Richard presents her with a diadem of exceeding beauty on Christmas morning, before they leave for mass.
Things between them have been a little easier since Margaret Beaufort's sentencing - Anne feels a weight gone from her soul, at this absolute confirmation that no offhand comment of hers led to the boys' deaths - but they are still not as they were, and Anne doubts that they ever will be.
She wishes it were otherwise. God be good but she wishes it were otherwise. She misses him as her husband with an ache so fierce it is blinding, sometimes, white-hot pain burning her right to the centre, but she still feels that he is not the man she married.
His arm is free of that sling, and he seems much more himself now. She had a new doublet and breeches made for him, fine claret-red velvet and supple black leather, to match his long boots, and sewed him a half a dozen new shirts, too, with the Spanish style blackwork he so likes on the collars and cuffs.
It seems like nothing, compared with the diadem. She had expected jewels, but sees no sign of his sisters' hands in this, only his own.
"I thought it would suit you better than any of the others," he says, watching as her ladies - no Rivers girls, not for Christmas - arrange her hair to hold the dainty crown. "Delicate and lovely, as you are."
Her younger ladies swoon a little when he speaks so, but Anne knows him well enough to know that such words are not empty romance, and that they are not for sharing. He means them, when he says them to her. Flattery does not come easily to him, but he has always had beautiful compliments for her, and hands them to her readily at every chance.
"Hush now," she warns him, with a smile that is not forced at all. "We are bound for the chapel soon - restrain yourself, my lord."
Their walk to the chapel is slow, the pace easy - they are both prone to fits of weakness still, even if he is recovering with a heartening rapidity and she has not coughed in two weeks or more - and she relishes leaning on his arm, the warmth seeping through his half-cape and hers and into her bones. He is always so warm, and always willing to share that warmth with her.
The mass is a blur, the sermon something joyous and celebratory, but Anne hardly notices it.
Her diadem draws a dozen compliments, but her true gift from Richard came the night before, whether he knows it or not.
He had spoken for hours and hours, of Edward and of her father and of Isabel and George, but mostly of Edward, and then he had held her against his chest while she cried, his heart hammering under her ear and his hands firm and careful against her back, cradling her head and petting her hair.
She kissed him, properly kissed him, before she left for bed, and he had watched her leave with an open mouth and swollen lips.
She doesn't know how she ever thought to have forgotten the taste of him.
All Richard's nephews and nieces are assembled on the night of the Epiphany, save for the Burgundian cohort, but including Anne's nephew and niece - George and Izzie's children, Margaret and Teddy, who are so like their parents but without George's hunger for power and Izzie's hunger for love. Margaret is Anne's special favourite, such a sweet girl with such a kind heart, and she hopes that Richard will not seek to use Maggie for a political marriage.
It is desperately painful to have all their nephews and nieces gathered around them, when there ought to be one more among their number - or three more, their Edward and Elizabeth Woodville's boys. It is good, though, to have the family all together and united, because there have been whispers here and there of trouble, and Richard is not yet well enough to lead an army, if indeed he will ever be well enough to do so again.
Anne still excuses herself early.
Richard still follows her.
His mouth burns her, when he cradles her face in his hands and licks into her like she is something holy, something sacred. His hair is thick and soft and heavy between her trembling fingers, and he drops his left arm around her waist, drawing her close and saving himself the strain in one swoop.
"I've missed you," he murmurs, mouth behind her ear and sucking soft against her skin. "I've missed you so much."
She could cry, at the tenderness he is showing her, but doesn't because that will only worry him. Instead, she takes one hand from his hair and sets to work on his fine new doublet, this one night-sky blue, easing it open while he is distracted by pinning her against the bed pillar and kissing her neck and unwinding her hair.
"Let me," she whispers, when he stiffens under her hands - she only wants him bare, doublet and shirt gone, but worries that it may be difficult for him to undress himself. "Let me help, love."
He sighs, and softens, and lets her help him. The scarring is raw and red, worse than she thought it would be, but she kisses it very carefully all the same, and he softens further.
He looks surprised when she pushes him down against his solid mattress, too hard for her tastes, and she rolls her eyes. As if he would be able to hold himself over her, with that shoulder!
"You needn't," he says, as if she does not know him so well that she could make him come in just a moment, when he is like this, "if you do not wish it."
She leans down to kiss him in response to that foolishness, and while she is kissing him she reaches around to unlace herself.
He tugs her sleeves by the cuffs, helps her free herself of her lovely gown, and laughs when she gathers the skirts and heaves the whole lot over her head, so she can stay kneeling over him, so she can stay close.
"I love you," he says, and she believes him.
His hands are warm in hers as she rides him, his pleasure sudden and hers easy, and afterwards, she lies atop him, head on his right shoulder and hand on his left.
"I have missed you," he says, kissing her brow, and then there is only quiet, because they have quite exhausted themselves.
In the morning, they will talk. In the morning, they will fight, Anne knows, because she needed this, but it cannot be so regular as it was before. In the morning, the world will creep back in, but for now, there is only the unquenchable warmth of Richard's skin against hers, his arm heavy around her waist and his thigh firm between hers, and quiet.
"I don't understand," he says, hunched over himself and low-voiced. Anne has tugged his bedrobe around herself, and sent for clothes to be brought - there are so many guests that she must be up early, because she has so much to do. "If you do not wish to- to resume our marriage, why come to my bed?"
"Our marriage has never ended, that it must be resumed," she tells him, sitting by his feet and wondering how they have come to this pass, that every exchange is loaded, is weighted, is political. "It has simply shifted away from what we knew. We must learn what it is now-"
"I don't want what it is now," he says, lifting his head, and he has tears in his eyes.
"Oh, Richard," she sighs, letting him draw her into his lap. "Richard, I-"
"I miss you so much I can hardly think for it," he says, face tucked against the gaping neck of her robe, against her breasts. "I miss you every moment of the day, and twice as badly at night, when I am alone in my bed and you are alone in yours. I miss having you walk with me in the gardens, or come riding with me, or-"
"And you think I do not miss you?" she asks. "You think that I do not lie awake at night for wanting you beside me? Of course I do! How could I not?"
"You do not seem to!" he snaps, lifting his head again to look her in the eye, and oh, God, but it hurts to meet his gaze - she has avoided doing so for so long that it is truly painful, because he has never been able to hide anything from her when they are eye to eye and she can see all the hurt and rage and loss and loneliness she is drowning in mirrored there, in the darkness.
"I do," she says, "I do, Richard, I do, I swear it-"
They fight, and they cry, and then they talk.
She kisses him before she leaves to dress in her own rooms, and returns directly after to dine with him, and kisses him in greeting.
She has missed this affection more than the other, these kisses more than the hunger, and feels almost sick with relief to have them returned to her, even if it is only for a few days, before they find something else to fight about.
"I never wanted him, my lady."
Elizabeth Rivers has returned, without Cecily, and Anne wonders why. She has quite openly favoured Cecily, who has much of her namesake's sharp wit - the Dowager Duchess come again, complete with those too-knowing eyes that frightened Anne when she was a little girl.
"The King, I mean," the girl says. "Uncle Richard. I never wanted anything from him but what stories he had of my father."
"And advancement, for yourself and your sisters," Anne says without looking away from her hoop - it annoys her, how lovely Elizabeth's face is, and she is ashamed of being annoyed, because the girl cannot help it. After all, she had the best-looking parents in England, didn't she?
"He never wanted me, either," Elizabeth goes on, ignoring Anne's pointed words - just as her mother would, and Anne is amused by that, for some reason.
"I know that now," Anne says. "The King and I have been wed for many years now, Mistress Rivers - had I not been distracted with the loss of our son, I would have been able to think clearly enough to see his innocence."
The mention of Edward is cruel, perhaps, but it is true. She was so lost in her grief, so busy blaming Richard because she had to blame someone , that she had lost sight of all that she knew of him, all that she still knows.
She has not told him any of this, not yet, but she will. She knows that she can, now, after so many months of withholding her trust from him.
His hands settle on her hips without thought, and she turns to look him in the eye, over her shoulder.
"You feel better," he says, a brush of a kiss and a smile. "More yourself."
It is a year since Edward's death. It does not feel real, somehow, that their boy could be a year gone, but it is, and they have spent the morning at mass, remembering him and praying for his peace.
Somehow, praying for Edward's peace has given Anne some of her own.
"I think losing him drove me mad," she admits, turning in Richard's arms to curl against his chest - she has not done this in so long, unless after one of their frequent rows. "He was my boy, Richard. My only boy."
Izzie used worry that she had not given George another son, but at least she gave him another child - Anne has only ever had Edward, and poor stillborn Cecily, and she never wanted anything more than she wanted to give Richard as many children as he wished, children enough to fill Middleham to overflowing.
"I should have been better," Richard says, right arm strong and left heavy around her. "I should have seen that you needed me more. I am sorry. I am sorry for all that has happened since- since I became Lord Protector."
His voice has never fully recovered from the delirium after the last battle, still running rough sometimes, but Anne has learned all its shifts and tones as well as she ever knew it, and hears the grief as bottomless as her own in it now.
"His illness was not your fault," she says, and is surprised by how much she means it - she has blamed him at least a little all this time, she knows that and is ashamed of it, and wonders if it is for her to absolve some of his undeserved guilt. "No more than Buckingham's faithlessness - God acts in mysterious ways. Terrible, sometimes, but not for us to understand."
"I wish not so much to understand," he says, pressing his face to her gathered-up hair and breathing deep, "as I wish it were not so."
Some strain between them eases, and Anne sinks against his warmth as she has not in a year, lets him hold her as tight as he might wish and then, when they are both calm and their unannounced tears have stopped, she lets him kiss her, and it feels as it should, not as it recently has.
With spring comes Richard's Parliament, held first in London and later, in the autumn, in York.
London floods with nobles from all over the country, and they bring with them their wives, and their sons and daughters - the children are easier to bear than the wives, who seem to be handsomer women than Anne to a one, and more stylish besides.
Anna Lovell comes too, though, and Agnes Ratcliffe and Mags Catesby, and blessed Maud Percy, and Anne is comforted by having these women she can trust near her - women who will not try to push her into Richard's bed, as his sisters do.
"I have missed you," she tells Anna, holding her close for a moment when she steps out of the carriage emblazoned with the Lovell wolf. "Come, come, so much has changed."
And much has changed - court has come to life, now that she and Richard have come out of mourning, now that she and Richard have come together again, and it is no less lovely than it was under Edward and Elizabeth, if a little less opulent. There is music, and dancing, and laughter, and none of it makes Anne want to scream.
"You look so much better than Francis said you would," Anna says, frank as ever, and Anne laughs helplessly, because she has missed having her friends near as much as she has missed Richard.
She goes to his bed that night, giddy with laughter and wine, and finds him still up, reading some letter or other.
"Anne," he says, setting it aside and moving to get up. "Is something the matter?"
She pushes him flat down on the bed, climbs atop him, sheds her robe and nightgown, and presses his hands to her skin.
"Not now," she assures him, and leans down to kiss him quiet.