Cicely's Sovereign Secret

by Sandra Heath Wilson

  ‘Never strike me again, Cicely.’

  ‘Is that my sin? Shall I make deep obeisance to you, to beg forgiveness? If that is what you wish, I will do it.’ She paused. ‘Something is very wrong, is it not?’

  ‘I … so wanted to share with you. A private matter. Something so important to me, so vital and yet terrible that—’ He did not finish. ‘Not that it makes any difference now, and so perhaps it is as well I said nothing. All things being equal.’

  A terrible realization began to dawn through her. He was going to end matters between them. The fact was there, touching her across the room, and she could only gaze at him, not wanting to believe it.

  He dragged a finger over his eyelid. ‘I want you to know that my reason for sending you away was not because I was angry with you, but with myself.’

  ‘Yourself?’ She pulled her scattered thoughts together.

  ‘For being in such an abject state, and to be so in front of you.’

  She gazed at him. ‘It did not matter to me, Henry, my only concern was to help you.’

  ‘It mattered to me. You were the last person I wished to have observing me puking my guts up and shitting myself. Lying there like a baby, needing my arse cleaned, the vomit wiped from my mouth and my cock held to a jar for me to pee. Sweet Jesu, Cicely, I knew enough of what was happening to know how I appeared.’

  ‘It did not matter to me,’ she said again, because it was true. ‘Lady Margaret and I knew how distressed you would be by it, and we felt so much for you. It was not your fault, and if you could have kept control, you would. Revulsion was the very last thing I felt. I wanted to hold you and comfort you, but you would not have permitted any such tenderness, nor do you even now. If you consider my claims about Richard and Jack to have caused you pain, then you must also consider the pain you caused me by dismissing me as you did. And by dismissing me forever, as I know you intend to now.’ She wanted him to deny it, to reassure her.

  ‘Still, in the depths of your soul, you support my enemies,’ he said softly.

  ‘I am not here now as a Yorkist.’

  ‘What are you here for?’

  ‘You commanded me to come,’ she answered. It was the wrong answer and she knew it, but what else could she say?

  ‘You have come to Westminster to see the queen, your sister. Would you have come to see me had I not commanded it?’

  ‘Be fair to me, Henry, you know I could not have come to you. You had sent me away.’

  ‘What is Kymbe to you?’

  The change of subject should not have shaken her as it did, and she could not hide her shocked dismay. ‘Nothing! How can you possibly think it?’

  ‘He looked at you familiarly, I thought.’

  ‘No, Henry. Tom Kymbe and I are acquaintances, we know each other because of Jon and because of my maid. That is all. Please, stop this.’

  ‘You seem inordinately upset.’

  ‘Of course I am!’ she cried. ‘Tom Kymbe is my husband’s man, and he escorted me here today because he is good and kind, not because he and I are secret lovers. Oh, Henry, will you never stop?’

  ‘No, because I know Kymbe wishes to be your lover! It is written all over him!’

  ‘Stop! Please …’ Her voice broke, and tears leapt to her eyes. She could not endure this tonight. He made her feel she was about to be arrested. She turned away, biting her lip and trying to hide her unhappiness.

  He came to her then, caught her hands, linked his fingers through hers and pulled their bodies together. ‘Forgive me, cariad, forgive me everything.’

  She closed her eyes and breathed the cloves again as he rocked them both gently. What was it that made this man so very different from all the others? Different as a man. It was nothing to do with him being the king. He had such an odd little charm, a way of caressing her senses that she had long since given up trying to resist. They were tied, and even though she was certain it was all now at a physical end, and that she loved Jack a thousand times more, that tie would always be there.

  ‘Say it, Henry. Just say it, and let me go,’ she whispered.

  He released her and moved away to the table. The cloves went with him. ‘Have you sent for my uncle?’ he asked, walking his fingertips over the hat brooch.

  ‘Yes. I do not think he intends to return.’

  ‘So, after all the turmoil of making me agree to your match, suddenly it is over anyway?’ He walked his fingers over the brooch again. ‘I would like to see Kymbe’s son.’

  ‘See him?’ Cicely was alarmed.

  ‘I wish him to be brought to me. I thought the boy charming and will be interested in his progress. I like children.’ He looked away again, and she saw his unhappiness over Bess’s loss. He had lost as well, but would not say so.

  But Cicely’s heart thudded like a hammer out of fear for Leo. ‘I … I am sure Tom Kymbe would be honoured.’

  He looked at her for a long moment, during which she could not gauge what his thoughts might be, and then he came to her once more. ‘I will not keep you longer, for I am sure you have matters to attend to.’

  ‘I mean to stay until Bess is better.’ The air seemed suddenly empty, as if something momentous had happened. ‘Say it,’ she whispered again. ‘Cast me off, for that is what you mean to do. I can see the farewell in your eyes.’

  ‘You have been slipping from me, and today, at last, I realize I must let you go. I do not want this to happen, nor have I sought it without realizing, but now that I am confronted … well, maybe it is for the best.’

  ‘The best?’ She could barely collect her common sense. She should be exulting, but was not.

  ‘Yes.’

  She was numb. He had become so important in her life that being without him was hard to contemplate. He, who had taken so much away from her, was now taking himself away as well. Was it not what she had always wanted? She could not believe it was happening.

  ‘Henry … please. I do not understand.’

  ‘It is simple enough, cariad. I will no longer send for you or impose upon your life. I release you from your bondage, and I withdraw all my ignoble threats. You are free of me.’

  ‘Without even one small kiss goodbye?’ The words were hardly audible.

  ‘I cannot, cariad. I cannot. Please do not ask.’ She stretched out a hand, but he stayed beyond reach. ‘No, cariad. For it is all I can do not to break down before you.’

  ‘What did I do? Is it that I am of the House of York?’

  ‘You have not done anything. Parting from you is the hardest thing I have had to do in my life, harder than taking the throne, but I must do it. I will not say why, for my reason shames me. I can only ask, again, for your forgiveness. Please, cariad.’

  ‘You know you have it, Henry.’ Tears wended down her cheeks, and she was so immersed in emotion and regret that she might have drowned of it.

  Now he came close again, to put his hand to her cheek and part her lips softly with his thumb. ‘R’wyn dy garu di,’ he murmured.

  ‘What does that mean?’ she found herself asking, almost absently, for it sounded the same as something he had said to her before—‘I need you’—and yet it was slightly different.

  ‘Nothing of importance. I … will go now. Leave whenever you are ready.’

  She nodded, but did not look at him as his soft steps retreated. Then there was silence, broken only by the sound of the fire shifting in the hearth. A great hollow might have been gouged inside her.

  The emerald ring he had given her was on her finger, and she removed it slowly to place it on the table next to the hat he had forgotten.

  She struggled to appear calm and collected as she made her way slowly back through the palace to her apartment, where Mary realized immediately that something was wrong.

  ‘My lady?’ she ventured anxiously as she unpinned Cicely’s headdress and loosened her hair.

  ‘I cannot speak of it yet, Mary. Not yet.’

  The relief of having her hair loose again made her feel as
if she herself had been released, and yet not quite. She turned for Mary to unfasten her gown, but the maid shook her head.

  ‘It … is best I do not, my lady.’

  ‘Do not? Why?’

  Jack spoke from behind her. ‘Because I am here, sweetheart.’

  She turned, so glad that she burst into tears. He came to embrace her and run loving fingers into her hair at the nape of her neck. ‘Tell me, sweetheart. Is it Henry? Has he—?’

  He stopped as he saw the stricken look on her face, and then nodded at Mary to leave them alone. He ushered Cicely to the bed, where he sat her down on the edge and then sat beside her, his arm lovingly around her shoulder.

  ‘Tell me now, sweetheart. What has the damned Tudor done to upset you so?’

  ‘He … has cast me off, set me free, liberated me from bondage. Call it what you will.’

  Jack was startled. ‘I do not believe it. If he has said it, you can be sure he does not mean it.’

  ‘But he does.’ She looked at him, and frowned. ‘You have cut your beautiful hair. All those curls.’ She reached up to touch the shorn locks.

  ‘It identified me too distinctively.’

  Her mind leapt to something else. ‘Bess lost her baby today, did you know?’

  ‘Yes. The world speaks of it. Some say it is Henry’s punishment for usurping the throne. They only whisper it, of course.’ He smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘Tell me what happened with Henry.’

  She described the meeting, and then was silent for a moment. ‘He has been part of my life for a long time now, and I have become accustomed to him. Suddenly he has done this, and I do not know what I think or feel. Except emotional.’ She bit her lip as the urge to cry came close again. Then she looked him, reproachfully. ‘Are you determined to put yourself in danger? Why have you come here? Once again into the lion’s den. And how did you even know I was here?’

  ‘Because word of Bess’s loss is spreading, and I knew you would come to her. To these rooms, where you and I have shared the bed before now. How is she?’

  ‘I do not really know. She really does despise Henry, Jack. Deeply.’

  ‘As do many, sweetheart.’

  She looked at him again. ‘Even without your curls you might easily be recognized.’

  ‘Not even Edmund noticed me. I walked past him quite brazenly, but he was too taken up with making ram’s eyes at some flibbertigibbet, who would not see trouble if it jumped in her path playing the bagpipes.’

  ‘Jack, it was Edmund who broke into Flemyng Court.’

  ‘I already know. Edgar told me.’

  ‘Well, he cannot have told you Edmund recognized your ring on my finger.’

  Jack drew back. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes. And one of his friends identified me to him. I did not show him the respect he considered to be his due, and his revenge was to send an anonymous note to Henry, telling him I was at Flemyng Court, naked, in Tal’s bed, wearing your ring.’

  Jack drew a heavy breath. ‘Edmund is a—’

  ‘Feculent little anus, according to Lady Margaret.’

  ‘Really? I would like to see Henry’s face if she said that in front of him.’

  ‘He probably said it first. However, I was prepared for Edmund’s revenge, and bought another amethyst ring that on initial glance resembles yours. And I added a story of very loose bowels and indisposition that forced me to seek shelter at Flemyng Court overnight.’

  Jack grinned. ‘The devil you did. Such initiative. And Henry believed you?’

  ‘I think so. We fell out, but about something else.’ She told him.

  ‘He struck you again?’ Jack’s eyes hardened.

  She rose agitatedly. ‘Do not do anything, Jack de la Pole. I want your promise.’

  He stood as well. ‘Cicely, if he beat you—’

  ‘He did not beat me. I goaded him, and then gave as good as I got. It was a heated exchange that became physical. I would have hit him twice, had he not caught my wrists.’

  Jack’s face changed. ‘You hit him?’

  ‘Oh, there are other things you cannot know. Someone tried to poison him, and almost succeeded. I must ask … could it have been Tal?’

  ‘No, definitely not. Esher was solely due to Eleanor. He is otherwise a calm and sober man, as dedicated as I am to use Roland as our weapon.’

  ‘Then … Jack, I have a dreadful fear that it might be Bess.’

  He stared. ‘Bess? A poisoner? You jest.’

  ‘Oh, she is capable, believe me. The sweet Bess of the past has gone.’

  ‘Cicely, there never was a sweet Bess. I have never liked her, nor will I ever. And what possible good would it do her to—’ He broke off thoughtfully. ‘Henry dead, she would be the Queen Mother, and those—such as Margaret—who think she is ineffective, would have a very great surprise to find what she really can be. It will be 1483 again, with a struggle for control of a boy king. If she turns to her Woodville connections, and sets herself up as York against the Tudors and Lancastrians, well, she might easily become the most powerful woman in the realm.’

  Cicely found it hard to imagine Bess being so far-sighted, but the ruthlessness was certainly there already.

  ‘We are wasting precious time, my darling,’ he said quietly, and kissed her cheek, and then her ear, his soft breath making her shiver with pleasure. She gasped as his tongue explored her ear, tenderly, excitingly.

  He pulled her against his loins, and dropped kisses on her shoulders as he unfastened her gown simply by reaching around her. A lover as practised as Jack de la Pole did not need to move behind his lady in order to divest her of her gown.

  His lips toyed with hers again. He was the essence of seduction, and the embodiment of masculine temptation as he took her hand and guided it down to his erection, which strained eagerly at the laces of his hose. ‘Now then, my sweet lady, I am going to take you to that bed, and lay you down. Then, starting at your pretty toes, my lips will venture slowly up towards the softness of your inner thighs, and after that … my tongue can pay homage to those hidden places of which I think so very often.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Jon, Viscount Welles, returned to London on the afternoon of 12 February, with Roland de Vielleville in his retinue. Word of his approach had been sent ahead, and his viscountess waited in the parlour, intending to accord him no more than a courteous welcome.

  Annie waited with her, but Cicely wished the girl anywhere but here at Pasmer’s Place. Sister or not, she was a vexing, discordant presence. Outwardly fresh and innocent, fair and sweet, when caught in an unguarded moment, she was sleek, sly and serpentine … and almost unctuous in her fawning capacity for dishonesty. Mary reported that away from Cicely, she persisted in referring to Henry as the ‘dear king’, claiming that he was particularly gracious, kind and thoughtful where she was concerned. He would have to be warned, and his mother was the one to do it. His discarded lover could hardly approach him on such a delicate matter.

  Annie was seated primly at her embroidery, looking as if she did not even know that God had created a masculine gender. She was dainty in a gown the colour of dusty lavender to match her eyes, and had a little silver netted cap that looped prettily behind her ears. Her hair spilled down her back, and the small pendant cross of green and blue beryl rested against her breast. She looked utterly charming, and Cicely was sure it was for Roland’s benefit, but no doubt he would be too busy being vain to even notice.

  In spite of her irritation, Cicely was worried. Annie seemed set on a disastrous course, and might not be so fortunate as to find a Jon Welles to whisk her from the jaws of scandal and ruin. It was this last thought that preoccupied Cicely as she waited. Jon had rescued her when she was unmarried, frightened and with child, and she should never forget it. Or that her conduct had given him every reason to feel angry and aggrieved.

  It was approaching the early winter dark when Jon’s cavalcade finally rode along St Sithe’s Lane and into the torch-lit yard,
where the snow was piled around and the icy cobbles had been strewn with straw and sand. Cicely went down to meet him, with Annie at her heels. The fading day was bitterly cold as they emerged into the yard, which was now filled with horsemen. Jon’s rampant black-lion cognizance fluttered above them on bright-yellow banners.

  Jon was travel-stained and tired, wearing a thick cloak over his attire. He saw her, but his face gave nothing away as he began to dismount. ‘Madam. I trust you are well again?’ he said, his tone expressionless.

  ‘Well enough.’ Then she hesitated. Were they to continue as if they had never meant anything to each other? His past kindness and gallantry could not be forgotten or pushed aside. Determined to reach him again somehow, she hurried to hug him before he had time to prepare himself for whatever he had originally intended. He felt cold, and smelled of leather and horses, but it was good to hold him again, because he also smelled of rosemary, which she had chosen for him. Did he still wear the turquoise ring? She could not see, for he wore gauntlets.

  ‘I am glad you are home again, Jon,’ she whispered close to his ear.

  ‘Are you?’

  She heard the cool note. ‘Please, Jon, do not continue this. We can still be happy together.’

  ‘It can never be the same again, Cicely.’ He removed his gauntlets, and as he tossed them to a nearby servant, she saw the turquoise.

  ‘I know that.’ She drew back. ‘We are not silly children and I remember all that you did for me after Bosworth. There is still time to rescue our marriage, and I really wish to.’

  ‘But not for love.’

  ‘If you loved me, you would have come here immediately when you heard what had happened to me.’

  ‘How is Lincoln?’

  ‘How is your latest love?’ she countered. ‘Oh, do not pretend there is not one. You have often been unfaithful to me when we have been apart. I know it, even if you will not admit it. We have both overlooked our vows, but I do not wish to lose you. Please, Jon, meet me in this. Let us show a united marriage to the world.’

  ‘So that I can look the fool while you bed Lincoln? No, Cicely.’

  The wind sucked down into the yard, tearing at the torches and setting wild whirls of smoke spinning.