Virgin Widow

‘No. Warwick and Clarence have again chosen to put themselves outside the law. Edward has withdrawn his consent for our marriage. There can be no easy coming to terms between Warwick and the King this time.’

‘Is it very bad?’

‘As bad as it gets.’ His eyes flat, his face bleak and strained, pale in the winter gloom. ‘Warwick’s promised to bring troops to meet with Edward at Leicester, to help him crush the rebels. Edward suspects a trap, that Warwick is in truth bringing up reinforcements for the rebels. So Warwick plans to catch my brother unawares, Warwick on one hand, the rebels on the other, crushing Edward between them.’ Richard raised his fist, fingers clenched tight. ‘As neat as cracking a hazelnut.’

I frowned at the picture he painted. ‘Will it happen? We don’t know who will win, do we?’

‘There’ll be a battle before the week’s out. Edward will push for it, to bring the affair to its head. Hence my haste.’ Richard paused as if unsure whether to continue, hands now curled hard around sword-belt, studying the altar with its dull gleam of candles and silver crucifix. Deciding at last to speak his thoughts, however unpalatable to me. And I valued his honesty. ‘I think Edward will not lose this battle. He’s a gifted tactician and has the measure of your father. If Warwick and Clarence stand against him and Edward wins, he’ll take brutal measures against them both.’

I breathed slowly, painfully, against the truths I had known since the courier’s visit. ‘And we will once again be foresworn traitors with a price on our heads.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you could not wed a traitor,’ I ventured, knowing the answer.

Richard did not reply.

‘Oh, Richard!’ I whispered, a lump like a rock in my throat.

Richard abandoned his carefully preserved stance. He strode forwards and I found my hands grasped to pull me close, face buried against the metalled strips of his brigandine. I breathed in the familiar scent and heat of him, but as his breath stirred my hair his voice was terrifyingly severe. ‘It hurts now, I know. But you are young, Anne. It will fade as time passes. You’ll find another husband. As Warwick’s daughter, you’ll always have a value.’ An icy finger inched its way down my spine, a ghostly foretaste of what would come, but Richard continued, his fingers painful around mine. ‘I swear you’ll marry and raise a handful of argumentative children. You will be content.’

I looked up at him in horror, or was it anger, that he should so precipitately arrange another marriage for me. I was incapable of seeing my future other than as a black void.

‘I will not,’ I hissed. ‘I do not seek contentment. Can you cast me off, in so cursory a manner, as if it means nothing to you?’ So much for my vow of dignity. My fear of losing him was so sharp and real it drove me to extremes. ‘So I will find another husband. Of course I will. Am I not a Neville? But will I find another love? You say that the pain will fade. I don’t believe you. Are you saying that it will fade for you?’

‘No.’ He sighed on an exhalation.

‘Then why should it for me? Tell me this, Richard. Did you ever love me? Do you love me still?’

‘How can you doubt me?’ His eyes, stark with dismay, glinted in the dim light, but he would not turn away from the accusation in my face. ‘Anne…what choice have we with my brother and your father facing each other across a battlefield?’

‘I know!’ My anger segued into despair, 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.