London
May 1471
Véronique de Crécy was the second and late-born daughter of a knight sworn to Duke Réné of Anjou. She was no heiress. When her father died of an affliction of the lungs in the spring of 1459, the modest de Crécy estates had gone to his only son, Guillaume, and what little of jewelry and silver plate her father had managed to accumulate had been used the year before Véronique’s birth to dower her sister Marthe. There was nothing to spare for Véronique, child of miscalculation, born after her mother’s childbearing years were thought to be well past.
Her childhood years at Aubépine, the de Crécy manor at Châtillon-sur-Loire, had not been particularly happy. It was not that Guillaume was ever actively unkind to her. But their mother had died in Véronique’s third year and when their father went to God a bare two years later, Guillaume was not overjoyed to find himself with a baby sister on his hands, a sister twenty-two years younger than he, a sister for whom no dowry had been set aside and who was, therefore, almost certain to be unmarriageable, unless an older widower could be found willing to overlook her lack of lands for the less tangible assets a young wife might bring to an aging husband.
Having been so often warned by Guillaume and his sharp-tongued wife Madeleine that she had the most limited of prospects, Véronique had seen it as nothing short of miraculous when, in the autumn of her fifteenth year, Guillaume had returned to Aubépine with the news that he had secured for Véronique a post in the household of the sister of his liege lord, Duke Jean of Calabria.
Véronique had been ecstatic. It mattered not at all to her that Guillaume had won for her such an honor only because there was so little competition for it. Few thought there was much of a future in the service of Véronique’s new lady, Duke Réné’s daughter Marguerite. All knew that Marguerite, who had once been Queen of England, was now dependent upon the charity of her father and Duke Jean, her brother. Véronique didn’t care, was more than eager to exchange the restrictive horizons of Aubépine for the unknown expectations of Marguerite’s household at Koeur.
As excited as she was to be at Koeur, her disillusionment with Marguerite d’Anjou was both prompt and profound. Marguerite was an embittered, impatient woman who scarcely knew Véronique existed except when she happened to blunder and bring upon herself Marguerite’s displeasure. Véronique was very much in awe of the exiled Lancastrian Queen and liked her not at all.
Prince Édouard she did like. She was quite taken with him at first; he was far more attractive and worldly than the rustic youths of her acquaintance at Châtillon-sur-Loire. Her entry into his mother’s household had not escaped his notice; he occasionally flirted with her and laughed when he made her blush. But she soon saw he was just amusing himself. He took his pleasures elsewhere, did not dally with his mother’s ladies, no matter how pretty. And that, Véronique knew, was all it could have been, a dalliance. Édouard was a Prince in exile, would offer a girl of her position no more than a tumble in bed. And Véronique wanted more than that, much more. Véronique, who had only the dimmest memories of childhood caresses, very much wanted to be loved.
And so she tried to please Marguerite as best she could, watched Prince Édouard from an admiring distance, and felt strangely lonely in a way she couldn’t understand. Why should she be homesick for Aubépine, where she’d had such little joy? But if it was not for Aubépine that she longed, what then?
She found out in December, as they celebrated a modest Christmas court that was, nevertheless, quite impressive by Aubépine standards. As the château was decked in evergreen and Marguerite and John Morton discussed English politics late into the night, Véronique fell in love.
He was several years older than she, a young English knight who was friend and comrade-in-exile to John Beaufort. His name was Sir Ralph Delves, and he’d laughed softly when Véronique addressed him shyly as Monsieur Raoul. He laughed easily, she found. He was not the most handsome of men, but he moved with a languid lazy grace, and when he smiled, a thin, rather commonplace face was suddenly lit by a charm that quite literally took her breath away.
No one had ever paid her the flattering attention he did that Christmas. He’d sought her out whenever she was not taken up with her duties for Marguerite, teased her as none had ever done, began to teach her English. He’d been playful and then tender, and he’d had no difficulty in laying claim first to her affections and then to her body. The secret love affair lasted throughout that spring of 1470, the happiest months of Véronique’s life. Not even her fear that Marguerite would find out and dismiss her in disgrace was enough to inhibit the joy she took in her English lover. She had three months of near-perfect happiness. And then he began to avoid her and then it was over, and she grieved in silence for her betrayed trust, her loss of innocence, and for the love she’d given so freely to a man who’d loved her not at all.
It was summer by then, and suddenly all was changed, changed beyond belief. The English Earl known as the Kingmaker was in France. King Louis summoned Marguerite to Angers and, when she returned to Koeur, she was handfast to the man she’d blamed, as much as Edward of York, for the griefs of her recent years.
That August, Véronique found herself traveling to the royal residence of the French King at Amboise, where Marguerite had set up her household. Her spirits began to mend, almost before she realized it. Amboise was far more interesting than Koeur; it was far easier here to avoid Ralph; and better was still to come. Véronique was selected to serve the English girl who was to wed Prince Édouard.
From the first, Véronique felt an instinctive sympathy for Anne Neville, and she came, in time, to like Anne very much. Anne was woefully unhappy, yet she never took out her tempers upon Véronique or her other ladies; Véronique never served as Anne’s scapegoat as she so often had for Marguerite. Anne was very easy to content, not at all what Véronique would have expected of an Earl’s daughter. And she was Princess of Wales, would one day be England’s Queen. When the time came for them to depart Honfleur for England, Véronique had no hesitations. There was nothing to hold her in France. Her future lay with Anne, was to be found upon the alien shores of England.
The news of Barnet, so devastating to Anne and Isabel, was no less shattering to Véronique. She was sick at heart for her friend’s grief and terribly frightened. With the Earl of Warwick dead, Anne was no longer of any use to Lancaster. Anne would never be England’s Queen now.
And what of her? She was seventeen years old, had no friends or family to come to her aid, was not important enough to matter to anyone. She knew nothing of English politics, had taken it for granted that the Earl of Warwick would win. Now he was dead and suddenly it seemed very likely that the Yorkists would win, trapping her in a foreign land, a land in which the French were little loved.
She could not believe it when she was told that Anne was sending her to safety, that she was to enter the household of the Duchess of Clarence. She was dumbfounded that Anne would do that for her, that Anne would have seen first to her welfare at a time when Anne’s own future was so dreadfully in doubt. Her gratitude was such that she’d embraced Anne in tears and offered to stay with her. Anne had refused, had kissed her and whispered, “Pray for York, Véronique, and for me.”
Véronique had, had prayed fervently for the success of the sinister Yorkists she knew only through Lancastrian invective. Anne alone did matter to her now, and she understood that without a Yorkist win, Anne would be lost. So, too, would she.
She would not have been unhappy at the Herber had she only been easy as to Anne’s safety. She had entertained some apprehensions about Isabel Neville at first, knowing she’d done nothing to endear herself to Isabel on the day of Anne’s wedding, but she soon realized that Isabel’s interest in the personal lives of her attendants was minimal, was not robust enough to support a grudge. Isabel even bestirred herself from time to time to show Véronique a certain careless kindness, as if recalling a duty owed to the absent Anne.
Véronique had often h
eard Marguerite say that the Devil favored York. Now she thought that so, too, must God. In less than a month, it was over. The Yorkist King had won. Prince Édouard was dead and for him alone did she feel a pang of pity, remembering how young he’d been and how handsome. She felt no pity, though, for Marguerite, paraded in an open cart through London streets before jeering throngs. All that Véronique truly cared about was that Anne was safe. She was safe and coming to the Herber, to her sister’s household where her wounds would heal and she could begin to forget. Véronique lit candles in gratitude, waited impatiently for Anne to come from Coventry.
The day of King Edward’s elaborately staged entry into London was one Véronique was never to forget. Anne had shown no interest in venturing forth to view the victory procession. Having coaxed Anne with no success, Véronique at last decided to slip away on her own, for she was eager to watch as the Yorkist lords were welcomed into the city.
This was the first time she’d been alone in London, a city she found intimidating on even an ordinary day, and she was not long in regretting her impulse. Beneath the surface celebration there lurked an ugly undercurrent of intolerance. Londoners had just had a bad scare, had feared for a time that Fauconberg might seize the city. Fauconberg, who was a bastard cousin of the Earl of Warwick, was now seen as Marguerite’s man, and she was blamed for the damage done when he’d shelled the Tower. People had been quick to remind each other that she’d never given a damn for London, that she was, first and last, a Frenchwoman.
It was no day for a girl like Véronique to be wandering about unescorted, not when she betrayed her foreign birth as soon as she opened her mouth. Without warning, she had found herself surrounded by jeering youths who mocked her accent and poured wine upon her gown. Fortunately, there were bystanders willing to come to her aid. Her rescuers, an Aldgate innkeeper and his sons, had not only threatened to thrash her tormentors, they’d then insisted upon taking her home with them.
Almost before she realized what was happening, she was seated before an open hearth, was being offered ale and sympathy, both of which went far toward abating her hysterics. The innkeeper’s wife was no less a Good Samaritan, insisted upon cleaning Véronique’s wine-stained gown, and by then it only seemed good manners to accept the invitation to take supper with her newfound friends. They were, she soon discovered, Lancastrians at heart, and she was able to repay them for their kindness by recounting a number of reasonably factual stories about Koeur and the Queen who had lost all upon Tewkesbury’s Bloody Meadow.
It was late by the time they escorted her back through the now silent streets to the Herber. It was nigh on ten, and she’d been gone for some eight hours, but much to her surprise, Anne asked no questions, seemed not to have noticed her absence at all. Even more surprising to Véronique was Anne’s appearance. She had forsaken her mourning garb, was dressed in her prettiest gown, a summer silk the color of sapphires bordered in pale-blue velvet. Her hair had been brushed until it shone like satin, had been allowed to cascade down her back in changing tones of dark gold, russet, and burnished brown. She’d clearly spent considerable time before her bedchamber mirror, and this from a girl who was generally little more than perfunctory about her appearance.
Véronique closed the bedchamber door behind her, came forward to study the younger girl with some puzzlement. Anne obviously hadn’t left the Herber; a woman never wore her hair free except in the privacy of her home. And yet surely she hadn’t dressed up like this just to sit alone in her bedchamber!
“Whom did you entertain tonight, chérie?” she said teasingly. “His Grace the King?”
“I’d hoped”—Anne’s voice was so low that Véronique could barely hear her—“hoped that my cousin might come by.”
“Your cousin? You mean…the Duke of Gloucester?” Véronique was intrigued, remembering suddenly that Anne had once told her of a proposed betrothal with this same cousin of Gloucester, one that his brother Edward had forbidden.
“Anne…I’ve not wanted to pry, but I’ve long wondered about your relationship with your cousin. Your voice does change whenever you say his name, sounds softer somehow. You care for him, don’t you?”
“I love him,” Anne said simply. “I’ve always loved him. Even as a little girl…. You see, my father did mean for us to wed, and I grew up with that in mind. It just seemed so natural…I never imagined it might be otherwise. It was always Richard, Véronique. Only Richard.”
“And what of him, Anne? How does he feel about you?”
“I’m…I’m not sure.” Anne’s fair skin had darkened, bright blood rising to color her face and throat. “That day we were together at Coventry, he was so…so sweet to me, Véronique. He made me feel safe, in a way I’d forgotten, and I dared hope that…that he still cared, that he might want me even now, even after Lancaster…. But then I did spoil it all, I did let him see my fear….”
She had no need to be more explicit, having long ago confided in Véronique how unpleasant were those nights she’d spent in Lancaster’s bed.
“Chère Anne, listen. I gather that he did seek to take too much, too fast? Mayhap you did bruise his pride some, but he’ll heal. And if he be half the man you think he is, he’ll realize that the fault was as much his as yours, if not more.”
“If only I could be as sure as you, Véronique. If only he’d come tonight….”
“If you love him, Anne, you must have more faith in him than this. And now I do have a question to put to you. I know you want nothing so much as to make Lancaster part of your past. So why, then, do you continue to wear his wedding band?”
Anne was taken by surprise, looked down at her hand with eyes suddenly thoughtful. “Yes,” she said slowly, “why do I?” And then she was tugging at the ring, jerking it from her finger. For a moment she balanced it in her palm, weighing the possibilities, but the open shutters beckoned irresistibly. Sliding off the bed, she ran to the window and, in one swift motion, flung the ring out into space, watched with grim satisfaction as it vanished into the darkness, left no trace of its passing.
Anne had not welcomed her brother-in-law’s return to the Herber, but her qualms appeared baseless. George paid her little heed; there were no repetitions of their Coventry confrontation. June passed without incident.
July was ushered in with a violent rainstorm, and the stables were still surrounded by a sea of mud. Véronique paused in dismay. One of the Earl of Warwick’s prized alaunt bitches had whelped and Véronique enjoyed going to watch as the squirming, squealing puppies clambered atop their patient mother, chewed energetically upon each other’s tails, and explored the confines of their boxstall world. But however appealing the puppies were, Véronique had no intention of wading through the swamp the stable area had become, and she turned back toward the house.
Horses were hitched in the inner court and her step slowed at sight of them. Her eyes flickered over the lounging men, to the cognizance they wore upon their sleeves, a Whyte Boar. By now Véronique knew something of English heraldry. She ran up the stairs, into the great hall.
There were at least fifty men milling about, most of them retainers of the Duke of Clarence, who maintained a household of three hundred or so. They were awaiting his orders now, were fascinated witnesses to the heated exchange taking place between their lord and his brother.
“I’m telling you, Dickon, that you cannot see her. She’s ailing, has been abed all week. I did tell you this the last time you were here. You’ll just have to come back another time.”
“You know that tomorrow I do leave for the Scots border, George!”
“Well then, you do have a problem. But it’s not one of my making. Surely you cannot blame me that Anne was taken ill.”
“No…if I did, in fact, believe she were ill!”
“I don’t much care whether you do believe me or not. You wanted to see Anne; she was sick. She still be sick. What would you have me do, let you share her sickbed? You’ve heard my physician tell you she can have no visitors. T
ell him again, Dr. Randall; mayhap this time it will take!”
“My lord of Clarence speaks true, Your Grace. I’ve been attending the Lady Anne all week. It not be serious, but she’s been feverish, has had a queasy stomach. I truly cannot permit her to see anyone just now, my lord.”
“If you be lying in this, George…”
“What will you do about it, Dickon? Need I remind you that you be a guest under my roof? And, I might add, a rather unwelcome one…. Until, that is, you do learn to mend your manners!”
Those watching waited, eagerly expectant for the worst. They were disappointed when Richard turned, signaled to his own men, and abruptly departed the hall.
Richard paused on the stairs leading down into the inner court. He was in a quandary and knew it. He didn’t believe George, not for a moment, but he wasn’t sure how to call George’s bluff. He couldn’t very well force his way into Anne’s chambers; had he been foolhardy enough to try, George would have been only too delighted to give the command to stop him. God damn his worthless soul to eternal damnation for this! But it was his fault, too. He should never have accepted it when George first swore Anne was ailing. God knows, he’d not believed it then, either. But he’d promised Ned he’d try to get along with George if at all possible…and what a bitter jest that was! So he’d taken George at his word, and now George was still refusing to let him see Anne, and he hadn’t the time to get Ned to intercede for him. Not that he wanted to ask Ned’s aid in this. For certes, there was little he’d like less. But what else could he do? All he did know for a certainty was that he had no intention of going north without first seeing Anne.
He started down the stairs, still not sure what he meant to do, other than what he’d most like to do, which was to murder George…or at the least, to shove that hateful smirk back down his throat. He didn’t see the girl, therefore, until she careened into him with a cry of dismay, followed by a flurry of fractured English and flustered French.
The Sunne in Splendour Page 57
