His mouth twisted. “A simplistic answer to smooth over any complication.” Silence fell. Heavy. Full of decision and indecision. And then: “If you are to share my bed, you must call me by my name.”

“Edward.” I tried it, as I had written it of late. I smiled. And the King must have heard the smile in my voice and he looked back at me over his shoulder.

“What is it?”

“It sounds strange.”

“Strange…Do you know how few people call me by my name?”

“No, Sire.”

“I could count them on the fingers of one hand. All the friends of my youth—dead within the last two years. Northampton—the bravest of my generals. Sir John Beauchamp, who carried my standard at Crécy. Lancaster—the most trusted of all my friends. The years are cruel, Alice. You’re too young to see it yet. They rob us of our health and our friends and our hopes, and give nothing back.” His sight was turned inward, his expression melancholy. Another log fell into ash, dislodging others, and as if the sound prompted him to what he was and what he must be, Edward slowly raised his head. His spine straightened visibly, and the lines of his face firmed as his lips compressed. “I am not allowed to grow old. I am King.”

I stood, my own anxieties obliterated by compassion, not that I would ever have dared reveal it. Here was a proud warrior who had lived and fought for a lifetime, yet there was no comfort for him. Nor would he ask it—he would bear the burden of kingship to the grave, whatever the depth of loneliness it demanded from him. I walked slowly toward him, presenting him with my own cup, since his was forgotten on the coffer.

“You will not grow old. You will live forever. And I will call you Edward, if that is what you wish.”

I touched his hand as he took the cup from me, marveling that I could so easily transgress the honor due to the King; all my fears seemed to have fallen away. I let my fingers rest lightly on his, as his eyes captured mine.

“I remember the softness of your mouth. When you smile, your face is illluminated as if a candle is lit behind your eyes,” he said. “It lights you from within.”

“You flatter me.”

“Then we will flatter each other.”

Edward kissed me. His lips were firm and warm against mine. An intimate kiss but with no heat of passion. He was not aroused. Perhaps it was the desire of courtly love he wanted to give me rather than the fulfillment of the flesh.

“God will damn me for this, but…”

He let his hands drop from my shoulders, for there was harsh conscience again. I thought that in his youth there would have been no hesitation in Edward taking what he wanted, but he was not at ease with either his conscience or with me. His authority, within the bedchamber or without, was supreme, but his memories had roused the specter of death and decay.

So what was my role here? It came to me that I wanted nothing more than to give him some level of contentment. To make him smile again. But how…how to distract him from these morbid thoughts that gave him no pleasure? What skill did I have to achieve that? The arts of seduction were unknown to me. What might he want most from me that I was capable of giving? What could I do? Well—I could argue and hold an opinion.…

My eyes were caught by the documents strewn across the table. Affairs of business and policy. I walked to stand before them.

“Tell me what you are doing here, Edward.”

“Interested in royal policy, are you?” Intrigued, he had watched me go.

“Yes.” I looked back at him, a deliberate challenge that he was free to accept or reject. “I am capable of far more than deciding the color of the gown I wear or how my hair should be dressed!”

“Are you, now?” Accepting the challenge, Edward directed me to sit on a stool and reached to select one of the documents, handing it to me. “Family affairs,” he said, resting his weight against the table, interest in my precociousness replacing the melancholy. This was better!

“You are fortunate. I have no family,” I said. “I know nothing of such.”

“I have sons. Magnificent sons. And they bring me power.” And there was the King again rather than the man, his finger on every pulse, his hand wound tight in the reins to keep ultimate control of the kingdom. “What do you see on that document?”

He tapped the one I held. The Latin was close-written in the crabbed script of a clerk, but I could read enough. “Ireland,” I said.

“Good! This is Lionel. He’s in Ireland. A difficult province, a tough job. Once, I’d have gone myself, but I’ve sent Lionel as King’s Lieutenant. He’ll have to tread a path between all the damned interests. God knows it’s a morass of bad blood.”

He took the document from me and gave me another. I felt like a novice again, under instruction, or a clerk under Janyn’s scrutiny, but my fascination with the documents was keen. “And this?” he asked.

This one was more difficult, but the names were clear. “This is Aquitaine.”

“Edward, my heir.” The pride in his voice was unmistakable. “He’ll rule Aquitaine well as long as he curbs his tendency to stamp on the interests of those he rules. Gascony’s restive—he must learn to be patient at the same time as he learns to be king. He is a good commander, a man after my own heart. Now, this…”

He was enjoying himself. A man confident and assured as he spread out before me the heirs to his power who would carry the Plantagenet blood and name into history. I took the new document.

“This is John. John of Gaunt. The Duchy of Lancaster is now his. And Edmund? I was planning on the Flanders heiress for him”—he frowned at a document with a heavy red seal that had cracked on its journeys—“but the French want her, and they have the ear of the new Pope. I’ll have to look elsewhere for him. And then there’s Thomas.…”

“Who’s only seven, and hunting mad like his father.”

“Yes.”

The success of my simple ploy glowed in my heart. Edward was at ease.

“Isabella is the other problem.” He took my cup again and drank as he considered her. “She’ll marry as she sees fit. If I took a whip to her sides it would do no good.”

“I think she will not be averse to any husband of your choice.” I had seen the raging dissatisfaction in Isabella.

“She was more than averse once!”

“But now, with the years passing…she’ll accept any man you choose for her—as long as he is young and good to look at and powerful!”

“I’ll remember that. You see more than I in the domain of the solar.…My fear is that she’ll make her own choice—and someone outrageously inappropriate.”

“Then let her do it.”

“But I need her to make an alliance for the good of England—not to choose some landless knight with a pretty face and formidable muscles to entice her into bed…!”

He stopped abruptly. I looked up from the vellum to his face, unsure what had silenced him. He was looking at me.

“What have you done?” he demanded.

“Nothing, my lord!”

“You are a cunning woman, Alice Perrers!”

And Edward cast the curling documents onto the table and laughed, enough to reverberate from the walls and wake the hound. With a smooth flex of muscle and sinew he pushed himself from the table, stooped with a hand below each of my elbows, and lifted me from the stool to place me firmly on my feet. He held me there before him.

“Did I bring you here to discuss matters of policy?” His eyes were now a clear blue, all shadows obliterated, full of humor. And desire. “Not only cunning, I think. You are a clever woman.”

“Do you think so, Edward?” I tilted my chin, deliberately somber, exquisitively provocative.

“You’ve made an excellent attempt at distracting me.”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“And very successfully. I can only apologize for my ill humor.”

“There is no need.” And because I was so close, I touched the King’s lips with the tips of my fingers. “I am pleased to give you pleasure.”

It was a blatant invitation—and it was meant to be.

Edward needed no invitation. With grave courtesy he helped me remove my gown—how did a man of war deal so knowledgeably with female ties and laces?—allowing me to keep my shift for modesty’s sake. His patience lulled all my virginal fears. Turning back the bedcovers, he helped me to sit against the pillows, then doused the candles except for one, standing far enough away to give me the benefit of shrouding shadows. Without any modesty on his own part, he stripped off hose and tunic, and stood beside the bed.

“I’ll make this as good as I can, Alice.”

“I am not afraid.” Nor was I. Now that the moment had come I knew that Edward Plantagenet would not hurt me.

Curious, I allowed my gaze to travel over what I could see of his body in the single flickering flame. I expect the soft light flattered him. Half a century he had lived, but his flesh was still firm and smooth on flanks and chest; nor could the scars and abrasions from a lifetime of battle and tourneys detract from his splendid physique, despite there being more silver in his fair hair than he might wish for.

The evidence of his desire for me was formidable.

“Do you like what you see, Mistress Alice?” he asked.

I flushed brightly, realizing that I had been staring with open admiration.

“I like it very well,” I replied as calmly as I could. “I can only pray that you will find me as pleasing to the eye and the senses.”

“I’ll let you know! For now, my pleasure in your company is obvious to us both.”

So I lost my virginity to Edward Plantagenet, King of England. It was not an unpleasant experience, and my trembling was from neither fear nor pain. I followed his lead and was brave enough to return his caresses with my own. Sometimes I allowed my own needs, when I recognized them, to prompt a kiss or a caress. Sometimes I made him hold his breath.