The Uncrowned Queen (28 page)

She hauled the mare to a quivering, dancing stop and swiveled in the saddle. There was no sign of the king or his horse. She'd come some distance past the entrance to her farm and had pulled up beside the river flats; the same river flats Deborah had acquired from the Landers family while Anne had been away. This was the land on which she would plant crocus bulbs, if fate allowed her.

She guided her horse through a gap in the hedge into the field that was resting, unplowed, over winter. She remembered a barn had been part of the purchase from the Landerses and, yes, there it was—and there, also, was Edward's tethered horse, peaceably cropping forage beside the small building with its red-tiled roof.

“Edward? We must get back.” She called the words strongly but they sounded silly as soon as they were out of her mouth. She didn't want to return to her real life. Not yet.

“Come and see what I've found.” The king's voice was muffled; he was inside the barn.

There was a moment to decide, a moment in which she could have ridden away. Two pictures formed in her mind. In one, she was riding toward the barn, dismounting, tying the mare beside the stallion and walking inside toward the sound of his voice. In the other, she turned the mare for home, riding away, riding away from him…

“Anne? Come and look.”

The king's stallion raised his head and nickered to the mare, welcoming companionship. Anne's horse, skittish, danced forward as if the woman's hands on the reins meant nothing. And then Edward was there, reaching for her, and Anne slipped down into his
welcoming arms. She leaned against his chest, her head finding its natural resting place against his shoulder, as if she had no strength of her own to stand. Her body had made the choice.

With an unsteady laugh he gathered her and held her so tightly, so hungrily, that she molded her body to his, the cradle of her hips a gift, an offering.

“Come with me. See…” Holding her close, Edward brought Anne inside the barn. For a moment it was dark and then the girl's eyes adjusted. Silver light, moving with motes of dust, flowed through ventilation holes high up beneath the eaves and it was as cold inside as out. Now Anne remembered why she'd been so glad to have the barn included on the river-land title—it was sound and excellent for storage. In this case, the barn held summer hay for the few cows they were keeping over the winter. River land always cropped well, and the sheaves of hay were deep, stacked high, and sweet-smelling even in the cold air.

Gently, Edward turned Anne by the shoulders to face him.

“I doubt that any man or any woman ever had a deeper, sweeter bed.” He kissed her softly. “If this is what you want.”

She could feel the tension through his hands. His whole body was locked tight with discipline; he would not permit himself to do what he most wanted until he was sure she felt as he did. Anne closed her eyes. All that remained was smell and touch. And taste.

As he kissed her again, her mouth opened. She did not resist anymore. Her hunger was as great as his—and he knew it.

“Ah, thank God. This has not changed.”

The dam broke, all restraint was gone, drowned.

Hay beneath them, his cloak to cover them, passion to keep them warm, this man and this woman found each other again and it was familiar and strange and joyous.

“I cannot see you! This is torture!”

“But we can see with our fingers,” she said huskily. “Close your eyes.” He understood and did what she asked, savoring the warmth of her skin as he pulled the skirt of her riding dress away. Velvet hose were held up with garters of ribbon but, above them, her thighs were naked, butter soft and smooth. Edward's hands were
rough from riding; it almost felt like a violation to touch her, but the need was urgent.

“Oh, but I've missed you.” There was hardly breath to speak as his senses rioted.

“I saw you, all the time. In my dreams.”

“And I you. Oh yes, I have seen you, and wanted you.” He was kissing her eyes, mouth, neck, breasts, his words muffled and frenzied, hands roaming, remembering.

Their breath, warm and quick, smoked in the cold air of the barn, for theirs was an island of heat. Anne pushed Edward away for a moment. Her eyes searched his face, her hands held his away from her. He was strong, arms muscled by years of riding and fighting, but in her hands, for that moment, he had no strength at all.

“I do not know what this means, Edward.” She didn't have to say more, didn't want to, but he understood. If they were lovers again, it might only be for now.

“We do not have to know. The fates will decide. But you and I? Oh, my beloved, we shall be lovers all our lives. Even if we live apart.” Their minds were so close, they always had been. And now their bodies thought for them. No more words.

With shaking fingers, Anne helped Edward unlace the points of his hose, and he, clumsy with need, fumbled the lacing of her riding habit, impatient to free her breasts.

She was ivory and rose, the uncertain light silvering her skin; gently, caressingly, it touched the sculpture of her throat and her shoulders, the perfect answering curve of breast and hip, and suddenly this woman was sweeter to Edward Plantagenet than unclaimed land; this living girl whose breath and scent, whose texture and eyes and mouth, comprised the whole world, lifted him away from the appetites of his body and into another realm, an uncomplicated place that had no end and no beginning and was only now.

This—he and she together—was his home and his kingdom: a place of real substance, the one he'd always instinctively sought. He had never understood what its absence meant until this moment, but with Anne cradled in his arms, skin to skin, he claimed that knowledge. Her loss had been a long-suppurating wound. It had
nearly poisoned him. But now, that loss was remedied and it was glorious to be held again, to melt, to shiver, to surrender. And to heal.

His torso was naked against her breasts—his body so hard, hers so tender—and Anne was wild within his arms. She could not hold him tightly enough, fiercely enough, her nails rending his back and shoulders as they lay deep within the straw and she pulled his body down to hers.

How easy it was. How easy to surrender. His thighs were between hers and the flesh and the bone of their bodies did not exist.

“We've lit this fire, you and I.” She spoke between panting as he slid into her body, slow and hard. “And I want to burn, to be burned up.” He caught her lip between his teeth, then speared his tongue into her sweet mouth so that all words were stopped. She moaned and moved beneath him, catching his rhythm, meeting it, bracing her hips against his to drive him deeper into her body.

He was spread like a crucifix upon her, arms wide, holding her wrists apart, pressing her down into the yielding straw so that the smell of the past summer's grass was released to the air by the heat of their bodies.

“You are mine.” Primordial need, man to woman, spoke those words.

“I am, Gods help us.”

It was a prayer, an invocation, with its own power as the splintering wave took them both; a wave that was heat and light and obliterating dark as two souls who had been lost found peace. And each other. Once again.

“Where has the duke deployed his forces?”

Philippe de Commynes was uncomfortable and tried to hide it. Adopting the bland face of the successful courtier, he bowed deeply, mentally wriggling on this hook of his own making.

“Your Majesty, my master the duke has given me no knowledge beyond what is contained within the dispatches you hold.”

“Come, monsieur. Your master the duke, if he is a loyal subject of mine”—Louis fixed Philippe with a flesh-stripping glance—“cannot object to this innocent inquiry?”

Pointedly, he handed the velvet dispatch satchel embroidered with the arms of Burgundy to le Dain, the barber, who was standing beside the Presence chair.

Philippe cleared his throat nervously. “My master fears aggression from the English—from Earl Warwick, Your Majesty. That is well known.”

Louis said nothing, but his foot began to tap. That tapping filled all who witnessed it with dread. Philippe hurried on. “Recently, English privateers have harassed Flushing and Sluys, sinking many of the merchant fleet waiting for spring, and raided the coastal towns also, for trade goods. My master feels he must protect his people.”

“Yet His Majesty, King Louis, understands that the greatest concentration of the Burgundian troops is within Picardy. At a considerable
distance from the sea and the ports you name.” The barber had spoken, oily smooth, on behalf of his master.

The neckband of Philippe de Commynes's delicate undershirt was soaked; shortly the sweat seeping from his armpits would also stain the expensive silk of his jacket irrevocably—he could feel it running down his sides. Again he bowed, arms clamped tight to his sides to minimize the stink. The king raised his eyebrows; the man before him now resembled a water fowl, ducking for weed.

“Your Majesty, these are matters that…” Unhappily, de Commynes found words deserting him. Whatever he said, however he said it, would be seized upon greedily and torn apart by the ravening gossips of the French court—and the Burgundian court also, when they were reported back to the duke. He tried again. “Great King, perhaps I could beg an opportunity to speak privately? An indulgence, I know, but—”

“I am not a priest, Monsieur de Commynes, that I should hear confession in silence and darkness.”

The Burgundian envoy gulped; the king was abrupt and his tone freezing. But then Louis allowed his gaze to dwell on the supplicant for a moment and a curious expression softened his face. The barber, watching, narrowed his eyes. Gratitude? Could that be it?

“However, on this occasion…” The king gestured irritably for the Presence room to be cleared. “And you as well!” The king waved at le Dain. The barber was annoyed, and suspicious. What could this effete courtier have to say to Louis that was not suitable for him, the king's chief advisor, to hear?

“Go, le Dain. This tries my patience!” The king half stood to enforce his will, then winced; his legs were still painful, though they were healing, slowly. “And send for the monk. I need him.”

Grudgingly, the barber backed out of the Presence chamber, furious that he'd been sent on an errand like an anonymous flunky. Nevertheless, his face wore the polite, cheerful mask of all those who served the king. In whatever capacity.

Outside the door, the barber scowled. Philippe de Commynes might think he had the king's ear just because of the incident of the poison, but he, Olivier le Dain, would make sure he met with the
Burgundian envoy before he was sent on his way home. Oh yes, he would see to that!

The Presence chamber settled into silence as the doors were closed on the courtiers, twittering and fluttering like a noisy pack of starlings. Now Philippe de Commynes had his wish: he was alone with the king. Would that this moment proved a blessing, not a curse.

“And so, Philippe, what is so secret that you could not say it before my advisors?”

“The English king, Your Majesty…” De Commynes saw an odd look pass over Louis's face and interpreted it as anger. He was wrong. It was fear. “That is, the earl of March, the usurper of the English throne. He has met with my master.”

Louis swallowed the sudden rush of acid in his throat. And instantly regretted it. It burned all the way down to his gut; but that moment of pain distracted him from dread, rising like damp through his body. “When? And where?”

“A hunting lodge in the duke's chase outside Brugge. About a week ago.”

“Were others there?”

“Only me, Your Majesty. And a lady. A friend of the earl's.” The king snorted. “A friend of the earl's? Nonsense. Men and women are not friends. Why was she there?”

Philippe was uncomfortable. He was playing for high stakes and in asking for this audience, he knew he had crossed the line. The duke would hear of it, of course—but having come this far, how could he retreat?

“I do not know, Lord King. I did not see her face, but I heard my master…” Why was that word so difficult to say, now? Perhaps because the duke was his master no longer. “I heard the duke…” Philippe looked Louis square in the eye and the king smiled at him, almost kindly. “I heard the duke refer to her as Lady Anne.”

Louis de Valois sat up straighter in his Presence chair. “Lady Anne de Bohun?”

Philippe was astonished, then humbled. Of course a king would know all there might be to know about his enemies, even the
names of their companions. “I do not know her patronymic, sire. But she waited for the ki—the earl all night. And left with him in the morning, just at dawn.”

Louis grunted. They would return to the topic of this mysterious lady, but for now other information was more pressing. “I suppose it is too much to ask what your master, the duke”—an ironic smile directed at Philippe caused the young man to blush and drop his gaze—“and the earl of March spoke of?”