LITMIR.BIZ

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lips left hers and pressed against her vulnerable throat and she gasped for a breath. One more breath. Just one more and one more and one more and then she must let go. She must not reach for things she could never have. God would give her only this one moment, to be paid for later.

      As she had been paying for so much all her life.

      Did he step away? Did she stumble? Suddenly, they were two people again, separated by inches that might as well have been the miles that would stretch between them as soon as he left. Miles that might as well have been the distance between this world and the next.

      Look at him. You must be brave and look at him now.

      He tried to speak. ‘You asked—’

      She touched her fingers to his lips, wanting no words. No regrets.

      But instead of silence, he grabbed her hand and pressed his lips against her palm. That simple, tender gesture hurt more than all the thoughts of separation to come.

      ‘Don’t.’ A single word she could barely utter.

      He paused, but did not release her hand. ‘I want you.’

      She nearly did fall then, not because of her weak leg, but because the force of his desire stole her strength. Had anyone ever desired her before? Ever looked at her with fire in his eyes, with longing?

      And that was enough. That would be enough to keep her all the rest of her days. To be with a man who desired her. Once for the rest of her life.

      She swayed toward him.

      ‘Lady Anne?’ The voice of one of the pages. ‘Lady Joan needs you.’

      * * *

      Nicholas gritted his teeth, trying to force himself back to sense, not stopping to wonder what would have happened if they had not been interrupted. He only knew that he had not wanted to let her go. Not wanted to let the world intrude until he had learned her body as well as the countryside he’d fought over.

      Knew that he had nearly been as stupid as his father.

      Had it been his loins or his heart talking? Hard to tell one from the other when he looked at her. Which made it so much worse.

      * * *

      Anne made her way back into the hall, suddenly surrounded again by the post-ceremony celebration. The noise and heat of a crowded room. Dancers uneven on their feet, threatening to bump her shoulder or her crutch. Hugs, toasts. Some more genuine than others.

      Lady Cecily lifted a goblet to Anne, who paused for breath. She still had half the Hall to cover to reach Lady Joan—no, she must now be called the Princess of Wales—sitting on the dais with the Prince.

      ‘The Princess looks wonderful,’ Cecily whispered to her.

      ‘Which one?’ Anne said, trying to smile.

      ‘Both of them.’ Cecily nodded toward Princess Isabella, who was seated as far away from her brother’s new wife as the table would allow.

      ‘Perhaps your lady will be next to wed.’ The Princess had reached nearly thirty without a husband. Near as scandalous as her brother.

      ‘My lady will wed if she pleases.’ Cecily’s voice had an edge. ‘A privilege neither of us will see.’

      A strange comment, but certainly true. Few men and fewer women married for pleasure. Yet Lady Cecily was fair and whole and from a good family. Strange that she had not yet wed.

      Who knew what pain could be disguised behind a healthy body?

      The page tugged at her sleeve and she resumed her progress through the Hall. No doubt Edward and Joan were ready to share a bed again, now that they could do so with the church’s blessing.

      She made her way across the dais and her lady turned away from the table to speak to her. ‘I’ll be leaving now.’

      It was as she had expected, yet her disappointment was sharp. ‘I am ready to attend you, of course.’ Hair to be combed. Furs to be brushed. Gowns to be put away. The maids must be directed carefully this night.

      And Nicholas would be left waiting.

      ‘No.’ Joan patted Anne’s arm. ‘Stay and enjoy yourself. Someone else will attend to me. You have worked very hard, Anne.’

      ‘Thank you, my lady.’ Praise that would once have set her smiling. Now, she barely noted the words.

      ‘From now on, the demands there will be, to attend the wife of the future King—well, I do understand they will be beyond what you have been doing.’

      She had not complained before. She would not do so now. ‘I understand, my lady. I am prepared.’ The royal quarters, rising safe and strong, would be the home she had always hoped to have.

      ‘But since St Thomas did not see fit to...’ A pause.

      ‘Yes, my lady?’ Odd, to hear her lady stumble as she spoke. Perhaps she was tired from the nights of preparations.

      ‘Because of that, I’ve made arrangements for you to go away for a rest.’

      Away. She knew what the word meant, yet it made no sense. Nicholas’s kiss must have muddied her hearing. ‘Away from you?’

      ‘You need not worry. I will bear all the costs. But doesn’t a long rest sound wonderful? I know it has been exhausting, taking care of me all these years. So I’ve arranged for you to withdraw to Holystone’s nunnery.’

      ‘Nunnery?’ She had never expected marriage, but to be locked in a convent? No. That she had never, never wanted.

      ‘It is a small one, but I’ll arrange a sizeable gift to be sure you are well cared for. And now that the war with Scotland is over, I’m sure it is quite safe, even though it is on the Borders.’

      Her lady’s meaning was now cold and clear and sharp. The secret Anne had kept for all these years was no longer a protection for her. She was the only one besides Joan who knew the truth. Now that the marriage was finalised, she needed Anne to be far, far away.

      Out of sight.

      Out of reach.

      Locked away like a madwoman.

      Silent.

       Chapter Sixteen

      Speechless, Anne took a step away from her lady, lost in a suddenly spinning world.

      How was she to live, torn away from the life that had protected her since childhood?

      The answer was simple and brutal. She wasn’t.

      Oh, it was not an outright threat. Lady Joan would never dream of harming her, of course. It was just that Anne was no longer useful. Worse, she had become...inconvenient. She was the only person to know that the wife of the future King of England, and, more importantly, the mother of a future King of England was not, could not be married to the Prince under church law.

      Because she was married to another man.

      Only Anne the cripple knew now. And no one would heed her, once she was tucked far away in a convent, never to see the outside world again.

      She left the dais and leaned against the wall, unable to take a sure step. The gaiety of the wedding dancers filled the Hall. She had never expected to be able to dance, but to be locked away, never to even see someone else move to music, to hear only music meant for God’s ears...

      It was not death, exactly. She would still breathe and wake to see the light each day, beckoning outside the convent walls. But she would be trapped, imprisoned in one place more tightly than her leg could ever have held her.

      As tight as a coffin might hold her.

      ‘You do not seem happy.’ Nicholas had appeared beside her, without

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