"I wish to marry you, Anne."
I think that he must be jesting, or that I am dreaming, that these words could not possibly have fallen from his lips.
"Say that again."
He smiles faintly. "If you will have me, of course."
A rising tide of fierce joy is sweeping through me. I am trembling. In a moment I think I shall burn as bright as the sun. I must temper myself, I must.
"Is this because of your mother?"
"No. I expect that she only spoke as she did because she knows that I have long wished to have you."
"If I marry you, I become your property," I whisper. "I will belong to you, just as Isabel belongs to George. You will receive my inheritance. My lands and my mother's wealth will become yours."
"That's true," he says simply. "You bring great wealth to a marriage, Anne, and it would be dishonest to deny it. But I will not marry you for lands or riches, just as I hope you will not marry me for the title of a royal duchess. I wish to marry you because I love you." He moves closer and his breath ghosts over my hair, over my neck. "You speak the truth: you will be mine. You will find that I protect my own."
Because I love you.
"Grant me permission to spend all my days serving your happiness. Say you will marry me."
I am nodding and whispering yes before I can breathe, before I can think, and then his lips are on mine, and he is gentle and careful, as if I am glass against him, a miracle, precious and holy. And then I reach for him and think that he is mine now, just as much as I am his, and I glory to feel him tremble beneath my fingers, to see the effect that I can have on him, this man who would pledge his very life to me.
—-
I know what it is to be loved now, to be adored. I know what it is to relish the sweet anticipation of another's touch, knowing that my desire will always be sated.
He tells me that he admired me when we were children on my father's estate, that he was so nervous around me that he was afraid I would mistake his manners for coldness. He tells me that he wanted me when I came to court for the first time, and wanted me when my father dragged my family away, and wanted me still when he heard I was wed to his cousin. He says that he thought of me when he fought alongside his brothers, and that he swore that he would live, so that he might find me.
"When I came to you at the abbey and told you that you were a widow, you know not how badly I fought myself, Anne. I wanted to take you away from there. I thought I could make you forget, if I had the time, the chance…"
"But you were honorable. You took me to my sister, to the king."
He squeezes my waist lightly. "I delivered you to captivity of another kind. I have tormented myself, thinking of it. Would that I had taken you away then, as I wished to do."
I am so content now that the past months seem to have been a dream, unreal. "It does not matter now."
He twines my curls around his fingers, a smile playing on his lips. "I would marry you right now, this moment. I would drag you off and find a priest and an inn, as though we were a pair of common servants."
"One word from you and I will go," I whisper.
The open desire in his face makes my heart sing with triumph. "And I would take you. But I will not see you dishonored, smuggled away in the night. I would marry you before the king, before George, before your mother and mine, before the whole of England. I would have them all know that I protect you, that they cannot hurt you without facing my reckoning."
"And what of my fortune? Will George release me?"
"Not if I know him. But I will go over his head, to Edward, who will force him to relinquish any claim he has on you. I will tell Edward that we are to be married. He will not deny my wife her inheritance."
"Your wife." It is delicious, rolling on my tongue. "I am to be your wife."
"Will you mind it terribly, Anne, the waiting?"
I smile. "Not too long, mind you, or I may forget that we were ever betrothed."
"Then allow me to remind you," he says, and he pulls me down to him as I shriek with laughter.
—-
For three weeks, we are like two planets when we are seen at court, orbiting near each other but never touching. He does not dance with me but he is always in my eyeline. We do not sit together but when he sips his wine, I do the same, and we lock eyes and it is like a shared kiss of gold. He jousts and hunts with my favor tucked in his breastplate. He will walk past me in a crowd and press a note into my hand, unsigned but singing the praises of my grace, my beauty. The servants will bring me a bouquet of flowers atop my fresh sheets, or folded into my gowns, and when I ask for the sender's name they just smile and shake their heads. His closest friends, his fellow soldiers, ask me to dance and pay flowery compliments to me, and I see the gleam of amusement in their eyes, the boyish way that they glance at him as he shakes his head, grinning.
"Richard certainly seems to pay you a great deal of attention," Isabel says.
"Does he? I had not noticed."
"He watches you, Annie. Every time I want to find you in a room, I follow his gaze, and there you are."
Later that night, when I open my door for him and throw his hood back from his dark hair, when I finally let him hold me, here in the safety of my chambers, I tell him, "Isabel suspects us."
"You are distracting me," he murmurs, planting another kiss on my neck, below my ear. "Why should she suspect anything?"
I trace my hands down his arms, feeling the muscles flex and tighten there. "Because you look at me like a lovestruck fool."
He laughs, and the sound is joyful, boyish. "Edward said the same. He said that I wear my heart for all to see."
"You have spoken to him? When, Richard? Tell me what he said!"
"I have done it this very night. That is why I came to you. He blesses our union, and says that George will release you immediately, whether he likes it or not."
"So simple," I gasp.
"I told you that he would not deny me."
He is stepping back, and his eyes are gleaming, and he holds out his hands to me. "I believe that I promised to put you on my horse and take you away to a priest and an inn, in that order. Would this evening suit you, my lady?"
Everything. He gives me everything, at once, and takes real pleasure in it. "I thought that you wanted a big wedding."
"I know that you do not," he says simply. "Edward knows, and he has told the queen, which means that the whole castle is aware, including your kin and mine. We can send word to your mother tomorrow, if you like."
And then I reach for him, and I am nodding, laughing as I throw my arms around his neck, as he wraps a cloak around my shoulders and fusses over the warmth of my riding boots. He leads me from the castle to the stables, to his glossy dark horse, and as we ride off I am thinking that I am not running away, that I am running towards my future, to Richard. That I am taking charge of my destiny, and perhaps my father smiles to see me, his youngest daughter, queen of the heart of the man I love.
