“Well?” Windsor still waited.

I stood, feeling stronger, and walked slowly across to him. I think my words surprised us both. “You are my husband. I need your consent.”

“And that’s the first time in your life you have asked for it.”

I flushed. “I need your approval.”

His gaze was quizzical. “Would you go if I did not give it?”

I hesitated.

“There has always been honesty between us, Alice.”

“Then yes, I would go with or without your permission. If I did not see him, it would be on my soul.”

He closed his hands on my shoulders, kissed my forehead and then my lips. Our final embrace was strained with unspoken words and longings.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked, his arms banded ’round me.

“No.”

“I suppose I must find a clerk to finish the accountings.” I heard the smile in his voice.

“He won’t be as accurate as I am.” And I laughed softly into the fine wool of his tunic as the endlessly nagging fears of the past weeks loosed their grip.

“Go to Edward.” His compassion for me struck deep. “And then you will come back to me when you can. When it is over.”

I allowed myself to look at him, rubbing my knuckles over his jaw, running a finger over the hard line of his mouth. I knew him well enough to read the concern for me behind those austere, resolute features. I pressed my lips to his.

“Yes. I will return.”

Within hours, my belongings were packed and loaded onto two horses, a groom and one of Windsor’s household mounted to accompany me. I kissed my daughters and rode like the wind to Eltham, to Edward. And the official document authorizing my release? What happened to it? I had no recollection. With unusual carelessness I did not keep it.

Afterward I wished I had.



Chapter Fifteen



Leaving my baggage to be unloaded, I stepped into Eltham’s Great Hall, good memories of this palace, which Wykeham had renovated, sweeping back and lifting my spirits. But as I walked purposefully, absorbing the atmosphere, I was forced to accept that much had changed. It was, as Windsor had said, as if the heart had gone out of the Court. It had, as I had imagined, the still, dust-laden quality of a stone coffin. The servants I passed looked at me askance. All bowed or curtsied as they had in the past, and no one stopped me, but one man, his hand half-hidden against his hose, curled his fingers against the power of the Evil Eye. I saw it. My reputation as a witch had sunk deep.

That was not all. It would be no easy task to return to my old position. Legs braced, arms folded as if to repel a troop of invaders, Roger Beauchamp, Edward’s new chamberlain who had replaced Latimer, stood foursquare before the door to Edward’s accommodation, drawing himself up as his eye lit on me. I had come so far and so fast, and now this paid minion would keep me from Edward’s side. I knew from the set of his mouth that it would take little for him to draw his sword and drive me from the palace. I might know that my banishment had been lifted, but the speed of my arrival had preempted the news. The word had not yet reached Eltham. Or perhaps it had and he would still deny me.

Here I would discover how much power remained to me. Not much, I thought.

Beauchamp regarded me like one of the vermin that could never be exterminated from even the public rooms of the palace. “You should not be here! The law forbids it.” No respect, all denial, Beauchamp’s challenge confirmed my fears.

“I wish to see the King,” I replied without heat.

“I say you will not.”

“And will you stop me?”

“I will, madam!”

“My banishment is lifted.”

“And you have proof?”

No, I had not. I had not brought the letter. In my urgency I had not seen a need. Not that Beauchamp would have accepted anything less than a royal declaration, stamped and sealed.

“The decisions of the late Parliament have been declared null and void,” I stated calmly. “By his grace of Gaunt himself.” Surely the name would have some power.

“I have no knowledge of it.” Beauchamp’s stance and reply remained implacable.

How I wished for Latimer’s return. And how had this monster escaped Gaunt’s purging? I gestured to the door at his back.

“Let me pass. The King will see me.”

“The King will not.” Beauchamp drew his sword.

I retreated not one inch. “If you intend to stop me, you will have to use that, sir.” I pushed the flat of the blade away with my hand. “I wear the Queen’s jewels. I have borne the King’s children. Will you deny me?”

And I hammered with my fist on the door to Edward’s chambers.

No reply. However confident I appeared, I was far from it. I hammered again, anxiety building layer upon layer so that I could barely breathe, as Beauchamp’s fingers clamped peremptorily, unforgivably, around my wrist. I thumped again on the door with my free fist, raising my voice.

“Sire! It is Alice.” I tried to wrench my wrist free, but Beauchamp held on, and in that moment all was blackness in my mind. I would be cast out. Gaunt’s promise was nothing but a charade.…

“Majesty…!” I heard my voice, harsh with terror.

The door opened.

“What’s all the noise and fuss, Beauchamp? It’s enough to wake the dead. Be still, man.…”

My wrist was released.

Once, I would have gone to him, touched him, spoken with him, no matter who stood between us. But now—considering our parting words, I could not. Yet, to see him standing alone, unaided, to hear him speaking without difficulty, his words with clear meaning—the impact clenched around my heart. Edward, still King, still regal even with the stooped shoulders and hollowed cheeks of old age, was standing in the doorway. Not robust but steady enough with one hand clawed around the edge of the doorjamb.

I sank into a deep curtsy.

“My lord. I am here.” I waited until the faded blue eyes tracked across my face; only then did I rise to my full height. “It’s Alice. I have come to you. Let me in, to be with you.”

Would he turn his face away? Would he reject my return? Would his wayward mind recognize me? The moment when Edward looked at me seemed to last a lifetime. And to my relief the focus sharpened with recognition. And there in that acknowledgment was an astonishment that held unmistakable joy.

“Alice…I asked for you. I was told that you could not come to me.…” And then he held out his hands to me and I placed mine there.

“Now I am here. Let us go in,” I said, my confidence surging back. And I stepped inside the room.

Moisture glistened in Edward’s eyes, but his command was still strong, and so were his memories. As he would have done in the past, he bowed and raised my fingers to his lips, first one hand, then the other.

“I have missed you.”

“I couldn’t bear that you should be alone.”

“They kept you from me.…”

“It was not my choice. But your son has rescued me. I am free to be here with you.”

“Then come.…We will talk.”

And it was impressed on me how harrowing the intervening months had been for him. We were forced to walk slowly, Edward’s right foot dragging a little with every step, his arm beneath my hand tense with the effort to walk unaided. But he was determined, and we reached the great chamber.

“Alice…” Before he could say more, I sank to my knees before him. “What’s this?”

“I need to ask your pardon, Sire.”

“A minute ago you called me Edward and demanded admittance. Now you are on your knees. This is not the Alice I recall.” The ghost of a laugh was tragic on the once-fine features, the muscles on the right side of his face refusing to obey the demand to smile.

I bowed my head. I could not laugh. “I hurt you. I betrayed you.”

“So you did. You should have told me. I think I would have understood.”

“What man could understand that I had married another in secret?”

“Ah, well…What I don’t understand is why Windsor? Why such a man?”

I could think of no reply that would explain the call of blood, one to another. “He will care for me,” I managed.

“Yes. I expect he will.”

“My loyalty to you has not changed, my lord.”

“But you are a young woman, and I…”

“My lord…I am so sorry.…”

“We must have the courage to face our limitations. My flesh ignores the demands of my heart.” Again that heart-wrenching smile. “How many old men have said that when their young lover looks elsewhere? I am not the first. I won’t be the last.”

His candor overwhelmed me. Nor could I explain that my attraction to Windsor wasn’t solely physical, but a meeting of minds.

“It was not my choice to leave you, my lord. Will you forgive me?”

“You know I will. But only if you call me Edward again. Come; stand. It’s too exhausting looking down at you.” And he raised me to my feet with a remnant of his proud grace. “Have you come to stay?”

“I have. If you want me.”

“Do I not want the sun to rise tomorrow? You are mine and I have a need of you, if you can tolerate the weakness of an old man.”

“This is where I wish to be.”

Edward’s brow creased, for which I was sorry. “They—those who have no love for you—say you have no heart, Alice. That you are as cold as stone. As hard as flint. What do you say?”

I regarded him gravely as I swallowed against the press of tears. “What I say has no weight. What do you say, my lord?” Enclosing his cold hands between mine, in a deliberately intimate gesture, I placed them, flat-palmed, between my breasts where my heart beat. “What do you say?”

“I say that you are never cold to me.” Leaning a little, he pressed a kiss between my eyebrows. “You are as gentle as a blessing, as warm as the sun in summer.”