The Uncrowned Queen (57 page)

“Why dress? I like you like this.”

Morning sun poured honey-light through the opened casements. Already it was warm and Anne, exposed, was touched with gold. Both of them were breathing faster.

“I don't think you should wear clothes, Anne. Ever again.”

With tantalizing slowness, he bent down to kiss her. She moaned as his tongue was in her mouth and in a moment he had her pinned, naked, beneath him. Anne struggled, attempting to speak, trying to stop his ever busier hands, but he muffled each of her words with his mouth. “We are together, that is all that matters. You have come back to me.”

“Edward… Oh, let me speak!”

He wasn't listening; tearing at his clothes as quickly as he'd put them on, careless of strings and points, passionate to feel his own skin entirely naked and against her own.

“Say you love me. Now. Say it! Or…”

It was delicious for both of them. He had her astride his lap now, kneeling over him, her legs on either side of his waist but not quite touching. It had happened in a moment. The smell of their bodies, of sex and rising desire, was intoxicating.

“Or what?” She was teasing him, gently squirming, moving her hips, sliding her hips, allowing her breasts to brush against his chest for a moment, skin to skin. But she would not allow her lower body to touch his except for brief, tantalizing seconds.

“Jesu!” He was panting, almost groaning, as he cupped her buttocks and his knees moved, spreading her own wider apart. Now she was breathing into his mouth, moving her hips more slowly, back and forth, back and forth, lower, lower.

“So? What will you do, liege?”

“This!” He pulled her down, forced her hips down. Instantly he was deep inside her body—rocking, thrusting, timing his movements to hers. She gasped.

Each time, each time, it felt so different.

And now she was on her back, her body splayed and slick with sweat as he thrust, and waited, and thrust, and waited and thrust.
Deeper and harder and faster, the pause shorter each time. His mouth demanded hers, his hands were everywhere, on her breasts, between her legs, stroking, questing.

“Say it.” It was a growl, not words.

“Yes! I love you, love you, love you!” It was a chant as she raised her hips and offered them to his body, a gift. She held, helpless, to the posts at the top of the bed as he plundered her thighs, her willing, opened body.

“Again! How do you love me?”

“With my breasts and with my mouth and with my…”

The words were lost as he ate them: two souls in a joined, delicious prison of flesh. All sense of herself as separate from him was gone. She was delirious, dizzy with a deepening frenzied heat that made her want to open every part of herself to him, this man, her lover. The fierceness of it, his strength, the muscles of his back, his arms and what he was doing to her, with her—and she to him, with him—all these things were precious. She was his. He was hers.

“There. And there. And there!” He sang the words and, godlike, the wave of ecstasy took him, open-eyed; his gaze burned Anne's face as if written there was the meaning of all that was, and all that had ever been. Then his intensity caught her up and they rode it down together, plunged from light into darkness and such joy as they dissolved into each other while their bodies slowly withdrew from the clamor, the tumult, of the senses.

Anne was silent as the king lay curled around and beside her, panting; her body cooled and the rose flush subsided, though her chest rose and fell like a runner's.

Edward suddenly chuckled.

“What?” Anne stifled a yawn as she said it. The temptation of sleep was immense.

“They wouldn't have you now.”

“Who?”

“The sisters. You pray for different things, it seems to me. And in very different ways!”

Anne opened one eye and giggled. “So do you, oh most Catholic and holy king.”

“Wholly yours, my darling. This king is wholly yours.” Softly,
very gently, he kissed her. As softly, she kissed him in return. She had chosen.

“Are you there, Mother?”

The queen remained in her bed behind closed curtains. This was most unusual for it was late morning, well past the time for mass. The small crowd of women ranged around the bed dared not speak and looked at Duchess Jacquetta in mute appeal.

Clearing her throat nervously, the duchess spoke up. “I am, Your Majesty. Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“I did not. I'm ill. Very ill.”

The ladies looked downcast and the body-servants exchanged frightened glances. Once more they gazed beseechingly at Jacquetta. She sighed. Very well, she'd take responsibility.

“Shall we fetch you a doctor, daughter?”

“No! I want no doctors about me. They'll make it worse. I want you. Come here!”

Imperious, querulous. Two bad signs. Two very bad signs. Duchess Jacquetta moved to the bed with tiny, graceful steps. Her face was calm but those among the ladies who knew her best saw the convulsive grip of one hand on the other.

Hesitantly, the queen's mother pulled one of the embroidered bedcurtains slightly aside. It was dark inside the cave they created.

“Daughter? I can't see you.”

“Am I a beast in a cage, to be peered at? A bear? A lion perhaps?”

The duchess ducked as a bolster sailed past her shoulder and landed on the floor. The ladies and the servants gasped and backed away.

“Well?”

“Now, my dear child, calm yourself.” The wrong thing to say. The duchess knew it as soon as she voiced the words.

“Calm?
Calm
myself!” Another bolster was followed by a pewter necessary pot; its contents flew everywhere. This time the queen's mother did not duck quite fast enough.

“Oh!”

“What did you say?” The queen's white face appeared between the curtains. Dark circles beneath each eye, cracked lips, and wild hair. Where was the beautiful Elizabeth Wydeville today?

“You stink! Go!”

Duchess Jacquetta had been bred in courts. Descended from the greatest nobility of France, she had seen much, and done much, in a comparatively long life. Little had the power to move or shock her. But this was uncontrolled savagery; and she had bred the monster in this bed, created it from her own body. Tears swelled and burst from her eyes as the queen's mother hurried from the room, leaving an appalled silence behind her.

“Well? What are you staring at? Clean up this mess. I have changed my mind.” Elizabeth Wydeville's voice was an ominous growl. Dread spread softly through the room.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The duchess of Portland spoke, a slight quaver in her voice. She was the lady of most senior rank left in the queen's rooms. It was her duty.

“Yes me no yeses. I will dress. Now. Ill as I am. Then you will bring William Hastings to me. Immediately. Do you understand?”

Mute, the terrified women curtsied and then scurried forward to the bed, hearts hammering, some to clean (the body-servants) and some to display clothing for the approval of the queen-consort (the ladies).
Dress the queen! Dress the queen! Hurry! Find the chamberlain, find the chamberlain! Quickly. Quickly! Quickly!

At the heart of this storm of sudden, earnest activity the queen sat silent and brooding. Her rage was gone and in her heart was a stone. The king had not returned; he had not returned all night.

Anne de Bohun was to blame.

“Your Majesty?” William Hastings advanced two paces toward the Presence chair and flourished a bow to the queen. Another two paces, another bow.

“Stop!”

William looked up, startled. “Stop this. You'll be all morning getting here.”

For one bright moment the chamberlain thought the queen had made a joke, but a quick glance at Elizabeth Wydeville's somber face and he squashed that happy thought. The queen's eyes had a dangerous hot glitter. William knew the signs and knew what to do. He moved forward faster, as gracefully as he could, and knelt on one knee at the foot of the dais.

“Your Majesty is radiant this morning.” A gallant lie, but gallant lies were useful things. Would the queen acknowledge his sally? No. Elizabeth, now that he saw her face at close range, actually looked close to tears.

“Tell them to go. All of them.”

William stood and surveyed the crowded Presence chamber. From the queen's expression, the court could sense something was brewing and, almost without him seeing them do it, as a body they were creeping closer and closer to the Presence chair, just in case there was something juicy to pick up on as the chamberlain spoke with the queen. William clapped his hands sharply and there was
an audible mutter. Dismissed! And just as things were getting interesting.

The chamberlain ignored the whispers and the smothered sighs of disappointment. He waited patiently until it pleased the queen to speak. The great doors closed on the last of the court; Elizabeth beckoned Hastings forward.

“Did you find her?”

Hastings had prepared himself for this conversation, had thought carefully of what he needed to say to gain the best advantage from this awkward situation.

“No, Your Majesty, I did not. The Lady Anne de Bohun had already left her home.”

The queen did not seem surprised. She nodded and slumped a little in her chair, which confused William momentarily. Could news have traveled this fast from Somerset?

“And? What else?”

The chamberlain smiled confidently. “Your Majesty, I know where she is.” The queen stared into William's eyes. She beckoned him again. He stood on the lower step of the dais; she waved him closer still. Now he stood beside her Presence chair.

“So do I,” she whispered in his ear, a tickling sensation. In suppressing the urge to scratch his ear, William was distracted and completely unprepared when Elizabeth screamed, “He's with her now. He's been with her all night!”

The sheer volume of sound nearly made the chamberlain fall backward. Automatically, he put out a hand to save himself and his fingers closed around one arm of the queen's chair; the arm on which the queen was leaning.

“Don't touch me. How dare you!”

Elizabeth was furious and William was bewildered and confused. And shamed. The queen's person was sacred, not to be touched by unconsecrated hands.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty!”

William stumbled to the floor and knelt, head bent, to hide his flaming face. There was silence, though Hastings was certain his heart had migrated to his mouth and, if he opened it, the queen would hear its agitated thud.

“What am I to do, William? The king loves that woman. He will abandon me. Send me to a convent.”

She never called him William. Cautiously, the chamberlain raised his eyes and saw something remarkable. The queen was actually crying in front of him, oblivious of appearances. He'd never seen her cry before. The tears fell in a minor torrent, dropping onto the fingers she'd twisted together in her satin lap, dripping from the ends of her nose and her chin. They were real tears, not decorative in the least.

William held his breath. This was, potentially, an opening to the first big realignment of power and influence since the king had returned. The high chamberlain of England recognized his moment and seized it. “Your Majesty, I agree that the Lady Anne is a problem, for the king and, potentially, for the country. But do not despair. Later today there is someone I believe you should meet. Someone with much to tell us about the Lady Anne de Bohun…”

When Anne awoke, most of the morning had fled, but she decided she'd dispense with anxiety and fear. Enchantment was the ruling force in her life now—enchantment conjured by the king, her lover. Edward Plantagenet had caused a bower to be created for her and she had become the lady of this place. For the moment she dwelt within a tower surrounded by a garden, just as the Romances described. Anne decided she would explore this new domain while the king was away.