estates to the best of my ability so that my son might inherit a property of some value.
    I nodded, my mind made up. It was a good end to my visit. An entirely suitable end.
    I wished I felt more enthusiastic about it. I wished I could tear those words from my thoughts but they clung there, like stubborn autumn leaves resisting all the efforts of a winter gale to scatter them.
    â€¦the woman at whose feet I would kneel…
    Such sentiments might be those the Duke recalled from the initial days of his wooing of lovely Blanche to be his wife. He had loved Blanche. He did not love me. Such sentimentshad nothing to do with me, who would be no better than a court whore if I complied.
    I took the first opportunity offered to travel north—running away, if I were honest. With my maid, my groom and a manservant from Kettlethorpe who served as protection, I joined up with a group of hardy pilgrims intent on journeying to pray at the tomb of St John of Beverley. It was not the season for pilgrimages, the winter days being short and the weather chancy, but the air was clear and crisp, the ground hard with frost and the road surfaces better than the soft mire of spring.
    I was pleased to be on the move. Lady Alice begged me to stay, not understanding my determination, but to what end? I thought it best to be absent when the Duke returned and his new lady was ensconced at The Savoy.
    We travelled slowly and steadily, putting up at inns as we followed the straight line of Ermine Street, the old Roman road, before turning east at Newark along Fosse Way. Now the scenery, the flat open expanses, became familiar to me, and when we crossed the Trent—looking innocent between its icy banks but the cause of many of my problems at Kettlethorpe—I knew that I was almost home. And there was the vast bulk of the cathedral at Lincoln, the two magnificent towers emerging out of the distance like a ship looming out of mist at sea.
    Not far now. I ought to be making a stop at Coleby but the depredations of winter made me keep to my track. Kettlethorpe would not be much better, but the state of Coleby would utterly depress my spirits. Suddenly I could not reach home quickly enough.
    On that final morning, before I turned north from Lincoln, I fell in with one of the pilgrims who urged her horse alongside mine. I had taken note of her, although she preferred to converse with the menfolk. Loud and lively, her good humour was infectious on the long days and she was quick to sing and laugh. Broad of hip and shoulder, broad of feature too, her colourful garments proclaimed her perennial optimism, as did her hat, round and large as a serving platter to shelter her from sun and rain. I envied her confidence, her high spirits.
    Mistress Saxby, a cheerful flirt and incorrigible gossip.
    She settled beside me, the pilgrim’s badges, mementoes of her many travels, jangling where they had been pinned to her cloak. I smiled warily. Her talk could be bawdy and she was not quick to take the hint to go away, but surprising me, her voice was low and respectful of my mood. She bent her head to look at me, her sharp eyes, grey as quartz, darting over my face. She made me uncommonly