No one knows the identity of the woman spy that King Edward IV sent across to Calais with messages for his brother, the Duke of Clarence, begging him to change sides. The Lady of Calais had to be someone who could easily have access to the duke. This implies she was possibly of noble birth or maybe had a family connection. The ideal candidate was Margaret, the Earl of Warwick’s bastard daughter, since she was half-sister to the duke’s wife, Isabella, and may have been brought up as a companion to her and her sister Anne. We do know that Margaret was later one of the ladies attending at the coronation of Anne and Richard III. Margaret also may have been the mysterious relative of Warwick’s that King Edward was rumoured to have seduced. She would have been the right age and less of a ‘no go area’ than the earl’s legitimate daughters. So there you have the heroine of my novel, and the hero — well, the man she married — Richard Huddleston. In truth, he may have been a lot older than her. I don’t know. But he became the other main character.

I do hope you will find the story of Margaret and Richard and the political intrigue surrounding them a good read.

This story was also published in the USA as The Maiden and the Unicorn. It is also available in German at Dotbooks as Der Stolz der Lady