[FICATHON] O Thou My Lovely Boy, for the_red_shoes
Title: O Thou My Lovely Boy
Author: commodorified
Play: Richard II (sort of)
Recipient: the_red_shoes
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard II/Robert De Vere, Anne of Bohemia/Richard II
Rating: Inexplicit sexual content
Notes: a moment 17 years before the play...
Summary: None but the brave deserve the fair
December 1381
Even as she clung to the rail and retched helplessly into the already filthy water of the Channel, even as her eyes filled with tears and her throat burned and her head throbbed, Anne knew she ought to be grateful. Was grateful, despite her present misery and her worries for the future and the dull, enduring ache that was watching Calais, Calais that was the furthest from home she had ever travelled and was like, now, to be as near to the place that had been home as she came again, fall away astern.
If Salisbury was troubled by the roll of the ship he concealed it well; he was standing near the bow, gazing towards England with every appearance of good cheer; he spared Anne a sympathetic glance, and she straightened her back and set her teeth against a fresh surge of queasiness - and of self-pity. It was no small feat to get a king for a fourth daughter, even a king whose desire was as much for a solid alliance against the schismatic Clement as it was for the person of Anne of Bohemia, small and drab as a wren and possessed of scarcely enough dowry to present herself with any decency at all before her bridegroom. In the matter of bridegrooms, too, she had cause for gratitude; Richard was neither child nor dotard, but within a year of her own age, straight of limb and pleasing to look on, if the envoy was to be trusted, and his letters...oh, he had charm, and no little wit, and seemed pleased enough with his bargain. If his letters were to be trusted, this cold passage would give way to a warm enough welcome. If she came through it alive...
The air on deck was half-frozen spray, stinging where it brushed the skin, but it served to clear her head and settle her belly; she burrowed deeper into her cloak and set her face resolutely into the wind, toward the clouded promise of England.
***
Her dignity wanted a chance to wash, and fresh garments, while the boats were readied; the worsening weather would have it otherwise. She came to shore all in a heap, sticky with salt, still shivering in her sodden cloak, thinking only of getting indoors and warm after the rush for the boats and the sight of the ship half-awash at anchor, the rail she had clung to tilted into the sky at an angle that made her swallow hard on a prayer for the sailors scrambling over the deck to secure for the storm as best they might.
Salisbury had been at her side from the moment the Captain had come to tell them gravely that they must take to the boats then or never; now he scrambled to the dock, slipped; recovered himself and handed her up deftly, steadying her as she got her sodden skirts under control. She thanked him with a nod, standing carefully upright as the rest came onto the slick wood of the dock, and was startled to see his decorous smile of acknowledgement lightened with an encouraging wink.
"You're quick to find your balance, I see." He bent near to be heard above the wind. "If you face the English people as you do our storms, I predict you will soon find yourself at home here."
He turned away while she still searched for an answer, calling instructions to the men landing from the other boats, watching with narrowed eyes as they fought to bring the horses through the surf in some sort of order, and finally leaping from the dock to plunge into the mass of men and beasts and grasp the bridle of a roan whose capering had nearly torn the reins from the man at her head.
She was distracted by Agnes, who was scarcely on the dock beside her before she was fussing at Anne's sodden coif and hair between glances at the shore, where a small cluster of men had detached themselves from the crowd and were advancing to meet them. Anne endured the hopeless attempts at tidying as patiently as she could until a particularly energetic twist of a wandering braid sent a stream of cold water into her eyes, then waved her off and applied her still-dry sleeve to the problem instead; the men were nearly upon them, cloaks tugged low over their faces in the driving rain.
A queer reception, this; five young men, laughing and nudging one another as they came, their strides confident on the greasy boards. She swiped at her face a final time and waited, smiling involuntarily as they came to a halt and swept her extravagant but quite passable bows. They straightened as one, and the tallest of them stepped forward, pushing his hood back with a long, thin hand.
Anne stared; he saw her confusion and grinned at her, reaching for her hand and kissing it smoothly while still she gaped.
"A foul day for a journey, lady, but a fair meeting at the end of it." They were all bareheaded and smiling at her now; Richard - it could only be Richard, so tall and fair and with such an easy air about him even with rain dripping down his nose - stepped back but kept hold of her hand, smiling at her blushes. "Tomorrow we welcome you with all ceremony, when you have had a chance to recover yourself - " he leaned in, away from the ears of their companions - "but we - I - wanted to - " To get a private look at what he'd got himself into, she thought, and fought back the urge to apologise for her bedraggled shape - "To see you well after your voyage."
He ground to a halt with that and stood, still holding her hand, and she sought for words. "I do well enough, my lord," she ventured finally, and Richard laughed as if she had made a fine jest and took her other hand, looking at her closely now, unsparing of her blushes.
"You do very well indeed, my Anne," he said, and swung her hands as if to swing her into a dance. "I only wish that these winter storms may not have given you cause to take a misliking to your new home, and to he that caused you to come here." His tone was light, but his expression sober, questioning, and she felt her tension ease at the realization that he was as much at a loss as she, now that they came to the point.
"I think you need have no fear of that, my lord," she said, and smiled.
May 1382
The weather was fine, and Queen Anne was alone in the garden. Her garden, now - Richard seemed determined to introduce her to every acre of her new realm, but Westminster they always came back to with particular pleasure; it was the only place she had yet found that felt like her own, the only place where she had begun, however tentatively, to begin to make small alterations. She was busy now with plans to send to Austria for a few of the familiar plants she missed, and plotting where they might best be bestowed, and thinking about her marriage. Counting her blessings, determinedly.
He had been kindness itself, there was no denying it. From the moment her foot had touched English soil she had had no cause to complain, and every reason to be relieved; he was as kind as he was handsome, and seemed as ready to be pleased with his bargain as she was to be happy with hers; he had set himself to court her and to charm her, and she had been duly charmed and courted. It was no great hardship, to be wed to Richard of England, and in defiance of the tales poured into her ears by her mother's ladies, she thought it no hardship to be bedded by him, either; there as everywhere he was all kindness and courtesy, solicitous to give her neither pain nor any cause to hold him in disgust.
And yet -- there was a tinge of caution in even their most private dealings now, a scrupulous courtesy perfectly judged to soothe the fears of a young maiden that she might be induced by warmer means to give up her heart, but increasingly irksome to a wife and a Queen - she had seen other couples new-married, watched their hands cling and their gazes cross and understood more from it than perhaps she ought to have. There ought to be more, she was certain of it. Damn the man, was it possible that he had become so enamoured of his plan for winning her over that he had neglected to note that she was well won?
He was not, she thought, inclined by nature to be so cool; diffident with her he might be, but his visits to her chamber were regular enough, and he was sparing with neither kisses nor praises for her beauty. Only, when it came to it, he seemed almost afraid; his back stiff beneath her uncertain hands and his love-talk tending more to reassurance than to endearments. Was it some failure in her? She had tried, once, shyly, to question him, but he had mistaken her and fallen to stroking her hair as if she were a child, assuring her - as if she could help but know it, he had said and shown it so often - that she need never fear disdain nor harm at his hands. She had given way, then, for fear he would be moved to relieve - to deprive, though he might not see it so - her of his presence entirely if she were to say more, and had only lain quietly by his side as he slept, eyes on his shadowed face as she turned over half-formed strategems until the candle guttered and she settled back on the pillows with a sigh and let her eyes drift shut.
She wished there was some woman here she might confide in, but her own ladies were maidens all and the married women at court were distant with her, and mostly of an age to be her mother. Only Mary, wife to Henry Bolingbroke, and de Vere's Philippa were anything near to being her contemporaries, and Mary was gone to her mother now, still pale and wan from the son she had lost a few scant weeks before, born too soon to a girl Anne thought surely too young to be breeding; her husband she seemed to regard now with an admixture of fear and guilt that his awkward attempts to encourage her to forget did nothing to allay; no help there, and to raise the subject with her would be, she thought, no kindness. Philippa, older than Mary, was oddly skittish and childlike with de Vere. Anne suspected she was a maiden still, for all she'd been, married before any of them; perhaps because of that, for de Vere seemed from long familiarity disposed to look on her as a younger sister. She seemed more in need of counsel than likely to offer any to Anne. She considered and rejected her confessor; her rights, as he or any man would understand them, she had, and she shrank from the thought of explaining herself to him. She had no cause to complain, but that she was not yet breeding herself, and much reason to be grateful; she needed neither priest nor matron to tell her so much when she could tell herself, and so she set herself to be patient, and left the matter to time and to God.
Spring had come, and then summer, and she had almost forgot her cares in the charm of exploring her new land, so grey and unpromising when she had first seen it, so friendly now, with Richard seemingly determined that she should sleep in every bed and eat from every table in the realm. Her feet had scarce touched the ground since she was wed, but what had been duty in January was pure delight in May, and when she could steal away for a moment she went to the gardens and sat quiet, or wandered among the flowers, and breathed in their scents, and was, if not quite happy, content.
She was in a secluded corner, tucked away beneath a willow, half-dozing, half turning over the problem of Richard in her head, when she heard them laughing nearby. She peered around the twisted old trunk and saw them, tumbling over the grass in play like boys half their age, and would have called out to them but for something in the line of their backs, an intimacy in the tilt of their heads as they came to rest tangled together, that kept her silent for long enough to let her see Richard trail the back of his hand down de Vere's cheek in a gesture that stopped her breath in her throat.
She knew that gesture of his; she had not thought any other did, had never thought that she was not the only one who had ducked their head and turned their lips to his hand and smiled against his fingers so, but of course there must have been some. Wise wives did not ask; kind husbands were careful to make no show of their indiscretions, but Richard's devotion to de Vere, and de Vere's to him, were open, facts acknowledged if not entirely approved. This, she had never - her hand stole to her own cheek, and found it burning.
She ought to have discovered herself to them, pretending innocence or calling down curses on their heads, but the moment for accidental intrusion was past, the time for indignation not yet - it might be only sport she saw, or a jest - what did she know of how men bore themselves in private? She drew back against the rough bark and watched.
Froze, fingers clawing briefly into the turf. Richard's laughter, soft and private, and de Vere's answering murmur; their hands twined together on the grass. Richard bent his head to de Vere's face, and said something; a question, the words too soft for her to hear, the answer a teasing smile and a look of anticipation as he sprawled easily under Richard's hands.
If she would not prevent, if she could not make herself rise from the lawn and call out to them, she ought to have slipped away and never let them know she saw. She curled herself around her knees, moving softly, and sat with her chin propped in her hand and watched thoughtfully as they rolled in the grass like pups, laughing and wrestling, trading kisses and mock-blows until their struggles grew more urgent, their voices hushed and heated. She found herself craning her neck to try to see what, precisely they were at, there in the grass in all their garments. Hands grasping and bodies writhing and their legs curving and pressing as if they sought to force their bones to melt together, but the exact means of it defeated her.
Whatever they were at, it served well enough; the soft gasps and cries they made, those she could never mistake after half a year of Richard in her bed. She shut her eyes once, ashamed; for Richard to be beautiful to her, that was right, but de Vere ... his head lolled loosely on the grass now, eyes twisted shut, and his hands flexed on Richard's shoulders as if he were in fear of falling; there was a ferocity to him that fascinated her in a way no man not her husband should. Her husband - she forced her eyes defiantly open; if de Vere chose to disport himself with her Richard it was he, not she, who had forced this intimacy upon them.
She watched in silence until they had done and slipped away while they lay still taking their ease; Richard, she knew, would want to laze and doze now, though she supposed he must stir sooner than he might like after such sport, if they meant to keep this secret as they had done for - how long? It was not a new thing they had done today, she was certain; there had been no uncertainty in Richard's face when he had pressed de Vere onto his back, no hesitation in de Vere's surrender.
She could not brook the prospect of Richard's eye on her at supper, much less de Vere's, and so kept to her rooms, shrugging away a pang - and stifling a rueful laugh - at Agnes' curious glance before retreating to her bed to think.
It was sinful. Richard's hand laid on de Vere's cheek as if it were the rarest silk. It was disgusting, filthy. De Vere drawing Richard down to him with familiar ease, and Richard's intent eyes on his face when he cried out. It was an insult to her. Laughing in the grass as they wrestled like boys, affection plain in every line of their faces. It was not to be borne - she curled her arms about her knees and bit her lip - what choice had she but to bear it, if it came to it? She could betray them, she supposed - inform on her husband, on her King. Go to Gaunt in tears and tell him ... it had been plain to her for some time that Bolingbroke and his father would be glad to see de Vere fall from grace - or worse - and gladder if they could have a hand in it.
Gaunt would be willing enough to call it treason, if it meant Richard brought more firmly beneath his hand; that it would mean de Vere died howling, his entrails piled about him was, to Gaunt, only a pleasing detail. De Vere's proud neck bent for the rope; his laughing mouth torn wide with suffering. And Richard - that he loved de Vere she had known from the first. Like a brother, she would have said, before she had heard Richard gasp against his throat, seen his hand roam over his belly - if she put a rope about that throat, a blade to that belly, Richard would never forgive it, nor would she deserve forgiveness - much less love - of him.
Complacency, then? Should she - could she - keep silence, accept without complaint that she had been defeated before she had even known there was a stake to play for? Years and years ahead of her to play the Queen and never let anyone - not even Richard, most especially not Richard - see what she knew. If she were discreet, she might find a lover of her own, even, to warm the long years. I have a lover. I don't want a different one. I want Richard. More of him than it needs to make me a Queen, or to breed an heir.
If she could keep him - or get him. If she could win Richard's heart as he had won hers; her brow furrowed as she thought about it. She had not the faintest notion how to begin to woo him, and she could hardly ask de Vere for advice on the subject; she smiled wryly. Serve him right if I did. She remembered Salisbury's quiet praise as she'd come ashore in Dover, bedraggled and exhausted - "You're quick to find your balance," he had said and patted her hand where it lay on his arm. She needed a place to plant her feet, that was all. The rest ... the rest she would manage as she might. As she must; part of her husband's heart de Vere might have, and welcome even, but the whole of it, no, not if she had any say in the matter, and she meant to take good care that she did.
He did not come to her that night, nor the next; she gathered her courage and went to him on the third night, and the devil with what her women might say behind their hands. She passed nobody in the hall but the odd servant, and was almost embarrassed at her relief when she gained his door. I am his wife. He is my husband. I have every right to, to - I am the Queen. She stiffened her spine and swung open the door to his chambers before her purpose deserted her.
De Vere was with him, and Mowbray - they looked up from their dice at her entrance, laughter trailing away, and she knew from the flush in their cheeks and the exaggerated care with which they stood to greet her that they had been drinking; wine stood in their cups, and she was powerfully tempted to fill one of them and drain it herself. She stood confounded for a moment, feeling suddenly foolish - why had she never considered that he might not be alone? - until Richard had mercy on her blushes and sent them away with a wave of his hand; they bowed and took their leave without a word, though de Vere favoured her with a long, speculative stare as he strode after Mowbray.
"Anne -" In a moment he would demand an explanation, and there was none she cared to offer him, not in words. She crossed the distance between them while her nerve held, took a deep breath, and kissed him firmly; when she pulled away his expression was - bemused, she thought, but not entirely displeased, and when he opened his mouth to speak she kissed him again, tangling her hand in his hair when he yet hesitated. "Anne -" when she let him free to take a breath; her head spun as if she teetered on the edge of a precipice and perhaps, she thought, she did, but by the way his breath caught and stuttered on her name she was like to land soft - "Anne, what are you - " She only laughed and reached for his hand to pull him toward the door of his bedchamber.
"How much plainer must I be, my lord?" she said, and tugged again, impatient in her relief.
He caught her about the waist, smiling now in his turn. "I think you have been quite plain enough, my lady; I do not remember that I have seen Thomas turn that shade of red since - " he trailed off with a smile - "but this is - unexpected."
She snorted at that. "Unexpected, that a wife should demand her rights? And I am sorry for Thomas' confusion, but if his wife and every other woman in England can measure my belly with their eyes at our every meeting, I imagine he can bear up under the knowledge that we are doing our best to persuade it to swell." He had been near retiring when she had burst in upon him, it seemed, and wore only a robe and nightgown, hardly different from her own attire. She suppressed a sigh of relief; her newfound courage, she thought, was not up to the prospect of calling for a servant to discover her husband to her. He seemed still frozen in the doorway, so she began on his robe, grateful that her fingers were steady on the fastenings. His hands came up to cover her own, and she looked up to see him frowning.
"Anne, if anyone has made you feel that - it will happen in its own time, or in God's, you know. You need not - " She had made a bad step there, she thought, and scrambled to correct it before he could pat her head and send her away to her own bed like a child. A bold stroke or nothing, now - she freed her hand from his loose clasp and sent it wandering toward the gap in his gown, stroking her fingers over the silken skin of his chest, curling them to explore the bones beneath his throat, her eyes intent on his face all the time until he bit back a gasp and clasped her other hand to his chest.
"It was not - foremost in my thoughts." She smiled and pressed her lips against the line of his throat, her tongue flicking against the pulse brief and light as a chance summer breeze, then stepped back, biting down on a smile when he made to follow her, then stopped, eyes wide as he waited for her to speak. "But if my lord is tired, or has had too much to drink..." she half-turned, as if to take her leave, and he caught her against him hard and pressed his mouth to her temple, his breath harsh in her ear.
"You are not," he said through gritted teeth, "going anywhere, my lady," and the hint of urgency in his tone made her fingers curl into his back as she turned her face up to his; his hand slid down to her hip to press her close as his mouth covered hers, and she curled herself against him with a satisfied sigh and kissed him back.
"The floor is stone," she said, some moments later, dropping soft kisses on his jaw to punctuate the remark. "Perhaps we might go just a little way from here?"
"It would serve you right if I said no," he said, laughing, but even as he said it he was taking her hand to lead her to his bed and pull her down beside him, and his hands were as gentle as they were imperious.
She was still there in the morning, to the hastily concealed surprise of his attendants; she restrained herself with an effort from squeaking in alarm and diving beneath the covers. She contented herself with wrenching them free from their tangled limbs and holding them tight to her throat as she opened her mouth to send the youngest of them to bid Agnes come to attend her; Richard forestalled her by sending them away again, and then she did blush and hide her face in his shoulder. He laughed, but wrapped his arm around her back and let her burrow further into his neck until they had gone, with strict instructions not to disturb them again until he should bid them come. Their departure was too leisurely to suit my lord, it seemed; the last of them was encouraged on his way by a well-aimed pillow.
They fell back among the remaining cushions laughing; their laughter gave way to a wondering silence, and they regarded each other curiously from the vantage of a few inches apart. It was difficult, Anne found, to look, and be looked at from so close, even when the face confronting one's own was so familiar and so beloved, without being stared out of countenance in turn; she dropped her eyes to his shoulder.
His hand came up to cup her jaw, and he smiled. "Is this my bold Anne of last night? I had hoped she might be persuaded to stay, for I like her very well, and thought her pleased enough with me."
"I - it is only being - being looked at so, so closely, and I - "
"You will have to accustom yourself, I fear. I like to look at you. And to do more than to look, come to that. Though I think I should miss that shy look, if you grew so bold I never saw it again." His hand was busy beneath the covers, curving over her hip with determination, his eyes glowing with possession and pleasure.
She bit her lip. "I think you need not fear that yet awhile," she whispered, and kissed him to make him close his eyes. Her own she kept open, to watch him in turn as they sported there in the morning light; he caught her at it, of course, later, when she grew bold enough to let her own hand slip down to explore as it would and startled him into a wide-eyed grin, but she cared less for it by then, and only laughed.
Author: commodorified
Play: Richard II (sort of)
Recipient: the_red_shoes
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard II/Robert De Vere, Anne of Bohemia/Richard II
Rating: Inexplicit sexual content
Notes: a moment 17 years before the play...
Summary: None but the brave deserve the fair
December 1381
Even as she clung to the rail and retched helplessly into the already filthy water of the Channel, even as her eyes filled with tears and her throat burned and her head throbbed, Anne knew she ought to be grateful. Was grateful, despite her present misery and her worries for the future and the dull, enduring ache that was watching Calais, Calais that was the furthest from home she had ever travelled and was like, now, to be as near to the place that had been home as she came again, fall away astern.
If Salisbury was troubled by the roll of the ship he concealed it well; he was standing near the bow, gazing towards England with every appearance of good cheer; he spared Anne a sympathetic glance, and she straightened her back and set her teeth against a fresh surge of queasiness - and of self-pity. It was no small feat to get a king for a fourth daughter, even a king whose desire was as much for a solid alliance against the schismatic Clement as it was for the person of Anne of Bohemia, small and drab as a wren and possessed of scarcely enough dowry to present herself with any decency at all before her bridegroom. In the matter of bridegrooms, too, she had cause for gratitude; Richard was neither child nor dotard, but within a year of her own age, straight of limb and pleasing to look on, if the envoy was to be trusted, and his letters...oh, he had charm, and no little wit, and seemed pleased enough with his bargain. If his letters were to be trusted, this cold passage would give way to a warm enough welcome. If she came through it alive...
The air on deck was half-frozen spray, stinging where it brushed the skin, but it served to clear her head and settle her belly; she burrowed deeper into her cloak and set her face resolutely into the wind, toward the clouded promise of England.
***
Her dignity wanted a chance to wash, and fresh garments, while the boats were readied; the worsening weather would have it otherwise. She came to shore all in a heap, sticky with salt, still shivering in her sodden cloak, thinking only of getting indoors and warm after the rush for the boats and the sight of the ship half-awash at anchor, the rail she had clung to tilted into the sky at an angle that made her swallow hard on a prayer for the sailors scrambling over the deck to secure for the storm as best they might.
Salisbury had been at her side from the moment the Captain had come to tell them gravely that they must take to the boats then or never; now he scrambled to the dock, slipped; recovered himself and handed her up deftly, steadying her as she got her sodden skirts under control. She thanked him with a nod, standing carefully upright as the rest came onto the slick wood of the dock, and was startled to see his decorous smile of acknowledgement lightened with an encouraging wink.
"You're quick to find your balance, I see." He bent near to be heard above the wind. "If you face the English people as you do our storms, I predict you will soon find yourself at home here."
He turned away while she still searched for an answer, calling instructions to the men landing from the other boats, watching with narrowed eyes as they fought to bring the horses through the surf in some sort of order, and finally leaping from the dock to plunge into the mass of men and beasts and grasp the bridle of a roan whose capering had nearly torn the reins from the man at her head.
She was distracted by Agnes, who was scarcely on the dock beside her before she was fussing at Anne's sodden coif and hair between glances at the shore, where a small cluster of men had detached themselves from the crowd and were advancing to meet them. Anne endured the hopeless attempts at tidying as patiently as she could until a particularly energetic twist of a wandering braid sent a stream of cold water into her eyes, then waved her off and applied her still-dry sleeve to the problem instead; the men were nearly upon them, cloaks tugged low over their faces in the driving rain.
A queer reception, this; five young men, laughing and nudging one another as they came, their strides confident on the greasy boards. She swiped at her face a final time and waited, smiling involuntarily as they came to a halt and swept her extravagant but quite passable bows. They straightened as one, and the tallest of them stepped forward, pushing his hood back with a long, thin hand.
Anne stared; he saw her confusion and grinned at her, reaching for her hand and kissing it smoothly while still she gaped.
"A foul day for a journey, lady, but a fair meeting at the end of it." They were all bareheaded and smiling at her now; Richard - it could only be Richard, so tall and fair and with such an easy air about him even with rain dripping down his nose - stepped back but kept hold of her hand, smiling at her blushes. "Tomorrow we welcome you with all ceremony, when you have had a chance to recover yourself - " he leaned in, away from the ears of their companions - "but we - I - wanted to - " To get a private look at what he'd got himself into, she thought, and fought back the urge to apologise for her bedraggled shape - "To see you well after your voyage."
He ground to a halt with that and stood, still holding her hand, and she sought for words. "I do well enough, my lord," she ventured finally, and Richard laughed as if she had made a fine jest and took her other hand, looking at her closely now, unsparing of her blushes.
"You do very well indeed, my Anne," he said, and swung her hands as if to swing her into a dance. "I only wish that these winter storms may not have given you cause to take a misliking to your new home, and to he that caused you to come here." His tone was light, but his expression sober, questioning, and she felt her tension ease at the realization that he was as much at a loss as she, now that they came to the point.
"I think you need have no fear of that, my lord," she said, and smiled.
May 1382
The weather was fine, and Queen Anne was alone in the garden. Her garden, now - Richard seemed determined to introduce her to every acre of her new realm, but Westminster they always came back to with particular pleasure; it was the only place she had yet found that felt like her own, the only place where she had begun, however tentatively, to begin to make small alterations. She was busy now with plans to send to Austria for a few of the familiar plants she missed, and plotting where they might best be bestowed, and thinking about her marriage. Counting her blessings, determinedly.
He had been kindness itself, there was no denying it. From the moment her foot had touched English soil she had had no cause to complain, and every reason to be relieved; he was as kind as he was handsome, and seemed as ready to be pleased with his bargain as she was to be happy with hers; he had set himself to court her and to charm her, and she had been duly charmed and courted. It was no great hardship, to be wed to Richard of England, and in defiance of the tales poured into her ears by her mother's ladies, she thought it no hardship to be bedded by him, either; there as everywhere he was all kindness and courtesy, solicitous to give her neither pain nor any cause to hold him in disgust.
And yet -- there was a tinge of caution in even their most private dealings now, a scrupulous courtesy perfectly judged to soothe the fears of a young maiden that she might be induced by warmer means to give up her heart, but increasingly irksome to a wife and a Queen - she had seen other couples new-married, watched their hands cling and their gazes cross and understood more from it than perhaps she ought to have. There ought to be more, she was certain of it. Damn the man, was it possible that he had become so enamoured of his plan for winning her over that he had neglected to note that she was well won?
He was not, she thought, inclined by nature to be so cool; diffident with her he might be, but his visits to her chamber were regular enough, and he was sparing with neither kisses nor praises for her beauty. Only, when it came to it, he seemed almost afraid; his back stiff beneath her uncertain hands and his love-talk tending more to reassurance than to endearments. Was it some failure in her? She had tried, once, shyly, to question him, but he had mistaken her and fallen to stroking her hair as if she were a child, assuring her - as if she could help but know it, he had said and shown it so often - that she need never fear disdain nor harm at his hands. She had given way, then, for fear he would be moved to relieve - to deprive, though he might not see it so - her of his presence entirely if she were to say more, and had only lain quietly by his side as he slept, eyes on his shadowed face as she turned over half-formed strategems until the candle guttered and she settled back on the pillows with a sigh and let her eyes drift shut.
She wished there was some woman here she might confide in, but her own ladies were maidens all and the married women at court were distant with her, and mostly of an age to be her mother. Only Mary, wife to Henry Bolingbroke, and de Vere's Philippa were anything near to being her contemporaries, and Mary was gone to her mother now, still pale and wan from the son she had lost a few scant weeks before, born too soon to a girl Anne thought surely too young to be breeding; her husband she seemed to regard now with an admixture of fear and guilt that his awkward attempts to encourage her to forget did nothing to allay; no help there, and to raise the subject with her would be, she thought, no kindness. Philippa, older than Mary, was oddly skittish and childlike with de Vere. Anne suspected she was a maiden still, for all she'd been, married before any of them; perhaps because of that, for de Vere seemed from long familiarity disposed to look on her as a younger sister. She seemed more in need of counsel than likely to offer any to Anne. She considered and rejected her confessor; her rights, as he or any man would understand them, she had, and she shrank from the thought of explaining herself to him. She had no cause to complain, but that she was not yet breeding herself, and much reason to be grateful; she needed neither priest nor matron to tell her so much when she could tell herself, and so she set herself to be patient, and left the matter to time and to God.
Spring had come, and then summer, and she had almost forgot her cares in the charm of exploring her new land, so grey and unpromising when she had first seen it, so friendly now, with Richard seemingly determined that she should sleep in every bed and eat from every table in the realm. Her feet had scarce touched the ground since she was wed, but what had been duty in January was pure delight in May, and when she could steal away for a moment she went to the gardens and sat quiet, or wandered among the flowers, and breathed in their scents, and was, if not quite happy, content.
She was in a secluded corner, tucked away beneath a willow, half-dozing, half turning over the problem of Richard in her head, when she heard them laughing nearby. She peered around the twisted old trunk and saw them, tumbling over the grass in play like boys half their age, and would have called out to them but for something in the line of their backs, an intimacy in the tilt of their heads as they came to rest tangled together, that kept her silent for long enough to let her see Richard trail the back of his hand down de Vere's cheek in a gesture that stopped her breath in her throat.
She knew that gesture of his; she had not thought any other did, had never thought that she was not the only one who had ducked their head and turned their lips to his hand and smiled against his fingers so, but of course there must have been some. Wise wives did not ask; kind husbands were careful to make no show of their indiscretions, but Richard's devotion to de Vere, and de Vere's to him, were open, facts acknowledged if not entirely approved. This, she had never - her hand stole to her own cheek, and found it burning.
She ought to have discovered herself to them, pretending innocence or calling down curses on their heads, but the moment for accidental intrusion was past, the time for indignation not yet - it might be only sport she saw, or a jest - what did she know of how men bore themselves in private? She drew back against the rough bark and watched.
Froze, fingers clawing briefly into the turf. Richard's laughter, soft and private, and de Vere's answering murmur; their hands twined together on the grass. Richard bent his head to de Vere's face, and said something; a question, the words too soft for her to hear, the answer a teasing smile and a look of anticipation as he sprawled easily under Richard's hands.
If she would not prevent, if she could not make herself rise from the lawn and call out to them, she ought to have slipped away and never let them know she saw. She curled herself around her knees, moving softly, and sat with her chin propped in her hand and watched thoughtfully as they rolled in the grass like pups, laughing and wrestling, trading kisses and mock-blows until their struggles grew more urgent, their voices hushed and heated. She found herself craning her neck to try to see what, precisely they were at, there in the grass in all their garments. Hands grasping and bodies writhing and their legs curving and pressing as if they sought to force their bones to melt together, but the exact means of it defeated her.
Whatever they were at, it served well enough; the soft gasps and cries they made, those she could never mistake after half a year of Richard in her bed. She shut her eyes once, ashamed; for Richard to be beautiful to her, that was right, but de Vere ... his head lolled loosely on the grass now, eyes twisted shut, and his hands flexed on Richard's shoulders as if he were in fear of falling; there was a ferocity to him that fascinated her in a way no man not her husband should. Her husband - she forced her eyes defiantly open; if de Vere chose to disport himself with her Richard it was he, not she, who had forced this intimacy upon them.
She watched in silence until they had done and slipped away while they lay still taking their ease; Richard, she knew, would want to laze and doze now, though she supposed he must stir sooner than he might like after such sport, if they meant to keep this secret as they had done for - how long? It was not a new thing they had done today, she was certain; there had been no uncertainty in Richard's face when he had pressed de Vere onto his back, no hesitation in de Vere's surrender.
She could not brook the prospect of Richard's eye on her at supper, much less de Vere's, and so kept to her rooms, shrugging away a pang - and stifling a rueful laugh - at Agnes' curious glance before retreating to her bed to think.
It was sinful. Richard's hand laid on de Vere's cheek as if it were the rarest silk. It was disgusting, filthy. De Vere drawing Richard down to him with familiar ease, and Richard's intent eyes on his face when he cried out. It was an insult to her. Laughing in the grass as they wrestled like boys, affection plain in every line of their faces. It was not to be borne - she curled her arms about her knees and bit her lip - what choice had she but to bear it, if it came to it? She could betray them, she supposed - inform on her husband, on her King. Go to Gaunt in tears and tell him ... it had been plain to her for some time that Bolingbroke and his father would be glad to see de Vere fall from grace - or worse - and gladder if they could have a hand in it.
Gaunt would be willing enough to call it treason, if it meant Richard brought more firmly beneath his hand; that it would mean de Vere died howling, his entrails piled about him was, to Gaunt, only a pleasing detail. De Vere's proud neck bent for the rope; his laughing mouth torn wide with suffering. And Richard - that he loved de Vere she had known from the first. Like a brother, she would have said, before she had heard Richard gasp against his throat, seen his hand roam over his belly - if she put a rope about that throat, a blade to that belly, Richard would never forgive it, nor would she deserve forgiveness - much less love - of him.
Complacency, then? Should she - could she - keep silence, accept without complaint that she had been defeated before she had even known there was a stake to play for? Years and years ahead of her to play the Queen and never let anyone - not even Richard, most especially not Richard - see what she knew. If she were discreet, she might find a lover of her own, even, to warm the long years. I have a lover. I don't want a different one. I want Richard. More of him than it needs to make me a Queen, or to breed an heir.
If she could keep him - or get him. If she could win Richard's heart as he had won hers; her brow furrowed as she thought about it. She had not the faintest notion how to begin to woo him, and she could hardly ask de Vere for advice on the subject; she smiled wryly. Serve him right if I did. She remembered Salisbury's quiet praise as she'd come ashore in Dover, bedraggled and exhausted - "You're quick to find your balance," he had said and patted her hand where it lay on his arm. She needed a place to plant her feet, that was all. The rest ... the rest she would manage as she might. As she must; part of her husband's heart de Vere might have, and welcome even, but the whole of it, no, not if she had any say in the matter, and she meant to take good care that she did.
He did not come to her that night, nor the next; she gathered her courage and went to him on the third night, and the devil with what her women might say behind their hands. She passed nobody in the hall but the odd servant, and was almost embarrassed at her relief when she gained his door. I am his wife. He is my husband. I have every right to, to - I am the Queen. She stiffened her spine and swung open the door to his chambers before her purpose deserted her.
De Vere was with him, and Mowbray - they looked up from their dice at her entrance, laughter trailing away, and she knew from the flush in their cheeks and the exaggerated care with which they stood to greet her that they had been drinking; wine stood in their cups, and she was powerfully tempted to fill one of them and drain it herself. She stood confounded for a moment, feeling suddenly foolish - why had she never considered that he might not be alone? - until Richard had mercy on her blushes and sent them away with a wave of his hand; they bowed and took their leave without a word, though de Vere favoured her with a long, speculative stare as he strode after Mowbray.
"Anne -" In a moment he would demand an explanation, and there was none she cared to offer him, not in words. She crossed the distance between them while her nerve held, took a deep breath, and kissed him firmly; when she pulled away his expression was - bemused, she thought, but not entirely displeased, and when he opened his mouth to speak she kissed him again, tangling her hand in his hair when he yet hesitated. "Anne -" when she let him free to take a breath; her head spun as if she teetered on the edge of a precipice and perhaps, she thought, she did, but by the way his breath caught and stuttered on her name she was like to land soft - "Anne, what are you - " She only laughed and reached for his hand to pull him toward the door of his bedchamber.
"How much plainer must I be, my lord?" she said, and tugged again, impatient in her relief.
He caught her about the waist, smiling now in his turn. "I think you have been quite plain enough, my lady; I do not remember that I have seen Thomas turn that shade of red since - " he trailed off with a smile - "but this is - unexpected."
She snorted at that. "Unexpected, that a wife should demand her rights? And I am sorry for Thomas' confusion, but if his wife and every other woman in England can measure my belly with their eyes at our every meeting, I imagine he can bear up under the knowledge that we are doing our best to persuade it to swell." He had been near retiring when she had burst in upon him, it seemed, and wore only a robe and nightgown, hardly different from her own attire. She suppressed a sigh of relief; her newfound courage, she thought, was not up to the prospect of calling for a servant to discover her husband to her. He seemed still frozen in the doorway, so she began on his robe, grateful that her fingers were steady on the fastenings. His hands came up to cover her own, and she looked up to see him frowning.
"Anne, if anyone has made you feel that - it will happen in its own time, or in God's, you know. You need not - " She had made a bad step there, she thought, and scrambled to correct it before he could pat her head and send her away to her own bed like a child. A bold stroke or nothing, now - she freed her hand from his loose clasp and sent it wandering toward the gap in his gown, stroking her fingers over the silken skin of his chest, curling them to explore the bones beneath his throat, her eyes intent on his face all the time until he bit back a gasp and clasped her other hand to his chest.
"It was not - foremost in my thoughts." She smiled and pressed her lips against the line of his throat, her tongue flicking against the pulse brief and light as a chance summer breeze, then stepped back, biting down on a smile when he made to follow her, then stopped, eyes wide as he waited for her to speak. "But if my lord is tired, or has had too much to drink..." she half-turned, as if to take her leave, and he caught her against him hard and pressed his mouth to her temple, his breath harsh in her ear.
"You are not," he said through gritted teeth, "going anywhere, my lady," and the hint of urgency in his tone made her fingers curl into his back as she turned her face up to his; his hand slid down to her hip to press her close as his mouth covered hers, and she curled herself against him with a satisfied sigh and kissed him back.
"The floor is stone," she said, some moments later, dropping soft kisses on his jaw to punctuate the remark. "Perhaps we might go just a little way from here?"
"It would serve you right if I said no," he said, laughing, but even as he said it he was taking her hand to lead her to his bed and pull her down beside him, and his hands were as gentle as they were imperious.
She was still there in the morning, to the hastily concealed surprise of his attendants; she restrained herself with an effort from squeaking in alarm and diving beneath the covers. She contented herself with wrenching them free from their tangled limbs and holding them tight to her throat as she opened her mouth to send the youngest of them to bid Agnes come to attend her; Richard forestalled her by sending them away again, and then she did blush and hide her face in his shoulder. He laughed, but wrapped his arm around her back and let her burrow further into his neck until they had gone, with strict instructions not to disturb them again until he should bid them come. Their departure was too leisurely to suit my lord, it seemed; the last of them was encouraged on his way by a well-aimed pillow.
They fell back among the remaining cushions laughing; their laughter gave way to a wondering silence, and they regarded each other curiously from the vantage of a few inches apart. It was difficult, Anne found, to look, and be looked at from so close, even when the face confronting one's own was so familiar and so beloved, without being stared out of countenance in turn; she dropped her eyes to his shoulder.
His hand came up to cup her jaw, and he smiled. "Is this my bold Anne of last night? I had hoped she might be persuaded to stay, for I like her very well, and thought her pleased enough with me."
"I - it is only being - being looked at so, so closely, and I - "
"You will have to accustom yourself, I fear. I like to look at you. And to do more than to look, come to that. Though I think I should miss that shy look, if you grew so bold I never saw it again." His hand was busy beneath the covers, curving over her hip with determination, his eyes glowing with possession and pleasure.
She bit her lip. "I think you need not fear that yet awhile," she whispered, and kissed him to make him close his eyes. Her own she kept open, to watch him in turn as they sported there in the morning light; he caught her at it, of course, later, when she grew bold enough to let her own hand slip down to explore as it would and startled him into a wide-eyed grin, but she cared less for it by then, and only laughed.