Virgin Widow. Anne O'Brien

her from either her outrageous dreams of grandeur or her immoderate fury that the King might indeed denounce her royal union.

      ‘He might forbid it.’ Francis’s reply, his bland expression, was entirely diplomatic. Until I caught the twitch of the muscle in his jaw as he hid the laughter. ‘Don’t fret, Anne. If you can’t have Gloucester, you can have me after all. You can be Lady Lovell and reign over all my establishments!’

      ‘Ha! As if I would want you!’

      ‘About as much as I would want you, sweettempered Anne!’

      I gave up, sighing. There was no sense or help here. I kicked the pony’s plump sides and followed my sister.

      Richard was not to stay at Westminster and immerse himself in the heady delights of power and politics as I had feared. He returned to Middleham within the month, without the Earl who, whatever his feelings on the matter, was sent to head another official embassy to the Courts of Europe.

      ‘The King! He won’t allow it, will he?’ I asked within minutes of Richard’s escaping from my mother’s presence.

      ‘No. He won’t. He said he wouldn’t countenance it, by God!’Well, that was blunt enough.

      Richard took my arm and pulled me along with him as he strode down the steps into the courtyard, round the buttress and into the enclosed garden between wall and keep.

      ‘What did the King say?’ I asked when he finally stopped and I could draw breath. I did not know what was uppermost: disappointment at my un-betrothed state or relief that life would settle back into its normal routines.

      ‘What didn’t he say!’A ghost of a smile flittered for a moment as he leaned back against a rose-drenched wall and puffed out a breath. ‘I have never seen Edward so angry. Not so much with us—Clarence and myself—but with the Earl, I think for his presumption. Although Edward’s words were short and sharp enough when he summoned the two of us to hear his opinions.’ A harsh laugh. ‘Especially when Clarence had the temerity to inform him that he thought it was as good a match as any and what was the problem with it? Enough to say—Edward has forbidden it. And informed the Pope that there must be no dispensation on pain of England’s severe displeasure.’

      ‘So that’s an end to it?’

      ‘Yes. We are no longer betrothed.’

      I scowled my disapproval of what I could not change. ‘How did he find out?’

      ‘Clarence, of course.’ Richard’s mouth curled in disdain. ‘He couldn’t avoid bragging, over a surfeit of ale, his good fortune in snaring a wealthy Neville heiress!’

      Well, Francis had read that situation accurately enough. Away to our right, from the open window up above our heads, there was the sound of some commotion. Then a squawk of sheer outrage, from Isabel. Richard raised his brows and, as one, we withdrew further behind the overgrown roses.

      ‘Does Edward consider that we are not high enough for a Plantagenet match?’ I whispered.

      Richard shrugged, patently uncomfortable, but without reply, until I nudged him impatiently. ‘Anne—’ he turned to look at me, our heads close together under the perfumed overhang’—it’s not that Edward thinks you’re not high enough. It’s the direct opposite—that he would not want the Nevilles to be too close to the centre of power. If Elizabeth fails to bear a son, Clarence will become King if Edward dies before him. And Isabel would be Queen, putting your father the Earl far too close to the throne. Edward doesn’t want it. I understand it, I suppose. So instead of not being important enough, you are far too important to be taken lightly into an alliance.’

      I nodded sadly, even as his treating me as his equal in political understanding pleased me inordinately. How would I not appreciate the importance of his pronouncement, when politics had been discussed around me and over my head at every meal as far back as I could remember. ‘I understand. Strong political reasons.’ A favourite phrase of my mother’s. Now I knew what she meant.

      ‘Yes. Strong political reasons. The strongest. How could we expect anything other in the disposition of our lives? We are not free to choose as we wish, Anne.’ I smiled—bravely, I hoped—whilst Richard studied the tree before us. ‘I would say…’ he added, a little gruffly,’I regret it. I would like to have wed you rather than any lady I know.’

      ‘Truly?’

      He leaned, a little reserved, and kissed my cheek.

      ‘Truly.’

      Startled, I laughed. ‘I would have liked it too.’

      Which for some reason prompted Richard to kiss my lips also. Soft. A mere moth’s wing of a caress that startled me more. And then he pulled back.

      I watched him as he smiled at my surprise, trying to untangle my thoughts. He was mine. I wanted him as my friend, as my companion. I was still too young for much else, yet I found myself drawn into those introspective, secretive eyes. With those I swear he would bewitch any girl. Not with the golden beauty of his brother, as Isabel was always quick to point out, but with something far more enticing, far more intriguing. Yes, I wanted him, I acknowledged, as I accepted that I could never have him.

      ‘What does my father say to all this?’ It was the only possible glimmer of hope if the Earl could persuade the King to change his mind.

      ‘Very little and in words as curt as the King’s. He’s agreed with Edward that the Plantagenet-Neville alliance is off. They clasped hands over it.’

      So that was the end of it. My sister and I were back in the marriage market—with no possible bridegroom on the horizon—and all the future uncertain.

      Chapter Four

      IN the year I reached my twelfth birthday, and in my own mind became full grown, the assured, confident direction of my life was to change for ever. On the political front it was the year of ‘The Earl’s Great Rift’, as the Countess dubbed it in a moment of mordant anxiety. When my father found his plans for a French alliance irrevocably torn up and the King’s feet set firmly on the path to an alliance with Burgundy, with the Woodvilles crowing over their success, he stormed from Westminster to Middleham, vowing never to set foot in Edward’s presence again unless Edward made a complete volteface. There was no hope of that. Within the week Earl Rivers, the Queen’s father, was appointed Constable of England. The final blow was the betrothal of the king’s sister the Lady Margaret to the Duke of Burgundy.

      ‘Will your sister enjoy her marriage to the Duke?’ I asked Richard, secretly horrified at the prospect of being sent to live so far from my home and those I loved, with a man I did not know. The Lady Margaret might never return to England again.

      ‘I don’t suppose she has much to say in the matter.’ Richard dismissed my concerns with what I considered cold-hearted indifference. ‘Last year the bridegroom was to be Portuguese. Then French. I think she will not mind who it is, as long as it happens!’

      I too might be destined for a foreign husband in some distant country. It was a chilling thought, as was the knowledge that we were likely to be cast into political isolation. Any lingering hope in Isabel’s breast for her marriage to Clarence was snuffed out, even when, in the end in a sour spirit of compromise because he had no choice, the Earl went to Coventry to make his peace with the King. The omens for the future were not good.

      At home my outlook was even less cheerful because it was the year I fell into love after hovering precariously, unknowingly, on its brink. An entirely adult emotion that exploded through my blood, creating a fire that would burn for ever and never release me.

      It was all the fault of St George and the Dragon.

      In October of that year, Richard came of age. We celebrated, gifts presented to mark the occasion. Edward sent him a full suit of armour, swathed in cloth and soft leather against the rigours of travel. It was a Milanese confection, chased and gilded, a magnificent