With supreme effort Richard pulled himself together and turned to her, his torment plain. “Nay, ’tis you that should forgive me,” he said, carefully placing the crown on the table. He took her hands in his, unable to resist her pleading eyes. “Know this, Kate Haute, that you have always owned a piece of my heart.” He reached inside his undershirt and pulled out the écu. “You see, you are always with me, God help me. And every time I saw Katherine or John, you were with me.” He replaced the coin and patted his heart. “You and Katherine will ride with me on the morrow, and thus protected, I cannot lose.” He paused. Despite his words, he suddenly felt fear, and, cursing, he turned away to hide it. She should not have come, and yet he hated his weakness for needing her.

With his back to her, he gently but firmly said, “Now please go. I have more pressing matters to attend to.” He felt cruel, but she, too, had been cruel coming with such news on the eve of what would more than likely be the most important day of his life. “Go!”

Kate swallowed a sob and left without a word. He sank down on the bench, pulled out his daughter’s strand of hair and finally allowed tears of sorrow to darken its green velvet covering.

Richard tried to concentrate on billeting and the mustering of troops that continued to arrive, but thoughts of Katherine clouded his mind. By the time he had laid his head uneasily on his pillow at the Blue Boar Inn, he could not remember any of the orders he had given nor what his scouts had told him. (It did not help that he had consumed an entire gallon of claret, hoping the ruby elixir would work as a sleeping draught.) Was Henry two days or one away from the royal army? How many did they say the earl had brought with him? Where was Stanley? And had Northumberland come? Instead of conjuring those crucial answers given him by manly voices, he heard Katherine’s sunny laughter and oft-repeated, “Don’t you know, ’tis you I love best, Father?” When he closed his eyes, he saw so vividly her jaunty smile and toss of the head that the image made him open them quickly to confirm she was not real. Soon Katherine’s face dissolved into Kate’s youthful one, and his mind returned to a day by a stream where, naked, he and Kate had frolicked in the icy water and conceived John. He banished the vision, immediately remorseful for the unkind way he had dismissed his erstwhile mistress that day.

Before the wine did its soporific work, he put out his hand to feel Anne next to him and touching nothing but a cold sheet, he turned in that direction, willing her come to him. “I think it will not be long before I shall join you and Ned, dear Anne,” he murmured. “I pray that through your goodness you have interceded for me with God Almighty, and He will welcome me to Heaven.”