“Will you take the river to Shene, Richard?”
He turned away from the window. “I think not, unless the snow does ease up.”
Anne was groping under the bed for her shoes. “Will you be gone for long?”
He shrugged, and she said what she knew she shouldn’t. “It won’t do any good, Richard…going to Shene. George is not about to relinquish his claims to the Neville and Beauchamp lands, not until Ned makes him. And Ned isn’t willing to do that.”
“This does no good, either,” he said irritably. “Every time we do begin to talk of what Ned has or has not done, we end up quarreling, and I don’t want to leave you with harsh words unhealed between us.”
Anne was at once contrite. “Nor do I, love. It is just that I so hate to be parted from you…. Sometimes at night, I dream it is as it was before, that there be walls between us too high ever to be breached, and I wake up aching that you’re not asleep beside me.”
“That could be remedied easily enough,” he said pointedly, but then he smiled. “Now come here, wench, and bid me a proper farewell!”
She did, so effectively that he decided he could linger a few moments longer. He brushed her hair back as it strayed across her throat, wound a thick burnished rope around his hand.
“Anne, I’ve been giving thought to the lands in dispute. Ned has been most generous with me. Now that he’s seen fit to give me the estates forfeited by the Earl of Oxford…Well, they do total more than eighty manors, sweetheart, and will yield a right handsome yearly income. Add to that, the grants he made me last June of Middleham, Sheriff Hutton, and Penrith and—”
“And we’d have no need of more. Is that what you’re saying?” Giving him no chance to reply. “Richard, you know how I do feel about this. It isn’t that the lands do mean so much to me. By rights, they be my mother’s, after all. But if she’s not to have them, I’m damned if I’ll see them go to George! I cannot keep him from laying claim to Isabel’s portion, but I’ll not concede him so much as an acre more! Why should I?”
“I did not say—”
“How could you ask that of me? I don’t understand, truly I don’t!”
“Are you going to hear me out or not? Surely you know I do like it not. Do you think I want to see George enriched at our expense? But I want to wed you, Anne. I’m wearying of these delays.”
“Richard, I’m impatient, too, that we wed. But why must we make such a choice? It’s so utterly unfair! Why should George not only escape his sins unscathed but emerge the richer for it? When I think of what he has done…and continues to do! He has no right to claim wardship over me, no right to the Beauchamp lands, and I do not understand why Ned seems unable to curb his demands!”
“We’ve been over this time and time again. George is not capable of responding to reason as another man would. You might better measure the mists on Malvern Hills than try to untangle what goes on in his head. Not even threats have so far worked with him. I’m beginning to think nothing short of a stay in the Tower will.”
“That sounds like a marvelously fair idea to me!” Anne said tartly. “I’d wager that if Ned cast him into the Tower for a spell, he’d lose his taste for my lands quick enough! And God knows, that’s where he most deserves to be!”
“You know quite well why Ned is reluctant to take so drastic a measure as that,” he said, striving for patience but finding only the teeth-gritting kind. “His forbearance is not for George; he refrains for our lady mother’s sake. She’s had more than her share of grieving on George’s behalf, and Ned would not add to her hurts if he can help it.”
“So you keep telling me. And I’m sure it be true…as far as it goes.”
“What mean you by that, Anne?”
“I don’t doubt that Ned wants to spare your mother. But I think there be yet another reason for Ned’s failure to act, one you are either unable or unwilling to recognize!”
“Indeed?” Richard said icily. “Are you saying you do know my brother’s motives better than I do?”
She disregarded the warning. “Do you remember a few weeks ago, when you told me that Ned said your greatest failure of judgment is that you tend to be too quick to act? At the time, I could see only the irony in that, for Ned’s not one to act at all unless he be forced to it!”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it? Oh, Richard, think! You need only look to his marriage for proof of what I say. Five months wed he was before he made the marriage known, and only then because his council was pressing him to take the French bride my father had found for him!
“Nor is that the only time he sought to deal with trouble by ignoring it. Richard, that has ever been his way…and you know it. He’s always been one for putting off problems till the morrow. Moreover, George is a problem he’s long used to living with. Richard, we do have to face it. He just cannot be bothered to teach George a lesson long overdue, not when it be so much easier to wait George out. What does the delay cost him, after all? You and I be the ones to pay the price!”
“You have all the answers, haven’t you? Or so you think!”
Recalling suddenly his tendency to end quarrels by walking out on them, she took several steps backward, leaned against the door. “Tell me, then. Tell me how I be wrong. Most willingly I’ll hear you out. Surely we can talk of this without anger?”
“What would you have me say, Anne? Do you think I’ve not talked to Ned? Christ, I’ve urged him till there be nothing left to say!”
“I didn’t know. You never said. You always seemed to accept his reasons for not acting and I…I thought you were content to wait….”
“Content? Oh, God!” Richard laughed, but there was no humor whatsoever in it. “What could I possibly find to content me in the sight of George strutting about the court when he should by rights be in the Tower? George preening himself like an injured innocent and bemoaning to all who’ll listen how I’ve wronged him. What contentment do you think it gives me each time that bitch, my sweet sister-in-law, does ask me before a score or more of spectators if I be wed yet and then affects great surprise that it isn’t so? Or that her misbegotten whelp Thomas Grey amuses himself by wagering which will come first, my marriage or George’s murder!
“I’ve always loathed Westminster, always. But now…Now there be days when I think I’ll never draw an easy untainted breath till I be back at Middleham.” Adding bitterly. “And Christ only knows when that will be.”
“My love, I didn’t know,” she repeated, but he paid her no heed, seemed intent only upon saying what for weeks had been festering in silence.
“And then I come here and you do naught but nag at me for what be beyond my control. If you must have me say it, I don’t know why Ned puts off a reckoning with George. I don’t understand it and I do resent it; be you satisfied now?”
Anne shook her head slowly; it was the first time she’d heard him so openly critical of his brother.
“Richard, I’m sorry! If only you’d told me how you felt…. Had I known you were so unhappy over the way things were at court, I’d not have been so quick to burden you with my own discontent.”
She’d long since moved from the door. Now she closed the few feet still keeping them apart and put her arms around him. He responded, but with enough reluctance to give her pause. She looked up intently into his face and made a private vow, that she must somehow learn to bite her tongue each time she was tempted to find fault with Ned. She touched his cheek, said with genuine regret, “I’ve given you none too easy a time these weeks past, have I?”
A remark like that would normally have drawn from him a teasing retort. She was not reassured when he said only, “If I’m to be back at Westminster by Compline, I should leave now.”
“Richard…Richard, you aren’t still angry with me, are you?”
“It’s not that I’m angry with you, Anne. It’s this damnable web we’re entangled in. I’m weary of struggling to get free of it and making so little headway.”
S
he tightened her arms around his neck at that, brought her mouth up to his. “You still want me then?” she asked, half playfully, half seriously, and as she hoped, that drew an immediate response, as reassuring as it was predictable.
“Want you?” he said after a time. “There be times when I do want you so much that it’s like to drive me mad!” He ran his hands lightly and possessively over her body and then pulled her even closer. An elusive fragrance of jasmine clung to her hair, her skin. He kissed her again, said, “I thought it would get better once I was sure you were mine, but it does only get worse. Nothing does ease the wanting, beloved.”
Anne stood very still. She felt his mouth against her hair, felt his hands slide up from her waist to her breasts, but the warm tingling flush that had been spreading so pleasantly through her body had, without warning, congealed into ice. She felt only numbness now as she struggled to deny what she should have long ago realized. Nothing does ease the wanting, he’d said. Nothing.
She brought her eyes up sharply to his face, but still she hesitated. While there was much he might choose to keep from her, he’d not lie to her. She knew him well enough to be sure of that. If she asked him, he’d tell her the truth. Don’t, an inner voice cautioned, don’t ask, even as she said, “Since we did promise to wed, have you…been with any other women?”
His hands hurt, so suddenly did they tighten upon her shoulders. She had her answer in the silence that followed her question, knew before he nodded what he would say.
“Yes.”
She now found herself free, did not even realize she’d pulled back from his embrace. Nan, she thought dully, It could only be Nan. The other girl was safely away from London, but Nan was no farther than Westminster. Nan, who was so pretty and who shared her name; why that should make it worse, she didn’t know, but somehow it did. Nan, who was inevitably and irresistibly bound to Richard by the blood that flowed in the veins of their son.
“You told me it was done between you and her,” she said in a low, accusing voice. “And I believed you!”
“Her?” he echoed. “You mean…Nan? Good Lord, Anne, I’ve not seen her for months! I did not take a mistress; on that, you do have my word.”
So great was her relief that it was a moment or so before she could sort her feelings out, realize that she still didn’t like it much.
She sat down abruptly upon the bed, staring at the green-and-gold glitter of her betrothal ring. It would be demeaning to let herself be jealous of trollops. She knew she was supposed to overlook such lapses, that her pride demanded as much. He, too, would expect no less. He’d been far more tolerant of her jealousy than many men would have been, had been honest with her about Nan and Kate, about the son and daughter conceived in sin. But he’d be neither amused nor flattered if she were now to reproach him for seeking in other beds what she’d denied him in hers. She wasn’t supposed to mind such straying. How was it, then, that what she should feel was at such variance with what she did feel? For she did mind, she minded dreadfully.
Her hair had fallen forward to weave a veil of dark gold threads across her cheek and throat. Richard had no need to see her face, however, to confirm her hurt. It showed all too clearly for his comfort, in the dejected slump of her shoulders, the betraying tension of the hands twisting together in her lap.
“Name of God, Anne…” he began, and then stopped. What was he going to do, berate her for what she hadn’t said? He had no reason to feel guilty. Under the circumstances, none at all. So why, then, did her silence make him so uncomfortable?
“What else was I to do, Anne?” he said reasonably. “Do you think I could have been so patient with you these weeks past had I not found ease elsewhere? Being with you like this, wanting you as I’ve never wanted any other woman in my life…. Well, what else could I do?” He suddenly realized he was repeating himself; worse, that his explanation was verging upon the defensive.
“Surely you understand that it had nothing to do with what I feel for you? I cannot believe you’d be jealous of a harlot, sweetheart!”
“No, of course I would not,” she said hastily and untruthfully, sounding so forlorn that his resistance melted. Crossing to her, he reached down, raised her to her feet.
“The next time I say I must be off to Westminster, for God’s sake, let me go!” he said, and Anne summoned a wan smile.
“More fool I,” she said, her voice so muffled against his chest as to be almost inaudible, “for asking a question far better never raised….”
They stood together in silence for a time. Richard stroked her hair, smoothed it back from her face. “I love only you,” he said softly.
“Richard…I’ve changed my mind. Do what you like about the lands.”
“Be you sure, beloved?”
She nodded. “I want to see George pay for what he’s done. But even more do I want to be your wife. If we must buy his consent, then so be it.”
Few things had come harder to her than that grudging surrender. Her hatred for George was unrelenting, unforgiving, cried out for retaliation. But jealousy was stronger, would poison her peace in a way that George could never have done.
“You’ll not regret it, Anne. You’ll never regret it. That I do promise you, beloved.”
“Promise me rather,” she said, very low, “that once we be wed, you’ll share no bed but mine.”
She’d not meant to ask that, but now that she had, she wasn’t sorry. She raised her eyes anxiously to his face, saw in the curve of his mouth the answer she so needed to hear. He bent his head, kissed her softly, and then began to laugh.
“I can think of no promise, Anne, it will give me greater pleasure to keep!”
13
Shene
February 1472
“What mean you to do about this, Ned?” Will Hastings raised questioning eyes from the correspondence before him. “Shall you grant Brittany the aid it seeks?”
“I’ve not made up my mind yet. I do owe Francis for the money he advanced me in exile, and I’d like nothing better than to give some grief to that whoreson on the French throne. But I’m leery of making too firm a commitment until I see how the winds blow. He’s asking for six thousand archers; I thought I might send Anthony with a thousand or so.”
Edward shoved the papers across the table, watched a scribe begin to gather them up. Will, who had no liking for Anthony Woodville, had been about to indulge himself at Anthony’s expense, but something in Edward’s face dissuaded him. He studied his friend more closely, saw the finely webbed lines around the eyes, the sharply chiseled set of the mouth. So the strain was getting to Ned, too. And why not? The tension was even getting to him, and he had an unabashed taste for court bloodletting. If this rupture between Clarence and Gloucester were not soon healed, it was like to infect them all.
“Do you feel as bad as you look?”
“No jesting, Will; not today. I’m not much in the mood for it.”
Will beckoned for wine and then waved the servants out of earshot. Pouring Edward’s cup himself, he said, “I gather Clarence is still showing himself to be intransigent?”
“When has he ever been anything else? And if he weren’t enough of an aggravation, now I be having difficulties with Dickon, too.”
Edward scowled into his drink. Will waited.
“I had a right sharp quarrel with him this morning—with Dickon, I mean. He’s convinced himself that I’ve been overly lax with George, is now threatening to wed the girl at once, says he does mean to marry her as soon as he gets back to London, whether George yields up his claims or not.”
“Rather high-handed of him, I’d say,” Will murmured, and then suffered a prick of shame. He might not be able to deny the jealousy Gloucester did rouse in him, but he needn’t give in to it as easily as this. Not only was it petty, it wasn’t smart. To recoup, he said, more generously, “He has been patient, though, Ned. You have to grant him that.”
“I do, but I don’t see why he cannot be patient awhile longer.” Ed
ward set his cup down with a thud, pushed it impatiently from him.
“I tell you, Will, I am becoming bone-weary with this continuing strife between them. George couldn’t see reason if he did fall over it in the road, but I expected more from Dickon. Damn him, he does know the bind I be in! I cannot deal with George as if he had his full wits about him; he doesn’t.
“No, Will, it’s not as simple as Dickon seems to think. He wants me to threaten to reclaim the Devon estates if George doesn’t consent to the marriage. But if I strip George of what’s rightfully his, I risk pushing him into another rising. He’s rather chummy with George Neville these days, and I’ve had Neville under suspicion for some time now, as you well know, I may have no proof as yet, but I’d wager a great deal that Neville’s in secret communication with his brother-in-law Oxford. I cannot do much about Oxford as long as he keeps to France, but my cousin the Archbishop is far more vulnerable, as he’ll learn to his cost if my suspicions be true. As for Brother George, he’ll bear close watching; he does take to treason as naturally as fish to water and birds to air.
“With George, I have a choice. I can destroy him or I can put up with him; one or the other, Will. What does vex me is that Dickon knows that. But he’s so set upon wedding the girl and taking her back to Middleham that he can see little else.
“I suspect George is looking now to save face more than anything else. But if Dickon goes ahead and marries Anne without giving George a chance to salvage his pride by grudgingly giving consent…Well, it’ll be like striking flint to tinder.”
“As I see it then, there’s but one action you can take, Ned. If you need more time to bring Clarence to heel, Gloucester must give you that time. Why not just forbid him to wed until you’ve gotten Clarence to yield?”