“And you are still the most beautiful mother in the world,” Richard said, “although I suspect Elizabeth is as close a second as a lily is to a rose.” Two women complimented in one sentence he marveled, surprised at his own skillful diplomacy. Although he disliked engaging in this conventional flattery, it was all part of his chivalric training. Elizabeth bestowed one of her dazzling smiles on him, and his mother remarked, “Nicely done,” before subsiding back onto the settle. Richard made a silent note: flattery may be false, but it can work.

“What? No greeting for me, George?” Richard called across the room. “Were you finally winning a game from Meggie, and my arrival interrupted you? Too bad!” George pretended not to hear the taunt and kept his eyes on the ivory figures. Richard tried again as he moved to the chess table. “We shall have to play while I am here. I believe I have improved, at least that is what Isabel says.” Aha, Richard noticed, that’s got George’s attention.

Without even bidding Richard a good day, George was all impatience. “Do you have a message for me?” he muttered so the group by the fire could not hear. “Ned doesn’t let me out of his sight, so if you do, slip it to me later, there’s a good lad.”

Richard frowned, bristling at George’s imperious tone and belittling “lad.” “What have you done to irk Ned?” he shot back. “It must be more than your dalliance with Isabel.”

“That’s irksome enough, you simpleton,” George snapped. “She is Warwick’s daughter.”

Richard just stared at him. Not for the first time did he wonder at all the secrecy. Isabel Neville was the most eligible, and richest, young noblewoman in all of England. Besides, if truth be told, Richard did not think Edward could question the match given that he had squandered himself, and England, on a nobody like Elizabeth Woodville.

But before he could voice these thoughts, Edward’s resonant voice interrupted them.

“What are you two scheming over there? Come take some wassail with us before we sup, and then I would have a private audience with both of you.”

His tone was affable, but something in Edward’s look made Richard tense.

An hour later, George of Clarence, not as astute as his young brother, sauntered casually into Edward’s ante-chamber, a full wine goblet dangling delicately between his fingers. Accompanied as usual by Will Hastings, Edward stood waiting, backlit by the fire, his face in shadow. Richard chose to stand to the side, resting his fingertips on the parchment-strewn table.

“Now pr’haps you can tell ush why we were royally shummoned here, Ned.” It was clear this was not his first goblet of the night. “I had t’decline an invitation to shelebrate Christmas with the Talbots and come here to wash your Woodville relations lord it over the household. Christshnails, the arrogance of ’em!”