The King’s Concubine: A Novel of Alice Perrers (42 page)

“Marriage…! But why?”

Immediately he straightened, then, shockingly, went down on one knee. For a moment of blazing memory, I recalled Edward in his strength and power wooing me after my outburst. But there was no similarity here at all. Edward had wooed me from the heart; this was a charade, a travesty of honor and chivalry. Surely it was.

“I love you,” Windsor announced. “Why else would a man ask a woman to wed him?”

“You are a liar, Windsor.”

“Ah…but how do you know?” Those bold eyes glinted in a sudden bright stroke of sunlight through the heavy cloud.

“I don’t. Sense tells me.…Stand up! The sentries will see us and the whole world will know within the hour that you are making mischief!” When he rose to his full height, the light spread over his harsh features, gilding him in an enticing softness that I instantly rejected. Pouncing, he clasped my hand and pressed his lips against my fingers.

“It’s not such a bad idea, you know. Wife and concubine—not an easy role to pursue at one and the same time, but I swear you have the talent for it. Will you?”

“No.” I had no breath, no wit to say more. What an appalling morning this had been. Was he ridiculing me? If so, there was an edge of cruelty to it that I would never have expected.

“Listen to me. I’m quite serious.” He leaned back against the parapet once more, looking up to where a pair of crows somersaulted on the thermals. His voice was clipped, his hand still firm around mine. He was deadly serious. “I foresee advantages.…”

“You would, of course!”

“For you, woman! For you! Just listen. When Edward dies, what happens to you? Alone, unprotected, you will become a perfect scapegoat for those who have loathed you since the first day you crawled into the King’s bed.” How sordid he made it sound. “From the first day that you stood at the King’s side and blocked their way to power. They’ll
not accept that the King was too ill to hold the reins of government. They’ll blame you. And they’ll take utmost pleasure in throwing you to the dogs.” His eyes slid from tumbling crows to me. “And I wager that none of this is new to you. You’ve seen the threat of the storm clouds building on your horizon, just as those birds know the power of the thermals to lift them. Look at them! Storm crows. Birds of ill omen.”

Who’d have thought Windsor would be superstitious! “I have seen the storm clouds,” I replied. “And I see the crows every morning without fear. I have made provision.”

“I’m sure you have. Squirreling away wealth for your old age.” How cynical, how practical. No superstition here! Did he think I had been robbing the royal coffers? “But what if they target your sources of income?”

“I have taken precautions.”

“I know. I know how clever you are.” I thought it was no compliment. “But that’s another reason for you to watch your back. Men don’t like it when a woman oversteps the line of what is acceptable for her sex. A man would get away with it. A woman…? She will be damned as impertinent, presumptuous at best. Immoral at worst. A woman who fights for herself, who is bold and outspoken and fearless, and is amazingly successful at what she sets her hand to, is instantly vilified, whereas a man is praised for his perspicacity. You’ve made yourself notorious.”

“As have you…” I retaliated, horrified by his brutal brushstrokes of me and my character.

“That’s not relevant,” Windsor fired back. “Just as your innocence or guilt is irrelevant. They’ll be snapping at your heels as soon as the King is laid out in the chapel. Now, if you wed me, I would stand protector for you and your property, through the courts if need be.”

Ah! Of course! Not kindness at all! “And what would you get out of marriage?”

“Someone to watch over my interests in England when I’m in Ireland.”

I frowned. “That’s not an answer a woman wants to hear. It’s a marriage, not a business deal.” I pulled my hand free and turned my back on him. “Are you still so sure you’ll be allowed to go back?”

“Yes. As I said—who else is there?”

“Then pay an agent to look after your properties for you. It’s cheaper than marriage. With far fewer problems,” I added dryly. “I’ll get Greseley to recommend someone.”

“I want someone who will do it for better motives than a paid clerk. I want you!”

I want you!
I shook my head to jangle my thoughts into order. “No.”

“Why
not
? Give me one good reason!”

I fell back on the practical, because I dared not contemplate my initial reaction. “I can’t. Edward…”

“Edward would not need to know.”

“What? We would keep it secret?” My shock doubled.

“Why not? Would it be so very difficult? If we did take so momentous a step, it would undoubtedly be better if the Court didn’t know of it.”

I followed his line of sight, the crows twisting and falling in unison, a mating dance, and, brusquely, asked the primary question in my mind: “Why would you consider—why would any man consider—making such a proposal to the King’s mistress?” I swallowed against the constriction in my throat and made my question plainer. “Why would you wish to share your bed with the King’s whore?”

“I’ve thought of that. I’ve decided it doesn’t matter.” When I looked at him in amazement, he returned my gaze with frank assessment. “What are you to him, Alice? What are you to him
now
?”

“I…” The question took me unawares, and I sought for a reply that would not betray Edward. I would never speak of what passed between myself and the King.

“What are you to him?” Windsor repeated. I must have looked momentarily lost, so he made it easy for me. Who would have thought that he would do that? “Friend?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Counselor?”

“Yes. When he asks—and sometimes when he does not.” I smiled sadly. “Edward likes to talk. Or he did.…”

He cocked his head. “Confidante?”

“Yes…always…” I set my teeth. I knew what was coming.

“Lover?”

My reply stuck in my gullet.

“Be honest with me, Alice. For God’s sake! I’ll not spread it through the palace!”

Should I give him the answer he wanted? The one that was the truth? Blessed Jesu! I found my nails digging deep into my palms.

And, seeing, he took my hand, smoothing out my fingers, asking gently, “Are you still lovers?”

“No!” I cried out, with infinite sadness at this ultimate decline in so great a man. “No longer…”

“As I thought…”

“He cannot.…” I felt the need to explain, to defend the King when he could not defend himself. I could not bear that he be sneered at for losing that essential masculine power that made him the crowned stag, the vigorous stallion. Edward would hate it, shrink from it. But I did not need to explain. Windsor showed no scorn.

“The sad depredation of old age,” he remarked matter-of-factly. “It strikes us all down eventually. How long since?”

“Two years or more now,” I admitted.

“And yet you stay with him.”

“Yes.”

“For the power it brings you?” His eyes bored into my soul.

“I can’t deny it, can I?” I demanded bitterly.

“I think you are better than that.”

He reminded me of Wykeham. It should have been a comfort to have two men who believed that I had even an inch of a better nature, but it was not. When the whole world railed against me, sometimes it was difficult not to believe the defamation. Perhaps I did not deserve happiness. Not when the length and breadth of my sins were tallied up.

“He needs me,” I stated, consigning self-pity to the devil. “I cannot leave him.” To my relief, Windsor made no comment, letting the moment draw out between us. “He loves me, you see,” I continued. “Even though he cannot play the man any longer, he loves me. Does he not deserve my loyal service to the end?”

Windsor turned back to the wall, resting his chin on his hands again. “Think of it like this. If you are not intimate, would it matter if you were wed to me? It would not be a physical betrayal, would it?”

“But the King would see it as a betrayal—and rightly so.”

“I can’t agree. How often does he not know you when you walk into his chamber?” He must have felt my resistance. “Be honest again. You’ve nothing to lose. I’m no gossip.”

No, he was not. “Too often…” I sighed.

“Here’s the thing,” he drove on, the timbre of his voice deepening. “You are vulnerable. And when the King’s dead you will be on your own.”

“And if I wed you, you will stand for me.”

“I will.”

“And in return I will administer your property.”

“Yes.”

“Still a business arrangement, all in all.”

“If you wish to call it that.”

“It’s what it seems to me.” Dismay, like a reaction to the cool breeze after a hot day, shivered over my skin.

His glance was a direct challenge. “Wed me, Alice. Do you have the courage?”

“I don’t think I lack for courage.”

“Then accept!”

I let the idea tumble through my mind as the crows dived and rose once again on the air, a pair enjoying the freedom of their kind. I did not think that I had any freedom.

Windsor sighed. “Alice…”

“No. I won’t. I can’t.”

He did not press me but abandoned me alone to ponder the joy of the two crows flirting above me. I was left trying to deny the effect of his mouth against mine, to deny what I wished for rather than what I was in duty bound to do.

Windsor’s proposal made an uncomfortable bedfellow, and I did not sleep that night.

Marriage. A business agreement was one thing—but marriage? To a man whom I found inordinately attractive. It had an appeal, until integrity demanded that I consider my loyalty to the King. Did he not deserve my fealty, my steadfastness?

Edward smiled serenely, uncomprehendingly, as I wished him good night, kissing his cheek. I might have been the servant who brought him wine at the end of the day to help him to sleep. I had not shared Edward’s bed for physical gratification since he returned from the desperate attempt to invade France. His failure had rendered him impotent, his physical desires vanished entirely, his passionate need for my body transfigured into mild affection when he recognized me. Just as we all knew that Edward would never again lead an army into France, I knew that he would get no more children on me. He might need me to share his bed, but for comfort only: He made no more demands on my body. The years had their cruel sway.

But marriage to Windsor?

When the tenure of my royal position ended, I would have the wealth I needed to bolster the rest of my life and ensure security for my daughters. What more did I need?

You need a man to stand protector.

Did I? No. I had married once and found no joy in it. I would not do so again. I did not even know if I
liked
William de Windsor. His touch might set fires ablaze in my blood, but that was mere lust. No, he was not for me. If I wed, it would be to some mild, biddable soul who could be managed by a strong-willed woman. I would be no one’s chattel. No, I stated again, firmly in my mind as I considered that undesirable state, marriage was not for me. And it would be a brave woman who agreed to take on William de Windsor.

Are you not a brave woman?

I buried my face in my pillow. He said he loved me but I did not believe him. His proposal had smacked of a transaction to buy property. I should know, should I not?

Not one soft word had he spoken.

I abandoned sleep, taking up a quill to record my most recently purchased manor of Gunnersby, a property on the Thames that would prove far more trustworthy than William de Windsor.

“Good morning, Sir William.” I stood in the little group of shivering courtiers with Edward, who had expressed a wish to fly the falcons. We
were on foot, ambling along the riverbank at a speed that would suit the King, who seemed not to feel the cold. “I did not expect to see you so early in the day. Or are you hoping to win royal favor?”

He ignored the bait. “Have you thought about it?”

“I have.”

“Second thoughts, Mistress Perrers?”

I inclined my head in a parody of regal dignity that I knew he would appreciate. “No, Sir William.”

“Let me know when you do.”

“I will not.”

He grinned. “I think you will.”

On our return, as the falconer retrieved his birds and carried them off to the royal mews, there he was again at my shoulder.

“Think of the advantages.”

“There are none.”

“I say there are.” His gaze, forthright, lingering, drove a shaft of heat through my body. I felt it color my cheeks and quickly turned away.

“You are presumptuous, Sir William.”

“I am indeed. Would you cast my offer into the flames without giving it due consideration? You would do as much for an offer on the feudal rights of a manor.”

So I would, damn him!

“A woman would enjoy some words of courtship, Sir William.” I was atrociously demure, studying the gold embroidery-work on my new gloves.

“I am not a man of soft words, Mistress Perrers.” It was a statement of fact, not an excuse, and I could not resist abandoning the stitchery to search his face. There was no subterfuge in the man. He said what he meant, both fine wine and bitter lees of sediment in the cup. If I drank, I would have to accept both.…

“You might try.” Still I hoped for something that might have a leaning toward courtship. “If you truly want my hand in marriage.”

“I have no poetry in my soul.”

Neither had I—but I would have liked to hear some from him. I think he saw my disappointment, for, stretching out his hand, he drew the tip of his finger along the curve of my cheek.

My heart turned over, a little leap of pure delight.

I thought about it again. I thought about Janyn Perrers. I thought about Edward. I worried the subject to death in the early hours. What would it be like to be tied to a man who did not need my care? A man whom I was free to choose or reject. I had no experience of such freedom. What would it be like to love a man of my own free will? I had no idea.

It would be far better for you if you loved no one!

As for that…

Discreetly I watched Windsor fit seamlessly into the daily pattern of the Court. His agility with horse or sword in mock combat, his merciless single-mindedness in hand-to-hand conflict, the tip of his sword resting against his opponent’s throat—until he put it aside to grasp the man’s hand in mutual congratulation. The arrogant lift of his head. The proud knightly stance.
Stop it, Alice!