Fic: To Take is Not to Give (1/?)
Title: To Take is Not to Give (Part I of ?)
Author: lareinenoire
Play: 3 Henry VI / Richard III
Characters / Pairings: The York family, the Neville family, eventual Richard/Anne, Edward/Elizabeth
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 2780 (Part I only)
Warnings: Violence (mostly offstage), character deaths, profanity.
Summary: Richard York and Anne Warwick are far more alike than either wishes to admit.
NB: Dedicated to rosamund and angevin2, who are the reason it exists. Part of the 'Sweet Fortune's Minions' AU, set directly after An Exchange of Favours.
i. Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son
If he were honest with himself, Richard had known for years that Anne Warwick existed. A pale girl with unfashionably long dark hair and frocks that always seemed to hang awkwardly on her skinny frame. But her eyes were the reason Richard had first noticed her. Because she had looked at him. Stared, even, thin lips curling in undisguised scorn.
He could not explain why for the life of him, but he had found it oddly endearing. Most people chose not to look at him if they could help it. Even when they spoke to him--which, these days, happened far more often than he suspected they appreciated--their eyes would wander to something else--anything else.
It wasn't that he was that hideous. After all, his face was tolerable enough, or so his elder brother Ned had remarked in a rare moment of perceptiveness. "I know you can't help it. But girls aren't rational." Unsurprisingly, he hadn't given Richard a solution. Ned didn't deal in solutions. At least not useful ones.
But a tolerable face counted for little in his particular context. His back was twisted like a dead tree; something had gone very wrong with his spine, he'd heard so many doctors murmur, malformed in the womb. If only there had been some way of knowing, how much grief it would have saved his poor mother. That was a story he'd now heard countless times. Strange how people always seemed to bring it up when they saw him. Or perhaps not so strange. People were fascinated by deformity the same way they were fascinated by snakes or lizards.
Of course, they also said that snakes hypnotised their prey before devouring it. Perhaps that was why people never looked at him.
But Anne Warwick did. Boldly, contemptuously, and utterly without shame.
It had taken his parents years to acknowledge that the best way to silence the rumours about their son's deformity was to let him out in public. It was only after one of Ned's plans went disastrously awry--as Ned's plans were wont to do--that his father had ordered him to come along when he and his best men went to treat with Henry Lancaster.
They'd left Dublin by ferry and arrived in London well after dark. In hopes of keeping their arrival secret, Warwick had offered them his house, a too-fashionable pile near Knightsbridge, purchased with his wife's abundant inheritance, and currently housing her and their two daughters.
The elder, Isabel, had perfectly bobbed golden curls and blue eyes that widened appealingly when she saw Ned and George. Richard, hugged by the darkness, escaped her notice, but not that of her sister.
Everyone had a price. That much he did know. He wondered idly what Anne Warwick's price was. Then, Father called him into Warwick's study and he forgot about her. There were far more important things to think about.
***
The next time he saw her was at a New Year's party Warwick had arranged. Isabel breezed into the Savoy ballroom in a haze of cloying, sweet perfume and a pink silk dress cut far too low. Catching the fleeting scowl on her father's face, Richard had to wonder if the rumours were true and Ned had fucked her. Considering Ned had been linked to everyone from the upstairs maid to Marlene Dietrich, neither of the alternatives would have surprised him.
Ned, however, wasn't paying any attention. It was George who gave her a greeting kiss that was far too enthusiastic, but Warwick seemed to mind that less.
"I know what you're thinking." It was a woman's voice from somewhere to his left, the tones cold and clipped. "She's not that great of an idiot."
Anne was wearing black, one glove-encased hand fiddling with a cigarette holder. Richard flicked the lighter he always carried in his pocket now, until the end of the cigarette gleamed red. She did not thank him.
"If she's not an idiot," he remarked, "George will disappoint her."
"Oh, I never said she wasn't. A mere matter of degree."
When she said nothing more, Richard turned back to the rest of the ballroom, where the jitterbug had given way to a slow rendition of 'Moonlight Serenade' and the unexpected spectacle of his parents dancing. Beneath the fantastically overwrought crystal chandelier, his mother gleamed like an ice figurine, even as she belied the description with a smile Richard barely recognised. Father was laughing, bending close to murmur something in her ear that caused her to blush and swat him with one white-gloved hand.
His mother had been acting very oddly of late--Richard had often found her staring at him, a frown sketched between perfectly arched brows, as if he were a book in a language she could not read. Of course, as soon as he looked back, she would turn away and pretend it had never happened. He wondered if Father had had anything to do with it; he had overheard a brief exchange between them on the ferry to Dublin, though he'd been too busy preening over Father's praise of him to pay much mind to his mother's responses. He's quite extraordinarily bright for his age. Edward will be lucky to have him.
As he watched them now, he could not help but wonder, however briefly, what it might be like to dance, before shrugging the sentiment away with a grimace.
That was when he noticed the woman stumbling into the ballroom, her face reddened from crying and a handkerchief clenched in one hand. He recognised his younger brother Edmund's nanny even as his parents saw her, and reached her just as they did.
"...taken him. I tried to stop them, I tried, but there were too many of them..." She dissolved into tears. "I'm so sorry, sir, I swear I tried!"
His mother made a strangled sound, one hand clapped across her mouth, and Father turned to take her firmly by the shoulders. "Cecily, don't. I need you to be calm. Now more than ever."
"What's happened, Father?" Ned skidded to a halt beside Richard, his tie tellingly askew. "Why is Mrs Aspall here?"
"Listen to me, all of you, and listen carefully. We haven't the time for repetition. Warwick," he turned to that man, "secure Henry and keep close watch on him. George, go with him."
George, surprisingly, refrained from asking any questions, and followed Warwick from the ballroom. A quick glance round revealed that Warwick's wife had already disappeared, along with Anne and Isabel.
"Edward, take your mother and go home--"
"No." That was his mother, the word icy and implacable. "You cannot be serious, Richard."
"Cecily--"
"I'm going with you." Fingers gripping his shoulders as if for dear life, she took a deep breath. "Richard, listen to me, for God's sake. Let me speak to Margaret. Whatever else she may be, she is a mother and she couldn't possibly..."
"I'm not letting you anywhere near her. Cecily, you know what I need you to do." He held her gaze, and a thousand volumes seemed to pass unsaid between them. "I trust you, love."
"Why not Edward?" she whispered, voice cracking under the strain. "Please, Richard."
"No, and you know why." Even as she shook her head wordlessly, Richard knew his father had won. "I'll bring him back, Cecily. I promise."
"Keep safe, Richard." They clung to one another. "Be careful."
"I will." After a second, he cleared his throat. "Richard, you'll go with them."
"But Father--"
"No questions, Richard. Go on. I'll see you at home."
Reluctantly, Richard followed, throwing one last glance back at his father before the doors closed behind them.
"What was it, Mother?" Ned finally asked, when the car had begun to make its way west along the Strand. "What does Father need you to do?"
She turned away from the window, blinking, as if startled by the question. "Papers. Incriminating, one might say. I know where they are. Why your father hasn't told you, I can't possibly imagine."
"He's got enough on his mind, Mother. He doesn't want to worry about you too."
The look she gave Ned could have felled a horse. "Edward York, you are far too old to say such idiotic things."
"Mother!" Ned glanced at Richard, who held up his hands in defeat. "Very well."
Richard found himself gazing from the window as Ned fidgeted in the seat beside him. Then, out of the blue, Ned remarked, "I saw you talking to Bel's sister."
"Bel? So we're on a nickname basis now, are we?" Richard jibed, earning himself a punch in the shoulder. "What? Low-hanging fruit." He shot their mother a glance, but she was preoccupied with staring blankly through the window, pale face framed by a halo of silvery fox fur. "You don't think they'll hurt Edmund, do you?"
"He's just a kid," Ned murmured. "They did it to catch Father's attention. It worked, that's for certain."
"Edward." Both of them turned at the sound of their mother's voice. "Give me a cigarette." For a moment, all they could do was stare at one another. She never smoked; she'd always abhorred the habit. "For God's sake, give me a bloody cigarette."
Noting Ned's apparent paralysis from shock, Richard reached into his brother's pocket and pulled out the gold-and-silver cigarette case. Fishing out his own lighter, he held the flame to one of the cigarettes and handed it to his mother, who took a long drag, held her breath, and exhaled a long string of smoke.
"Mother..."
"Be quiet, Edward. I need to think. I need to..." She pressed her lips together. "I'll do as he says, but as soon as we've burnt the papers, we're going after them."
"Mother, are you mad? Father will kill us!"
"We'll go, Mother," Richard heard himself say. "You shouldn't...you should stay at home. Where it's safe."
The gimlet stare was on him now, and he tried not to shrink beneath it. "You? You're a child."
"He's been helping Father for years, Mother," Ned said, glancing between them in puzzlement. "I think Dickon's right. Besides, when Father brings Edmund back, he'll want the house secured. Guarded. Don't you think?"
"I think," she exhaled again, the smoke tickling Richard's nose, "that you are being extremely foolish, Edward. I'm not a china doll, and I trust you will stop treating me like one." The car had barely pulled to a stop in front of the house on Curzon Street, and she had thrown open the door, Ned following in her wake. Cursing under his breath, Richard stumbled out to catch them up.
What seemed like hours later, a fire was still burning merrily in the library hearth, fed by the large pile of papers his mother had retrieved, from where neither he nor Ned knew. She was pacing back and forth in front of the window, jumping at the smallest sound from outside. Ned was finishing his third whisky-and-soda as Richard absently stirred the melting ice in his as-yet-untouched glass, mesmerised by the refraction of the flames through the crystal.
"Are you going to drink that?"
"All yours," Richard said, holding out the glass to Ned. "I can't right now." After Ned drained the drink, Richard picked up the glass again, noting idly that viewing Ned through it made him look almost as twisted as himself. "Something's wrong," he said, before he could stop the words. "We should go."
Ned was halfway to the door before their mother spoke, one hand held up to stall them. "Wait. Someone's coming."
"How many?" Richard jumped to his feet and immediately winced as pain shot through his left leg.
"Just the one," she said, voice trembling. "Oh, God. Only one."
"It may not mean anything," Ned said unconvincingly. Without waiting for an answer, he careened down the stairs. Richard limped painfully after, all but falling down the stairs in his haste to catch up.
It was Warwick's brother, improbably named Montague after some unfortunate dead ancestor, but his customary grin was wiped clean. As he drew closer, Richard realised with a sudden, icy dread that his clothing was spattered with blood.
"Oh, God, Edward." He pitched forward, grasping Ned's shoulders for balance as Richard slammed the door shut behind him. "Oh, God."
"What's happened, Monty? Where's Father?"
"Where is he?" Richard barely recognised his own voice, cracking on the last word.
Monty just shook his head, and in the scant light, Richard could see moisture gleaming at the corners of his eyes. "It was a trap. We didn't stand a chance."
"And Edmund?" From above, their mother's voice. "Montague, for God's sake!"
Tears began to trickle down his face. "Dead, Cecily. Both of them. All of them. They left me alive to tell you...oh, Christ."
"Tell me." Her hand was clenched white around the banister. Letting go of Monty, Ned moved to her side and she grabbed his arm tightly enough to make him wince. "Tell me everything."
By the end of it, he was openly weeping, choking the words out. Ned vanished into the powder room and returned, his skin tinged with green and his eyes red-rimmed. Only Richard stood frozen in place, realising he couldn't have moved even if he'd wanted. He didn't remember still holding the glass until it had shattered in his hand, spraying tiny, razored shards across the floor and into his skin.
Dead. Father--brilliant, indestructible Father--was dead, hacked to pieces in a warehouse in Whitechapel. And Edmund, who was twelve years old and had never harmed a soul. Richard's fingers clenched together, driving the embedded bits of glass deeper.
"Richard!" Someone had grabbed his hand, clawed it open. Forcibly focusing his eyes, he found himself facing Monty. "You're bleeding, dammit. What did you do?"
"There was a glass," he murmured, but his eyes were on Ned, who had bent over their mother, now crumpled against the banister. "They'll pay for this. I'll make her wish her accursed father had strangled her at birth."
"And Clifford's dead, you say?" That was Ned, sounding nothing at all like himself. "She didn't even leave us that."
"I don't think she meant for your brother..." Monty swallowed. "I'm the last person in the world who wants to give Margaret Lancaster the benefit of the doubt, but, she was furious with him. Told him he'd shamed her and Henry, and shot him through the head, right there in front of everyone. They'd already finished with Richard by then. She could have given him that, but she didn't."
Before either Richard or Ned could summon a response, the door flung open behind them to reveal George and Warwick. On reflex, Warwick straightened his dinner jacket before stepping in, his normally unflappable demeanour broken by his laboured breathing. "Henry's gone," he said without preamble. "They were too quick."
George had not moved, clinging to the doorframe for support. "Father..."
"What about him?" Ned snapped, earning himself a glare from their mother.
"We saw...they had..." He opened his mouth but couldn't speak further.
Warwick crossed to the staircase and placed one hand on Ned's shoulder. "I am so very, very sorry, Edward. Cecily..."
"So you know." Her words were clipped as she rose to her feet. "How?"
"Henry's room. They left photographs." He drew a brown envelope out of his jacket, but held it firmly even when Richard's mother held out her hand to take it. "If I could have kept it from George, I would have done. I had no idea what it was."
She snatched it from him and, after closing her eyes for a second, reached inside and drew out a bloodstained handkerchief. Richard could just see the embroidered initials in purple on the corner: M.L. She clenched her fist around the delicate lawn, her entire body now shaking, and the envelope slipped from her fingers, spilling the photographs across the floor.
Richard did not remember gathering them up, only the image of one seared across his eyes. Father, tied to a chair, a paper crown tilted crazily on his head. His face a mass of bruises, eyes wild and unfocused and agonised. And, behind him, Margaret, not a hair out of place, leaning down, handkerchief in hand, pausing only to bestow a dazzling smile on the photographer.
"Finish this, Edward." He barely recognised his mother's voice, low and raw like the grind of the glass beneath his feet. "I want her to bleed."
Richard looked down at the photograph, where his fingers had left streaks of red across the grainy black-and-white image. "Oh, don't you worry, Mother." He looked up, still seeing nothing but his father's face. "She will."
Part II
Author: lareinenoire
Play: 3 Henry VI / Richard III
Characters / Pairings: The York family, the Neville family, eventual Richard/Anne, Edward/Elizabeth
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 2780 (Part I only)
Warnings: Violence (mostly offstage), character deaths, profanity.
Summary: Richard York and Anne Warwick are far more alike than either wishes to admit.
NB: Dedicated to rosamund and angevin2, who are the reason it exists. Part of the 'Sweet Fortune's Minions' AU, set directly after An Exchange of Favours.
i. Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son
If he were honest with himself, Richard had known for years that Anne Warwick existed. A pale girl with unfashionably long dark hair and frocks that always seemed to hang awkwardly on her skinny frame. But her eyes were the reason Richard had first noticed her. Because she had looked at him. Stared, even, thin lips curling in undisguised scorn.
He could not explain why for the life of him, but he had found it oddly endearing. Most people chose not to look at him if they could help it. Even when they spoke to him--which, these days, happened far more often than he suspected they appreciated--their eyes would wander to something else--anything else.
It wasn't that he was that hideous. After all, his face was tolerable enough, or so his elder brother Ned had remarked in a rare moment of perceptiveness. "I know you can't help it. But girls aren't rational." Unsurprisingly, he hadn't given Richard a solution. Ned didn't deal in solutions. At least not useful ones.
But a tolerable face counted for little in his particular context. His back was twisted like a dead tree; something had gone very wrong with his spine, he'd heard so many doctors murmur, malformed in the womb. If only there had been some way of knowing, how much grief it would have saved his poor mother. That was a story he'd now heard countless times. Strange how people always seemed to bring it up when they saw him. Or perhaps not so strange. People were fascinated by deformity the same way they were fascinated by snakes or lizards.
Of course, they also said that snakes hypnotised their prey before devouring it. Perhaps that was why people never looked at him.
But Anne Warwick did. Boldly, contemptuously, and utterly without shame.
It had taken his parents years to acknowledge that the best way to silence the rumours about their son's deformity was to let him out in public. It was only after one of Ned's plans went disastrously awry--as Ned's plans were wont to do--that his father had ordered him to come along when he and his best men went to treat with Henry Lancaster.
They'd left Dublin by ferry and arrived in London well after dark. In hopes of keeping their arrival secret, Warwick had offered them his house, a too-fashionable pile near Knightsbridge, purchased with his wife's abundant inheritance, and currently housing her and their two daughters.
The elder, Isabel, had perfectly bobbed golden curls and blue eyes that widened appealingly when she saw Ned and George. Richard, hugged by the darkness, escaped her notice, but not that of her sister.
Everyone had a price. That much he did know. He wondered idly what Anne Warwick's price was. Then, Father called him into Warwick's study and he forgot about her. There were far more important things to think about.
***
The next time he saw her was at a New Year's party Warwick had arranged. Isabel breezed into the Savoy ballroom in a haze of cloying, sweet perfume and a pink silk dress cut far too low. Catching the fleeting scowl on her father's face, Richard had to wonder if the rumours were true and Ned had fucked her. Considering Ned had been linked to everyone from the upstairs maid to Marlene Dietrich, neither of the alternatives would have surprised him.
Ned, however, wasn't paying any attention. It was George who gave her a greeting kiss that was far too enthusiastic, but Warwick seemed to mind that less.
"I know what you're thinking." It was a woman's voice from somewhere to his left, the tones cold and clipped. "She's not that great of an idiot."
Anne was wearing black, one glove-encased hand fiddling with a cigarette holder. Richard flicked the lighter he always carried in his pocket now, until the end of the cigarette gleamed red. She did not thank him.
"If she's not an idiot," he remarked, "George will disappoint her."
"Oh, I never said she wasn't. A mere matter of degree."
When she said nothing more, Richard turned back to the rest of the ballroom, where the jitterbug had given way to a slow rendition of 'Moonlight Serenade' and the unexpected spectacle of his parents dancing. Beneath the fantastically overwrought crystal chandelier, his mother gleamed like an ice figurine, even as she belied the description with a smile Richard barely recognised. Father was laughing, bending close to murmur something in her ear that caused her to blush and swat him with one white-gloved hand.
His mother had been acting very oddly of late--Richard had often found her staring at him, a frown sketched between perfectly arched brows, as if he were a book in a language she could not read. Of course, as soon as he looked back, she would turn away and pretend it had never happened. He wondered if Father had had anything to do with it; he had overheard a brief exchange between them on the ferry to Dublin, though he'd been too busy preening over Father's praise of him to pay much mind to his mother's responses. He's quite extraordinarily bright for his age. Edward will be lucky to have him.
As he watched them now, he could not help but wonder, however briefly, what it might be like to dance, before shrugging the sentiment away with a grimace.
That was when he noticed the woman stumbling into the ballroom, her face reddened from crying and a handkerchief clenched in one hand. He recognised his younger brother Edmund's nanny even as his parents saw her, and reached her just as they did.
"...taken him. I tried to stop them, I tried, but there were too many of them..." She dissolved into tears. "I'm so sorry, sir, I swear I tried!"
His mother made a strangled sound, one hand clapped across her mouth, and Father turned to take her firmly by the shoulders. "Cecily, don't. I need you to be calm. Now more than ever."
"What's happened, Father?" Ned skidded to a halt beside Richard, his tie tellingly askew. "Why is Mrs Aspall here?"
"Listen to me, all of you, and listen carefully. We haven't the time for repetition. Warwick," he turned to that man, "secure Henry and keep close watch on him. George, go with him."
George, surprisingly, refrained from asking any questions, and followed Warwick from the ballroom. A quick glance round revealed that Warwick's wife had already disappeared, along with Anne and Isabel.
"Edward, take your mother and go home--"
"No." That was his mother, the word icy and implacable. "You cannot be serious, Richard."
"Cecily--"
"I'm going with you." Fingers gripping his shoulders as if for dear life, she took a deep breath. "Richard, listen to me, for God's sake. Let me speak to Margaret. Whatever else she may be, she is a mother and she couldn't possibly..."
"I'm not letting you anywhere near her. Cecily, you know what I need you to do." He held her gaze, and a thousand volumes seemed to pass unsaid between them. "I trust you, love."
"Why not Edward?" she whispered, voice cracking under the strain. "Please, Richard."
"No, and you know why." Even as she shook her head wordlessly, Richard knew his father had won. "I'll bring him back, Cecily. I promise."
"Keep safe, Richard." They clung to one another. "Be careful."
"I will." After a second, he cleared his throat. "Richard, you'll go with them."
"But Father--"
"No questions, Richard. Go on. I'll see you at home."
Reluctantly, Richard followed, throwing one last glance back at his father before the doors closed behind them.
"What was it, Mother?" Ned finally asked, when the car had begun to make its way west along the Strand. "What does Father need you to do?"
She turned away from the window, blinking, as if startled by the question. "Papers. Incriminating, one might say. I know where they are. Why your father hasn't told you, I can't possibly imagine."
"He's got enough on his mind, Mother. He doesn't want to worry about you too."
The look she gave Ned could have felled a horse. "Edward York, you are far too old to say such idiotic things."
"Mother!" Ned glanced at Richard, who held up his hands in defeat. "Very well."
Richard found himself gazing from the window as Ned fidgeted in the seat beside him. Then, out of the blue, Ned remarked, "I saw you talking to Bel's sister."
"Bel? So we're on a nickname basis now, are we?" Richard jibed, earning himself a punch in the shoulder. "What? Low-hanging fruit." He shot their mother a glance, but she was preoccupied with staring blankly through the window, pale face framed by a halo of silvery fox fur. "You don't think they'll hurt Edmund, do you?"
"He's just a kid," Ned murmured. "They did it to catch Father's attention. It worked, that's for certain."
"Edward." Both of them turned at the sound of their mother's voice. "Give me a cigarette." For a moment, all they could do was stare at one another. She never smoked; she'd always abhorred the habit. "For God's sake, give me a bloody cigarette."
Noting Ned's apparent paralysis from shock, Richard reached into his brother's pocket and pulled out the gold-and-silver cigarette case. Fishing out his own lighter, he held the flame to one of the cigarettes and handed it to his mother, who took a long drag, held her breath, and exhaled a long string of smoke.
"Mother..."
"Be quiet, Edward. I need to think. I need to..." She pressed her lips together. "I'll do as he says, but as soon as we've burnt the papers, we're going after them."
"Mother, are you mad? Father will kill us!"
"We'll go, Mother," Richard heard himself say. "You shouldn't...you should stay at home. Where it's safe."
The gimlet stare was on him now, and he tried not to shrink beneath it. "You? You're a child."
"He's been helping Father for years, Mother," Ned said, glancing between them in puzzlement. "I think Dickon's right. Besides, when Father brings Edmund back, he'll want the house secured. Guarded. Don't you think?"
"I think," she exhaled again, the smoke tickling Richard's nose, "that you are being extremely foolish, Edward. I'm not a china doll, and I trust you will stop treating me like one." The car had barely pulled to a stop in front of the house on Curzon Street, and she had thrown open the door, Ned following in her wake. Cursing under his breath, Richard stumbled out to catch them up.
What seemed like hours later, a fire was still burning merrily in the library hearth, fed by the large pile of papers his mother had retrieved, from where neither he nor Ned knew. She was pacing back and forth in front of the window, jumping at the smallest sound from outside. Ned was finishing his third whisky-and-soda as Richard absently stirred the melting ice in his as-yet-untouched glass, mesmerised by the refraction of the flames through the crystal.
"Are you going to drink that?"
"All yours," Richard said, holding out the glass to Ned. "I can't right now." After Ned drained the drink, Richard picked up the glass again, noting idly that viewing Ned through it made him look almost as twisted as himself. "Something's wrong," he said, before he could stop the words. "We should go."
Ned was halfway to the door before their mother spoke, one hand held up to stall them. "Wait. Someone's coming."
"How many?" Richard jumped to his feet and immediately winced as pain shot through his left leg.
"Just the one," she said, voice trembling. "Oh, God. Only one."
"It may not mean anything," Ned said unconvincingly. Without waiting for an answer, he careened down the stairs. Richard limped painfully after, all but falling down the stairs in his haste to catch up.
It was Warwick's brother, improbably named Montague after some unfortunate dead ancestor, but his customary grin was wiped clean. As he drew closer, Richard realised with a sudden, icy dread that his clothing was spattered with blood.
"Oh, God, Edward." He pitched forward, grasping Ned's shoulders for balance as Richard slammed the door shut behind him. "Oh, God."
"What's happened, Monty? Where's Father?"
"Where is he?" Richard barely recognised his own voice, cracking on the last word.
Monty just shook his head, and in the scant light, Richard could see moisture gleaming at the corners of his eyes. "It was a trap. We didn't stand a chance."
"And Edmund?" From above, their mother's voice. "Montague, for God's sake!"
Tears began to trickle down his face. "Dead, Cecily. Both of them. All of them. They left me alive to tell you...oh, Christ."
"Tell me." Her hand was clenched white around the banister. Letting go of Monty, Ned moved to her side and she grabbed his arm tightly enough to make him wince. "Tell me everything."
By the end of it, he was openly weeping, choking the words out. Ned vanished into the powder room and returned, his skin tinged with green and his eyes red-rimmed. Only Richard stood frozen in place, realising he couldn't have moved even if he'd wanted. He didn't remember still holding the glass until it had shattered in his hand, spraying tiny, razored shards across the floor and into his skin.
Dead. Father--brilliant, indestructible Father--was dead, hacked to pieces in a warehouse in Whitechapel. And Edmund, who was twelve years old and had never harmed a soul. Richard's fingers clenched together, driving the embedded bits of glass deeper.
"Richard!" Someone had grabbed his hand, clawed it open. Forcibly focusing his eyes, he found himself facing Monty. "You're bleeding, dammit. What did you do?"
"There was a glass," he murmured, but his eyes were on Ned, who had bent over their mother, now crumpled against the banister. "They'll pay for this. I'll make her wish her accursed father had strangled her at birth."
"And Clifford's dead, you say?" That was Ned, sounding nothing at all like himself. "She didn't even leave us that."
"I don't think she meant for your brother..." Monty swallowed. "I'm the last person in the world who wants to give Margaret Lancaster the benefit of the doubt, but, she was furious with him. Told him he'd shamed her and Henry, and shot him through the head, right there in front of everyone. They'd already finished with Richard by then. She could have given him that, but she didn't."
Before either Richard or Ned could summon a response, the door flung open behind them to reveal George and Warwick. On reflex, Warwick straightened his dinner jacket before stepping in, his normally unflappable demeanour broken by his laboured breathing. "Henry's gone," he said without preamble. "They were too quick."
George had not moved, clinging to the doorframe for support. "Father..."
"What about him?" Ned snapped, earning himself a glare from their mother.
"We saw...they had..." He opened his mouth but couldn't speak further.
Warwick crossed to the staircase and placed one hand on Ned's shoulder. "I am so very, very sorry, Edward. Cecily..."
"So you know." Her words were clipped as she rose to her feet. "How?"
"Henry's room. They left photographs." He drew a brown envelope out of his jacket, but held it firmly even when Richard's mother held out her hand to take it. "If I could have kept it from George, I would have done. I had no idea what it was."
She snatched it from him and, after closing her eyes for a second, reached inside and drew out a bloodstained handkerchief. Richard could just see the embroidered initials in purple on the corner: M.L. She clenched her fist around the delicate lawn, her entire body now shaking, and the envelope slipped from her fingers, spilling the photographs across the floor.
Richard did not remember gathering them up, only the image of one seared across his eyes. Father, tied to a chair, a paper crown tilted crazily on his head. His face a mass of bruises, eyes wild and unfocused and agonised. And, behind him, Margaret, not a hair out of place, leaning down, handkerchief in hand, pausing only to bestow a dazzling smile on the photographer.
"Finish this, Edward." He barely recognised his mother's voice, low and raw like the grind of the glass beneath his feet. "I want her to bleed."
Richard looked down at the photograph, where his fingers had left streaks of red across the grainy black-and-white image. "Oh, don't you worry, Mother." He looked up, still seeing nothing but his father's face. "She will."
Part II