At last he kissed her, raising her mouth slowly to meet his again. The joy of him, and his incredible magic, was so arousing that pleasure overwhelmed her. His lips toyed mercilessly with her and plundered what little was left of her strength, and his caresses, seeming so light and gentle, aroused her passion to such a peak that her inner muscles submitted helplessly to a riot of pleasure.
Everything he did was calculated, cruel even, but these were kisses she would remember into eternity, for they finally demonstrated exactly how potent and completely spellbinding he really could be if he chose. It was no mere impression, it was fact. This man could conquer with a smile, confine with a glance, and devastate with a kiss.
But then he withdrew his lips from hers. ‘What would you not do for me now, Cicely? Mm? Is there anything?’ The last word was barely a whisper, and carried with it the promise of his body. ‘Go to Henry Tudor, Cicely, seduce him as you seduce me.’ His voice was so very soft and tempting, so very loving, even while he asked her to go to the man who had slain him. His eyes were unfathomable, but compelled her to obey.
Hesitantly, unhappily, she had moved towards the door. She did not want to, but for Richard Plantagenet she would have done anything. Yet as she reached it, he had come quickly over to seize her hand.
‘No, sweeting, no. I do not really wish you to do anything of the sort! I love you, Cicely, and would not force anything like that upon you.’
The spell was deliberately shattered, and she was so overcome that she wept.
‘Oh, Jesu, I should not have done it,’ he breathed, and held her tightly to him. ‘Forgive me, sweetheart, please forgive me.’
She remembered how she had clung to him, hardly aware of what had just happened.
‘Oh, my poor, sweet Cicely, I have treated you badly tonight, but I had to make you understand, not me, but yourself. I could think of no other way.’ He slipped his arm tenderly around her shoulders, and rested his forehead gently to hers. It was such sweet communion that she could almost absorb his love.
‘Cicely, I needed to show you what it is in my capacity to do. For those minutes I deliberately misused the gift that I have, and I did not need force, threats or any other such thing to influence you. I made you love and want me more than ever. You would have gone to Henry for me. Because you thought it was what I wanted.’
‘Yes, I would have gone. I would do anything for you, Richard.’
He made her look at him. ‘It is not magic, but it is enchantment of a sort. You have this gift as well, do you understand? You can do the things I did, and in your heart you know it. That is why you created this. Yes, sweetheart, it is all your doing, not mine. You create me when you need to confront yourself with things you do not understand or do not wish to acknowledge. Cicely, never underestimate your power over men, but use it judiciously. It will come so naturally to you that you will hardly know you do it. Men want you, and you can have whichever one you choose. Any man. You could certainly have Henry Tudor if you so wished. And I am afraid you cannot apportion the blame for that to anyone but yourself.’
‘No!’ she had protested.
‘Yes. You used allure that you do not yet know how to properly control. It is such allure, my dearest, and all too soon you will know exactly how to use it. Do not turn it lightly upon someone as dangerous as Henry Tudor. Be careful with what you have, but never forget it is yours. You are able to make men want you, forgive you, trust you, or anything else you wish of them.’
‘That cannot be true,’ she remembered saying.
‘I was not wise during life, Cicely. I should have used what I knew I had in order to be certain of those around me. If I had, and if I had made calculated political decisions instead of adhering to what I believed to be right and just, there would not have been a Bosworth. Without Bosworth, without so many things, I could subsequently have applied myself to justice and honour. Instead I lost it all. So do not repeat my mistakes. Learn from me, because as God is my witness I am trying to teach you now.’
‘Why did you not see that you should use it more?’
‘If I had deliberately misused my gift, I would have been a king with truly destructive charm, a user and a schemer, a trickster and a villain, hiding behind endearing smiles and kindly words. A man whose bent back really was an indication of the nature of his character. That is not me, sweetheart, so maybe I am a fool. I certainly placed my trust where I should not. I think I was overwhelmed by everything that happened. From being Duke of Gloucester, content to serve your father and rule sensibly in the north, I was suddenly, as if from a catapult, put on the throne itself, where life is anything but sensible. It was not what I wanted, Cicely, but it was what I had to accept. I could have been a good king, but I was not allowed to be. Circumstance overtook me. And so did death.’
And so did death . . . The memory faded into the present, and Cicely gazed at the fire through a shimmer of tears. ‘Oh, Richard,’ she whispered, ‘my beloved Richard. I have not paid attention to your warning, because here I am, in bondage to Henry, regretting my separation from Jon, and fully intending to lie with Jack, who is about to be Henry’s mortal enemy. Would it be possible to do worse?’
Barely half an hour later, a messenger wearing the queen’s livery rode into the yard, and within moments Cicely’s maid, Mary Kymbe, hurried in. She was of an age with her mistress, with a fresh complexion and brown curls, plaited and coiled, and had been with Cicely since Nottingham. She was as much a friend as a maid. The sealed letter she brought was direct from Bess, who was still in Winchester, having not yet been churched.
Cicely took it reluctantly. ‘Does the messenger await an answer?’ she asked.
‘No, my lady. He will leave again the moment a fresh horse has been made ready. He returns to Winchester.’
‘Very well. You may go. Oh, and see that he receives whatever refreshment he requires.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
Mary left again, and Cicely opened the queen’s seal with great reluctance. The cheerless opening greeting made her heart sink.
Lady Welles,
It is not my pleasure that you should appear at court from now on. Your presence will be offensive to me, and to my lord the King. You are therefore forbidden to attend. On no account are you to approach unless I send for you specifically.
You are to remain at Pasmer’s Place. Failure to obey will result in your removal to a place where you will be securely confined. You are not to have any contact at all with the Queen Dowager, who renounces you, and from whom you will shortly receive a missive exactly the same as this.
The signature was as formal and aloof as the rest of the letter. Bess was punishing her, and it was understandable, but it could not be true that Henry was in agreement with his queen. He would never wish his lover to be excluded from court. He wanted Lady Welles within easy reach of his bed. At all times.
And if it had not been so sad, it would have been amusing that Bess pretended to be allied with their mother, whom she so loathed that all contact had now been severed. If the former Queen of England was ever in need, she would not receive succour from the present queen. Their mother was not a warm woman, and had never shown love to her children. Ambition was all, and in its pursuance she had never baulked at anything. A little like Henry’s mother, Cicely thought wryly. Now, however, the Queen Dowager had Henry Tudor to deal with, not Richard, and Henry disliked her as much as she disliked him. He would never forgive Edward IV’s queen for coming out of sanctuary into Richard’s protection at the very time when he, Henry, vowed publicly in exile to unite York and Lancaster by marrying Bess.
Bess and Cicely had once been very close, sharing everything, but now the elder sister accused the younger of never having shared anything, and of inveigling all her secrets in order to laugh at her with Richard. It had not been true, but Bess would never forgive. Never. Richard had been Cicely’s lover and only hers. They belonged to each other so completely that only his death had separated them. Bess was tied to Hen
ry, never to Richard, but she did not want him. She loathed him. And Henry knew it, because he loathed her in return. Instead, Henry followed Richard into the arms of her younger sister, and Bess had no idea of the true extent to which he followed.
Cicely looked unhappily at the letter. She did not want to hurt Bess, but Henry’s will took precedence in everything. If he wanted Lady Welles at court, then at court she would be.
Not long after that, when darkness was complete, except for lanterns and torches in the courtyard and out in the lane, the yard of Pasmer’s Place suddenly rang with horsemen wearing Henry Tudor’s green, red and white colours. The king would brook no defiance from Lady Welles, who was to be taken immediately to Westminster Palace whether she would or not. There was no discretion and secrecy now; the world would know he had sent an escort for her. And the world would enjoy drawing scandalous conclusions.
But now that she had kissed Jack de la Pole, and been kissed by him, emotions had been released that she had not known since Richard. The undertow of it sucked safety from beneath her feet, because she would suddenly have to struggle to pretend to Henry what had been easy before. Could she do it? Was she capable of convincing him that nothing had changed? Henry Tudor was not an easy man to deceive. If she failed, then the darker side of him might well lead him to carry out his threats to Jack and to Jon.
‘So, Cicely, even with the ruination of your good name and your marriage, you steadfastly refuse to become my mistress?’
‘Yes, Henry, I do.’ Now more than ever, she thought.
Henry was soft spoken, almost caressingly so when he chose, and there was sometimes a hint of French and Breton in his voice with, maybe once or twice in a conversation, a trace of his Welsh roots. He had spent half his life in Brittany, being hunted in exile by the House of York, and before that, as a boy, in Wales. It was only since invading in 1483 that he had been in England, of which he was so unjustly king. Now it was his mission to hunt the House of York, wherever he found it. No, perhaps not wherever he found it, for he did not wish to hunt the former Lady Cicely Plantagenet, he wished to spend as much time in bed with her as he could.
They were in the candlelit apartments at Westminster that had once been Richard’s, and that other king’s presence still seemed to be everywhere. If she closed her eyes she could still see him. She knelt before Henry, the plum brocade gown spreading on the floor around her, its decoration shining. The candlelight glowed on the perfection of her shoulders and throat, and the inviting shadow between her breasts was there for him to gaze upon.
Henry was twenty-nine years old, complex and capable of cruelty, and he begrudged the intense, barely disciplined feelings she aroused in him. He wanted so much to be indifferent to her, but could not. Instead, he loved her, and it intruded upon his customary rigid control. He was tall, slender and graceful, not handsome, but very striking, with long, reddish hair, high cheekbones, a narrow chin, thin lips, a large nose, a guarded manner and a hooded gaze. His unsettling eyes—charcoal-coloured, small, the left not always acting in accord with the right—were so like the North Sea in winter that they were a reflection of his chill disposition. He was pale, spare and almost hypnotic when he moved; yet when he was motionless, as now, he was always menacing. He liked to be bleak and remote.
That Henry Tudor was the king could not be mistaken, for his black velvet coat was richly trimmed with ermine, and the heavy gold livery collar across his shoulders bore the new symbol of his reign, the red-and-white Tudor rose. Wearing black had become his habit, because it was an expensive dye, and because it made him seem so stark, no matter how many jewels he wore. Apart from the collar, he had three rings: an enviable emerald, a signet ring bearing a design of his favourite saint, St Armel, with the leashed dragon he had banished from terrorizing a Breton village, and the ruby ring that had been taken from Richard’s dead hand at Bosworth. She had ‘seen’ that ring since then, and on the hand to which it rightly belonged.
He raised Cicely gently by the elbow, bringing with him the faint but pleasant scent of cloves, which was always on his clothes and breath. She could not read him yet, and did not know what to expect, but to her relief he smiled.
‘Forgive me, sweetheart, I did not mean to let you kneel to me at all, let alone remain there.’
‘I have rather a lot for which to forgive you, Henry.’ She relaxed a little, but hid it well. He seemed in a level enough mood, she thought, although she would be unwise to rely upon it. Certainly she knew that when he was like this, he liked her to stand up to him. And she liked to do it. He called it ‘sparring’, and so it was.
‘You do not shrink from censuring your king to his face?’ he asked.
‘Why do it behind his back? It is the looking at his face while I do it that provides the satisfaction.’
‘Well, that is what I would expect of you.’ He assisted her to a chair close to the fire. ‘Cicely, I would have thought my offer preferable to the state in which you now find yourself,’ he said then.
‘The state into which you have consigned me,’ she replied. ‘I am already humiliated, and will not be disgraced completely by becoming your mistress. I am married to your uncle, and—’
‘My half-uncle,’ he corrected, ‘and you are not strictly married to him because you did not have my royal consent. And you wed him before the annulment of your first union with Ralph Scrope, who, granted, is now dead, but that does not make your second marriage safe.’
She was stung. ‘I was not married to Ralph Scrope! That was all a fiction, as you well know, Henry Tudor! And you did give your consent for me to marry Sir Jon!’
‘Oh, that fire! How I love it.’
‘Henry, you know the contract was forged.’
‘Even though it was drawn up at your dear Uncle Richard’s behest and bore his signature and seal?’ His voice had changed slightly. Jack was right, Henry’s suspicion that she and Richard had been incestuous lovers provoked him as nothing else.
He waited for her to respond, but she remained infuriatingly silent. ‘Oh, Cicely, I have just pointed a bony, accusing finger at Richard. Have you no vitriolic retort for me?’
She met his gaze squarely. ‘Richard had the contract drawn up, yes, but he set it aside on learning I had no wish to marry Ralph. He did not append his signature or his seal. Ralph did it because he wanted a Plantagenet bride who he thought would make him royal and bring him wealth and land. He forged the contract and then turned traitor to Richard in order to spite me, because I spurned him and accepted Richard’s son instead.’
‘Do not mention John of Gloucester, Cicely. You know why I did it, and that I regret it.’
There was silence. The incredible cruelty that had been done to Richard’s illegitimate son in the Tower could not have taken place without Henry’s knowledge or permission, perhaps even his participation. He could be utterly without conscience. Now John had no wits left, and was nothing but a living husk.
‘What were you about to say?’ Henry prompted, returning to a previous point in the conversation. ‘You are married to my half-uncle, and . . . what?’
‘And have committed adultery—you and I both have. But you are the king, of course, so such a scandal will not hurt you at all.’
‘It is not considered exactly admirable for a married king to fuck outside his wife’s bed. Not if he is going to be caught, and certainly not with his wife’s sister.’
‘Fucking outside your marriage does not seem to be much of a consideration if you want to install me as your mistress. Why, I imagine it would do your reputation no end of good, because let us be honest, at the moment you are seen as rather unpleasant, shifty and dull.’
‘Such sweet praise,’ he murmured.
‘Why should I not say what I think? It is because of you that my name is now notorious, and I have lost the husband I love. And before him, you took Richard. I will never forgive you, Henry.’
His oddly uneven eyes were turned upon her. ‘I know my supposed crimes, sweetheart, you
do not need to repeat them. So, I gather from all this that you still want my bone-headed uncle?’
‘Yes, Henry, he is my dear lord, and I have hurt him so much that I can scarce bring myself to look at you, let alone become your mistress.’
‘You look at me steadily enough now.’
‘Do not do that,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Bestow your best spaniel gaze upon me.’
He smiled. ‘I thought I had nasty, squinty little eyes. Is that not how you have described them?’
‘If you make me angry enough, I will call them that again.’
‘I have no doubt, whereas your eyes are always so very beautiful.’
‘Is that a real compliment, or is it barbed?’
‘My compliments to you are always real, sweetheart.’ He paused. ‘Did you really have to make such a point of coming to the river stairs and then departing again?’
She met his eyes. ‘If you know that, you must have been spying on me.’
‘Not in person.’
‘Then your creature will also have told you that on my way back to Pasmer’s Place I encountered the Earl of Lincoln.’
‘Lincoln, who evaded my spy in Southwark and then went to see you? The Lincoln you met on the Three Cranes steps, and who escorted you into your house. Yes, I know.’
Nerves fluttered inside her, but she prayed she did not show it. ‘We talked, Henry, that is all, and we would not have encountered each other at all if I had not changed my mind about coming to you. When I reached the palace this morning, I realized it would be better if I did not see you.’
‘What in God’s own name did you imagine I would do to you? Hang a notice around your neck and make you stand on the steps of St Paul’s?’
‘No, I simply shrank from a confrontation.’
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