Then she stretched his arms above his head and eased herself on top of him, her lips still trailing kisses over his supple skin, her parted thighs allowing his eager virility close enough to touch its goal, but not slip within. She moved herself gently against it, brushing softly, tantalizingly, almost cruelly against the tip. His pleasure was intense, and so was hers. Such constant gratification, but not the ultimate climax. That must be postponed, kept in check for the final moments of union.
She heard him whisper in Welsh. ‘Rwyn dy garu di . . . rwyn dy angen di . . .’ She did not need to know what he said, because she could tell he used endearments. The knowledge felt good. Almost too good.
His eyes were closed, his face was flushed, and he was so very warm and pliable, so responsive and given to his senses. There was no side to him now, no veil, no restraint or control, just a man who surrendered completely to his great sensuality. He was an enigma, a paradox, and he excited everything that she was.
But she did not have it all her own way, for he pushed her on to her back again and then gave her body his full, ardent and knowing attention. Now his were the kisses that burned and enticed. His were the lips that explored, arousing her to many gentle climaxes that flowed and ebbed, and then flowed again. There was true feeling in everything he did, and it ravished her body, heart and soul. But this was Henry Tudor, the king who presented such a cold, threatening, dangerous exterior. The man she loathed for all that he had taken from her! If she were not in his arms now, she would never have believed it possible to indulge in such passionate joy with him. Not with him.
Only Richard could give her more than this. When it came to lovemaking, the outcome of Bosworth was reversed, for the vanquished was by far the easy victor. But this king was not entirely routed . . .
Henry took her from delight to delight, so aware of how to please and tease, to lead on and on towards a promise of such ecstasy that she felt she must surely die of it. The temptation to indulge in almost unthinkable acts was there, and into some of them . . . some of them . . . she trespassed willingly. As she had with Richard, with whom nothing was unthinkable.
Finally, he leaned over her, and looked down into her eyes. ‘Oh, Cicely, I feel so much at this moment that I think heaven must have claimed me.’ Then he smiled with that exquisitely wry charm. ‘Do not even think of a witty Yorkist reply. Not now.’
‘Love me truly now, Henry. Please, for I want you so much.’
He pushed into her at last, and with him came such acute delight that her muscles closed convulsively around him, holding him tightly as he moved in and out, long, rich strokes that no long attempted to merely play. She shared it all, for they were in complete harmony, and as his strokes quickened towards a climax, she was embraced by sweet, sweet love. When he came, the flame of it seared through her. She was weightless, on the edge of consciousness, completely ablaze with passion and joy. She wanted it to go on and on. But no man could go on and on, and all too soon, it seemed, he was utterly spent, and sank against her, slowly stretching her arms above her head as he liked to do so much. Then he buried his face in her hair and lay there, his body relaxed, his manner trusting and defenceless. He could be incredibly loving, this icy Tudor to whom vicious cruelty could come in the splitting of a second. If he were to give this side of himself to Bess, all would soon be well in his marriage, because surely not even Bess could resist for long. Unless her blood really had turned to ice, never to melt again. But he showed this aspect of himself to no one, except the woman he lay with now.
She rested her cheek to his. ‘That was so beautiful, Henry,’ she whispered, still hardly able to accept that lying with him was so astonishingly erotic and rewarding. He had truly been her lover, indulging and appreciating her as much as any woman could need. Whatever she had wanted he had given, without needing to be prompted. He simply knew. Oh, silly, silly Bess, to be missing such a joy. He kissed her cheek, and then leaned up on an elbow. ‘Most men dream of such a woman as you, cariad, someone who adores to do all the things we long for. I knew you at first glimpse. It would be perilously easy to fall in love with you.’
‘You are a consummate lover, Henry.’
‘This is me, Cicely. You are supposed to issue insults, not compliments.’
She smiled. ‘Very well. You are like an ill-cooked sirloin, tough as an old leather boot on the outside, but soft and juicy inside.’
‘That was an insult?’
She smiled again. ‘Who have you practised on, Henry? You know a great deal about a woman’s body, so there must have been someone very important.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘No, not if you do not wish to say. It is not my business.’
‘That is true. Just as it is not my business who taught you, because I know it was not my uncle or John of Gloucester.’
‘I am content with you at this moment, Henry. Please let me stay so.’
He lay on to his back and rested an arm behind his head. His other hand reached for hers. ‘I intend to keep you here, with me, tonight.’
‘I do not think that is a good idea. If such a thing were to be discovered—’
‘I do not think I care if it is.’
‘Then you are selfish. I care, very much. I do not wish my husband or my sister to learn of what takes place between you and me.’
‘Cicely, I cannot make you my wife, unless I murder my way to you, but nor can I leave unknown my attachment to you. I would make you my mistress.’
She sat up, appalled. ‘Mistress? No! I am a king’s daughter and will never allow that! I lie with you anyway, Henry. There is no need to humiliate me by adding the word mistress to my name.’
‘Since when has it been humiliating to be a king’s mistress?’
‘Since my mother was proved to be only that to my father. No, do not look at me so savagely. You know as well as I do that my parents were never married. You can overturn whatever entitlement, declaration and law you wish, but the fact remains. My father was pre-contracted to Lady Eleanor Talbot—no, Butler, was she not a widow?—who did not die until four years after my parents’ supposed marriage. I have been made a bastard by my father’s lust for my mother, and I will not let you consign me to her fate.’
He regarded her. ‘I would not consign you to any fate, Cicely. Please. If it upsets you that much, I pray you forget I mentioned it.’
She did not respond. He would mention it again. At some point. Because it was his only way of securing her solely for himself. Unless, as he said, he murdered his way to her.
He changed the subject. ‘Do you still say you do not know where your brothers are?’ he asked then.
She paused, dismayed to sense a fresh trap. ‘I know no more now than I did when I last spoke of this with you.’
‘I wondered if perhaps the gallant Earl of Lincoln had news for you.’
‘Stop it, Henry! Please leave your suspicious nature elsewhere when you take me to your bed! Jack has told me nothing because he knows nothing. If either of my brothers should come to claim the throne, you will have to respond to it as my uncle had to with you. York and Lancaster can never be truly united until there are no males left of royal Yorkist blood.’ Including my son by Richard.
She held his gaze. ‘Either you are prepared to take many lives to achieve such security, and thus gain the revilement you are so happy to pile unjustly upon Richard, or you will have to live with suspense and threat. And if you kill Jack, I will kill you. I do not care that we can make wondrous love together, I do not care that you desire me, or that I can lie here beside you now and—sometimes—actually like you. If you strike down my cousin, or anyone else in my family, or if you touch Jon as a punishment to me, you will have to kill me as well.’
‘You know well how to touch a nerve, Cicely.’
‘So do you! Please, Henry, do not pursue this, and do not choose the wrong course. If you have all that blood on your hands, your conscience will always be clawing your intestines. You know that already, but I c
an see in your eyes that you do not want to do what is right for others, only what is right for you.’
‘Richard was too weak.’
‘He was not weak, Henry, he simply tried to do what he believed to be honourable.’
‘And so you ask me to do the same, and bring another Bosworth down upon myself?’
‘You should have thought of it all before you invaded. You knew you had no immediate claim to the throne, that there were many others of closer blood. Your only hope was to defeat Richard and take the throne by that act. Yes, one way or another you managed to gain the support, but by its very nature you are now frightened of those same men, or their sons, proving their treachery all over again. I do not envy you, Henry.’
He rubbed an eyelid. ‘You are always so damnably to the point, Cicely.’
‘You should not have spoiled this, Henry. What is wrong with you? Why do you do it?’ She felt the closeness of tears, and fought against them.
‘I appear to have said the wrong thing.’
‘You know you have.’
‘Mentioning your brothers was an impulse immediately regretted.’ He smiled a little.
‘And you thought you wanted me for your wife?’
‘There are advantages and disadvantages to that proposition.’
‘Indeed so, Henry, and which way would the balance tip, I wonder?’
He took her hand. ‘Can we forget my lapse?’
‘Not really.’
He exhaled slowly. ‘I truly cannot help the way I am, Cicely. It has become the way I protect myself.’
‘How can I believe you? You will say whatever you want. Its veracity or relevance is hardly of consequence. The art of misleading has become your scripture.’
‘I think you are right.’
She snatched her hand from his. ‘Oh, Henry, you make me so angry!’
‘I cannot be like Richard,’ he said suddenly.
‘Richard? What do you mean?’
He met her eyes. ‘I cannot be all that he was. It is not in me to be charming, amusing—’
‘Now that is wrong! You have charm enough when you decide to employ it, and you can be very amusing, even though you mostly smother it at birth.’
He smiled. ‘Dear God above, I do love being with you. You keep me on my toes.’
‘Or on your back.’
‘Infinitely better.’
He had her liking him again! How did he do it? She had never known anyone who was so much two men in one. There was the dread Tudor monarch, and there was . . . the Henry who lay next to her now. She ran a hand over his thigh to the forest of hairs at his loins, kneading him just a little. ‘I do not know what to think of you, Henry. I do so want to know only this pleasing side of you, but your other side will keep driving me away again. You do understand, do you not? I am trying to be honest with you.’
‘I cannot be honest with anyone, sweetheart.’
‘Oh, yes, you can! You were honest not long since, when you made love to me. That was all honesty, Henry Tudor. You know it was. You shared yourself with me for those minutes.’
He looked away. ‘Your lovemaking is high treason. You robbed me of everything and I had no way of stopping you. You put me into bondage, and then raped my soul.’
She gazed at him.
‘Cicely?’
‘I am trying to gauge whether those words actually came from you, or whether you read it in a romance.’
He laughed. ‘Jesu, lady, you have a tongue on you.’
‘And it services you well, I think.’
His eyes almost caressed her. ‘It has certainly licked its way into parts of me I hardly knew existed.’
‘I like the taste of cloves.’
‘Ah, that explains it.’ He smiled again. ‘So, you will not be my mistress?’
He had returned to it more swiftly than she had guessed. ‘I am already, am I not? Just not overtly.’
He caught her hand again. ‘I did not mean to insult you when I asked, Cicely. It did not occur to me that you would view it that way. It should have done, of course. Perhaps I did not want it to occur to me.’ He drew her fingertips to his lips.
She looked down at him. ‘How long will it go on, Henry? You wanting me like this?’
‘Until I have you out of my blood, I imagine.’
‘That might be a very long time indeed.’
‘Yes, I believe it will.’
‘It cannot continue without end, Henry.’
‘Why not? Can you give me one good reason why I should not have you as and when I want you?’
‘Well, I am your sister-in-law and your aunt-by-marriage, and we are adulterous.’
‘Admitted awkwardnesses.’
‘Are you kind to Bess now?’
‘After my fashion.’
She was vexed. ‘That means you are not. I know full well that you are capable of better than that. And you promised you would improve.’
‘I have improved. Jesu, Cicely, you give me no credit. I am pleasant with her now. Why, I even sleep in her bed occasionally! Sleep it is, because you already know my feelings about actually lying with a woman who is with child. It is something I will never do, and you at least should respect that.’
‘I consider myself duly chastised.’
‘Good. Cicely, do you know what it is like to try to sleep alongside someone who prays for your death?’
‘No, but Bess would not—‘
‘Can you be sure of that?’ His gaze held hers. ‘I wish I had your confidence, cariad, but I know what she thinks and what she wishes. My prompt demise is certainly one of her greatest priorities.’
‘You are wrong, I am sure.’ But how could she know? Bess certainly despised him. But that much? ‘Henry, my sister does not need much from you, just the knowledge that you care. You can care, I know it.’
‘Because I care for you?’
‘Oh, you do not catch me that way. If I say yes, you will tell me you do not.’
‘As you wish.’
She leaned over him. ‘Henry. . . ?’
‘Are you about to wheedle?’
‘Certainly not. Unless . . .’
‘I knew it.’
‘Very well. I was going to offer you another unimaginably gratifying roll upon the bed, but now I will not bother.’
‘Oh, why am I not married to you?’ he groaned.
‘Because Sir Jon Welles reached me first.’
He put his palm to her cheek. ‘I do not like to be enthralled by the House of York.’
‘Then send it away.’
His hand moved around the side of her face and into the hair at the back of her neck, and he drew her lips down to his again. But before he kissed her, he whispered. ‘And I have not overlooked the fact that you still have my prized emerald on your delightful but thieving little Yorkist finger.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was high summer, and so hot that the air shimmered and the horizons danced. Henry wished his queen to give birth to his heir at Camelot itself. Winchester may not have been any such thing, but it certainly had been the seat of the ancient Kings of Britain, and Henry was determined to establish that his line was descended from Arthur. He was placing a great deal of faith in the expected child being a boy. A girl would not do at all and might even make him look foolish.
Winchester overflowed with splendour. The arrival of the court had taken all possible accommodation, as well as every house for miles around. There were encampments, banners, horses, sumptuous tents and pavilions, and lords and ladies of such rank and finery that perhaps Winchester did indeed become Camelot again.
Bess felt the strain of it. So much depended upon her baby being a boy that her health suffered as a consequence. She fell victim to the ague, sometimes hot and fevered, sometimes cold and unable to stop shivering. Cicely stayed close to her, as did their mother, the Queen Dowager, who was to be the baby’s godmother. She had come from virtual seclusion at Sheen, where she still had charge of her three youngest daught
ers, Ann, Katherine and Bridget, who had been left behind.
Henry did not trust his mother-in-law. She had come willingly out of sanctuary in 1484, bringing her children, and had welcomed Richard’s protection. Henry trusted no one who had changed sides before. Often he did not trust anyone who had never changed sides. He simply could not trust.
Margaret was kept very busy with all the preparations. She had charge of the royal lying-in chamber, and was organizing the pageantry of the baptism. For Bess, the ever-increasing pressure made it worse by the hour. What if she had a daughter? What if the child were not perfect? What if, God forbid, it was born dead?
Cicely tried hard to comfort and soothe, but Bess believed there was the example of Cicely’s own dead child to prove such fears were justified. Cicely longed to reassure her that Leo was alive and healthy, but it was just too dangerous. Only Jon and Jack knew the truth of it, and her trust in them was as unshakable as her trust in Richard.
Jack was in Winchester, and had a role in the christening. Together with Jon, he would walk beside her as she carried the baby to the church. It would be such a procession, with so many lords having roles to play. All very formal, very reverent and ablaze with pomp.
The more the pressure of it, the more Bess sank, but it was impossible to ease her burden. Henry had been prevailed upon to spend time with her and be amiable, which, to give him his due, he had done to the best of his ability. Well, to the best of the ability he was prepared to offer. Cicely knew—to her great guilt and sadness—that if she had been Bess, he would have offered infinitely more. There were times when she found it difficult to even look Bess in the eyes, because Henry showed no sign yet of releasing his queen’s sister from the carnal bondage he imposed.
When Bess was asleep one afternoon, propped up on numerous rich pillows in a bed of such grandeur that she looked lost in it, Cicely went to find Jon, but found Jack instead.
He was in the great hall, involved in a rather heated discussion with Jasper Tudor about some duty or other, but he abandoned it the moment he saw her. Jasper did not care for either the Earl of Lincoln or Lady Welles, or indeed anything that reeked of the House of York, and his face bore its usual scowl as he stalked out of the great hall like an angry cockerel.
Cicely's Second King Page 30
