The Innocent (53 page)

For all his graceful ways, the abbot was not without courage, and he was the ruler of this place, not the king, because he was the pope’s direct representative and, in theory, answered to the pope alone. He spoke up bravely. “Lady Anne, you have heard the king. However, you are in my care. What is your wish?”

“I will speak to the king alone. He will not harm me.”

The abbot had gone as far as prudence, and his conscience, had said he must. Silently, he bowed to them both, sketched a cross between them, and then left.

For a moment neither the king nor Anne said or did anything, but then, in three swift strides Edward had covered the flags between them, ripped the veil from her face, and pulled her to him so savagely the breath was crushed from her chest. He plunged his mouth down on hers and from that moment the world dissolved.

Anne had the strength to fight much, but not this. Her rage and fear were gone.

She tried to step back but he would not let her. He pulled her over to one of the long stone benches that lined the treasure house walls, clearing a place for them to sit, oblivious to the fate of the golden plates and chalices as they rolled out of the way. He pulled her to him harder, urgent hands hunting under her cloak, running down her back, her hips, as they stood body to body.

“Anne, Anne—it doesn’t have to be like this. We are not enemies. Let me help you. Oh, sweet Jesus…”

He groaned with mingled elation and despair as she stood there trembling. Anne closed her eyes as he kissed her throat, as his hands moved over her breasts and the curve between waist and hip. She’d said nothing because she had nothing to say—no words could frame the confusion, the love, the ache she felt for this man.

He knew it, of course. With shaking fingers he undid the clasp of her cloak and spread the rich fabric out behind her over the bench. Inexorably he lifted her, laid her down as his fingers found the lacings of her gown. This was a man skilled with arrow strings, with the jesses of a hawk; he made short work of what he found. She did not stop him. In the strange world she inhabited, the world bounded by the smell of his skin, the feel of his velvet cotehardie, his mouth on hers, she knew that what was happening was inevitable. She fully welcomed him, all confusion gone. It was a drug to them both, this relationship, and after the turmoil of the last weeks, she just wanted this moment, wanted him.

And so she, the daughter of a king, and he, the son of a duke, helped each other take the clothes from their bodies in the cold still air of the treasure house of the Abbey. Soon she lay on the black velvet with no covering but her long hair and she blushed as his eyes roamed over her body. But that body was a gift—a gift between equals—and she would not be ashamed. She smiled into his eyes proudly.

“There is much to say between you and me…but not now,” she said and reached her arms up to him trustingly.

He was dazzled—but he’d wanted this moment, too, and now that it had come, wild joy ran through him, for it seemed he might have won and he wanted to savor each second.

Carefully, he laid his full length along Anne’s naked body and kissed and kissed her mouth, gathering

her closer, closer, as one hand roamed her breasts, her belly, down to the cleft between her legs. She was breathing faster now, as was he, and soon, so soon, they were belly to belly as he slipped his fingers between her legs. She whimpered and he hushed her as his fingers went deeper, deeper, feeling the resistance of her hymen. The urge to follow his fingers was very strong, but delaying made his pleasure deeper and more exquisite because he knew that now, this time, she would not leave him.

Gently, he pulled Anne beneath him and she gasped as she felt him push inside her body for the first time. But he held her fast for that moment and somehow controlled himself enough to move with a steady, gradually mounting rhythm, until he felt her hymen tear—she cried out into his mouth—and then there was the rushing shock for them both as he entered her completely.

Now it was much harder for him to control himself because she felt so hot, so soft. Harder and harder, deeper and deeper—he was almost battering her now—and she was lying underneath him writhing with each stroke. He took both her buttocks in his hands and pulled her hips up to meet him as he plunged down, again and again, until she found that she had locked her legs around his lower back and was meeting him, thrust for thrust. Now she began to understand why she had ached for him, as a feeling she had never experienced before concentrated itself between her thighs, and it made her want to faint and scream and…

Harder he was slamming into her, slicker and faster went his fingers—for her there was pain and bliss and more bliss and more pain and…

He roared, and she screamed from shock and searing, sweet bliss; and for one wild moment they looked deep into each other’s eyes, and then all was black.

He thought she had died, that he’d killed her, but then he felt her rib cage move and a wave of tenderness such as he’d never experienced before swept Edward, pierced him to the heart. There were tears in his eyes as he held her to him fiercely, kissed her closed lids softly, and murmured, “I love you. God help us both but this is true…”

When the king and Anne appeared before the abbot as he was on his knees praying in the Lady Chapel, all he could see in the flickering light of the votive candles was that the lady was pale and looked shaken. The king, too, looked different. As if a layer had been stripped away from his face, revealing a softness not normally seen. He conducted Anne into the abbot’s presence as ceremoniously as if she’d been at a court audience, bowing to her deeply before he left without another word.

Anne looked up at the altar with its fine icon of the Holy Mother with her child and asked to be left alone to pray. The abbot could hardly insist on hearing what the king had said to her but his face must have given something away since she laughed kindly for a moment.

“Master Abbot, leave me to my prayers. We shall speak a little later. There is much to say, and do, now…”

Chapter Forty-two

The daughter of Henry VI had lived the last forty-eight hours in a daze—and she’d spent most of it on her knees apparently praying.

In truth, it had been a way to avoid people and win some time to think after the king’s visit. But now, on the evening before the Saint Valentine’s tourney, the fog had lifted and Anne knew what needed to be done, the choices that had to be made, and she was praying in earnest—to the Sword Mother and to Mary—the images blending into one woman’s face, their voices, one voice. Hers. Her own internal chant of joy.

When did the goddess’s voice end and her own begin? To be who she was, and yet to hear, like a beating drum in her brain, “I love him, he loves me, I love him, he loves me,” took her to the edge of exhilaration and despair…yet, strangely, after all the guilt she had previously felt, none of that mattered now.

She felt no shame for what they’d done for she’d made Edward a gift out of love, freely, and it was magnificent to love so completely. Perhaps she never would again. Now there was the future, and politics to be thought of; she had become a player in a remarkable game of chess. Deborah had taught her how to play the game, in the forest, and she would use that training with Edward, for she had responsibility to protect the friends who had given her so much.

Edward, too, had experienced complete disorientation over the last two days that had driven William Hastings to distraction, for there was much still to be decided on, not least how to deal with Warwick and his affinity during the tournament. He’d tried to get the king to talk about what had happened with Anne, but for once Edward was completely silent—the experience in the Chapel of the Pyx had changed something in the king.

Normally, as William knew, Edward consumed a woman as if she were something delicious, then moved on, driven by the sensual pleasure of the hunt, the hunger to win. Sex had always been about his body and his pleasure. Elizabeth had worked that out very early, and because she was extremely skilled, clever, and beautiful, she’d kept the king’s lust alive for nearly three years, a record for Edward. But Hastings knew that Anne had led the king to another aspect of himself, a quality he’d not suspected. With deep surprise Edward had experienced a spiritual bond between himself and a woman for the first time.

Edward was haunted by what had happened at the Abbey. He was frightened to call it love, though he’d said the word to Anne, but he wanted to protect and care for her. That was agonizing. Would he be strong enough, hard enough, to do what was needed for his kingdom if it meant putting her out of his life? Already William had preached the benefits of a carefully arranged marriage for Anne, or perhaps a nunnery—whether she wanted to be a nun or not. Edward smiled briefly at the thought of “Sister”

Anne.

His mind teeming, Edward tried to give proper attention as his worried chamberlain walked him through the procedures for the five days of the tournament to come, focusing on dealing with Warwick and his brother George, until William unwittingly over-stepped the mark. He was talking of the queen’s entrance to the tournament as the Queen of Love and commented that there were some spectacularly pretty young women at court this winter season. He’d personally picked two of them to wait on the queen, sure they’d distract the king from his present cares.

Edward rounded on Hastings. What did William think he was, a child to be bought off from sulking by a sweetmeat? The king allowed himself to flame into incandescent rage, an awesome sight because it was so rare.

William understood the anger was not meant for him, but there was no reasoning with the king at such a time. He waited quietly for the explosion to die away and then, when Edward fell silent, asked to be excused. He was needed to see that all was well with the flood of guests arriving at the palace ahead of the great banquet of welcome tonight.

Staring down on to the river beneath his windows, Edward waved assent, barely noticing when Hastings went. The short winter’s day was nearly gone and the wind was cutting off the water when he opened one of his casements. It was less than two hours before he would be expected to join Elizabeth in the great hall and take part in the festivities that had been planned, but he’d never felt less like celebrating in his life. All he could see, and hear, was Anne; he just wanted the world to go away so that they could be together, so that he could hold her again. He’d never felt so alone, so uncertain.

He surrendered to the feeling. Snatching up a beaver-lined cloak, he left his private rooms by the way known to very few: a door he’d had installed in new oak paneling, which led to a passage ingeniously contrived in the thickness of the outer wall of the palace. He would give himself one more taste of freedom.

On her knees on the hard, smooth tiles in the Lady Chapel, Anne had finally faced what she’d tried so hard to avoid. She’d found some peace, for, in the end, there wasn’t a choice; her only fear was that courage would leach away when the time came. All she wanted was to sink back into that time, two short days ago, when the king’s arms were around her and his every touch had been like food to the starving.

She closed her eyes, tried to pray, but found herself chanting his name, softly, softly. “Edward, Edward, Edward…” Was it hallucination that made her feel his hands on her again, sense his smell?

No. Those hands were real—he was here! In her surprise she nearly fell as she jumped to her feet, but he was there to catch her, gathering her to his chest, holding her, stroking her back gently as if she were one of his hunting dogs in need of reassurance. She stood quietly in a warm daze, and then lifted her face to be kissed by him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

How he loved the taste of her mouth, and how much it stirred him to stand there, holding her body to his. But it was nearly time for compline; the brothers would flood into the church and she and he must not be discovered.

“Come with me…” His knowledge of the Abbey was their savior again as they hurried down one of the dimly lit side aisles of the church, searching for the entrance to the cloister. It was very dark with only the occasional torch flaring uncertainly in its sconce to light their way, but Edward was like a boy again, playing a game of hide-and-seek with his brothers. He lifted a torch from the wall and, holding Anne tightly by one hand, felt along the cloister until he found what he was looking for.

In a corner, concealed unless you knew where to look for it, there was an elaborate metal grille with a ring handle on one side. Giving Anne the torch to hold, he wrenched the ring around with all his strength, the hinges of the grille protesting as he forced it to open; they gave to the irresistible force, and Edward was able to push the little door inward. Once they were inside, the torch light spilled down a flight of unexpectedly noble steps that disappeared down into darkness.

“This is where we used to come, Richard and George and I, when our parents were at court and we were bored…” He held the torch above their heads as they descended the stairs.