Queen by Right (21 page)

“You will see, dearest Cecily, ’tis only as bad as grazing a knee or stubbing a toe,” Alice whispered, stroking Cecily’s arm. “It hurts for a second and then you can enjoy yourself. Perhaps not the first night, but soon you will count the hours until you are together again. Believe me, I know. As well, I have watched Dickon these few days here at Bisham, and I see a kindness that many young men lack. I promise you will learn to desire him just as much as I desire my lord every minute of every day.”

Cecily giggled. “You do? Truly, Alice?”

Dimpling, Alice nodded. “Truly,” she asserted. “Just you wait.” She kissed Cecily’s soft cheek and slipped away.

Cecily suddenly felt horribly alone. Sliding out of bed and onto her knees, she whispered a supplication to her friend the Virgin. “This is a time when I need you to be with me, Holy Mother.” She paused for a second. It occurred to her only then that perhaps Mary was not the best person to be asking. The Holy Mother had not had to suffer through a night like this to conceive her Son. But Cecily was desperate, and did she not have a special bond with the Virgin? “Let me be everything my husband desires, if it please God.”

A few lit candles had been left and Rowena had hurried in to make sure all was tidy when a tap on the door told them Richard was outside. Cecily jumped into bed and watched Rowena move to open the door. The attendant turned back to her mistress for permission to let the young duke in, her eyebrows raised in question.

Do not open it, Rowena, Cecily wanted to cry. Leave him outside. Nay, tell him to go away and come back another day. But desire for him overcame her nerves, and she called to the attendant with new-found courage, “Rowena, open the door and then leave us.” She wanted to add, “However, do not go far,” but she relented.

Richard entered wearing only his gipon, shirt, and hose and tiptoed to the side of the bed. “Am I welcome, Cis?” he asked simply, looking worried. “I feared I would not be welcome.”

Cecily could not resist his hangdog expression. She held out her hands to him. “To be sure, you are welcome at my bedside tonight and always, Dickon.” She patted the bed, and he sat down facing her on it and boyishly crossed his legs, grinning with relief.

“I have thought upon my words to you this evening,” Cecily began, “and I believe ’twas I who wronged you, not the other way.” She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “I will try and explain,” she began, “because I do not want to begin our marriage with deception or dissembling.” She told him of her fear of this night and how her anxiety had affected her behavior earlier that evening. “But when you laughed at me, it hurt my feelings,” she finished. “So I was angry.”

“Ah, Cecily, I wish with all my heart I could take back that laughter now. You must believe that I did not mean to hurt you.” He started to chuckle. “But, in truth, asking if I liked your dress was such a comical response to my intimate remark about being alone with you that I could not refrain from laughing.” He was pleased to see her smile. “I was foolish not to realize you must be afraid, but you should know that in truth I am every whit as afraid as you are tonight, my love,” he told her quietly. “We must be gentle with each other. You should know I desire nothing more than to make you happy.”

“Ah, Dickon,” Cecily breathed and reached out her arms to him. Her whole body yearned for him to touch her, look at her, love her. “Show me how it is done.”

“First I must remove these unholy hose,” he said. “You could help greatly, if you have a mind.”

Perhaps because they knew they had a lifetime of such nights together, they were in no hurry now. Cecily carefully untied the silver-tipped points that attached the hose to his gipon and slipped off each stocking and dropped it on the floor with a flourish. Dickon’s legs were very hairy, she noted. She touched his calf shyly as he unbuttoned his tightly fitting gipon and discarded it. The linen shirt underneath then modestly covered him down to his thighs. He pulled back the bedclothes, and they lay down together, his dark head and her fair one side by side on the pillow. Then raising himself on his elbow, Dickon gazed on her perfect profile, the sweep of her neck, and the tips of her
young breasts outlined under the pale primrose silk of her shift, which almost matched her yellow hair.

“Dear God, but you are beautiful. Almost too beautiful to touch,” he said, reverently, but he put out his hand anyway and slowly traced a course with his finger from the tip of her nose all the way to her breast and circled the nipple a few times, marveling at the way it hardened under his touch. Then he bent and kissed it through the silk.

Cecily gasped and felt a rush between her thighs, and when he took the tit gently between his teeth, she cried out in pleasure.

“Soft, my love,” he teased. “Do you want the guard to come in?”

“Do not be so foolish, Dickon,” Cecily retorted. “There is no guard.” Then she turned her head to him. “Kiss me, I beg of you. I want you to finish what you started at the altar.”

He did as she asked, but she was unprepared for his passion, his tongue probing deep into her mouth and his teeth gently pulling at her lips, the exquisite sensation overcoming her initial distaste of tongue touching tongue. After a long moment she thought she would suffocate and pushed him away with an embarrassed laugh. “Am I doing something wrong? I can’t breathe.”

“You will learn, little rose of Raby,” he murmured in her ear, nibbling the lobe and letting his hand finger the hem of her gown. “Now will you allow me to see all of you? I dreamed of this each night during the long winter in France, and I want to see if you are as lovely as the woman of my dreams.”

Cecily took a deep breath and nodded. “’Tis your right, I know,” she said. “I pray I am worthy of that dream.” She allowed him to lift the silk from her and gentle it over her head, her eyes squeezed shut in case his face gave away disappointment. She opened them quickly at the long-drawn, silent whistle of awe and saw his eyes admiring her. She had often witnessed such a look on her father’s dog when he was made to wait for a bone, and at once she knew she was desirable.

“Nay, I am not worthy of such treasure,” Dickon whispered and then quipped, “but as a priest told me today, in the eyes of God, you are all mine. So I shall accept my unworthiness gladly.” Cecily could not help but chuckle.

Kneeling, he straddled her legs and caressed her breasts until she moaned her delight. But his intuition had told him that tonight he should not remove his chemise. He did not want to frighten such a lovely creature with his nakedness, especially as his prick was in need of a haven as fast as he could
sensitively moor it. Gently he eased her thighs apart and entered her with a groan of satisfaction. A slight pressure told him he was about to take her virginity, and he whispered, “I am sorry if this hurts.” He was taken aback when he felt her hands on his buttocks helping him achieve his goal, and a tiny cry was all he heard as he moved forward in her and climaxed almost immediately with a loud grunt.

Cecily lay still beneath him, stroking his hair. Richard knew she had not enjoyed the same ecstasy, and a momentary guilt dampened his pleasure, but he whispered his love to her and how she had pleased him, and her loving murmurs told him she was satisfied. How different it had been for him, he thought, with wild, sensual Agnes, who knew exactly how to satisfy herself. But together he and Cecily would learn, he had no doubt. He rolled off her and pulled the bedclothes over them both, snuggling her to him and kissing her warm mouth.

“Good night, Cecily—my wife, my duchess. May the angels send you pleasant dreams.” Reaching over he snuffed out the candle.

“I love you, Dickon,” Cecily said simply. “And thank you.”

“Thank you for what, my dearest?”

“For gentling away all my fear.”

W
HEN
W
INDSOR
C
ASTLE
came into view, the recent Bisham residents were surprised to see the king’s household belongings scattered the length of the wharf and being loaded onto several barges and shouts.

“’Twas my understanding that the court would stay at Windsor until Martinmas,” Richard Neville told Dickon. “I hope nothing is amiss.” Then he cantered along the river road and up the hill to the gate to discover what was afoot.

Later, when the Nevilles gathered in Joan’s solar to hear Richard’s news, they saw that the hangings and carpets had been folded and stacked in one corner, two carved wardrobe chests neatly packed with clothes, and the bed linens with Joan’s silver wrapped securely in them locked in a coffer. The few chairs and stools stood forlornly about on the floor swept clean of rushes.

“We are to leave after matins,” Neville told them, his voice echoing off the bare walls. “News has reached the council that after King Charles and La Pucelle unsuccessfully attacked Paris, Bedford and Phillip of Burgundy became reconciled to oppose them, with Bedford now ruling Normandy and Duke Phillip governing Paris and those provinces south and east of the
Seine. Bedford has strongly recommended that in order to maintain English rule over there and to counteract Charles’s crowning at Reims, young Henry should be crowned in Paris. So . . .”

“I think Bedford is right,” Dickon stated before Neville could finish. “But the king is still not of age. Who makes that decision?”

Neville was startled by Dickon’s interruption. Used to being in charge on the Scottish marches, he did not often encounter anyone superior to him, but he inclined his head in York’s direction, acknowledging the young man’s higher rank. Cecily drew herself up and threw her husband a proud glance.
Husband
. How she loved the sound of it.

“The council will decide, and Gloucester will most certainly agree with his brother,” Neville said. “I am of two minds about it. After all, the king has not been crowned on English soil as yet.”

Dickon nodded and was about to respond when Joan’s quiet voice intervened. “I doubt Humphrey of Gloucester is in any hurry to conclude that piece of business, my lords,” she said. “It will mean the end of his protectorate.”

“And not before time,” her son growled. “The man is insatiably ambitious.”

“Soft, Richard,” Joan warned him, looking over her shoulder. “Humphrey can be dangerous.”

I
N THE END
, Richard Neville got his wish. The council announced soon after the court’s arrival at Westminster that Henry would be crowned on the sixth day of November in the adjacent abbey.

Although Cecily was now Richard’s wife, she was still in attendance on her mother, and Joan insisted Cecily be housed in her mother’s apartments for the time leading up to the coronation.

“The palace is full to bursting, and young couples cannot have the luxury of a bed to themselves,” Joan snappishly admonished a disappointed Cecily. Despite the first two nights together at Bisham, the young Yorks had not had the pleasure of each other’s company in bed since then. “’Tis not unusual, believe me,” she said less harshly, regretting her abruptness.

Joan had sent Rowena away that night and was enjoying brushing her daughter’s hair with the customary one hundred strokes. It gave her time to speak privately with Cecily. “Your father and I were not always together when we were in residence at another’s castle, my dear. You will have many a lonely night, and that is when you will be glad of a sister’s or Rowena’s warm body next to you.” She stopped brushing, struggling to find the right words.
“Besides, other than . . . than consummating the marriage, you are still too young to fully enjoy wedded . . . um, bliss.” She resumed brushing a little too vigorously. Cecily winced. “I have prayed hard that you are not with child, Cecily. You are indeed too young and too fragile for an easy birth. You should wait a few years.”

Cecily was only slightly embarrassed by her mother’s uncharacteristic little intimacy. Indeed, she was emboldened by it. “No fear of that, Mother,” she responded gaily. “I have not yet started my courses, and from what Alice tells me, I believe I must be bleeding before I can conceive.”

Joan was shocked. “Why have you not told me this before?”

Cecily shrugged. “You did not ask me, Mother. I only found out that I was later than most girls when I talked to Alice at Bisham. She asked me if there was a chance of conceiving that first night, and I asked her how I would know such a thing.” Cecily did not mention that she knew about the woman’s curse only because she had been privy to Rowena going through days of bellyaches, eruptions upon her face, and bundles of soiled rags hurriedly disposed of down the garderobe chute, and Rowena had enlightened her.

“But you are fourteen, my child,” Joan murmured, feeling guilty for having avoided talking to Cecily about womanly matters before now. “Perhaps I should have the surgeon attend you and make certain you are fertile, Cecily. You must not disappoint York.”

Cecily’s face fell. “Not fertile? How can they tell? Oh, how I wish I
were
like everyone else, Mother. I am told bleeding makes one a woman. How I long to join you all.”

Joan was moved to chuckle. “Do not wish too hard, Cecily. ’Tis not named our curse for nothing.”

Just as luck would have it, Cecily’s wish was granted a few days before the coronation, and she was told she would be unable to attend. “Men believe we are unclean at this time, my lady,” Rowena told her chagrined mistress. “They do not want us in their midst when we are bleeding. You must keep to your rooms.”

By the time she had spent two days lying on the bed with hot stones on her throbbing belly to alleviate the dull ache or running to the garderobe, she could understand why cursed ladies preferred to keep to their quarters. And she did not want Richard to see the angry blemish that had suddenly appeared on her chin. But she was relieved to know that there was nothing wrong with her and trusted the Virgin Mary to watch over her.

It was galling, however, to hear the crowds roar outside her window in the square between Westminster Palace and the abbey the next day when eight-year-old Henry arrived. So this is what happens when I finally arrive at womanhood? I miss what must be the most splendid ceremony of the decade. ’Tis simply not fair, she grumbled, and vaguely wondered if she had asked too much of God and His Mother lately.