After a while, she rose and returned to the mirror. A powdery perfume lay open before her; she reached for it and began to rub the fragrance into her throat and the hollow between her breasts. And then she began to undress, not bothering to summon her ladies, letting the items of clothing drop to the floor at her feet, until she stood in a circle of discarded silk and satin.
“You need not announce me,” she said to the men posted at the door of her husband’s bedchamber, said with all the hauteur she could command, and they made haste to give her entry. She breathed a swift silent prayer that he’d be alone and moved into the chamber.
He wasn’t alone, but there was no woman with him tonight and she thanked God for that. The grooms of the chamber were engaged in the elaborate ritual of making the royal bed, were concluding by sprinkling holy water upon the turned-back coverlets. Two others were stoking the hearth for the night. Wine and bread had already been set out on the bedside table, and, nearby, a chair had been positioned within sight of the bed, where, upon a red velvet cushion, the crown of England glittered in the firelight. In the midst of all this activity, her husband was reclining in the window seat, playing at Tables with his brother.
Elizabeth’s entrance stopped all conversation. She crossed the chamber, waited as Richard scrambled hastily to his feet. He bent over the hand she extended, dropped to one knee until she nodded, freeing him to rise.
She had no liking for this dark quiet boy so little like Ned or that wretch, Clarence. Her dislike was not personal; she did not know him well enough for that. But she disliked on instinct anyone who laid claim to her husband’s affections, and she thought Ned to be overly fond of his youngest brother.
The boy had only that morning returned to court; he’d been off in Wales for the past month, doing something or other for Ned. She wasn’t sure what, vaguely recalled fragments of conversation she’d heard that afternoon, that he’d captured a castle or some such act. But she felt a sudden surge of friendliness toward him, for had he not been here now with Ned, she might have found Ned in bed with one of his trollops. With that thought in mind, she gave Richard a dazzling smile, offered her congratulations upon his success.
For an unguarded moment, he looked startled by her unexpected cordiality; she generally accorded him no more than perfunctory courtesy. He did have tact, though; she’d grant him that, for he’d not lingered, swiftly making a discreet departure. The grooms were quick to follow, so that within moments she was alone with her husband.
“You wished to speak with me, Lisbet?”
Edward was regarding her with a polite disinterest that set her teeth on edge. Swallowing her resentment, she nodded.
“I came to tell you that you’ve won, Ned. I accept your terms.”
If only she could read him as easily as she knew he read her! His expression told her nothing of his thoughts, and when he spoke, his voice was no more revealing than his face.
“Shouldn’t you first be sure you do know what my terms are?”
“I know exactly what they are,” she said flatly. “Unconditional surrender.”
She thought she saw amusement flicker in his eyes, and before he could speak, she stepped forward, moved toward him. She did not want to talk, did not trust herself, knew how little it would take to kindle their quarrel all over again.
She stopped before him and, leaning over, kissed him on the mouth. He didn’t rebuff her but he didn’t respond, either, and as she straightened up, it was with the sudden fear that he might mean to pay her back in her own coin. If he did, she knew she’d never be able to forget the humiliation, nor ever be able to forgive him for that humiliation.
Not daring to wait, she began to fumble with the ivory combs binding up her hair. It fell about her in a swirl of silvery brightness. “Spun moonlight,” he’d often called it, liked to bury his face in it, feel it against his chest, a silken barrier between them in bed.
These memories of his past passion were strong enough and vivid enough to dispel her present doubts, and she unfastened the sash of her dressing robe, let it fall open and then caught it loosely at the waist, so that she stood revealed from ankle to midthigh and from swelling breasts to throat.
He was no longer smiling. The atmosphere between them had changed, was charged with sudden sexual tension.
“Jesú, but you’re beautiful,” he said at last, said softly, almost wonderingly.
Elizabeth had no trouble reading him now. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and it was not nerves now that quickened her breathing. She knew he’d find no fault with her responsiveness this night. She felt giddy, light-headed with excitement, with triumph, and above all, with relief, and she laughed, let go of the robe.
He reached out, drew her down onto his lap. His mouth was hot; she gave herself up gladly to its heat, let him burn kisses along the curving line of her throat into the softness of her shoulder. She’d begun to unfasten his doublet, tugged at the shirt underneath until she was able to slip her hands inside, against his skin. He’d lowered his mouth to her breast, was sending jolts of feeling searing up her nerve ends, stirring sensations almost unbearable in their intensity.
The leather points binding his doublet to hose now came loose in her hand. He gasped as she found his groin, found swelling proof of the urgency of his need for her. She twisted around in his arms so that their mouths met, entangling them both in a cloud of lustrous blonde hair, until the erotic intimacy of his caresses caused her to arch against him, with an indrawn breath that slurred his name beyond recognition. By the time he lifted her in his arms to take her to the waiting bed, she would have found it impossible to say which one was the seducer and which the seduced.
Elizabeth was peeling an orange, her favorite fruit. She never tired of them, for she’d never tasted one until she found herself wed to England’s King; they had to be shipped from Italy, were outrageously expensive, and she valued them as much for that as for the sweet tangy taste. She leaned over, trailing her hair against Edward’s chest, and fed him one of the orange sections, then leaned over still further to lick the juice from his mouth with the tip of her tongue. He opened his eyes, smiled at her.
“Shall I remove all this?” she murmured, gesturing toward the platter beside them in the bed. It was piled with food, cheese and bread and fruit; having satisfied their hunger for each other, they’d both been seized by hunger of another sort and stirred up a commotion in the kitchens with their unexpected demand for a midnight meal.
He nodded, and she placed the platter upon the floor; lay back in his arms. From the bed, she could see the glimmer of his crown. She liked the tradition of placing it by his bedside, liked to be able to see the tangible proof of his kingship.
She no longer regretted yielding to him in their war of wills, was irked with herself for not doing so sooner, for not sparing herself so many uneasy days and endless nights. It was true, she mused, that she’d never have been willing to humble her pride for her first husband. But Ned was unlike John in every respect, unlike any man she’d ever met. Her eyes again sought, lingered upon, the muted brilliance of the crown; even in firelight, it still shone with a reassuring radiance.
She was aware of an increasing languor, a delightful free-floating sensation, as if her bones had turned to liquid. She fought the feeling, though; she was not yet ready to sleep. Beside her, Edward stretched, drew her still closer to him. He was holding her within the circle of his left arm; it rested on her, just under her breasts. She could see faint red marks on his skin where her nails had scraped, and she reached out, traced their path with her finger.
She was well aware that those who hated her called her harlot and slut, hinted that she’d somehow cast a satanic sexual spell upon Edward to bewitch him into marriage. She was sometimes indifferent to, and at other times, resentful of, such accusations, but had her nature been other than it was, she might have found a certain grim amusement in them, for the truth was that she’d lain with but two men in her life and married them both.
She’d been fifteen when she wed John Grey, and was not at all reluctant to learn what he had to teach her in their marriage bed. She’d been an apt pupil, would have been quite willing to experiment further had he been so inclined. But she soon found that he was disconcerted if she made the first overtures, that he would rather she played a passive role in their lovemaking.
Elizabeth was a poor judge of people, for she was not curious enough to speculate upon the needs and wants that motivated others. But even to her, it was clear that her husband felt somehow threatened by the realization that her sexual needs existed independently of his own desires. Because she had no basis of comparison, Elizabeth assumed that all men were so, and resigned herself to a sexual relationship that was moderately pleasing to her but was, as well, unimaginative and thoroughly predictable.
Her second marriage was unlike her first in all respects; above all, in bed. Edward encouraged her to initiate lovemaking, was delighted when she showed that she wanted him, and the more uninhibited she was, the better he liked it. From him, she’d learned undreamed-of ways to give physical pleasure, and she came in time to understand that the secret of his ardent passion for her lay not so much in her beauty as in her own eagerness for their couplings. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it was the intensity of this shared need that had drawn them together from their first meeting, had linked their lives in a marriage that, by every standard of their time, should never have been, and yet endured in the face of universal outrage, his flagrant infidelities, and her failure to give him a son.
Elizabeth continued to run her fingers lightly up and down his forearm, and then shifted slightly so that his arm was pressing pleasantly against her breasts. She was satisfied but not sated, and the sexual comparisons she’d been making between the two men had turned her thoughts in that direction again. She began to play with the bright soft hairs upon his chest, tugging gently; she knew his body as if it were her own, knew how to pleasure and how to tease and how to bring him to sudden arousal.
“Ned?”
He made a wordless reply, a sound of sleepy content, and she slid her hand lower, down his hip and onto his thigh. She confined her caresses there for a time and then moved up, between his legs.
He was not long in shrugging off sleepiness, was quite willing to give himself over to the soft skilled hands that soon had him sighing with pleasure.
Elizabeth leaned over him again, for a lingering kiss.
“Ned?” She was breathing against his ear, waited till he opened an inquiring eye.
“Ned…what happens now that Warwick has his pardon?”
“I wait,” he said laconically.
“Wait for what?” she whispered.
She was so close that their mouths were but a whisper apart. He saw that she was watching him intently, not breathing, as if the fate of the world hung upon his answer.
“For him to overreach himself, my love,” he said softly and seriously.
“Will he? Are you sure, Ned?”
“I’d wager my life on it,” he said and saw her smile.
“I would rather you wagered his,” she said. Her mouth was on his. Her perfume was elusive, a beguiling sensual fragrance that beckoned him to seek its source, and where her body touched him, she was warm, skin like silk drawn taut, smooth yet firm.
“For me?” she murmured. “Would you not claim his life for me, Ned?” And she sought his mouth again, only to stop abruptly, for he’d begun to laugh.
“And when Salome danced for King Herod, he promised to give her whatsoever she asked, and she did ask for the head of John the Baptist to be brought before her upon a silver platter,” he quoted with a grin, as Elizabeth stared at him, saying nothing.
With an effort, she bit back a sharp retort. He was, at one and the same time, the most exciting man she’d ever known and the most exasperating, too, and nothing exasperated her so much as the sense of humor she found to be perverse, unpredictable and more often than not, incomprehensible. There was much she did not understand about him, but above all else, she did not understand how he could take so little in life seriously, for there was little that she did not.
“I find it difficult to laugh, Ned, where Warwick is concerned,” she said evenly. “Can you blame me for that?”
“Of course not, sweetheart.”
He sounded contrite, but Elizabeth knew him too well to be disarmed.
“When Warwick does overreach himself, when he falls…What then, Ned?” she persisted. “You told me he did owe you a debt. How do you mean to collect it?”
“Why don’t you come here, Salome, and we’ll discuss it?”
He was laughing again, and before she could object, rolled over on top of her. Elizabeth was not deceived, knew that he meant to distract her attention from a question he did not want to answer. She would have persevered, have coaxed or coerced a reply, but his kisses were claiming her breath and his body was hard upon hers, and she found herself tightening her arms around his neck, moving to meet his desire. She did not forget her question, though; nor that he’d not been willing to answer it.
Elizabeth had taken what consolation she could from Edward’s assurance that Warwick would soon entangle himself in a web of his own making, and she was to discover before the new year was three months old that her husband had a gift for political prophecy.
Tensions flared anew that spring of 1470. A revolt had broken out in Lincolnshire, sparked by the assault of the Lancastrian Lord Welles and his son upon the manor house of a man who was not only a steadfast Yorkist but an officer of Edward’s own household. But as was the case with Robin of Redesdale, the Welles rebellion soon showed Neville colors.
Lord Welles was a second cousin of Warwick, and on March 4, Sir Robert Welles published in all churches of Lincolnshire a summons to arms on behalf of the Earl of Warwick and the man who, it was now claimed, held rightful title to the crown of England, George, Duke of Clarence.
Edward moved into Lincolnshire in early March. Warwick and George were then at Leicester. They strenuously denied any involvement in the Welles rebellion, but refused Edward’s demand that they appear before him. They did not linger at Leicester, headed north, but at Chesterfield, word reached them that an army led by Sir Robert Welles had confronted the forces of the King at the village of Empingham. Whenever Edward commanded his army in person, he did not lose. The battle of Empingham was so overwhelming a Yorkist victory that it became known as Lose-Cote Field, for the piles of discarded armor that littered the field in the wake of the fleeing rebels.
Warwick and George had no choice but to take flight. They raced for the South, through villages and towns that greeted their call to arms with indifference. The lords who had allied themselves to Warwick scrambled to cover their tracks, or hastily submitted to Edward.
It came as no surprise, therefore, when on March 24, Edward formally proclaimed his cousin of Warwick and his brother of Clarence as traitors and offered one thousand pounds for their capture.
14
Coventry
April 1470
“Johnny!”
Guiding his mount through the gatehouse of St Mary’s Priory, Richard reined in abruptly at sight of his cousin. He called again and this time caught John’s attention.
“It looks as though three months in Wales did agree with you, Dickon.”
Richard laughed, knowing he’d never looked worse than he did at that moment, his boots caked with mud, his cloak streaked with trail dust, his hair windblown and his face windburnt. He’d just put in three weeks of hard riding and it showed, every mile of it. But for the moment, the familiar bone-weariness had eased; he was too glad to be at Coventry to register fatigue, not yet.
“I’d be hard put to say which is worse, Johnny…my appearance or your bad manners in commenting upon it!” He grinned and John laughed, but made no comment. Richard swung from the saddle, and giving his stallion over into trustworthy hands, waved his men on toward the stables.
He’d n
ot seen John since early January, when Edward had sent him back into Wales, this time to head a commission of oyer and terminar. During these past months, as he explored a terrain far more intimidating than the rugged hill-country of Wales, the unfamiliar reaches of leadership, there’d been many times when he’d yearned for his cousin’s counsel. And yet now he found himself fumbling for a topic of conversation…with Johnny, of all men!
John seemed to be afflicted by the same malady. They walked in silence for some moments. A large shaggy mongrel had begun to trail them, hopeful for a handout, and glancing at it, John said, “How’s that big wolfhound of yours? You do still have him?”
“Gareth?” Richard nodded. “When Ned sent me back into Wales, I left him with my sister Eliza for safekeeping.” He smiled slightly. “I hope I don’t regret it…. Or rather, that Gareth doesn’t! My nephew Jack is just seven but he’s already a hellion.”
How in God’s Name had he and Johnny been reduced to this? After three months, nothing to talk about but a damned dog! No…not nothing. Too much. For Jesú, there was so much that couldn’t be said between them now. And when Warwick and George were taken…what then?
“Lord Constable. Chief Justice of North Wales. And now Chief Justice and Chamberlain of South Wales, too. That’s quite an array of titles, Dickon.”
Richard shrugged. Neither chose to mention that the last-named post was the one Edward had been compelled to yield to Warwick under duress eight months ago.
“Ned’s asking a lot of you. More, I think, than is fair for your age. Do the burdens never weigh down upon you, Dickon?”
Richard would have accepted that from no one else. But John had earned the right to criticize Edward if any man had. Besides, it was a rare relief to be able to admit, as he did now, “Well, there are times…mostly at night…when you’ve the say over men’s lives come morning, and if you do choose wrong…” This was more than he’d meant to confide, however, and he caught himself abruptly, gave John a brief smile.