GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
SUMMER 1453

I keep my word to the queen and don’t puzzle over this long-delayed conception, and she keeps her word to me and speaks to Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and he sends my husband home to me, as I go into confinement at Grafton. I have a boy and we call him Lionel. My daughter Elizabeth, a married lady, comes and attends me in my confinement, very serious and very helpful, and I find her hanging over the cradle and cooing to the baby.

‘You will have your own soon,’ I promise her.

‘I hope so. He is so perfect, he is so beautiful.’

‘He is,’ I say with quiet pride. ‘Another son for the House of Rivers.’

As soon as I am strong enough to return to court I get a message from the queen asking me to join them on progress. Richard has to return to the garrison of Calais and it is painfully hard for us to part again.

‘Let me come to Calais,’ I beg him. ‘I can’t bear to be without you.’

‘All right,’ he says. ‘Next month. You can come and bring all the younger children; I can’t bear to be without you and them either.’

He kisses my mouth, he kisses both of my hands, and then he mounts his horse and rides away.