“The Woodville patriarch, a mere chamberlain when Jacquetta of Bedford’s wandering eye caught his at her first husband’s court, has been put on a rank with me,” he said, in a tone hovering between menace and malice. “And no sooner had Edward created the man Earl Rivers than he took away that loyal supporter Walter Blount’s position as treasurer of England and gave it to the wormy Woodville.”

“My Lord Mountjoy?” Richard could not help interjecting. “But he was there at the beginning for us—I mean for Edward. How foolish to offend so faithful a friend.”

Warwick nodded eagerly. “You see the way of it, Richard. And wait, there’s more.”

Richard stood aghast as the earl reeled off the important marriages Edward had apparently arranged for his new family: the young duke of Buckingham for one sister; the duchess of Norfolk for a brother; another sister for the heir of the earldom of Arundel; and the earl of Essex’s son for a third sister.

“But Her Grace of Norfolk is in her late sixties,” Countess Anne exclaimed. “That boy John is only twenty-one. ’Tis monstrous and…” she tailed off as she recognized signs of an outburst in her husband… “is there more, dear?” The whitening of Warwick’s knuckles around the stem of her favorite Venetian goblet told his wife there was, and she tensed.

Too late, the twisted, colored glass snapped, and the bottom fell into the rushes. Lady Warwick sighed sadly, as the rest of the useless vessel was flung against the wall. Richard, on the other hand, was impressed. He had often been tempted to throw something in anger, but he was afraid the event would be reported to Blackbeard, and pleasing that exacting master of henchman had always suppressed his urge.

“The most heinous decision involves our family, my lady,” Warwick was saying, sucking his bleeding finger. “You remember my brother’s son—our nephew of Northumberland—was promised the hand of Nan, heir to the traitor Exeter’s lands and fortune?” Binding her husband’s injured digit in her kerchief, Lady Anne nodded. How could she forget? The mother of the girl was Anne, duchess of Exeter, Edward’s oldest sister. “The ingrate Edward has now rescinded those thanks to please his queen,” Warwick continued. “Instead, the king paid his sister, the duchess, a vast sum to buy the marriage contract for Elizabeth’s wastrel and no-name son, Thomas Grey. It is an insult.”

Richard could not help himself. He suddenly laughed. “That means Tom Grey becomes Ned’s nephew as well as his stepson!” The innocent irony tickled him, but the earl glared at his young cousin, and Richard hastily covered his laughter with a fit of coughing. “It is an insult to our Neville house indeed, my lord,” he demurred.