She stopped, looking back through the trees, but they were completely alone now. Pulling off her slippers, she hitched her rose-coloured skirts up and tied them, then stepped into the brook’s narrow channel. John laughed aloud as she shivered at the iciness of the flowing water. ‘This is no way for a king’s daughter to behave. You are shameless!’ he said, lying on the grassy bank and putting his hands behind his head to watch her.
‘Fie on you, sir! It is no way for a king’s son to behave, ogling shameless women in the heart of Sherwood.’
His eyes moved lazily over her, openly inviting. ‘If you will step this way, my lady, I will do more than merely ogle.’
‘And will you not come to me to prove your point?’
‘Ah, no, sweet lady, I think a king’s son outranks a king’s daughter. You shall come to me!’
Her eyes became more serious, and after a moment’s hesitation she stepped out of the water and went to look down at him. ‘You seek to tempt me, sir?’
‘I do hope so.’
She knelt beside him. ‘What will be my reward?’
‘I offer a kiss.’
‘Only one?’
‘Well, if you are sufficiently tempting, you may have two.’
She bent down to put her lips lovingly to his, and then drew back. ‘That is one, sir.’
‘I need another, to help me decide,’ he breathed.
She lay down to kiss him again, more yearningly this time, for it was so very good to be intimate with him like this. They did not often have the chance to be really alone, and she wanted to go as far as they dared. She wanted to sample the pleasures of physical desire, because she had now learned how very much she liked such things.
Lovemaking enticed her, John enticed her, and she so wanted to know what it would be like to have him inside her. The muscles in the apex of her legs undulated at the mere thought of it. She was a virgin, but her thoughts were not pure, and she knew that she would always love to make love. It was what she was made for, and self-knowledge told her she would never cease to feel this way. She slid her arms around him and pressed closer, her breasts crushed within her bodice.
He pushed her gently on to her back and leaned over her. ‘Are you tempted now, Cicely?’ he whispered, smiling down into her eyes. His silvery hair brushed her face, and she could feel his breath. There was no mint, just his sweet breath.
‘I am,’ she admitted, for her body was fiery with need. She wanted to give herself and receive him in return. The temptation was ravishing, and her willpower so very frail.
Her skirts were still hauled up and tied from those moments in the brook, and he was easily able to put his hand on her thigh. ‘Do you wish me to tempt you even more?’
She gazed up at him. ‘I . . . I want everything, John.’
He caressed her skin, his fingers moving further up between her legs, and she made no move to stop him. The feelings that ran riot through her now were well nigh unstoppable, nor did she wish to struggle against them. She was excited as never before, and when his hand moved gently where she had never been touched before, she could have wept for the pleasure of it.
He leaned further over her, and pulled her hand to his loins, where he was now fully aroused and ready to make love. She closed her eyes as she touched him, for it made her feel so close to him in more than just the physical way. And her excitement intensified. New sensations quivered between her legs as his knowing fingers pushed and stroked. He had made love to others, she already knew that, but now his experience was revealed. Yet, with her, he was tentative, unsure . . . His hesitancy endeared him still more, and bound her to him.
Bound. The word checked her passion, for it made her think of . . . She did not know what it made her think of, just that suddenly the spell was broken.
He felt the change in her. ‘Cicely? What is it?’
‘I . . . do not know.’
He rolled aside and sat up. ‘If I have been too forward, too—’
‘No. No, for I invited it. Forgive me, John, I really do not understand myself. I really do want you to make love to me.’
He smiled, and put his arm around her. ‘Sweetheart, it is probably as well that we stopped. It really would not do for the king’s son to get the king’s favourite niece with child.’
She smiled bravely, for in truth she was close to tears. ‘I do love you, John of Gloucester.’
Sounds carried on the light breeze, and he glanced towards them. ‘I think they are about to leave. Come, we must rejoin them.’ He scrambled to his feet and held his hand out again.
She accepted, and when she was standing, she untied her skirts quickly and allowed them to fall. They were crumpled now, but there was nothing she could do about that.
A stealthy rustle among the bushes made them both turn. Someone was there! Cicely’s heart stopped, but then John caught a glimpse of Ralph Scrope slipping away.
‘Scrope!’ he breathed. ‘I vow I will impale him on a pike!’
‘Oh, he must have seen everything.’
‘Then he will have to do what’s necessary to relieve himself,’ John snapped.
She flushed, recalling her exposed legs. ‘I do not care what he has to do, John, I am more concerned that he has seen far more of me than he should.’
John caught her close. ‘No, he cannot have seen much. I was between him and you.’ He smiled. ‘He will not dare to say anything, for I will go after him if he does, and he knows it. He is not a brave fellow, Cicely. Strutting, yes, but brave, no.’ He hesitated. ‘But there is something about him I really do not trust.’
She recalled being told by Bess what their mother had said of Ralph. ‘Mother suspects him of being a spy.’
‘Really?’ John’s eyes moved swiftly to hers. ‘It was said in seriousness?’
‘I believe so. She thought he was your father’s spy, but he could be anyone’s.’
‘I think I should speak to my father about him. He should be told everything, no matter how seemingly trivial. Come, we will have to run.’ John took her hand, and they hurried back through the trees.
As they came to the clearing, where the servants were preparing to pack everything away and the horses were being made ready again, Cicely saw Anne rise. Her handkerchief fell. John’s hand tightened, informing Cicely that he had also seen. And then Anne herself realized, but she was already walking away with her ladies. She glanced anxiously back at Cicely.
Richard was leaning easily against the tree beneath which they been seated. He was alone and relaxed —perhaps because Anne seemed better—and he did not at first notice as his niece endeavoured to secretly gather the blood-spotted square. But then he saw her from the corner of his eye and straightened. ‘Cicely?’
She concealed the handkerchief and said nothing.
He held out his hand, and reluctantly she surrendered the evidence. There was much blood, too much for him to pretend Anne was getting better. The precious rings on his slim fingers gleamed in the afternoon sunshine as he crushed the handkerchief and pushed it into the purse at his waist. He met his niece’s anxious gaze. His sad smile was so faint it might almost have not been glimpsed at all, and then he walked lightly away towards the horse, trying to appear unconcerned to the rest of the party.
During the long ride back to Nottingham Castle he gave no hint of his discovery as he laughed and smiled with Anne. He turned only once to glance at Cicely, who felt she had failed the queen. John leaned across to put his hand on hers. He knew how she felt.
Later that day Cicely made her way alone to the top of one of the towers, where Richard’s lookouts drew discreetly aside to let her be as private as possible. The light was fading but the setting sun still slanted dazzlingly in the west. She was able to see for many miles, over the town of Nottingham to the forest beyond, and away to the misty purple of the horizon. She had been unable to bring herself to tell Anne of the afternoon’s happening. If Richard said nothing, how could she? She picked unhappily at the old stonework of the battle
ments, crumbling small flakes away and flicking them over to fall into the courtyard below.
She turned as she heard someone coming up the steep steps of the tower, and to her dismay Richard appeared in the narrow doorway. He dismissed the lookouts and as he approached, she knew he had followed her.
Should she curtsey? The moment seemed to call for it, but he prevented her. ‘I have no time for ceremony, least of all from you.’ The breeze played with his hair, and he stood beside her, twisting the ruby ring as he too looked into the distance. ‘Cicely, I cannot pretend to her any more. She is closer to death than I had prayed, and she needs me.’
‘And England needs you as well,’ she found herself saying, even though she had not realized the words were on her lips.
‘You think I do not know that?’
‘If you should become ill . . .’
‘I have not yet, so do not imagine I will at this late date.’ The words were dryly uttered.
‘But if you do?’ she persisted.
‘I want to fly in the face of reason, Cicely, and here you are, the very personification of reason.’
‘Not reason. I know what she wants.’
‘She has said it to you?’
‘That she fears giving you the contagion? Yes. It worries her greatly. She loves you and wants to protect you.’
‘I am not a babe in need of such protection!’
‘No, you are the king.’
He looked at her. ‘Ah, you lead me full circle, and by the nose at that.’
‘Full circle, yes. By the nose? I think not.’
‘Be damned, madam,’ he murmured.
‘Better me than you.’
He smiled. ‘Be damned again.’
‘I will be if anything should happen to you because I was not vehement enough now.’
‘The Almighty excelled Himself when he produced you, I think.’
She smiled. ‘He excelled Himself more with you. Uncle, you know how I prize you, so if you imagine I will just stand by and let you always do as you wish, you are very wrong.’
‘Just who is the king here?’ he enquired lightly.
‘Why, you, of course.’
‘Yet you decide what I can or cannot do?’
‘No, I can only tell you what I think. Is that not what you wish of me?’
He gazed at her. ‘Sweet Cicely, I no longer know what I wish of you. Suffice it that I do not think I can do without you. You are my conscience. I receive more common sense from you than from the entire Council.’
‘Then know that I am right about the queen. If nothing else, please observe her wish in this. For it is her wish, even though it breaks her heart.’
‘She follows her sister Isabel, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I am the king, but am helpless to keep my wife in this world. How could the virtually unstoppable Earl of Warwick have produced two such beautiful but delicate daughters? My love for Anne is no longer one of passion and fire, such as you and John now share, but has become steady and enduring.’ He paused. ‘It cannot be anything else.’
She felt there was some double meaning to those last words. But what? The sun had all but slipped behind the horizon and she shivered as the chill crept into the darkening night, but he seemed not to notice and was deep in his thoughts and memories. When he spoke again his voice was quiet, the breeze almost stealing the sound from his lips before she could hear. ‘They all leave me—my brothers, my son and now my wife.’ He looked at her, the sunset alight in his eyes. ‘What shall I do, Cicely?’
His guard was down and his isolation exposed to her, and she was so moved that for a moment she could not say anything. Or do anything. Then she could only whisper, ‘Do? You have to be king. There is nothing else.’
‘And when everything I touch turns to dust?’
She went to him then, not hesitating to hold him close and put her cheek to his. ‘You touch me, but I have not turned to dust.’
He returned the embrace, but only briefly. ‘I should not have weakened enough to say what I just did. It was hardly a display of strength and leadership.’
‘Even a king needs someone to speak to as himself and not his high office. You know that, and so do I. That is why I will always come to you if you require me.’
He drew back to look at her. ‘You never fail me, Cicely. I do not speak like this with anyone else.’
‘Whatever you say to me will never go further.’
‘I know. I trust you, Cicely.’
‘It is trust well placed. I became your eager servant that night at the abbey, and nothing I have seen of you since then has changed my mind.’
‘Perhaps if you could see into my mind, you would not think the same.’
She was puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
He moved away. ‘Nothing that I intend to confess. Yes, I have to be king, but what sort of king am I? It is being said that I usurped my nephew’s crown for my own advancement and glory. There is no suggestion that I had no choice but to accept the throne. I am the legitimate king, and England needs a man, not a child. But now all those close to me are being taken away. Is that my punishment?’
‘No! Please do not say that, do not even think it!’ She went to take his face in her hands. ‘You are going to be a great king, a truly great one. If everything seems to be slipping from you now, there will come a time when all is well again. You are the only man to rule England. There is no one who can come even close to you, in blood or ability. You are incomparable. What more can I say to you? How can I help you? Please tell me, for it matters more to me than you can know.’
She almost kissed him. On the lips. All over his face. It was such a moment for her, such an essential moment that she could not help the way she felt. He always affected her. There was something about him that grazed her very soul—perhaps it was everything about him—and she could not bear to see him brought as low again as he had been immediately after the death of his son. It distressed her so much she was shocked by the violence of her reaction. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Please do not despair.’
He put his hands over hers. ‘Oh, Cicely . . .’ he said softly, and released himself from the contact.
‘You mean so much to me. I have never felt as I do about you. Not even my father.’
He smiled at that. ‘Indeed. Well, I am sure you feel much more towards my son.’
She paused. ‘John? But that is different.’ Was it not? In truth she did not know how she felt right now, because it was Richard who engrossed her.
‘It is rather to be hoped your feelings for John are different.’
‘Different, yes, but not less.’
‘Oh, Cicely, you will run rings around him. As you do around me.’
‘I do not run rings around you,’ she answered. ‘You just allow me to do it, which is rather different.’
His glance swept over her. ‘Little escapes you.’
‘Because we are alike.’
‘Yes.’ He met her eyes.
‘You do know that I love you?’
‘Yes, Cicely.’ Then he added, ‘As I love you.’
She embraced him again, her cheek once more pressed to his. ‘Do not give up, for I will never forgive you if you do.’
‘Oh, a fate to be avoided at all costs.’
‘Indeed so.’
‘Then I will not give up.’
She looked into his eyes again. ‘Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
‘If ever you need me . . .’
He smiled. ‘I might rather dominate your company, and I do not think John would appreciate that.’ The sunset shone in his eyes again, and upon his hair, finding its dark copper glints. Then he glanced towards the fading sun as if noticing it for the first time. ‘Come, it grows cold up here.’
She took the hand he extended, but did not immediately move. He turned to look quizzically at her.
‘Never be sad on your own again,’ she said. ‘Always send for me. While I live I will never let you down.�
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‘Perhaps that is one reason I followed you up here, or had you not thought of that?’
She gazed at him. ‘I am honoured.’
‘I am not a paragon, Cicely.’
‘Yes, you are.’
He pulled her hand. ‘Come.’
Chapter Fourteen
With the passing of the long summer it became apparent that Henry Tudor would make no attempt to invade that year, and there came the prospect of trouble-free winter months ahead. Richard’s tension lessened, for he knew that his realm was safe for the time being from the awful bloodshed that must follow any determined invasion.
But nothing could hold back the relentless progress of his queen’s illness. Anne’s brief rally was over and once again she began to sink. Her dry, feeble cough was often heard in the Castle of Care, but at least she now knew that Richard was fully aware of what was happening to her. Cicely’s advice to him had now been bolstered by his advisers, who strongly urged him not to go to his wife. He could not bring himself to obey completely, and still went to see Anne every day, but he was never alone with her and certainly no longer shared her bed.
One good thing for Cicely was that Ralph Scrope had been sent away to Yorkshire, for which she was entirely thankful. He had been a spectre at a feast, and his constant stealthy stalking had begun to frighten her. How had she ever looked upon him with favour? On learning of it all from John, including that there were suspicions about Ralph’s loyalty, Richard decided it would be a wise precaution to send him away from all chance of discovering anything that might be considered helpful to Henry Tudor. Richard had been loath to do it, because of Ralph’s father, but it had become ever harder to know who supported the crown and who did not.
Cicely had not escaped a rebuke from Richard, who thought she should have gone to him immediately, not only about her mother’s passing suspicion regarding Ralph, but because Cicely herself might have been in danger. ‘I could have helped you in this long since, had you but trusted me enough to confide what was going on.’
‘It was not that I did not trust you, Uncle. Please do not think such a thing. I simply did not think.’
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