This was originally meant to be longer, but the last line just seemed such a perfect ending that I decided to cut it here instead. Enjoy!
December 1484
"I never thought I'd say this, but Bess and Cecily are coming to Court for Christmas," Richard thrust the scrawled missive beneath Anne's nose as she sat sewing in the window embrasure of her solar, trying to eke out the last vestiges of the weak winter sunlight.
She looked up, "Bess and Cecily? Coming for Christmas? So. Their mother has finally decided to accept your olive branch, has she?"
"It would seem so. Perhaps that dratted oath I was forced to make had some effect on her after all." Richard sighed. "Are you sure you're all right with them coming, Anne?"
"Of course," Anne's eyebrows went up, "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well… It's just… it's not even a year since the boys died. Won't their presence be a reminder of everything we've lost?"
"Bess and Cecily are hardly children, Richard. If it was Anne and Bridget, maybe, or Bella's Meg, but those two are women grown, not little girls. Besides, we need to have the family together this Christmas. We need to present a united front, after everything that's happened in the past twelve months."
"A united front?" Now it was Richard's turn to arch an eyebrow, "Really? With Bess pledged to marry the stripling who dares to lay claim to my crown?"
"Oh, honestly, Richard! That's hardly Bess's fault. He has pledged to marry her, not the other way around. Bess is guilty of nothing but being a dutiful daughter. Bring her to court, treat her as you would any other of your nieces and find a husband for her. That's the easiest way of drawing the sting out of Tudor's barbs. If he can't marry Bess, then that's half his legitimacy, at least, gone in one fell swoop. And it would remind Lady Grey that you are a man of your word when you are given reason to be."
Richard hesitated. He turned on his heel, and strode across the room to the fruit bowl that stood on a low table in the corner. He picked up a bunch of grapes and fiddled with them, pulling them off the stalks one by one as he chewed his lip in thought.
"You're right," he said at last, "Little though I like it, you're right. We do need to present a united front this Christmas. And the girls are popular enough with the people. No doubt the Londoners will be delighted to see them out of sanctuary at last."
"Exactly," Anne tipped her face up to him as he crossed back over to stand behind her chair. Laying down her sewing, she reached up to touch his cheek, "You're doing the right thing, Richard, really. I'll have Bess and Cecily gowns made out of the same cloth of gold I was going to use for myself. No one can say we're not doing right by the girls if they're wearing the same dresses as I am, can they now?"
"You, Anne of Gloucester, are a veritable miracle," Richard exhaled, and reached down to press his lips to her brow, "What did I ever do to deserve you?"
The briefest of shadows crossed Anne's face, "I'm hardly a miracle, Richard. I just remember what it's like to be a veritable Princess one day and a virtual nobody the next. Those girls must be reeling with everything that's happened. Fine dresses for Christmas is the least we can give them."
"I should never have had those dresses made," Anne couldn't help the thought that sprang into her mind as she watched Bess and Cecily whirling through a carol dance with their de la Pole cousins.
Oh, she couldn't deny the girls looked beautiful in them, Bess especially. She had the vivacity and confidence to carry off such a bold colour. She carried herself in just the way one had to in order to be able to wear that kind of a gown. She'd had that skill, that charisma, practically since she could walk.
But that was precisely the problem. Anne didn't have that vigour. She never had done, not even in the prime of her youth. She'd been too slight, too sweet-natured. And this year, with her grief for Ned and Edward still stalking her, she suffered all the more for the comparison with her flaxen-headed nieces. She'd lost weight, making her already slight frame look almost hag-ridden. Dark grooves shadowed her eyes, marking the passage of many a sleepless night and highlighting the waxen pallor of her skin.
Beside Bess and Cecily, she knew she looked ill, even deathly so. Oh, no one had said as much to her face, but she heard the whispers behind her back, the mutters behind people's hands when they thought she wasn't looking.
"Poor woman. She won't last the month. And then we all know who our next Queen will be."
"The Lady Bess? The King would never, surely?"
"Why not? She's pretty and fertile enough, if her mother's anything to go by. Oh, it wouldn't be proper of course, but then, it's not as if our King cares for what's proper, is it?"
"Why so glum, Anne? Christmas is meant to be a time of joy," Richard broke into her musings.
She looked up at him. Flushed and panting with his exertions on the dance floor, he held a cup of wine in one hand and his hair was mussed, but not in such a way that it undermined his regal bearing. Indeed, for a moment, Anne thought she'd never seen him look so handsome.
Her heart lurched. Were the rumours right? Was he really planning to replace her with Elizabeth Grey's eldest girl? She didn't want to think so, but he had been spending a marked amount of time with Bess recently, often with only Cecily or Francis for company.
Her eyes strayed again to the dance floor, to where Bess was throwing her head back, laughing at something John de la Pole had said. Her hood had slipped askew in the dance and her blonde tresses tumbled free for all to see. They were lustrous in the candlelight, gleaming with health and vitality, despite the months she had spent in seclusion at the Abbey. So different for Anne's own limp honey strands.
"Anne?" Noting her distraction, Richard followed her gaze to where Bess was standing.
"She's beautiful," Anne couldn't stop the words from slipping out.
"Bess? Yes, I suppose she is," Richard didn't note the wistfulness in Anne's tone, not at first. But then something made him look at her twice.
"Are you jealous? Anne, are you jealous?" He stepped closer, lowering his voice so they couldn't be overheard.
"Who wouldn't be, Richard? Look at her, she's glowing. She's holding those around her spellbound. When I look at her like she is now, I can see why some say you plan to take her as your Queen, if you can persuade me to step aside, or God forbid, if I should die."
"Take Bess as my Queen? What? Anne, that's nonsense! Bess is pretty enough, I'll not deny that, but firstly, she is my niece and secondly, she's little more than a child! What could I want with her? I don't want a child in my bed."
"She's eighteen, Richard. I was her age when we married."
Anne's voice was bleak. Richard stared at her for a moment. Suddenly, impulsively, he put out his hand.
"Come with me," he ordered.
He said the words in an undertone, but they still brooked no argument. Anne stood up automatically, reaching across the table to put her hand in his. He led her from the room, scarcely even stopping to acknowledge the obesiances they garnered as they passed.
No sooner were they out of the great hall than he stooped and swooped her up into his arms.
"Richard! What are you doing?" She shrieked, her heart missing a beat with the shock.
"I don't know where this insecurity has come from, Anne, but I don't like it. I married a Neville lioness, not a shrinking violet. I'm going to show you that you have nothing to worry about."
There was no mistaking the heat in his voice, not given the fact that they had been married a dozen years. Anne flushed and shrieked his name again, startled that he would express his desire for her so publicly.
However, mingled with the shock and the shame was a by now familiar throb of real desire, one that made her giggle like a child as he broke into a run up the great stairs.
"Now do you believe me?" he asked her, several hours later, when they had awoken from a sated doze and he was playing with her long honey-brown hair, winding his fingers through it as he used to do in the early days of their marriage.
"Hmmm," she murmured sleepily, burrowing closer into his warmth, "You certainly make a very convincing case."
He chuckled lowly and leaned over to kiss her, "Good. Now go back to sleep, my Queen."
March 1485
All about Richard was chaos. The sun had darkened unexpectedly earlier than morning, sending the more superstitious of his courtiers into paroxysms of panic, screaming that it was a sign, that the Day of Judgement must be nigh. In the midst of all that, Anne's closest ladies had sent to him in a panic, saying that the Queen had collapsed and could not be roused.
Richard's heart had lurched – Ned's death had taken something out of Anne, something vital. And the anniversary of the boys' death was fast approaching. As it did, she seemed to be withdrawing into herself, retreating into a place he wasn't sure he could follow her to. He couldn't help but worry for her. But, given the circumstances, all he'd been able to do was send the physicians to examine her and return to trying to herd the frightened courtiers into some semblance of order.
He was just finding a moment's respite, leaning against a tapestry with a goblet of wine in his hand, when the physicians shouldered their way towards him.
"Sire," They had to shout to make themselves heard, but the grins on both their faces took a weight off his shoulders before they had even properly spoken.
"The Queen?" he demanded.
"Your Grace has no need to worry. The Queen is not unwell. She has simply overexerted herself, given her condition."
"Given her condition?" Richard knew he must sound foolish, parroting their words like this, but in that instant, he couldn't bring himself to care. The last time he'd heard a physician use those words, they'd been trying to tell him… But that had been five years ago, before that last miscarriage had sapped Anne's strength so much. He'd begun to give up hope that he might ever hear them again.
"Are you saying…"
The physicians nodded, "Your Grace would be best employing a midwife to be certain, of course, but as far as we can gather, Her Grace is with child."