“Alice…”

“William…!”

He eyed me speculatively.

“Alice, will you marry me?”

Marry…?

My mind scrabbled for understanding, for any sensible response, and found none. After all the emotion of the morning, I could not deal with this. I was forced to drag air into my lungs.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Now, there’s an intelligent reply. I often propose marriage to a woman in the spirit of mockery. The country is littered with my proposals. Will you marry me?” he repeated.

Did he mean this? I could read nothing in the hard lines of his face.

“Marriage…! But why?”

Immediately he straightened, then, shockingly, went down on one knee. For a moment of blazing memory, I recalled Edward in his strength and power wooing me after my outburst. But there was no similarity here at all. Edward had wooed me from the heart; this was a charade, a travesty of honor and chivalry. Surely it was.

“I love you,” Windsor announced. “Why else would a man ask a woman to wed him?”

“You are a liar, Windsor.”

“Ah…but how do you know?” Those bold eyes glinted in a sudden bright stroke of sunlight through the heavy cloud.

“I don’t. Sense tells me.…Stand up! The sentries will see us and the whole world will know within the hour that you are making mischief!” When he rose to his full height, the light spread over his harsh features, gilding him in an enticing softness that I instantly rejected. Pouncing, he clasped my hand and pressed his lips against my fingers.

“It’s not such a bad idea, you know. Wife and concubine—not an easy role to pursue at one and the same time, but I swear you have the talent for it. Will you?”

“No.” I had no breath, no wit to say more. What an appalling morning this had been. Was he ridiculing me? If so, there was an edge of cruelty to it that I would never have expected.

“Listen to me. I’m quite serious.” He leaned back against the parapet once more, looking up to where a pair of crows somersaulted on the thermals. His voice was clipped, his hand still firm around mine. He was deadly serious. “I foresee advantages.…”

“You would, of course!”

“For you, woman! For you! Just listen. When Edward dies, what happens to you? Alone, unprotected, you will become a perfect scapegoat for those who have loathed you since the first day you crawled into the King’s bed.” How sordid he made it sound. “From the first day that you stood at the King’s side and blocked their way to power. They’ll not accept that the King was too ill to hold the reins of government. They’ll blame you. And they’ll take utmost pleasure in throwing you to the dogs.” His eyes slid from tumbling crows to me. “And I wager that none of this is new to you. You’ve seen the threat of the storm clouds building on your horizon, just as those birds know the power of the thermals to lift them. Look at them! Storm crows. Birds of ill omen.”

Who’d have thought Windsor would be superstitious! “I have seen the storm clouds,” I replied. “And I see the crows every morning without fear. I have made provision.”

“I’m sure you have. Squirreling away wealth for your old age.” How cynical, how practical. No superstition here! Did he think I had been robbing the royal coffers? “But what if they target your sources of income?”

“I have taken precautions.”

“I know. I know how clever you are.” I thought it was no compliment. “But that’s another reason for you to watch your back. Men don’t like it when a woman oversteps the line of what is acceptable for her sex. A man would get away with it. A woman…? She will be damned as impertinent, presumptuous at best. Immoral at worst. A woman who fights for herself, who is bold and outspoken and fearless, and is amazingly successful at what she sets her hand to, is instantly vilified, whereas a man is praised for his perspicacity. You’ve made yourself notorious.”

“As have you…” I retaliated, horrified by his brutal brushstrokes of me and my character.

“That’s not relevant,” Windsor fired back. “Just as your innocence or guilt is irrelevant. They’ll be snapping at your heels as soon as the King is laid out in the chapel. Now, if you wed me, I would stand protector for you and your property, through the courts if need be.”

Ah! Of course! Not kindness at all! “And what would you get out of marriage?”

“Someone to watch over my interests in England when I’m in Ireland.”

I frowned. “That’s not an answer a woman wants to hear. It’s a marriage, not a business deal.” I pulled my hand free and turned my back on him. “Are you still so sure you’ll be allowed to go back?”

“Yes. As I said—who else is there?”

“Then pay an agent to look after your properties for you. It’s cheaper than marriage. With far fewer problems,” I added dryly. “I’ll get Greseley to recommend someone.”

“I want someone who will do it for better motives than a paid clerk. I want you!”

I want you! I shook my head to jangle my thoughts into order. “No.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason!”

I fell back on the practical, because I dared not contemplate my initial reaction. “I can’t. Edward…”

“Edward would not need to know.”

“What? We would keep it secret?” My shock doubled.

“Why not? Would it be so very difficult? If we did take so momentous a step, it would undoubtedly be better if the Court didn’t know of it.”

I followed his line of sight, the crows twisting and falling in unison, a mating dance, and, brusquely, asked the primary question in my mind: “Why would you consider—why would any man consider—making such a proposal to the King’s mistress?” I swallowed against the constriction in my throat and made my question plainer. “Why would you wish to share your bed with the King’s whore?”

“I’ve thought of that. I’ve decided it doesn’t matter.” When I looked at him in amazement, he returned my gaze with frank assessment. “What are you to him, Alice? What are you to him now?”

“I…” The question took me unawares, and I sought for a reply that would not betray Edward. I would never speak of what passed between myself and the King.

“What are you to him?” Windsor repeated. I must have looked momentarily lost, so he made it easy for me. Who would have thought that he would do that? “Friend?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Counselor?”

“Yes. When he asks—and sometimes when he does not.” I smiled sadly. “Edward likes to talk. Or he did.…”

He cocked his head. “Confidante?”

“Yes…always…” I set my teeth. I knew what was coming.

“Lover?”

My reply stuck in my gullet.

“Be honest with me, Alice. For God’s sake! I’ll not spread it through the palace!”

Should I give him the answer he wanted? The one that was the truth? Blessed Jesu! I found my nails digging deep into my palms.

And, seeing, he took my hand, smoothing out my fingers, asking gently, “Are you still lovers?”

“No!” I cried out, with infinite sadness at this ultimate decline in so great a man. “No longer…”

“As I thought…”

“He cannot.…” I felt the need to explain, to defend the King when he could not defend himself. I could not bear that he be sneered at for losing that essential masculine power that made him the crowned stag, the vigorous stallion. Edward would hate it, shrink from it. But I did not need to explain. Windsor showed no scorn.

“The sad depredation of old age,” he remarked matter-of-factly. “It strikes us all down eventually. How long since?”

“Two years or more now,” I admitted.

“And yet you stay with him.”

“Yes.”

“For the power it brings you?” His eyes bored into my soul.

“I can’t deny it, can I?” I demanded bitterly.

“I think you are better than that.”

He reminded me of Wykeham. It should have been a comfort to have two men who believed that I had even an inch of a better nature, but it was not. When the whole world railed against me, sometimes it was difficult not to believe the defamation. Perhaps I did not deserve happiness. Not when the length and breadth of my sins were tallied up.

“He needs me,” I stated, consigning self-pity to the devil. “I cannot leave him.” To my relief, Windsor made no comment, letting the moment draw out between us. “He loves me, you see,” I continued. “Even though he cannot play the man any longer, he loves me. Does he not deserve my loyal service to the end?”

Windsor turned back to the wall, resting his chin on his hands again. “Think of it like this. If you are not intimate, would it matter if you were wed to me? It would not be a physical betrayal, would it?”

“But the King would see it as a betrayal—and rightly so.”

“I can’t agree. How often does he not know you when you walk into his chamber?” He must have felt my resistance. “Be honest again. You’ve nothing to lose. I’m no gossip.”

No, he was not. “Too often…” I sighed.

“Here’s the thing,” he drove on, the timbre of his voice deepening. “You are vulnerable. And when the King’s dead you will be on your own.”

“And if I wed you, you will stand for me.”

“I will.”

“And in return I will administer your property.”

“Yes.”

“Still a business arrangement, all in all.”

“If you wish to call it that.”

“It’s what it seems to me.” Dismay, like a reaction to the cool breeze after a hot day, shivered over my skin.

His glance was a direct challenge. “Wed me, Alice. Do you have the courage?”

“I don’t think I lack for courage.”

“Then accept!”

I let the idea tumble through my mind as the crows dived and rose once again on the air, a pair enjoying the freedom of their kind. I did not think that I had any freedom.

Windsor sighed. “Alice…”