The strongest. How could we expect anything other in the disposition of our lives? We are not free to choose as we wish, Anne.’ I smiled—bravely, I hoped—whilst Richard studied the tree before us. ‘I would say…’ he added, a little gruffly,’I regret it. I would like to have wed you rather than any lady I know.’
‘Truly?’
He leaned, a little reserved, and kissed my cheek.
‘Truly.’
Startled, I laughed. ‘I would have liked it too.’
Which for some reason prompted Richard to kiss my lips also. Soft. A mere moth’s wing of a caress that startled me more. And then he pulled back.
I watched him as he smiled at my surprise, trying to untangle my thoughts. He was mine. I wanted him as my friend, as my companion. I was still too young for much else, yet I found myself drawn into those introspective, secretive eyes. With those I swear he would bewitch any girl. Not with the golden beauty of his brother, as Isabel was always quick to point out, but with something far more enticing, far more intriguing. Yes, I wanted him, I acknowledged, as I accepted that I could never have him.
‘What does my father say to all this?’ It was the only possible glimmer of hope if the Earl could persuade the King to change his mind.
‘Very little and in words as curt as the King’s. He’s agreed with Edward that the Plantagenet-Neville alliance is off. They clasped hands over it.’
So that was the end of it. My sister and I were back in the marriage market—with no possible bridegroom on the horizon—and all the future uncertain.
Chapter Four
IN the year I reached my twelfth birthday, and in my own mind became full grown, the assured, confident direction of my life was to change for ever. On the political front it was the year of ‘The Earl’s Great Rift’, as the Countess dubbed it in a moment of mordant anxiety. When my father found his plans for a French alliance irrevocably torn up and the King’s feet set firmly on the path to an alliance with Burgundy, with the Woodvilles crowing over their success, he stormed from Westminster to Middleham, vowing never to set foot in Edward’s presence again unless Edward made a complete volteface. There was no hope of that. Within the week Earl Rivers, the Queen’s father, was appointed Constable of England. The final blow was the betrothal of the king’s sister the Lady Margaret to the Duke of Burgundy.
‘Will your sister enjoy her marriage to the Duke?’ I asked Richard, secretly horrified at the prospect of being sent to live so far from my home and those I loved, with a man I did not know. The Lady Margaret might never return to England again.
‘I don’t suppose she has much to say in the matter.’ Richard dismissed my concerns with what I considered cold-hearted indifference. ‘Last year the bridegroom was to be Portuguese. Then French. I think she will not mind who it is, as long as it happens!’
I too might be destined for a foreign husband in some distant country. It was a chilling thought, as was the knowledge that we were likely to be cast into political isolation. Any lingering hope in Isabel’s breast for her marriage to Clarence was snuffed out, even when, in the end in a sour spirit of compromise because he had no choice, the Earl went to Coventry to make his peace with the King. The omens for the future were not good.
At home my outlook was even less cheerful because it was the year I fell into love after hovering precariously, unknowingly, on its brink. An entirely adult emotion that exploded through my blood, creating a fire that would burn for ever and never release me.
It was all the fault of St George and the Dragon.
In October of that year, Richard came of age. We celebrated, gifts presented to mark the occasion. Edward sent him a full suit of armour, swathed in cloth and soft leather against the rigours of travel. It was a Milanese confection, chased and gilded, a magnificent affair from the visored bascinet to the pointed sole rets, it would encase him cap-à-pie. I imagined it would draw all eyes on a battlefield or in a tournament. My father gave him a destrier, a true war horse of his own breeding at Sheriff Hutton, with some Arab blood in its proud head-carriage and arched neck. Dark bay and fiery, it was of the weight to carry him into any battle. They would make a splendid pair.
My undoing was at the evening banquet where it was decided that we, the younger members of the household, should enact the chivalric tale of St George and the Dragon, our own version of a mummers’ play. We’d seen it performed often enough—crude and popular in the repertoire of travelling players—so it took little preparation beyond a good memory for speeches and a delving into a box of costumes and other oddments from a decade of Twelfth Night productions. Costumes, armour, hobby horses and masks—much chipped wood, scuffed gilding and curled board—but all we needed.
Richard, of course, made a courageous St George. Francis Lovell in character as a wily dragon. Isabel would take the role of Virgin Maiden to be rescued and saved from a fate worse than death. But since I made a stand, refusing to be pushed into the background as the Virgin’s servingwoman, there were two of us, beautiful damsels, to be rescued.
There was much posturing and declaiming.
‘Come to our aid, bold knight. Or we shall surely perish.’ Isabel wrung her hands. I fell to my knees in dramatic grief.
‘Halt, Sir Dragon.’ St George stood foursquare before the terrifying beast. ‘Do you dare attack these sweet maidens?’
The Dragon in mask and scaled body with a cloth tail bellowed and vowed his intent to eat us all. Clad in old gowns, once sumptuous but now musty and mildewed, that hung on our figures and trailed the floor, with diaphanous veils floating romantically from brow and shoulder, we maidens clutched our bosoms as symbols of our virtue and wailed at the sight of the dragon come to ravish us.
The Dragon roared. Virgin Isabel pleaded for her life. I remained on my knees, dumbstruck…because I found myself unable to drag my eyes from my rescuer. In that moment Richard filled my whole horizon, his face pale with the dramatic tension of the moment, shoulders braced, all knightly courtesy and determination to overcome the brazen creature. Handsome, no. His face was too thinly austere for conventional comeliness, but striking, yes, with all the glamour of his gold armour. His voice raised in authoritative demand was suddenly, disconcertingly adult. His dark eyes blazed as he stared down the Dragon; his dark hair was tousled from nervous fingers. I could not look away.
Forced to take one deep breath, I found it difficult to take another. Standing, I retreated to Isabel’s side. My lips parted, but I could think of none of the words I should speak, even when my sister’s elbow found sharp contact with my ribs. I had fallen headlong and breathtakingly into love with Richard Plantagenet.
I did not tell Richard of my new feelings for him. Why? Because I promptly pretended that I fell out of love again within the week, when I caught him kissing a kitchenmaid. That my heroic and fascinating cousin should choose to kiss Maude, a flirtatious and extremely pretty kitchenmaid in the shadowed corner behind the dairy when I came upon him—it turned my bright daydreams to the sour lees of old ale. These kisses were not formal or passionless, mere bushes of lip against fingers or cheek. They opened my eyes to reality. Whispered words, more heated kisses, fineboned hands that stroked and caressed. Maude giggled and tossed her head.
Fleeing to stand in the centre of my room in the dim light, I ran my hands down my sides, over my chest, dismayed at the evidence of unformed waist and hips, lean flanks, the flattest of bosoms. None of the womanly curves that Maude flaunted.
