“And one I will not soon forget, my lord of Gloucester,” Warwick assured him. “I hope your loyalties run deeper than your brother’s. At least deeper than the length of a woman’s passage.”

“My lord!” his wife protested vehemently. “Curb your tongue, I beg of you. Would you use such description in front of our daughters? Nay, you would not! Richard is younger than Isabel and like a son to me. Now, apologize at once.”

Astonished and warmed by the mild-mannered countess’s defense of him, Richard found himself the recipient of a reluctant, none-too-sincere apology from the outraged earl. Hoping one day he might repay her, Richard bowed low over Lady Anne’s hand. He gave his patron a more cursory nod and left the room.

His mind was in turmoil. He desperately wanted to believe the best of Ned, but his sense of justice understood how the earl might feel his honor had been violated. As well, he was beginning to comprehend just how much Edward was ruled by his sexual urgings, and this deeply disturbed him. Could his brother be losing his way?

In the years at Middleham he had become the earl’s loyal servant as much as his brother’s, and that his family loyalties might somehow be conflicted had never crossed his mind. He hoped he would never have to choose as he hurried to find Traveller, the one constant in his life and in whom he could confide without fear of judgment or recrimination. And above all, a creature he could trust.

Surprisingly, it was hard to find a contemplative spot in massive Middleham Castle, but Richard had found one not far from its walls. Early in his time there, when Traveller had bounded off after a rabbit, ignoring his master’s commands to “Come!” Richard had followed him into the copse surrounding the rubble of the original castle on William’s Hill a few hundred yards away. The ruin had become Richard’s favorite place of solitude when he found the thick castle walls and bailey teeming with people suffocating.

The refuge called to Richard one spring day after a strenuous practice with the mace and war hammer. He actually preferred these effective weapons when in the saddle. There was something not quite right with his posture when he tried to wield a longer sword on horseback. The day after he had worked with the sword, he again noticed his back ached considerably, and Rob had teased him that he was getting old.