The Innocent (35 page)

“I’ve wanted to touch you, see you like this, ever since that day in the Abbey.”

“You remember?” She was humbled by the knowledge that they truly had reached out to one another, more than a year ago.

“Come here.” She took a step toward him and it was as if she crossed a great divide—she would not turn back now.

Carefully, deliberately, he picked up a handful of hair and held it against his face. He closed his eyes, breathed in her smell. “Silk. Living silk.”

She giggled, and he grinned at his own extravagant language. But then his finger traced the contour of her cheek, down to her mouth, and his expression changed. “I want more than touch,” he whispered. “I want…” He pulled her to him with strength she did not want to escape. And looked down into her eyes, his own shining in the light of the fire. “Your heart and soul. And body.”

Helpless, she was suddenly frightened by the power of what she felt, and did not dare to look up. He laughed, deep in his throat, and she felt him unlace the back of her gown before he picked her up as if she weighed nothing.

He strode over to the bed and then, before he put her down, dropped his mouth to hers so that she, intoxicated, hardly felt it when he placed her against the mound of pillows and eased her dress off her shoulders to reveal her breasts. Instinctively, she sat up and crossed her arms, hiding them from him, blushing.

Her modesty was a powerful erotic charge to him but patiently he leaned forward again and softly, gently, kissed her throat, the hollow at the base of her neck. Gradually he felt her arms relax and then, tentatively, steal up around his neck so that her naked breasts were soft against his chest.

Delicately, not disturbing her embrace, he sat on the bed beside her, one hand sliding around her waist, the other lightly tracing the line of her spine, the touch like a velvet glove over the smooth, shining skin. She was breathing faster now and returning his kisses more passionately as he found the last of the lacing on her gown and eased it loose. “Let me look at you.” He sat back, smiling into her eyes, deliberately not glancing lower than her face.

Again, the bright blood flushed her face and neck—and, he was sure, her breasts—but then she nodded slightly and he allowed himself to drop his eyes. Her breasts were beautiful, fuller than he had thought and gleaming like the surface of pearls in the light from the fire. With one finger, he traced the line of her jaw, then her throat, then down, down to the cleft between and underneath one and then the other—

up to a small hard nipple and then, without warning, he closed his mouth around the little mound, sucking and biting very gently.

She squirmed and gasped but then, after a moment’s hesitation, closed her eyes and lay back against the pillows as his hand caressed the nipple of her other breast.

“Give me your hand.” With closed eyes she let him guide her, down his body, across his belly, and on to where she felt the hard bulge in his hose. Her eyes flew open. “You see, Anne, what you do to me?”

He was bent over her, a dark shape, his head and shoulders outlined by the light of the fire, and for a moment she was frightened by the power and the strength of his body. But she knew that the time to say no had long passed. Then, as he slid out of his jerkin and she saw the beauty of him, all fear departed. He was perfectly made.

“You are perfect.” His words startled her; had he picked up her thoughts, were they so close in mind?

But the liquid, dreamlike warmth that was spreading through her body as he ran his hands over her banished all but physical sensations.

Deftly, he lifted her slightly in his arms and eased the dress completely off so that it dropped to the floor. She was naked now, lying trustingly, skin to skin, as one of his hands traced the contour of her spine down to her small, round buttocks.

Now she was on her back and he was stroking her belly, the strokes becoming firmer and longer, then lower, slower, and more deliberate as delicious shivers ran from her breasts to her groin. She was panting and so was he, as, unconsciously, her thighs began to part, allowing his hand to find its way between her legs. That pleased him, she could tell, for he growled deep in his throat, but the shock when his fingers found the opening in her cleft was still great and she tried to sit up away from his questing hands.

Her patient lover was completely naked now and becoming less and less restrained. He smothered her protests with his mouth as she felt him slide over her so that his body covered hers completely. And between their sweating bodies, pinioned against her belly, she could feel him hard and hot against her pubic bone, impatient to be inside her—just as a discreet knocking began at the door of the room.

For a moment, the universe of flesh held them, but the insistent knocking became too much. Edward slid off Anne’s body with a muffled curse and strode naked to the door of the chamber.

Anne was distressed, shocked, and then a great wave of guilty shame and confusion lapped high as she saw the disordered bed, her abandoned clothes. She was naked, in the king’s room, and he was about to open the door!

As quick as thought, she snatched up her dress, found her veil, and ran through the little door behind the arras and out into the passage behind the king’s room before he had fully crossed the chamber. Her last thought, as she fled, was how glorious he looked, but then the cold of the dark passage hit her and all she could think to do was drop the dress over her head and keep running, stumbling to find the way out.

The journey back to the dorter was humiliating. She did her best to tidy her clothes but she could do little with her hair and she had lost her shoes. Also, trying to relace her gown, by herself in the dark, was close to impossible.

Hurrying across the inner court near the king’s lodging, she couldn’t avoid meeting a number of sentries—though, mercifully, she knew none of them by name or sight—and their faces mirrored what they saw. She looked like a girl who’d just been tumbled. Blushing fiercely and trying not to cry, she gathered her dignity as well as she could and walked the rest of the way to the dorter on freezing feet, calmly and quietly. But her mind was a welter of disordered images, images she shrank from.

She was wanton. A slut. There was no other explanation. True, she was still technically a virgin, but that was all. In her heart she had wanted the king as badly, as fiercely, as he had wanted her. God knew, she still wanted him, and if they had not been interrupted, she would by now be, irrevocably, his whore, his leman.

Edward, however, wasn’t thinking of Anne. When, in a rage, he’d flung open the door of his room—hot words ready to blister whoever was standing on the other side—he’d found William Hastings fully dressed with a sword on his belt.

Brusquely, he strode past his naked king into the room, not bothering to apologize. “They’ve gone.”

“Who?” Edward had fighter’s instincts—he hardly had to ask.

“Warwick. And Clarence.”

“When? Davis!” He needed to dress. Where were his clothes? Davis, his body servant, entered the room at a run and, prescient as usual, had a fresh linen shirt over one arm and hose in the other. The king dressed rapidly, dragging a hand through tousled hair as Hastings filled him in.

“Straight after the revels. Packed up stealthily, gathered Warwick’s affinity, and left. Must have had it planned.” As he talked Hastings took in the evidence that the king had had a visitor. There beside the fire was a red ribbon, and half hidden near the bed, a pair of small, fine leather shoes. He sighed.

Edward was an extraordinary young man, a fine fighter, and he had the makings of a great king, but sometimes even he, Hastings, thought his fondness for bed sport verged on the obsessive.

It dawned on Edward, too, as he dressed, that Anne had fled and with a spare part of his mind he was both glad and sorry. He knew she’d been as hot for him as he for her, but it had taken a lot of patience to make her so receptive. Still, he’d enjoy trying again, when he had the time. Now there was work to be done. “Do you have knowledge of where they’re going?”

“They took the north road, sire.”

“Well now, we must find my wretched brother and entice him back. Really, all this fuss just because I said he couldn’t marry Isabelle. One thing, Hastings…”

“What, sire?”

“Warwick. He’s overreached himself this time.”

Chapter Twenty-five

The queen was feeling better. She’d slept well through the wild storm of the previous night and was determined to reclaim her husband’s attention. Edward was so robust that physical weakness in others made him impatient, so particular care went to her appearance on this brilliant, crisp winter’s morning, and not one of her servants—base or gentle—was spared a tongue-lashing in Elizabeth’s quest for perfection.

An unusual entertainment had been planned. After Mass, instead of eating the main meal of the day in the hall, the king had decided that a winter picnic would take place at which the most adventurous members of his court could assay the newly introduced sport of skating on frozen ice, using split beef shinbones strapped to their shoes. He’d learned the skill when he’d lived abroad, in Brugge as a boy.

Time, however, was not an ally as Elizabeth caused havoc by rejecting gown after gown in her search to find the most flattering ensemble in which to learn to skate. “The red velvet, Your Majesty, with the beaver tippets? Now that will stand out.”

“You’re a fool, Jehanne. I’m too fat now.” The queen scowled as she looked into her glass.

The women of her suite rushed to reassure her.

“Fat? Oh, no, madam!”

“…waist like an eel…”

“…such a good color for your complexion…”

“Enough! I’ll not wear it, the velvet is worn. See, here—and here.” No one but the queen could see anything wrong with the lustrous fabric but no one ventured an opinion.

Anne had been completely silent as Jehanne and the other women did their best to pacify the queen.

She’d not slept in the few hours between leaving the king and getting up in the cold hour before dawn to brush the queen’s clothes, in preparation for dressing her. And in her bed, she’d hugged her belly against the cramps that assailed her as she played, over and over, images from her time in the king’s rooms. Burning with fever, shivering with cold, anxiety running acid through her bones—what would happen when she met him again? How could she look him in the eyes feeling the shame that she did?

And also, the fear remained. She had not spoken to him about what she’d heard and seen in the chapel the night before; danger remained and he did not know it. Or so she thought.

“Anne, you have nothing to offer?” The queen was icy. Recently, Anne had not pleased Elizabeth.

Previously, the girl had attended on her cheerfully and made lotions and other cosmetics that had pleased her, but in recent days Anne had become more and more silent and evasive.

The whip of the queen’s tongue brought Anne out of her fog of misery and she saw the startled concern on Jehanne’s face. Buying time to think, she curtsied and then, grace of God, inspiration struck. “The white brocade, Your Majesty, with the ermine. And your emeralds with the pearl and silver hair cauls.

You will look like the Winter Queen. And you should ride your white palfrey with the silver harness—

the Arabian that the king gave you on your name day.”

The picture that Anne conjured up—a mystic, almost fairy-tale figure—pleased the queen against her will. The girl was right, for the good thing about the white dress was that she’d only worn it once, months before. No one would remember it if she teamed it with one of her new cloaks—perhaps the one of white velvet from Venice.

Grudgingly, Elizabeth gave her approval, making a mental note not to forget Anne’s odd behavior lately. That would have to be addressed, though there was no time now. She would speak to the king when she had a moment alone with him.

Finally, the queen and all her women were assembled in a cavalcade accompanied by selected gentlemen—including Doctor Moss—and were on their way to meet the king and his men at a specially created winter bower in the greenwood. Everyone had cheered up considerably, including Elizabeth.

Jehanne and Anne were traveling behind the party in a bullock cart, one of several that contained provisions for the picnic. It was a fine, brilliantly cold day, with a high blue sky, though the driver of the cart, a battered veteran of many Yorkist campaigns of the past, foretold snow before the evening.

“And, if I’m right in this, much more after that. We’ll be snowed in for Christmas, mark my words…”

“But we’ve still two days to come, man. How can you know what the Lord will send for his birthday?”

Jehanne scoffed.

“Well, lady, I recollect the campaigns I fought with the king after the scurvy death of his father, the good Duke of York that was, at Wakefield, rest his soul. Towton now—when we saw off that she-wolf of Anjou—freezing that was. Fine and crisp the day before—just as this—and a blizzard for three mortal days after. All the snow ran red but we fought on.”

Anne shivered and wrapped herself tighter in her dark red cloak as the man maundered on. Red…the blood-colored cloth fluttered at her feet like a spreading pool, fluttered and rippled like a battle flag.

And then there were screams, other voices—and she heard the whistle and thump of arrows, the bray of wounded horses. Her throat closed with fear as she tensed, ready to jump from the cart, ready to run…

But as she looked ahead and to the side, there was nothing. No battle: no marauders dropping down from the trees or in their path. All around were the same happy, unconcerned people, excited by the treat that today had in store.

Anne felt dizzy and sick—and shattered by the terror she’d felt. Her heart still surged with fear…and the certainty that it was Edward who would have to face the battle to come. There could be no escape, the conflict would have to be played out; the danger to the king and his kingdom was still as strong as the smell of blood on the wind…And then she remembered. To tell him what she sensed—even if he believed her—she would have to speak to him alone, and after last night, how could she face that?