“No,” Richard said grimly. “I expect that dubious distinction to be mine. The Woodvilles lessoned him well, you see.”
“Lessons can be unlearned, too, love, given time.” And because she herself didn’t believe what she was saying, Anne reached up, sought Richard’s mouth with her own.
The kiss was easy and unhurried, was a pleasant prelude to slowly stirring desire. Richard tasted of wine. She pretended to nibble on his lower lip, welcomed the touch of his tongue and explored his mouth with her own. When she closed her eyes, he kissed her eyelids, her lashes, and then she felt his mouth move lower, down to her throat.
Anne laughed and tickled his ear with her tongue. They’d made love more in the past three days than they normally did in the course of a week. At first Anne had attributed it to their six-week separation. Now she thought it was more complex than that. These days Richard’s every waking hour was weighed down with cares, with choices that offered high risks and little satisfaction. And that, Anne suspected, was why he suddenly seemed so loathe to leave her bed. He sought in her caresses and the warmth of her body a brief surcease, a respite from problems that had no solutions, from a troubled present and an even more disquieting future.
Richard had slipped his hand into the bodice of her gown; he was fondling her breast, squeezing slowly. Anne’s breath quickened. She could feel her body warming, opening to desire. Her nipple had gone taut against his caressing fingers. She unfastened buttons on his doublet, slid her hand inside his shirt, next to his skin.
“I’ve an idea,” he murmured. “Let’s go up to bed.”
“At eight in the evening?” Anne teased. “What, and scandalize the household?”
“Well, then, we’ll have to make do here, I suppose. Do you fancy the settle? Or would you rather we threw some cushions on the floor?”
He was, Anne knew, paying her back in kind; his need for privacy was only a little less than her own. She laughed and, wrapping her arms around his neck, slid down on the settle, shifted her position until she could feel the weight of his body on hers. She had no sense of urgency; anticipation did but make carnal pleasures all the sweeter. But Richard was not so patient. He lowered his mouth to hers again, and then said coaxingly, “Come, beloved. Let’s go upstairs.”
His hand was now under her skirts, had begun a slow, intimate exploration up her thigh. Anne’s arms tightened about him, drew him still closer.
“Yes,” she agreed huskily. “Oh, love, yes….”
She was dumbfounded by what Richard did next. He’d been about to kiss her again; instead, he pulled back with inexplicable abruptness, jerked upright on the settle. She opened her eyes in bewilderment, saw that he was staring past her toward the door, and then saw the Duke of Buckingham standing in the doorway.
Anne gasped, and as color flooded her face, she sat up in embarrassed haste, sought to assure herself that her clothing was in order.
Richard was no less discomfited than Anne, and a good deal angrier. “You’re always welcome at Crosby Place, Harry; you need no invitation. But you do need to be announced. In the future, I’d expect you to remember that.”
Buckingham didn’t even blink. “This couldn’t wait, Cousin. We’ve news you must hear tonight, news of such import that—” He laughed suddenly, exultantly; there was about him the taut excitement of intoxication, and yet Richard would swear he was sober.
“He’s right, Dickon. You do have to hear this.” Francis had hung back at first, unwilling to invade the privacy of Richard’s solar as blithely as Buckingham had. But he came forward now, repeated urgently, “You have to know.”
A third man had entered the room. He seemed very ill at ease, fumbled overlong with the door latch, and when he turned at last, Richard was surprised to recognize his brother’s former Chancellor, Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells.
“Well, since you’re here,” he said ungraciously, “what is this news that could not wait?”
Buckingham glanced back at Stillington. “Go on, my lord Bishop. Tell my cousin of Gloucester what you did tell us.”
Richard had seen few men look as uncomfortable as Stillington did now. He was in his early sixties, yet seemed burdened with an extra ten years. His hands kept fidgeting with a rosary looped at his belt, and watery blue eyes were looking everywhere but at Richard’s face.
“My lord…” He swallowed, started again. “My lord, I’m…I’m not a brave man. I’ve agonized with myself these weeks past, trying to decide what I ought to do. At first, I thought to…to keep quiet. But my conscience would not permit it. Your late brother’s right to the crown was not affected, but it be different now. I’ve no choice but to speak up, to tell what I know. I did come to my lords of Buckingham and Lovell because I knew them to be men you trust. I suppose I should have come to you directly, but I…I feared you might blame me for keeping silent all this time….”
Richard had been listening with growing impatience. At the rate Stillington was rambling on, they were likely to be here all night. But the aging cleric was a guest in his house, and he said only, “Reverend Father, I’m sorry, but I’m not making much sense out of all this. What is it you are trying to tell me?”
“It be about your nephew, my lord. It be about the young King.” Stillington paused, and then the words came spilling out, in one great gasp. “I did call him King, but it cannot be, my lord. The boy cannot be crowned.”
Richard cut his eyes sharply toward Buckingham. “I don’t like this, Harry. I don’t like this at all.”
Unfazed, Buckingham shook his head. “Nay, Cousin, it’s not what you think. Hear him out, that be all I ask.”
Now that Stillington’s tongue was loosened at last, he suddenly seemed almost eager to tell what he knew.
“I’m not talking treason, Your Grace. I’m saying what I should have said years ago. In the eyes of the Church, your nephew be a bastard. Your brother’s marriage to the Lady Elizabeth Woodville Grey was fatally flawed, for at the time they exchanged vows, he was not free to wed. More than two years before, I’d plight-trothed him to the Lady Nell Butler, widow of Sir Thomas Butler of Sudley, and younger daughter to John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.”
For the first time, Stillington’s tension appeared to ease. With something much like relief, he concluded quietly, “So you see, my lord, the coronation must be canceled. The boy cannot be King.”
“I don’t believe you.” Richard’s words were instinctive, had come without thought or volition. Nor were they true. He did believe Stillington; the man was too frightened to lie. There was wine on a side table and he turned toward it, impelled not so much by thirst as by the need to perform some reassuringly familiar task. He’d not yet fully absorbed the import of Stillington’s revelation, needed an anchor of some sort, needed time to come to terms with it all.
Ned and Nell Butler. A secret plight-troth. Sweet Jesus God. But it explained much, explained Elizabeth’s reckless refusal to accept the protectorship. It explained, too, why she’d been so unrelenting in her hatred for George, Ned’s lawful heir…. His fingers froze around the wine flagon. God, no! Swinging about, he grasped Stillington’s wrist.
“Tell me,” he demanded, “was this why my brother was put to death?”
Stillington shrank back, pulled ineffectually against Richard’s grip. “That was none of my doing, Your Grace! Your brother Clarence stumbled onto the truth on his own, was foolish enough to let the King know it. But I played no part in it, I swear I didn’t! I had no choice but to obey the King’s will. My lord…you are hurting me!”
Richard released Stillington’s arm, stepped back. For a moment, no one spoke, and then Buckingham said admiringly, “I confess I didn’t at once see the link to your brother of Clarence. You’re very quick, Cousin!”
Richard stared at him, said nothing. Anne had yet to move from the settle, where shock had held her immobile. Now, however, she came hastily to her feet, moved toward Richard. But when she touched his arm, he pulled away.
Stillington was speaking again, was still insisting that he was innocent of any blame for George’s death. Anne scarcely heard him. The voice echoing in her ears was Ned’s, the words those he’d spoken to Richard that September afternoon at the Archbishop of York’s Palace. “Do you think I could put my own brother to death unless I were convinced there was no other way?” Was Richard, too, remembering that? He’d moved to the window, but she didn’t need to see his face. The rigid set of his shoulders was as expressive as anything he might have said. As she watched, he clenched a fist, sent it slamming into the wall above his head. Anne winced, and tears filled her eyes.
“I know this be a shock to you, Cousin, but I don’t think you’ve fully realized what it does mean. Once Dr Stillington does make this known, there’s no way the boy can be King. The crown is yours for the taking. We need only put this before the council, let them—”
Richard spun around. “No!”
For the first time, Buckingham looked disconcerted. “Cousin, it’s yours by right. All you have to do is reach for it….”
“I tell you no, Harry! I need time…time to think.” Richard sounded shaken, but there was no doubt he meant what he said. “You’re to say nothing of this. Be that understood? I do want your sworn words on that. Nothing at all.”
“My lord Lovell, you do know His Grace of Gloucester as well as any man. I implore you, tell me the truth. Be there any chance he might refuse to take the crown?”
These were the first words Bishop Stillington had spoken since they’d left Crosby Place and returned to Buckingham’s manor in Suffolk Lane. Francis hesitated, but while he sympathized with Stillington’s predicament, he didn’t feel up to allaying his anxieties with lies.
“I don’t know,” he conceded. “I realize that be of little comfort, but I truly don’t know.”
“But he’s the rightful heir!”
Francis shrugged tiredly. “Yes, but it be a right to leave a bad taste in a man’s mouth. Whatever the sins of the parents, the boy be blameless. It’s no easy choice Dickon faces. To brand his brother’s son a bastard before the world, to claim the crown Edward thinks to be his birthright?”
“He has to take it. He has to! If he doesn’t, my life will be worth next to nothing. As long as I need only open my mouth to disinherit the young King, I’m too dangerous to let live!”
Francis wished he’d given Stillington the reassurance he so needed. “My lord Bishop, you’re agitating yourself for naught. We don’t know that he will—”
“What don’t we know?” Buckingham had come unheralded into the chamber. Not wanting witnesses to the confidential conversation to follow, he’d summoned no servants. Moving to the sideboard, he began to pour wine for his guests, saying, “Well? What have I missed?”
“We were discussing whether or not Dickon would take the crown,” Francis said reluctantly, and Stillington nodded. Both men were rather taken aback when Buckingham began to laugh.
“Is that what be bothering you, Reverend Father? Well, you may put your mind at rest. He’ll take it.”
It rankled with Francis that Buckingham should so presume to know Richard’s mind, enough to provoke him into saying coolly, “I don’t see how you can be so sure of that, my lord. We’re talking about more than legal rights; there be moral rights to take into account, too. While there be no question of the late King’s culpability, it may well be that Elizabeth Woodville married him in good faith. And be that as it may, the children at least are innocent of any wrongdoing. You think that doesn’t trouble Dickon? If so, my lord, you don’t know him as well as you seem to think.”
Buckingham looked amused. “Am I poaching on your property?”
“What mean you by that?” Francis snapped.
“Just that I realize you’re an old and intimate friend of Richard’s. You do know him well, I don’t doubt. But in this, I’d wager a great deal that my reading be the right one.” Buckingham handed Stillington a gilded cup, stood for a moment looking down at Francis with silent laughter hovering on his lips.
“Don’t be so thin-skinned, my lord. I’m not jealous of your friendship with my cousin of Gloucester; we needn’t be rivals. I’m simply saying that whatever his doubts, he’ll take the crown.”
“You do sound so positive of that,” Stillington said nervously, almost wistfully.
“And with reason. If Richard felt he could not in conscience put the boy’s crown upon his own head, there be yet another option open to him. While he lived, George of Clarence was the rightful heir of York. Well then, why not crown his son? By so doing, we’d be solving the problem posed by Edward’s illegitimacy, and Richard need not feel that he was profiting at his nephew’s expense. However, I don’t recall any mention being made tonight of Clarence’s boy, nary a word. Now why do you think that was?”
Stillington was shaking his head. “Have you forgotten, my lord Buckingham, that the Duke of Clarence was attainted of high treason? That Bill of Attainder does bar his son from any claims he might otherwise have had to the succession.”
Buckingham did not appear to be impressed. “And do you mean to tell me that a Bill of Attainder has never been reversed? If my memory serves, both the late King and Richard himself were attainted by Warwick’s parliament! No, the attainder be an impediment, but not an insurmountable one. It could be dealt with, but it won’t. There’s no need, after all. Why seek to legitimize the tainted claim of a child when we can have a man grown, a man of proven abilities and a blood right to the crown?”
He saw Stillington was convinced. The priest was smiling for the first time since leaving Crosby Place. Francis looked as if he still harbored doubts, but he seemed inclined to keep them to himself, said nothing.
“No, my lord Bishop,” Buckingham said contentedly, “you needn’t fear. For a man to turn down a crown, he’d have to be either a fool or a saint. And my cousin of Gloucester, I can assure you, be neither!”
Anne closed the solar door, and after a moment’s reflection, shot the bolt into place. Richard was still standing by the window. Half expecting another rebuff, she touched his arm.
“Richard, sit down…please. I’ll fetch some wine and—”
“I don’t want any.”
She hesitated, knowing he wanted only to be alone and yet unwilling to leave him. Reaching for his hand, she saw then the damage done when he’d hit the wall; his knuckles were scraped and bleeding.
“Richard, your hand! Let me wash it clean with wine,” she entreated, and was faintly surprised when he offered no protest. He followed her to the table, watched in silence as she poured wine onto her handkerchief.
“Can you not talk to me about it?”
He raised his eyes to hers at that. “I find myself wondering if I ever truly knew him at all,” he said, very low.
Not knowing what to say, Anne busied herself in wrapping the handkerchief around his hand.
“Shrewsbury’s daughter! How did he think he could get away with it? And George…. How in Christ can I ever tell my mother that, Anne? How can I tell her that Ned lived a lie for twenty years and George died for it?”
For the first time within memory, Anne found it easy to come to her brother-in-law’s defense, for not only could she understand his motivation, it was hers, too.
“The plight-troth I do not understand, no more than I ever understood that secret May marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. For all his abilities, your brother’s judgment could at times be frighteningly flawed. But once it was done, once George found out…well, I can understand why he felt he had no choice then but to do what he did. He was thinking only of his children, did put their welfare above all other considerations.” She drew a deep breath, said, “And so must you, my love. You have no choice either, Richard. You must take the crown. For our son’s sake, you must.”
Richard tensed, and for a moment, she thought he was going to pull away. “Edward was entrusted into my care. I did give my sworn word that I would be loyal to him, that I’d look after him. Do
you think I can forget that?”
Anne shook her head. “No,” she said sadly. “I know you cannot. But tell me this, Richard. In three years, Edward will be sixteen. What then? What happens when he demands payment for Northampton?”
“It doesn’t have to be that way. In three years, he could come to understand why I took the actions I did.”
“Yes, he could. But you don’t expect that, and neither do I. The Woodvilles have taught him too well. And even if Edward could learn to forgive, Elizabeth Woodville never will. Nor will her kin, and sooner or later, they’re going to have to be set free. They do hate you so, Richard, and now we know why. You’re the rightful heir of York; think you that they could live with that?
“No, Richard, we’d best face it. Our future holds naught but grief. You’re not likely to live very long under your nephew’s reign, my love. And should evil befall you, what do you think will happen to our son? To me?”
“Anne, I don’t want to hear this!”
“Surely you don’t think I like saying it! But it has to be said. If you fall, Richard, Ned and I will be dragged down with you. If I’m lucky, I’ll find myself confined to a convent for the rest of my days. If I’m not, I’ll be forced into marriage with a husband handpicked by Elizabeth Woodville, a husband hot for the lands I could—”
Richard had jerked his hand from hers. “You think I don’t know that? You think I can forget for a moment what befell Humphrey of Gloucester’s wife once he was stripped of his protectorship? Charged with witchcraft, forced to do penance through the streets of London and condemned to life imprisonment on the Isle of Man! You think I don’t lie awake at night and see you in her place? Christ, if you only knew!”
The anger in his voice was raw, wrenching, wasn’t anger at all. Anne hated herself for what she was doing to him, for using his love as a weapon. But she had no choice, no more than he did. Ned had to come first.
The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III Page 95
