A shivering of nearby shrubberies alerted her, and her heart gave a great lurch. He was coming. He came across the grass, soft-footed and bowed to her. “My lady.”
“You came,” she said warmly. “I’m so glad.”
“I am yours to command, my lady.”
Her lashes swept down, sealing the blue away behind creamy lids. “You must think me very bold, if nothing worse.”
“I wouldn’t presume to think ill of you, my lady.”
Anne sighed. “Don’t tower over me like a lofty tree. Pray sit down.” She patted the cloak beside her, but he sat on the grass, beyond touching distance, and he didn’t look at her.
“May I ask, my lady, why you summoned me?”
Anne wasn’t ready for that question, and she resented it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Because she knew little of the art of seduction, in her imagination, Thomas had taken the initiative with only a little prompting from her. There had been no awkwardness between them. His gaze had been worshipful, not full of questions he couldn’t ask. But the real Thomas was distant, so infernally impersonal that she didn’t know how to proceed.
“Do you remember the kiss we shared at Epiphany?”
“I remember,” he answered somberly, as if the memory gave him no pleasure. “I apologise for my presumption.”
“It was not presumption. I invited it, I believe. Often the memory of that kiss was all I had to warm me when I was cold.”
“My lady,” he said slowly and carefully, as if reciting a rehearsed speech, “I want you to know that I hold you in the highest esteem. I would never do anything to bring dishonour to your name. You are as far above me as a distant star, and it would be a gross impertinence on my part to lift my eyes to your face. Care for your reputation prompts me to caution that there can be nothing between us but the duty a worshipful servant owes a great lady.”
“Oh, so stiff, so formal! As eloquent as it was, I have to take exception to some parts of your speech. I am not so far above you; in fact, I lay myself at your feet. And I do not want you to hold me in high esteem; I just want to you to hold me. There, I’ve said it.”
“My lady, this cannot be –”
“I know. Speak to me not of God and sinning and morality, because I don’t care. And certainly, I don’t give a tinker’s curse about the difference in our stations. I want someone to love me, or, if that is impossible, to give me a likeness of love.” As she spoke, she came to her knees and moved forward until she was facing him. Was he a man with a man’s desires? she wondered. How could he be so distant now having shared that kiss with her?
“Tell me something, Thomas. If I put my hand on your chest, will I feel your heart beating as frantically as my own?”
“My lady, I don’t think you realise just how dangerous you are…” His fingers brushed the backs of hers and then entwined them with his own. Quivers of sensation ran up her arm.
“Don’t you want me,” she whispered, lowering her head, gazing at him through the veil of her lashes, “just a little?”
“You are everything a man could want. I never dreamed of a moment like this because I was never foolish enough to believe it would ever happen.” He took her hands, grasped them tightly in his. “But, my lady, we must think very carefully about what we are doing.”
“No! No! Now is not the time for thinking. Kiss me, Thomas.”
He was still holding her hand, and now he brought it to his lips to kiss fervently. Her other hand strayed to his hair; it was thick, crisp, sun-warmed. When he raised his head, she was there waiting for him, and it was too late to draw back. Her mouth was on his, hot and clinging.
He broke the kiss. “Madam, we must not…” he murmured, making one last effort, but it was puny and too late.
“No?” Upright on her knees, she pressed her body against his. She took one of his hands and held it to her breast, and even through the layers of linen and brocaded silk he could feel the thudding of her heart.
In spite of his determination not to yield, Thomas found himself fumbling for the silken cords that fastened her bodice. Tugging them loose, he slid gown and chemise off her shoulders, pushing the garments further down until they settled around her hips. Anne sank back onto the sun-warmed cloak, happy to relinquish the initiative, to let him lead the way on this journey of discovery. Never before had her nakedness been exposed to the full light of day, but she didn’t protest. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to shed their clothes in this woodland setting, and she found that she wasn’t in the least self-conscious. Nor had she reason for shame. She was still slender, her breasts small but firm, her belly smooth but for a small crease just above her pubic hair where little Anne had lain, her skin milky.
Kneeling above her, Thomas divested himself of his good resolutions along with his clothes, both of which came off and were tossed aside in an incredibly short time. Anne had only the briefest moments to admire the body that was about to be joined with hers before he stretched out beside her, propped on one elbow, and gathered her against him. She looked at him as if she adored him, and her smile made him forget everything but her. His gaze moved over her body as tangible as a touch, bringing tingles of delight with it; and he leant down to murmur against her throat: “Sweet lady, if this be sin, I will tilt with the Devil for the right to sin again.”
“Oh, Thomas! Kiss me!”
His kisses were sweet – tender and masterful at once. Not at all like Exeter whose kisses revolted her, with his foul breath and vile tongue ramming against the barrier of her teeth to force its way into her mouth. But why think of him at a time like this? Thomas was playing her like a master musician with a finely tuned instrument. Mouth, throat, breasts, belly, thighs, down he went, then up again, and then his hands went where his mouth had been, stroking, caressing, awakening crescendos of sensation that she, married woman that she was, had never experienced, never dreamed she was capable of. And when he entered her she understood that she had a void inside her that had been waiting for him to fill.
When he had spent himself, she didn’t want him to move, didn’t want him to leave her, and she lay there full of wonder. Even this was something wonderful, this sweet aftermath, a new sensation to be savoured. She thought she might like to stay that way until the sun went down, but after a while he became heavy, and she gently urged him off. He rolled onto his side, leaving one hand splayed across her belly.
After a few minutes he lifted his head to say, “By the Mass, I am ready for you again. And you, my lady?”
Yes! Yes! Again and again, until she was exhausted, sore, and thoroughly, joyfully sated. Looking down at the limp appendage that had performed such sterling service, Thomas said, “I don’t think it will rise again today even for you, my lady.”
“We must give it a rest then,” she said solemnly. “I do think, Thomas, given what has just happened between us, you ought to set formality aside and call me by my name.”
“You will always be my lady.” Rolling away, Thomas lay on his back and drew her against him with her head on his shoulder. He wrapped both arms around her, and they lay in comfortable stillness and silence.
After a while, frowning up at the blue, blue sky, he asked, “Why did this happen?”
“Because my husband disgusts me. Because he’s a pig in bed and out. Because you kissed me and it was the most wonderful thing that has happened to me since I became Exeter’s wife. Because everyone deserves a little happiness in their life. A little love.” She shifted her position slightly so that she could tilt her head back and look into his face. “Do you think you could love me, Thomas?”
“I think it would be very easy to love you. And very dangerous,” he added, low-voiced.
“No. We’ll be careful. No one will ever find out, I promise.”
Anne sighed blissfully and settled back against him. She had meant only to scratch an itch and ended up falling in love.
So it continued until the leaves turned brown and brittle and began to fall from
the trees with every breeze. The hovel became a temple to Eros. Thomas put straw down on the floor and spread a blanket over it. When the weather turned cooler, he brought another one to cover them with and left it there, rolled up. He made no attempt to repair the place. Inviting jokes about the esoteric vagaries of women, Anne claimed to like it just as it was. Anyone stumbling across it and entering would have instantly recognised it as a place where lovers met to do what lovers have always done.
Initially, they were able to meet every day except when it rained, when there was no excuse for Anne to take a walk. Happily, it was a relatively dry summer, but with the coming of autumn there were more days of rain, and they were able to meet less frequently. During one period they didn’t see each other for eight days, excruciating for Anne, and when, finally, the rain abated, and a mild sun peered between the clouds, she all but ran through the woods to their trysting place. Those eight days had given her a taste of how much she would miss Thomas when Exeter summoned her back to him.
That summons wasn’t long in coming. She’d had three glorious months, but it ended much too soon. Three months were not enough; a lifetime could never be enough. Her face showed no trace of the despair she felt at receiving the command from her husband. She nodded to the messenger and calmly gave her instructions to the servants. As it took some time for a household to pack up and be ready to move on, especially as favourite pieces of furniture and plate were often carried along, Anne had time for one more meeting with her lover.
She always took her walks in the afternoons. This last afternoon was no different, except that she dawdled along the way drinking in the beauty of the woods in their autumnal splendour, saying a sad farewell to all the little signposts that showed her the way to her rendezvous: the holly bushes, the majestic oak, the huge rock with initials carved on its face, the little stream of sweet water. She wondered when she would see them all again.
He was waiting for her in the clearing when she arrived, and, seeing her face, knew at once that something was wrong. “What is it? Has he sent for you?”
When she rushed at him, his arms went out to receive her, and she was already in tears when they closed around her. “I must go, yet I cannot bear it,” she sobbed, clinging to him. “When will I see you again? How will I live without you? Oh, my darling, I cannot bear it.”
Thomas tightened his arms around her, cradled and soothed and rocked her until her sobs had diminished to sniffles. “You’ll come back,” he said. “We will be together again. You must believe that, as I must. Or I couldn’t live. We’ve had our time together and now we must part until the next time. And perhaps one day we can be together honourably.”
“You dream, Thomas,” Anne sniffed.
“I do, it’s true. But if dreams don’t come true, how is it I’m holding you in my arms?”
Anne lifted her tear-drenched eyes to his face, committing every beloved feature to memory to sustain her in the awful time to come. Once again she pressed her mouth to his – a kiss that was not a token of love, or even a valediction, but a cry of despair. Then she tore herself from his arms, ran across the clearing and disappeared among the trees without looking back.
Chapter 26
August 1457 – Rougemont Castle, Exeter
“Let go of me!”
“Come. Quickly, wife. I have missed you.” He grinned at her over his shoulder. “Haven’t you missed me?”
His grip on her wrist was painful as he dragged her along behind him and only released her after slamming her bedchamber door behind them. He didn’t bother to undress, just pushed her down and fumbled her layers of skirts up to her waist before releasing his already engorged penis from its confinement.
She’d had a pleasant respite from his odious attentions – even though she’d not been able to get away to Northamptonshire. Like many men in high office, Exeter left much of the drudgery of his post as Keeper of the Seas to underlings, but he enjoyed anything to do with ships and could never resist an opportunity to put out to sea. Building his own ship at Exmouth had beggared him, but launching her and giving her a trial run to the tip of Cornwall filled him with such euphoria that he returned to Rougemont in a better mood than Anne had seen him since their wedding. A pity it couldn’t last, she thought, as she lay beneath him, suffering his brutal onslaught, and wondering how the same act could be so different when performed by two different men. With one it was a repugnant ordeal, for the purpose of getting children. With the other, it was a sweet, wondrous harmony that had no ulterior purpose other than the giving and taking of pleasure.
In the spring, as soon as the roads were in good condition, she had asked to be allowed to go to Thorpe Waterfield. Little Anne had suffered a fever, not her first, and the nurse’s report assured her parents that it had already passed. Still, it was all the excuse Anne needed; she wanted to see for herself that the child was all right, she told her husband. Bur she had miscalculated on one point. She wasn’t pregnant, though he strove mightily to put her in that condition, and he refused to let her leave his side until she was. After a bitter diatribe on her inability to give him a son, he agreed that she should go, but he would go with her. He wished to apprise himself of his daughter’s progress. While no beauty, little Anne had reached the toddling, baby-talking stage and was a delight. Even her mother was warming to her.
She had made no attempt to see Thomas. She had not even dared go for a walk for fear that her husband would forbid her in the future. It had been tormenting being so close, seeing him only once at church, graciously smiling as he bowed over her hand without giving away anything of her inner turmoil. She needn’t have worried so much, she realised later. Her husband wasn’t sensitive to nuances.
“Move, dammit!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to pretend you’re enjoying yourself. Do you think you can manage that?”
“No.”
He slapped her. He seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that a slap in the face wouldn’t bring on a miscarriage. There had been another in February.
“Harry! Come out when you’re done. It’s urgent!” William Bastard’s voice came from beyond the door.
Exeter froze. Anne almost laughed at his expression of bewildered fury. Torn between giving his brother a tongue-lashing for the interruption and continuing, he chose the latter and pumped away frenziedly to what she hoped was an unsatisfactory climax. He pulled out of her, and she just had time to cover herself before he yanked the door open. “What the fuck –”
“Harry,” William interrupted, “the bloody French have invaded. They’re burning Sandwich.”
“What! The French? How –”
“There’s a man here. You’d best come and talk to him.”
Anne scrambled off the bed as soon as they had gone and followed them down to the hall to hear what was said. There was quite a crowd there, gathered around the man from Sandwich. He reported that an invading force of Frenchmen had landed at the port to loot, burn and murder at will. They spent the entire day there before Sir Thomas Kyriell, a knight who lived in the neighbourhood, organised a troop of men to drive them off. The attack was so unexpected that the town was caught defenceless and so ferocious that many were left dead as the Frenchmen sailed off into the night. They took some prisoners. These were dropped into the sea later, and the tide brought some of the bodies home.
As soon as he had heard it all, Exeter rode off with the Bastards to see for himself the scope of the damage.
It was an embarrassment to him, Anne realised. He was Keeper of the Seas. It was his failure that allowed Frenchmen to cross the Narrow Sea and burn an English port. Meanwhile, he had been amusing himself with his own ship.
It was his fault.
“They blame me,” he said when he returned. “Widows railed at me, and mariners shook their fists as I rode passed. ‘Where were you?’ they asked. ‘Why did you let those Frenchies get across the sea?’ I can’t be everywhere at once.”
You we
re sailing toward Cornwall in your new ship – in the wrong direction.
“Was there much damage?” she asked.
“Some burned buildings, a few dead.” He shrugged.
“Not your fault,” William Bastard said.
“Thomas Kyriell told me the leader of the expedition was Pierre de Breze.”
“Who is he?”
“Grand Seneschal of Normandy and a good friend of Rene of Anjou.”
Anne’s eyebrows rose. Margaret’s father! “Is it believed the Queen is involved?” Such was her unpopularity that the English were ready to suspect anything of her. She cared nothing for the opinions of the common masses, only for the lords whose support was crucial to her. Anne neither liked nor loved the Queen, but she couldn’t believe she would do anything so reprehensible.
“Don’t be stupid,” Exeter snapped. “What does she have to gain from de Breze’s raid? What did she hope to accomplish? Only a fool would believe she’d do something so utterly pointless, so obviously opposed to her interests. But then you are a fool.”
Anne examined her fingernails and said with careful neutrality. “Still, people will wonder if she put him up to it. She will need a scapegoat.” And there is only one choice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not entirely witless, husband. You must go to Coventry and make your case known. Else you will bear the brunt of the blame. And don’t think Margaret will save you. Quite the contrary. She will save herself at your expense.”
Since St. Albans Exeter had begun to see himself in the role of Margaret’s favourite; more than that in fact, occupying the role left vacant by Somerset’s death as leader of the forces in opposition to York. His admiration for her was undiminished, blinding him to the simple fact that she would throw him to the wolves without a second thought if it served her interests to do so.
Not that Anne cared what befell him. She was motivated purely by the hope that if he went to Coventry, she would be allowed to go to Thorpe Waterfield.
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