This was everything he needed. Wrapped against Anne. Nothing beyond the two of them. No time, no place, beyond this.
Dimly, he felt something surge, stirring in his loins. No, not enough. Not all he needed. He needed so much more of her...
And vaguely, as his body waxed and his mind waned, he understood, as he had not before, about Edward and Joan.
* * *
With Nicholas’s arms around her, his lips pressed to hers, Anne felt whole. As any woman might, able to give and be taken, not out of pity, but from unholy desire.
She pressed her lips to his, intending to wipe out thought, memory and consequences. She wanted only to savour sensation. The heat of his breath on her cheek. Soft lips. Rough fingers. Her fingers, roaming through his hair, to caress the curve where his neck met his shoulder.
A kiss, she thought. Perhaps more. What could be the harm?
And then, she did not think at all.
Nothing but now. But this. This she must relish. This taste, this feel, tucked away for the long days that would come after.
When she would be alone again.
She had studied stone and glass and stitches, but when she tried to summon logic, to analyse, to name, to commit his scent to memory, to learn the feel of his muscles, beneath wool and skin, she could not control her mind.
She, he, here, now. The taste of foreign lands was on his tongue, the scent so deep in his skin that to be in his arms was a journey, to be held by him was like taking wing. As if all the distant lands she had ever wanted to see were in his arms, soaring as the cathedrals did, arches like hands joined in prayer, reaching to heaven.
His lips left hers and pressed against her vulnerable throat and she gasped for a breath. One more breath. Just one more and one more and one more and then she must let go. She must not reach for things she could never have. God would give her only this one moment, to be paid for later.
As she had been paying for so much all her life.
Did he step away? Did she stumble? Suddenly, they were two people again, separated by inches that might as well have been the miles that would stretch between them as soon as he left. Miles that might as well have been the distance between this world and the next.
Look at him. You must be brave and look at him now.
He tried to speak. ‘You asked—’
She touched her fingers to his lips, wanting no words. No regrets.
But instead of silence, he grabbed her hand and pressed his lips against her palm. That simple, tender gesture hurt more than all the thoughts of separation to come.
‘Don’t.’ A single word she could barely utter.
He paused, but did not release her hand. ‘I want you.’
She nearly did fall then, not because of her weak leg, but because the force of his desire stole her strength. Had anyone ever desired her before? Ever looked at her with fire in his eyes, with longing?
And that was enough. That would be enough to keep her all the rest of her days. To be with a man who desired her. Once for the rest of her life.
She swayed toward him.
‘Lady Anne?’ The voice of one of the pages. ‘Lady Joan needs you.’
* * *
Nicholas gritted his teeth, trying to force himself back to sense, not stopping to wonder what would have happened if they had not been interrupted. He only knew that he had not wanted to let her go. Not wanted to let the world intrude until he had learned her body as well as the countryside he’d fought over.
Knew that he had nearly been as stupid as his father.
Had it been his loins or his heart talking? Hard to tell one from the other when he looked at her. Which made it so much worse.
* * *
Anne made her way back into the hall, suddenly surrounded again by the post-ceremony celebration. The noise and heat of a crowded room. Dancers uneven on their feet, threatening to bump her shoulder or her crutch. Hugs, toasts. Some more genuine than others.
Lady Cecily lifted a goblet to Anne, who paused for breath. She still had half the Hall to cover to reach Lady Joan—no, she must now be called the Princess of Wales—sitting on the dais with the Prince.
‘The Princess looks wonderful,’ Cecily whispered to her.
‘Which one?’ Anne said, trying to smile.
‘Both of them.’ Cecily nodded toward Princess Isabella, who was seated as far away from her brother’s new wife as the table would allow.
‘Perhaps your lady will be next to wed.’ The Princess had reached nearly thirty without a husband. Near as scandalous as her brother.
‘My lady will wed if she pleases.’ Cecily’s voice had an edge. ‘A privilege neither of us will see.’
A strange comment, but certainly true. Few men and fewer women married for pleasure. Yet Lady Cecily was fair and whole and from a good family. Strange that she had not yet wed.
Who knew what pain could be disguised behind a healthy body?
The page tugged at her sleeve and she resumed her progress through the Hall. No doubt Edward and Joan were ready to share a bed again, now that they could do so with the church’s blessing.
She made her way across the dais and her lady turned away from the table to speak to her. ‘I’ll be leaving now.’
It was as she had expected, yet her disappointment was sharp. ‘I am ready to attend you, of course.’ Hair to be combed. Furs to be brushed. Gowns to be put away. The maids must be directed carefully this night.
And Nicholas would be left waiting.
‘No.’ Joan patted Anne’s arm. ‘Stay and enjoy yourself. Someone else will attend to me. You have worked very hard, Anne.’
‘Thank you, my lady.’ Praise that would once have set her smiling. Now, she barely noted the words.
‘From now on, the demands there will be, to attend the wife of the future King—well, I do understand they will be beyond what you have been doing.’
She had not complained before. She would not do so now. ‘I understand, my lady. I am prepared.’ The royal quarters, rising safe and strong, would be the home she had always hoped to have.
‘But since St Thomas did not see fit to...’ A pause.
‘Yes, my lady?’ Odd, to hear her lady stumble as she spoke. Perhaps she was tired from the nights of preparations.
‘Because of that, I’ve made arrangements for you to go away for a rest.’
Away. She knew what the word meant, yet it made no sense. Nicholas’s kiss must have muddied her hearing. ‘Away from you?’
