LITMIR.BIZ

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playing peek and hide.

      Instead, her gait was an awkward, rolling thing. Even when she walked, she rose and sank as if she were a drunken sailor on a tottering ship. The walking stick, a third leg to compensate for the useless second one, only made things more difficult. Sometimes, she tripped over her lame foot and could not withhold her curses, and when she fell, she had learned that rolling would soften the blow.

      She had stumbled when the King’s ambassador arrived, but fortunately out of his sight and hearing. Tall and straight, he swung off his horse and strode into the keep, his very ease mocking her.

      Poor, foolish Anne. Still longing for a body other than the one she had been born with.

      She paused before her lady’s chamber, gasping for breath, then pushed open the door without knocking for permission.

      Even that rude entry could not disturb Lady Joan’s perpetual smile. Anne’s news, however, would. ‘The emissary. He has returned.’

      The smile tightened, as if pulled by a vice. They exchanged a wordless glance. ‘Have him come to me first.’

      Anne held back a retort. Did the woman think to change the news if it were not to her liking? ‘But the King—’

      ‘Yes. Of course. The King will want to see him immediately.’ She rose. ‘I must find Edward.’

      Anne sighed. Joan would find her ‘husband’ and, if the news were bad, she would hear it together with him for the last moments she could call him so.

      ‘And, Anne...’ She raised her eyebrows. Not a question. A warning.

      ‘As ever, my lady.’

      The beautiful face relaxed into its accustomed smile. She took a breath. ‘All will be as it must.’

      Anne waited until her lady had turned away before she looked to Heaven for patience. ‘As it must’ meant as her lady wished it.

      She trailed her mistress out of the door, but there was no need to search for Prince Edward. He had already come, as if he had known her need. He took her in his arms, kissed her brow, murmured in her ear, as if no one were near to see.

      Anne pursed her lips, fighting a wave of pain. Not in her leg, no. That was perpetual, comforting in its faithfulness. This was different. This was the pain of knowing that no one would ever look at her that way.

      Forgive my ingratitude. Her perpetual prayer.

      She had no reason to complain. Her mother had assured her future at an early age, saving Anne from a certain fate of begging beside the road. Instead, she was a lady-in-waiting to a woman who, if today’s news were good, would one day take her place beside England’s King.

      Yet as her mistress and the Prince kissed, Anne looked on them with blatant envy. It was not Edward of Woodstock she coveted. For all his glory, he was not a man who appealed to her. She merely wished that a man might smile, his face aglow, just to see her.

      As it was, she was clever and unobtrusive and had a face most men did not care to dwell on, so if her expression ever slipped, which it often did, no one would be watching.

      They did not watch now, the Prince and her lady, as they turned toward the King’s chambers.

      ‘Milady, shall I...?’

      Without bothering to turn, Lady Joan shook her head and waved a hand in dismissal. And as the two walked off together to learn their fate, Anne stood in the hall, alone.

      Later, then. Later she would discover whether the Pope had been convinced and all was as it must be.

      There was a great deal to be made right. And the man who brought the news had not been smiling.

      Nicholas, they had called him.

      * * *

      Sir Nicholas Lovayne had rehearsed his speech during the whole of the ride from the port to the New Forest astride a borrowed horse. Time enough and more to get the words right.

      He was grateful he had, for the minute he arrived, they ushered him into the King’s private chambers and he faced the King, the Queen, Prince Edward and Joan, Countess of Kent.

      There was no more time to rearrange words.

      ‘Well?’ King Edward himself spoke, eyes as piercing as a falcon’s. Beside him, the Queen gripped his hand.

      Nicholas looked at Prince Edward and Lady Joan, for their lives were the ones at stake. ‘They will not be excommunicated for violating the Church’s marriage laws.’

      The Pope had had every right to do so, but Nicholas and some well-placed gold florins had saved their immortal souls. No small feat and more than they deserved.

      Thus was the privilege of royalty. To be rewarded for behaviour that would damn any other mortal.

      But that was only the first of the miracles Nicholas had accomplished in Avignon. And not even the one the Prince cared most to hear.

      ‘But we will be allowed to marry?’ The Prince, as eager as a boy waiting for his first bedding, though he and his ‘bride’ had been sharing the sheets for months.

      ‘Yes.’ In the best of circumstances, the couple would have needed the Pope’s permission to wed, since they were closely related. But they had made the situation much, much worse, by marrying in secret. Then they had dumped their sins in Nicholas’s lap, expecting him to untangle the mess to their satisfaction. ‘His Holiness will overlook your consanguinity and also set aside your clandestine marriage. You will be allowed to wed in a church-sanctioned union.’

      Allowed to marry and share their lives. And the throne.

      Relief. The hard, silent expressions melted. Eyes, lips, shoulders, tongues let loose. How quickly? How soon?

      He raised his voice to answer with a tone of caution. ‘Also,’ he added, ‘His Holiness requires that each of you build and endow a chapel.’

      Neither the Prince nor the Lady Joan bothered to respond to what would be a minor inconvenience. Instead, Prince Edward held out his hand. ‘The document.’ A demand. ‘Give it to me.’

      ‘It will be sent directly to the Archbishop of Canterbury. I expect he will receive it near Michaelmas. Until then, you must live separately.’

      The Prince and his lady turned their eyes on him, as if he, instead of the Pope, had forbidden them their bed. As if two months apart were a lifetime.

      Well, that was not the worst of it. ‘And there is one more thing,’ he said.

      Hard silence fell again. They quieted, knowing he had more news to deliver and that it would not be as pleasant as the last.

      ‘What?’ The King, of course. He would ever be allowed to speak first. ‘What more?’

      ‘A private message will accompany the document. His Holiness asked that I tell you what it will contain.’

      It took only a glance from the King. The few attendants with them withdrew, leaving him alone with the royal family.

      ‘Go on,’ the King said.

      ‘Before they marry,’ Nicholas began, ‘His Holiness requires...’ Now for the words he had rehearsed. ‘The Lady Joan’s marriage to Salisbury was annulled.’

      The Prince frowned. ‘Years ago. That is ancient history.’

      Nicholas glanced at Joan, amazed to see her half smile unshaken. ‘But it was annulled,’ he continued, ‘when a previous, secret marriage was upheld.’

      ‘All here are aware of my past,’ the lady said.

      The King and Queen exchanged glances. Everyone in England was aware of Joan’s past. It had not made the Prince’s case for marriage any easier.

      Nicholas gritted his teeth. There was no easy way to say what he must. ‘Lady Joan, you were once married to two men, one of whom still

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