Richard smiled in the dark, took her in his arms and cradled her to sleep. He wondered if the honorable Kate would love him still knowing he had so recently committed regicide. He prayed fervently that no one but he and God would be privy to his crime and closed his eyes.

“Let me dress you today,” Kate pleaded the next day, as they bathed together. “I want you to go to court with my scent upon your clothes.”

He kissed her trembling mouth, tasting tears. This would be the last time they would be naked together, and the ache in his heart almost translated into tears of his own. He touched the new ring he had given her; delicately filigreed in gold, inscribed with his chosen motto: Loyaulté me lie—Loyalty binds me. “Know I shall not forget you, Kate. And if you have need of me for anything at all, send me this ring and I will answer.”

“Fiddle-faddle!” Kate retorted, bravely. “Why would I ever need you, pray?”

When she had lovingly clothed him in his finest velvets and satin, he left her standing proudly in the middle of the room clutching the first love poem he had ever written. Before he could change his mind, Richard fled. So long as Katherine and John lived, he knew his love for their mother would never die. It was also a sad certainty that this was, for him, the close of a chapter.

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

1472–1473

Edward watched his two brothers with growing impatience. His admonition to them during yuletide appeared to have kept the peace for the season, but the two dukes had circled each other for most of the festivities like a couple of rival tomcats.

The court had removed to Sheen, a favorite palace of the queen’s, and Richard’s fight for Anne had reached a climax. Still stuck in sanctuary, the pawn in the two men’s game awaited her fate, although her confidence in Richard never wavered. “’Tis what I like about her,” Richard had admitted to Rob after yet another visit to St. Martin’s in early February with no news of his success. “Her loyalty to me has not diminished despite my inability to win her. I must not let her down.”

Now George goaded his brother, sarcasm dripping like goose grease off greedy fingers. “Such the gallant lover, aren’t you? Anne must be loving her cold little cell at St. Martin’s while you sleep on a featherbed under a coney coverlet. At least she has no excuse to spend as much time on her knees as you do, O perfecte quidem pie hominem.”