Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [330]
There was no way of escaping her. In response to her greeting, Margaret put on her best masklike smile. The three of them exchanged the usual, meaningless courtesies; then Joan Doyle turned to Margaret.
“You really should come into Dublin more often,” she said.
“I come in to the markets sometimes,” Margaret replied quietly.
“Don’t you think she should?” Joan said to Walsh.
“Oh, I do,” he answered politely.
Margaret considered the two of them. The conversation sounded so innocent. But if they were fencing round her, they did not realise how closely she was observing them.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “I should at least come in for the festivals.” She nodded, as though to herself. “Like Corpus Christi.”
Did they, just for an instant, glance at each other? Yes, she was sure they did. Then the Doyle woman laughed. “Corpus Christi was a wonderful day,” she said with a smile to Walsh, who also smiled and nodded.
They were mocking her. They thought she didn’t know it.
“As a matter of fact,” Margaret said brightly, “I came in for Corpus Christi this year.”
There was no mistaking it. Her husband blanched. “You did?”
“I never told you, did I? Just a sudden impulse. I saw the pageants going along Skinners Row.” She gave them both a smile. “I saw all sorts of things.”
It was a perfect moment. The two of them seemed stunned into silence. Joan Doyle recovered first.
“You should have come into the house,” she cried. “We were all up at the window. You’d have had a better view.”
“Oh, the view I had was fine,” said Margaret.
She had them. She felt a wonderful sense of power. It was almost worth the pain. She could see them trying to work out how much she knew, whether her remarks were ironic or not. They couldn’t tell. She had them on the run.
She smiled and took her husband by the arm. “We should pay our respects,” she murmured, indicating a gentleman from Fingal standing nearby, and moved away, leaving the Doyle woman standing alone.
Yet it was a hollow triumph. For if they were left in uncertainty, their awkwardness had told her all she needed to know about their complicity. They had deceived her before; so they probably meant to do it again. That night she turned to him in bed.
“So how attractive is Joan Doyle?”
“You think I find her attractive?” he responded cleverly. He paused, as though considering. “She’s a good woman,” he answered easily, “but I prefer redheads.”
Over Christmas he was especially loving and attentive, and she was grateful for that. Knowing Joan Doyle’s devious nature, she didn’t even blame her husband so much. She had never thought he would do such a thing to her, but now that he had, her main concern was to bring it to an end. She made no reference to their affair, but she did take care to warn him. “You can’t trust that Doyle woman. She’s two-faced and dangerous.”
Her feelings for Joan Doyle, however, hardened into a secret, ice-cold rage. She’s been mocking me and cheating me all my life, she thought, and now she’s busy stealing my husband. She wasn’t yet sure what form her defence was going to take, but if Joan Doyle thought she would get away with it, she promised herself, she would discover the meaning of revenge.
Perhaps it was this state of flux in her own life, but sometimes in the spring of 1534, it seemed to Margaret as if everything around her was changing. There was a sense of instability in the air.
Soon after Christmas there was a heavy fall of snow and the winter weather kept Walsh at home for most of January. In February he made several journeys into Dublin, returning each evening. The situation there, he reported, was uncertain.
“Kildare is undoubtedly sick. He’s finally going to London, but the word is that he’s only going because he wants to persuade King Henry to confirm