www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For my mother, a trailblazer.

       And with great thanks to Pat White, who kept me going.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      Chapter Twenty-Seven

      Chapter Twenty-Eight

      Chapter Twenty-Nine

      Chapter Thirty

      Epilogue

      Author’s Afterword

      Chapter One

      Windsor Castle,

       Yuletide, 1386

      The shameless doxy dragged the rings right off his fingers before the King’s body was cold.

      They used to whisper that and then look sideways at her, thinking that a ten-year-old was too young to understand they slandered her mother.

      Joan had understood even then. It was all too clear the night the old King died and her mother, his mistress of thirteen years, gathered their two daughters and fled into the darkness.

      Now, ten years after her father’s death, Joan stood poised to be announced at the court of a new King. Her mother hoped Joan might find a place there, even a husband.

      Foolish dreams of an ageing woman.

      Waiting to be announced, she peeked into the Great Hall, surprised she did not look more outdated wearing her mother’s made-over dress. It was the men’s garb, colourful and garish, that looked unfamiliar. Decked in blues and reds, gold chains and furs, they looked gaudy as flapping tournament flags.

      Except for one.

      Standing to the left of the throne turned away from her, he wore a simple, deep blue tunic. She could not see his face fully, but the set of his jaw and the hollow edge of his cheek said one thing: unyielding.

      For a moment, she envied that strength. This was a man whose daily bread did not depend on pleasing people.

      Hers did. And so did her mother’s and sister’s.

      She pulled her gaze away and smoothed her velvet skirt. Please the King she must, or there would be no food in the larder by Eastertide.

      As the herald entered the Hall to announce her, she heard the rustling skirts of the ladies lining the room. They whispered still.

      Here she comes. The harlot’s daughter. No more shame than her mother had.

      She lifted her head. It was time.

      Amid the whispers, Lady Joan, twenty summers, illegitimate daughter of the late King and his notorious mistress and the most unmarriageable woman in England, stepped forward to be presented to King Richard II.

      Lord Justin Lamont avoided Richard’s court whenever possible. He had braved the crowded throne room only because he had urgent news for the Duke of Gloucester.

      Last month, Parliament had compelled the reckless young King to accept the oversight of a Council headed by his uncle, Gloucester. Since then, Justin had been enmeshed in the business of government. He was only beginning to uncover the mess young Richard and his intimates had made of the Treasury.

      Thrust upon the throne as a boy when his grandfather died, Richard had inherited the old King’s good looks without his strength, judgement or sense. Instead of spending taxes to fight the French, he’d drained the royal purse with grants for his favourites.

      When he demanded more tax money, Parliament had finally balked, installing the Council to gainsay the King’s outrageous spending.

      Now, the King had put forth another of his endless lists of favours for his friends, expecting the new Council’s unquestioning approval.

      He would not get it.

      ‘Your Grace,’ Justin said to Gloucester, ‘the King has a new list of gifts he wants to announce on Christmas Day. The Council cannot possibly approve this.’

      Distracted, the Duke motioned to the door. ‘Here she comes. The doxy’s daughter.’

      Justin gritted his teeth, refusing to turn. The mother’s meddling had near ruined the realm before Parliament had stepped in to save a senile King from his own foolishness. This new King needed no more misguidance. He was getting that aplenty from his current favourites. ‘What do they call her?’

      ‘Lady Joan of Weston,’ Gloucester answered. ‘Joan the Elder.’

      Calling her a Weston was a pleasant fiction, though the old King’s mistress had passed herself off as Sir William’s wife while she bore the King’s children. ‘The Elder?’

      Gloucester smirked. ‘There were two daughters. Like bitch pups. Call “Joan” and one will come running.’

      Wincing at the cruelty, Justin reluctantly turned, with the rest of the court, to see whether the daughter carried the stain of her mother’s sin.

      He looked, and then could not look away.

      Her mother’s carnality stamped a body that swayed as if it had no bones and her raven hair carried no hint of the old King’s sun-tinged glory. ‘She looks nothing like him,’ he murmured.

      Gloucester whispered back, ‘Maybe the whore simply whelped the children and called them the King’s.’

      Justin shook his head. ‘She moves like royalty.’

      Head high, she stared at a point above the King’s crown, walking as if the crowd adored instead of loathed her.

      But then, just for a moment, she glanced around the room. Her eyes, violet, brimming with pain, met his.

      They stopped his breath.

      Wide-eyed, still looking at him, she did not complete her step. Tangled in her gaze, he forgot to breathe.

      Then she gathered herself, lifted her skirt and approached the throne.

      He shook off her spell and looked around. No one had noticed that her eyes had held his for an eternity.

      She dipped before the King, head held high. Justin thought