my biting words of blame into a stifled sob. ‘And my father planning to lift the crown from Edward’s head. The worst of treachery.’
‘God damn Warwick to the fires of hell!’
‘But he’s my father. He demands my duty and my affection.’
‘So he might, but he has effectively destroyed any happiness we might have had together.’ My hands flat against his chest felt the anger, so far held in check, build to fill his whole frame, until the thunderous beat of his heart matched mine. ‘Never doubt my love, Anne,’ he murmured. ‘It is yours and will be for all time. This wounds me as much as it hurts you. And it destroys me that I can do nothing to comfort you.’
‘Richard! It’s time…’
He raised his head at Francis’s voice beyond the door. We could not linger. I could sense the urgency in him, even as his hands gentled to tender. Was there nothing more I could do or say?
‘Will you take this?’ I tugged off a little ring, a plain gold circle set with a ruby, even though it was far too small for a man’s hand. I pushed it, not without some difficulty as it caught on his knuckle, on to his little finger. ‘Will you wear it?’
‘Yes. I will.’
A last kiss. One final embrace. A desperate bruising of my lips as Richard claimed me as his for that last time. No joy, no sweet promise. Just a cruel ending. Until he framed my face in his hands.
‘I must go.’ He kissed my damp cheeks, the soft hollow of my temple, my eyelids. ‘I think it was your eyes I fell in love with. So dark, yet so full of light when you looked at me. I fell the whole way into them and now I think I cannot escape. Yet I must…God keep you, my love. God keep you safe.’
I could not bear it. So he would be honourable and self-sacrificing, would he? He would set me free. I did not want this, I did not want to be sacrificed.
‘Richard…’
But I did not know what more to say when there was nothing to be said. I released him as if his flesh burned my fingers, and clutching at pride I drew myself up to my full height. After all, he was a Prince of the Blood, whilst I was a mere subject, and a disloyal one at that. I sank to the stone paving in formal obeisance.
Catching up his cloak and hat from the bench, Richard would have gone, left me. Pre-empting him, I pounced and snatched up his embroidered leather gauntlets. He held out his hands for them.
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