Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (47 page)

He himself grew weary of the sameness at Upholland. He was a knight, not a farmer. He missed life in the field. So when the king appointed him captain of Calais Castle, Thomas did not know whether to express or hide his relief.

He need not have worried. Joan beamed with pride. “It is such an honor, my love.” It was. The king thought Calais important enough to have interrupted his Yuletide celebrations a few years past to defend it. “I am so proud of you!” She asked him the details—when he must depart, whom he would take in his party, and, at last, with telling hesitance, she asked, “Do you want me with you?”

“You’d prefer to remain at Upholland?”

“Efa has warned me that this pregnancy will not necessarily be as easy as my first. But I will come if you need me.”

“No. Stay here where you will have the best of care in the peace of the countryside. I will miss you as I would my right arm,” he said, and meant it. “But in truth we can ill afford the expense of shifting the household.”

He felt guilty when she hugged him hard, whispering her thanks.

She was less cheerful a week later as they lay awake the night before his departure. “Our quiet time is over, husband.” She sighed. “I am grateful we had these few years of peace.”

“Our quiet time is over?”

“This is only the beginning of the honors you will earn, and each will add to your burden of responsibility.”

“As does each child,” said Thomas. He kissed her swollen stomach. “Would you have it any other way, Joan?”

“No. It’s just the morning sickness clouding my mood. It is all just as it should be.”

It was harder to leave now. Much, much harder. And when, months later, the king’s courier brought Thomas the news of the birth of his son John, he spent the morning in church searching his soul. For years he’d fought to claim Joan as his wife, and now he was missing this precious moment. He prayed that the prince had not been summoned.

T
ragedy brought Thomas back from Calais. Two days after Christmas, Joan’s brother John had bled to death after a wild boar ripped his leg from knee to groin. Suddenly Joan was the heir both to the earldom of Kent and to her uncle Thomas Wake’s lands. As Joan’s husband, Thomas was summoned to Westminster to arrange the dower for John’s thirteen-year-old widow, Elizabeth of Juliers, as well as the appropriate homage and fealty to King Edward for the estates. Admitting his profound inexperience with property lawyers, Thomas asked Blanche Wake to guide him through the legal labyrinth. That freed his mind so that he might comfort Joan in her grief over her brother’s death, which was complicated by guilt that she had declined John’s invitation to Woking for Christmas.
If I’d been there with Efa, he might have survived
. It was a familiar refrain among soldiers, the guilt of being the one who still lived. Thomas held her at night, listening to her, loving her, speaking softly of his affection for John, his courage in the field, his love of the hunt.

All the while Thomas wrestled with his own guilt. Little by little, he was realizing that his young family was now wealthy beyond anything he had ever imagined. Had Joan come into this inheritance just three years earlier, Thomas wondered whether
the pope’s decision would have been the same. He would surely have been suspected of lusting after Joan’s status and wealth. In one thrust of a boar’s tusks, Thomas’s future, and that of his children, had been transformed from poor landholders to a great baronial family. Poring over the myriad estate documents with Blanche, he struggled to contain his profound gratitude and relief. Joan no longer need suffer for choosing him. She was restored to her high status.

So her reaction to the sudden elevation confounded him. In Westminster, Joan’s grief turned to anger. She snapped at the attorneys and their clerks, railed against the conditions limiting their decisions, even berated her aunt for her attempts to smooth the feathers she’d ruffled.

“Don’t you see?” she asked Thomas. “With this inheritance our paradise has been breached for good. We are far more beholden to the whims of my royal cousins than we were when we were simply Thomas and Joan Holland.” When he protested that they were freer than before, that he was no longer dependent on the king’s appointments to feed his servants and tenants, she looked at him as if he’d said something utterly witless.

Into this tense and contentious atmosphere strode Prince Edward, greeting Joan as Countess of Kent, as he scooped her off her feet in an overlong embrace.

“You’ve me to thank for the efficiency of the turnover,” the prince bragged. “I’m looking after my godson’s future.” He patted Thomas on the back. “How fortunate that you were in Calais and my cousin in the depths of Lancashire when Earl John met his untimely end, eh? Folk might have suspected a plot to restore Joan to the status to which she was born.”

The barb hit too close to the mark, and Thomas barely managed to respond with the respect and courtesy due his prince.

Joan had no such compunction. “That was unworthy of you, cousin. I would happily forgo all that has come to me in exchange for my dear brother’s life. Shame on you.”

Ned bowed and apologized, but Thomas saw no remorse in his clear blue eyes. How right Joan had been.

A
T THE END OF AN IRRITATING DAY DEALING WITH THE LAWYERS
and Ned’s caustic humor, Joan was grateful for Thomas’s strong arm around her as they walked back to the house in Westminster. In the hall she knelt to her sweet two-year-old, hugging Tom while he stammered out a tale of two cats stalking a bird along the riverbank. Her wide-eyed boy steadied her, bringing her back to reality, reminding her that although her happy life with Thomas and the boys had changed, had become more challenging to protect, it had not crumbled. Thomas, too, seemed eager to touch reality, swinging the infant John out of Efa’s arms and praising his chubby cheeks while the baby gurgled happily.

Joan felt an easing of the stricture that had gripped her ever since the royal courier rode into the yard at Upholland. She’d rushed out, fearing the worst about Thomas—that he had been seriously injured defending Calais Castle or, God help her, killed. For why else would a royal courier come to Lancashire? Her momentary relief had turned to grief as she took in the news of her brother’s death. Sweet John—he had been their mother’s comfort, an easier child than Joan, never questioning duty, but not at all self-righteous. He’d been passionate about the hunt, preferring a bestial opponent to a human one. For such pleasure to come to this. How he must have suffered.

Her duty lay at Woking, comforting her sister-in-law, Elizabeth, so briefly wed that Joan hardly knew her. Handing John to a wet nurse Efa chose with care, Joan had gone south with Helena in the company of four of her brother’s retainers to find the thirteen-year-old widow already beset with messengers from her family in Juliers, as well as by her aunt the queen, bearing lists of potential suitors for her to consider. So soon! The
young woman, a slender version of her aunt Philippa but with a fiery complexion and snapping dark eyes, paced the hall muttering curses. Joan had anticipated quite a different scene, more akin to her own fearful silence in Ghent.

“Do they not know I’m in mourning?” Elizabeth hissed when one of the suitors rode into the yard, begging her favor—an older man, though not displeasing to the eye and of good family. “I don’t want anyone else, I want John! You must leave, sir.” She ordered a servant to escort the startled man from the hall.

Seeing Elizabeth’s strength, Joan had relaxed her maternal hovering, simply extending to the young widow an open invitation to escape to her household if she wished for a respite from the battle.

But Elizabeth declared herself determined to stand her ground there at Woking, even after the arrival of her brother, who was determined to remind her of her duty to the family. Elizabeth had Philippa’s deep sense of her own worth and integrity. John had been most fortunate in his wife.

When Thomas arrived and asked Joan to join him in Westminster, she had packed in haste and taken her leave, sending word to Efa to bring the children and the wet nurse to meet them. She needed her family, and Efa, around her.

She took Thomas’s hand now, drawing him away from the boys and up to the bedchamber. “Hold me, my love. Just hold me. And promise me that when you return to Calais you take me with you.”

“I need more than that,” he growled, pushing her down on the bed and covering her with kisses, laughingly spewing curses as he fumbled with her buttons.

After lovemaking, as they sat back against a mound of pillows, sharing a mazer of wine, Thomas broke the news that he would not be returning to Calais. “Otho is now acting captain. I need the next month to move to accommodations more suited to our expanded household—you saw what happened at
Upholland when Ned brought his entourage. What say you to Donington Castle?”

Joan groaned. “John chose Woking because Donington had suffered flood damage.”

“His widow has chosen to keep Woking. We must honor that.”

“What says the king to this plan regarding Calais?”

“It was his recommendation that I take this opportunity before we sail to Brittany in spring. Donington was also his suggestion.”

“Repairing a castle. How easily he spends our newfound wealth.” Already her cousin interfered. She’d been resting her head on Thomas’s chest, soothed by his steady heartbeat. Now she noticed it begin to race and, glancing up, saw his disappointment. Of course Donington would appeal. “You must forgive me for railing against the inevitable, my love. You are right, Upholland is insufficient for our new responsibilities, and Donington deserves attention. We are now a baronial family, and we shall show our peers just how well suited we are to the title. It’s just that we’ve been so happy at Upholland. Might you charm Besetta into moving with us to Donington?” She pulled his head down to kiss him, rewarded by a show of dimples. “No matter what happens, I still have the husband I chose and our two dear boys.”

She resolved to put aside her resentment and set to work ensuring that Thomas was at ease in his new role, proud of her, his boys, and their household. She told herself it was gratifying that in saving her he had, in the end, saved his family’s honor. And she was a woman of status now, not a vulnerable child easily manipulated by the king and queen.

I
N
A
PRIL
, T
HOMAS RETURNED FROM
B
RITTANY IN TIME TO ESCORT
Joan to the St. George’s Day festivities at Windsor. He reveled
in being openly with Joan at such an official gathering, dancing with her, whispering in her ear at the high table, walking with her hand on his arm. They were given a comfortable chamber in the castle, his first taste of his new status. It was a heady experience to be treated as a peer by the earls, even Will Montagu, now happily married to Elizabeth de Mohun and expecting his first child. Thomas wished his father might see this, that his second son had recovered the honor of his family and raised it higher than before.

But Thomas’s time at Windsor was not all play. He spent much of it talking to those who were now his peers about legal matters, inviting recommendations for household officers. He also quietly arranged for a consultation regarding a matter that he chose not to discuss with Joan, uncertain how she would react. There was a new pope in Avignon, Innocent VI, and, anxious to protect the estates for his sons, Thomas had prepared a new petition asking for validation of his marriage to Joan. It was his new status that unsettled him, a sense that he was not worthy, or might be judged so. With the pope’s validation, he might rest easy.

Joan spent much time in discussion with Bella regarding a new wardrobe, and making sure Ned did not lead young Tom into games she did not wish him to play. Thomas disliked the prince’s too keen interest in his godson, and his attempts to monopolize Joan on the dance floor.

So he was hesitant to trust that the prince was sincere when he took him aside and asked for his patience.

“I blunder my way toward my new role in my cousin’s life. I insulted you with my clumsy attempt at humor about your good fortune. I regret that—I pray you believe me. I want only Joan’s happiness, and I am stupidly proud of being godfather to your son and heir.”

“Why are you telling me this now, my lord?”

“Ned. Call me Ned.” The prince shone his brightest smile
on Thomas. “I have seen my mistake and mean to step back, wait for your invitation. I pray you will let me know if there is anything you desire that my influence might help bring to fruition. Anything.”

There was the matter of the papal petition; the prince’s support might go a long way toward its consideration. Thomas said nothing then, but it was much on his mind throughout the festivities. He did not want his pride to stand in the way of his family’s welfare. After the tourney, he chose to sit down with Ned to discuss the matter. The prince was more than happy to provide all the necessary letters, and recommended the men suitable for the job of representing Thomas in Avignon. When they had settled the arrangements, Thomas asked that it be kept their secret, confiding his fear that someone might interpret his actions as affirming his right to Joan’s inheritance.

“Even Joan must not know. I wish to surprise her with the pope’s blessing.”

Ned promised to keep it between them.

I
N BETWEEN FLASHES OF LIGHTNING
, J
OAN WATCHED HER GUARDS
open the gates to a company of men on horseback. She’d expected the carpenter and the stone mason, but not Ned, and certainly not so many in the party.

In a few long strides her cousin was in the hall, shouting for a servant to come pull off his soaked gloves while he leaned close to kiss Joan on the forehead.

“So where is my godson? And the little one, John?”

“In the nursery on such a day. Why are you here?”