His left arm is still numb most of the time, so he makes sure to keep Anne always on his right.
There are more people at court than he would like, and he will be leaving many of them behind when they depart on the morrow - but he does not care. He has Anne, truly has her back, and they are going home.
It has been too long since they were in the North.
Anne has a new gown in a marvellous shade of deep blue, to match her diadem, and she looks so lovely that he does not know how he is to survive all the way to their first port of call without calling a halt so he can drag her away from their attendants and ravish her.
She would be mortified if he did such a thing, he knows, so he will not, but he wants to.
She has recovered much of her health, and with it the pink of her cheeks and the softness of her hips. She still tires more easily, still has aches in her chest, but she is well, and so are they.
More or less. They will never be what they were - he will never risk her doubt again, and she will never recover from having doubted him - but they can be something else, something new. Something better, even. Who knows?
Her mantle is dove grey, a pale foil for her pale hair, and lovely. He aches to hold her, but smiles instead, and nudges his horse closer so he can take her hand and kiss her gloved fingers.
"We will have time to visit Middleham," he says quietly, "if you wish it, my lady."
Anne's younger ladies flutter and twitter among themselves whenever he is affectionate to her, and it embarrasses him - he loves his wife, and does not care who knows it, but he wishes all the same that they did not fuss so over it.
"I would like that very much," she says, reaching up to brush his hair back. "Send word for them to air out the house, my lord. Tell them we are coming home."
The Duke of Buckingham is a child, but his mother is a Rivers.
Anne is the model of decorum, holding out a hand to little Lord Edward Stafford and to his mother alike, not startling as Richard would have when Lady Catherine kisses her cheek instead of her hand.
Catherine Woodville has more sense than to try and kiss Richard's cheek. She offers him a curtsy and no more, and then steps aside, gesturing for them to enter with her head bowed.
Richard is glad of it - he had worried that she might snub Anne, or him, or somehow both of them together, but this is an appropriate welcome, and a friendly one at that. It is more than he might have hoped for, given all that has passed between him and both her families, birth and marital.
Lady Catherine - not Lady Buckingham, she somehow does not fit the title as her son fits his - has arranged a grand feast for their first night at (Stafford Hall).
"A thanks," she says, "for restoring to my son all his rightful titles."
Anne's hand goes tight on Richard's arm, but her smile never falters. He wonders if she learned that iron-tight control from her father, or from Margaret of Anjou - either seems likely.
"Your husband was misled, and wrongheaded," Anne says coolly, still smiling. "But your son can do better."
Little Buckingham's chest swells, and to Richard's surprise, Lady Catherine's smile does not shift. He hopes that that bodes well.
Little Buckingham seems very taken with the Edmunds, Edmund Howard in particular, and that does bode well - Edmund may never be Duke of Norfolk, but he might still wield influence, still hold sway with his older brother.
Richard did just that, after all, with Ned.
So it is good that Edward Stafford should be friends with Edmund Howard, and Richard encourages it, sending Edmund away and letting Edmund de la Pole serve him alone, or with his grooms.
"A feast tonight and a masque tomorrow," Anne says, while they are preparing for dinner - she has a lovely gown of purple velvet, bright against his black, and pearls for her neck, pearls in her hair, a long string of pearls that hangs teasingly below the neckline of her gown-
"You're staring," she admonishes him, but he knows she doesn't really mind. "Lady Catherine says that she has all things prepared for it - masks for us all, even."
"I suppose it might be amusing," he admits, already once more following the trail of those damnable pearls over her collarbones and down-
"We shall make the most of it, even if it is not," she says, standing so suddenly that he is left staring directly down her gown, much to her obvious amusement. "Come, my lord, we must let the House of Stafford feast us - they might rise up against us if we don't."
Progress passes in a rush, a blur - he tires more easily than he would like, the travelling wearing on him as it never used, and so he staggers from meeting to feast and feast to hearing without questioning any of it. John de la Pole has command of his household, Francis Lovell of his itinerary, Hal Percy of… Something else. Anne will know what it all is, if he thinks to ask.
Gloucester roars, when he rides through the gates - Richard has never spent much time in the city whose name he has borne for most of his life, but it is his, and he belongs to it, and its people welcome him as a prodigal son finally returneth.
Anne garners another roar, when she follows him, sitting astride her fine grey mare with her shoulders back and her smile shy. She waves and they cheer, and Richard is so proud he could join them, if dignity did not prevent such a thing.
The only things that stand out in perfect, razor-sharp clarity, other than their arrival in Gloucester, are the moments he snatches with Anne - sneaking her away from the dancing at the feast thrown for them by the Staffords to kiss her behind the hangings, like youths playing at romance, or riding out just the two of them, before dawn, and watching the sun rise over Gloucester. Her hand is in his as often as he can manage, her skinny arm warm against his own, and he feels overwhelmed with blessings, that even if they have lost Edward, they have one another.
"We are going to be late ," she tells him on the morning they are due to depart Gloucester for Hereford, but he cannot stop himself - he had been drunk as a monk the night before, hardly able to do more than kiss her before he was snoring into the too-soft pillows, but he is awake and without any apparent ill-effects of his indulgence, so he is seeking to indulge in other ways, now.
Her breasts are so lovely in his hands, warm and soft and small, smaller than she likes but a perfect fit, really, for his fingers.
"I don't care," he tells her, trailing his nose up the thrumming line of her pulse from collar to chin, and then lifting his head so he can kiss her hard and deep. "I care only for you, now."
They are late - terribly late, embarrassingly so - but he does not care, because Anne is smiling despite the embarrassment.
There is a celebration for the anniversary of his victory at Bosworth, while they are travelling, and Richard smiles and makes the appropriate noises, but he remembers nothing at all of the battle.
Well, he remembers snatches - the Lancaster banner in the gloom, the lightning-flash pain of the morningstar crushing his armour into his shoulder, but beyond that?
Nothing. Nothing at all. It is not truly his victory to celebrate.
Middleham appears before them so suddenly that they are each taken aback by it, and Anne smothers a sob behind her hand.
He hears it, though, and reaches for her. Can it really be that they have not seen their home since last they were happy?
"Welcome to Middleham," he calls, unsure of who will hear him, and uncaring. To Anne alone, he says "Welcome home, love," and they ride side-by-side under the portcullised gate.
They are brought to their rooms immediately, and the servants have not forgotten their habits - two baths are drawn in Anne's rooms, set side by side, and then left for them. They can call for help later, if Anne needs her hair rinsed, but otherwise they are alone.
They have been travelling for the better part of the year - they will spend Christmas in York, and then return to London by way of Cambridge, where they will visit their colleges.
He knows this. He does not care about any of this.
Anne sits in front of her dressing table so he can unpin her hair - his left hand is still clumsier than it was, but she does not seem to mind. She combs through each tumbling length as it falls, and by the time he is done, her hair is shining soft over her shoulders, and her earrings catch the light through its curtain.
"Do you need help?" she asks, hands on his doublet, and he nods in thanks. His shoulder is aching, and she is gentler with him than his grooms.
His doublet hits the floor, and then his shirt. Her dress follows soon after, and her shift is pale blue.
"Please," is all he can manage, but she understands. She leads him to the bed by the hand, crosses the mattress on her knees and then sits, turns to face him, knees bent up and eyes turned down.
He follows her, easy as a sigh, and wonders if the maids will mind when the sheets are filthy - they are both still wearing their boots, and he hasn't the patience to wait and take them off.
"It has been so long," he says, nuzzling under her chin as he has a thousand times since they left London - but this is not the same. This is home, him in Anne's bed and sunlight slanting through the three tall windows on the south-facing wall, and it is safe, warm and secure and just theirs.
They have never shared Middleham with so many people before, and it feels a terrible intrusion to have so many guests. At least this, here, is still theirs alone.
She sinks back into the mattress when his teeth catch on the point of her collarbone, easing into this as if they have never been away, and he sets his clumsy left hand on her lovely thigh so he can rest his weight on the right.
"On your side, love," she says, legs wrapping tight around his hips and throwing him to the left, so his useless arm is trapped beneath him and the good is free to touch her. She keeps one leg over his hip, and he starts there, running his hand from her knee to the crease of her backside and back, over and over, as she slips bony arms around his neck and draws him in for another kiss, and another, and another.
She presses closer when he lets his fingers dip around, to curl so they catch the smooth spread of her inner thigh, and makes a soft little sound against his tongue that makes him shiver.
Her hand is quick and sure as it slides down his chest, and he bites down on her lip without meaning to - she doesn't seem to mind, laughing into his mouth before kissing him again, and then she is unlacing his breeches and he is oblivious to everything else but that quick, sure hand of hers.
"We shall go to Pontefract, too," he whispers when she pulls away, one hand on his cock and the other his shoulder, pushing him onto his back. "We had happy times there, too, did we not?"
"We have had happy times everywhere we have lived, save for London," Anne murmurs between lingering kisses to his neck, to his chest. "But we married in London, so I cannot fault it overmuch."
Her hair tickles where it spills over his belly, and it is his turn to laugh then.
"You do not owe me more penance, Richard," Anne says, nipping at the rise of his hipbone. "You do not need to try and recover our past happiness. Let us make new happiness instead, my lord. Let us find happiness in one another, as we used."
He hardly lasts a minute, with her mouth on him, and she laughs again, gathering up his discarded shirt and using it to clean him up. She moves with an easy grace that has been absent these past months, and when she stands against the window he can see the shape of her through her shift.
She looks well. She looks healthy.
He recovers quicker than he has since they were newly married, and lies atop her for the first time since Bosworth. She wraps her arms and legs so tightly around him that he thinks she will never release him, and cries out his name as she peaks - and oh, how beautiful she is, sharp-voiced and pink-cheeked and clinging to him.
He barely outlasts her, overwhelmed by how exquisite she feels, and hides his face against her neck. He shakes, as the pleasure fades, but she is shaking too, so he does not mind.
Feasting at Middleham is different, because they are hosts here, not guests.
All Anne's favourite sweets have been prepared, and there are sharp cheeses and soft breads, and they are sitting at the high table, and it is all so familiar.
Edward's loss seems sharper than ever, because here, at Middleham, his absence is so much more obvious.
"You've noticed as well?" Anne asks, searching out his hand below the table.
"It is unbearable," Richard says, watching Teddy and Maggie chase after the Edmunds, Pole and Howard, and feeling hollowed out because Edward ought to be with them, too.
What joy is there in a home robbed of its family? He imagines Pontefract will be just as bad, and Barnard the same, were they to visit.
"York," he says, "and Cambridge, and London."
Anne nods her agreement, hand tight in his, and he hopes that none of their guests notice how quiet they have become.