FLAME OF DESIRE (23 page)

They headed far away from the palace, down a steep embankment, at last dismounting and leading the horses down the hill, careful to duck their heads to avoid being hit by the low-hanging branches. At last, coming to a small lake, Courtenay took her hand and led her to a large rock.

“Sit down, Heather,” he said softly. “Do you like it here? I often came here when I was a boy. Before I was imprisoned in the Tower.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“And you are beautiful.” His eyes swept over her with a hunger which made her cheeks turn red. “Someday I will be king and all this will be mine, but I would trade it all for the words that you love me.”

“Edward…”

He pushed her down upon the rock and knelt beside her, taking both her hands in his. “Let me love you, Heather. I can sweep away all thoughts of Richard Morgan from your mind.” His mouth descended upon hers before she could protest, his kiss gentle. Heather opened her lips to his, reaching up her arms, and sought to draw him closer, waiting for the sweet fire Richard’s kisses always brought her. There was none, no matter how desperately she sought to lose herself in this man’s caresses.

“Oh, God, Heather,” Courtenay moaned, reaching up his hand to close over the curve of her breast. “I want you so.” No longer the gentle lover, Courtenay was carried away by his desires, tugging at her dress in an effort to bare her breasts, and Heather stiffened in shock. She couldn’t give herself to his man, no matter how wounded she was by Richard. She shoved at his hands; he was going too far, too fast. He had to stop.

“No!”

“Yes,” he whispered, covering her mouth again with his own. Heather began to fight him in earnest, but the harder she fought, the tighter Courtenay held her. “I’ll make you want me. I will. I will.” Tearing at her bodice, he at last bared her breasts, and it was then that Richard Morgan bounded through the brush like some wild animal of prey.

“Leave her alone!” he growled, lifting Courtenay up by his doublet to meet him eye to eye. “You bastard. I ought to…”

“Richard. No.” Heather sought to ward off the violence that threatened. “Please.” Tugging at her dress, she cried out. “He didn’t harm me. Please.”

Faced with a man of great strength, Edward Courtenay cowered. “Don’t hit me. Don’t.”

Richard thrust the man from him in disgust. “Get your royal backside out of here, Courtenay, before I change my mind. The queen has need of you, though I cannot say why.”

Without a backward glance at Heather, Courtenay obeyed, mounting his horse and riding off.

“He would have made you his mistress but never his wife!” Richard chided. “He longs to wear the crown.”

“And is it not your mistress you would make of me?”

Slowly he moved toward her, reaching out to capture her slender shoulders in his hands and pulling her toward him. “Such torture to see you in Courtenay’s arms, but I will show you what a real kiss is.” Ruthlessly his mouth came down on hers, engulfing Heather in the familiar sensations of ecstasy. To have him kiss her once again, to feel his heartbeat against hers, was intoxicating. Pressing her body closer to his, she sought the passion of his embrace. She craved his kisses as the flowers craved the sun. Warm, sweet desire fused their bodies together. Weakly she clung to him as his arms encircled her. Heather felt as though she were falling into a deep, dark vortex, felt possessed by their passion, and fought frantically to keep from being consumed by this power he held over her, this flame in the blood. If she let him touch her like this she would be lost. Lost.

“No!” Tearing herself away, she stumbled backward. “You will not force yourself on me again.”

Her words stung him as bitter bile flooded his throat. “Force myself on you again?” he choked. “I have never…” He thought of the fever in the blood he had felt in the stables that magical night, but she had not fought him. “You were willing enough that night,” he growled, lashing out at her because of his wounded pride. “Does it now make you feel better to think that I forced you?”

Putting her hands to her face, Heather burst into a storm of tears. “No. No. I don’t know what I think.”

Richard clenched his fists, not knowing what to say to her, what to do. A woman’s tears could quickly unman one’s anger. “Don’t cry,” he whispered helplessly. Damn, how he loved her. Even his anger could not do away with that feeling. Just the sight of her turned him into a quivering, witless fool, aching to possess her.

“Heather.” He reached out to take her arm, and frowned as she shrugged off his hand.

“I don’t ever want to speak to you again,” she cried, seeking to still her longing with anger. How could she forget the sight of him in Catherine Todd’s arms? “You are despicable. Married to one woman,  lusting after others. I won’t be one of your collection of women.”

“My collection?” Remembering Catherine Todd, he knew instinctively that this was her doing, that she had prompted Heather’s words. “I want only you. No other woman means anything to me.”

“But Catherine….”

“Is a woman scorned. We were lovers, yes. But that was many long years ago. When I witnessed the woman’s treachery firsthand, I no longer wanted her.”

“I don’t believe you. You have lied to me once, why not again?”

A muscle in Richard’s jaw twitched in anger. “I have never lied to you! I tell you that she means nothing to me, and I tell you true.”

She wanted to believe him. How she wanted to think that he told the truth, yet she knew what she saw. Besides, there was another who stood in the way. “Edlyn.”

“Edlyn.”

“Even if you did not love Catherine Todd, there is Edlyn to consider. One day you will go home to her arms.”

“Not to her arms. Oh, Heather, I tried to tell you, but you would not listen to me. Instead you avoided me, never allowing yourself near me unless we were in a crowd. Do you have any idea how that tore me apart inside?” He reached up, combing his hand through the thick black of his hair. “I have no wife, no real wife. The woman who bears my name is not right in the head. She is insane.”

She gasped. The thought was too horrible to imagine. All sorts of pictures danced through her head. “Oh no!” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Why did you not get the marriage annulled?”

“I tried. A dozen times. I sought a divorce, but at every turn I have been thwarted. John Renfred is still a man of much influence, and now the queen herself, remembering her mother’s woes, has denied me.”

“Richard, I…I don’t know what to say.” Was that the truth? She knew that it must be. It would have been such a monstrous lie.

“Say that you love me, as I love you. Tell me that it doesn’t matter. That we can be together. That my marriage is of no importance. That it will not stand between us.”

She wanted to have him take her in his arms again, longed to tell him what he wanted to hear, but she could not. She needed time to think. Time to digest all that he had revealed to her. “I cannot.”

“Then there is nothing more that I can say.” It took every ounce of his strength to turn away, but it was a thing he knew he must do. “I love you. Remember that,” he said softly. Then he was gone.

As he left her, Heather felt a cold wind sweep over her, like the wind that blew across the lake. She wanted to call him back, to tell him that she loved him too, but he was gone before she could say another word.

Chapter Thirty-One

After her meeting with Richard, Heather felt bereft. For so long she had avoided him, had dreaded what he might tell her, and now it was over and her world seemed suddenly empty.

“My wife is insane.” She heard over and over again those words and her heart bled for him. Yet even so, could she come to his arms, be his mistress? The question was always in her brain. Even now as she came upon a small circle of ladies of the court.

“It is enough that we must attend Mass morning and night,” Catherine Todd was grumbling, “but now she expects us to go to confessional as well. Must I spend all my hours in the chapel? What will we have to suffer next?”

Anne Fairfax, a plump distant cousin of Stephen’s Vickery’s, laughed. “Poor dear,” she said with mock sympathy. “You are so abused, but then a little beauty sleep would do you a world of good. I believe I can see bags under your eyes.”

Heather tried to keep from smiling. Anne Fairfax was adept at putting the haughty green-eyed vixen in her place. Perhaps it was that which drew Heather to the brown-haired, brown-eyed woman. Anne was the oldest of the ladies-in-waiting and had the important position of sharing the queen’s chambers. Sharp of wit, Anne was a match for anyone. She had befriended Heather and was one of the few ladies who did not remind Heather of her lack of “noble blood” or shun her because of Catherine Todd’s words.

“I do not mind Mass,” Heather confided to her new friend. “At home I was always up much earlier and went to bed at a much later time. Life at court is so frivolous that I sometimes feel guilty and lazy.”

Catherine Todd looked daggers at both Anne and Heather before she walked away, taking her circle of friends with her, and Anne cocked her head. “Remember our dear friend Catherine is used to keeping late hours and sleeping late in the morning. Pretending to be a devout Catholic is most difficult work for her.” They both laughed. “Ah, but one of these days she will forget herself and rattle her tongue too often.”

Heather stopped laughing. “Anne, tell me true. What do you think will happen to us now with Mary as queen? It is confusing. I remember the king as head of the church. Will Mary take us back to Rome?”

“It is difficult to foresee. Papist. Heretic. Each side calls the other names. There are those who call the new faith Protestant, yet we in England consider the Protestants heretics and refer to ourselves as ‘the reformed Catholics.’”

“Somehow I feel that God does not truly care in what manner we worship him as long as we love him in our hearts,” Heather whispered.

“Well-spoken,” Anne replied as they walked down the hall together to their rooms. “We sometimes forget the message to love one another that our Lord gave us. To love God and each other. Yet Catholics persecute Protestants and Protestants do the same to Catholics. Where will it all end?”

“At least Mary has shown tolerance,” Heather answered.

“Yes, at least for the moment.” There was a worried look in Anne’s eyes, as if she sensed that the future might not be as calm as the present moment. “Mary is hopeful of converting those of the reformed faith back to the old ways. Let us hope that she will be as lenient when she learns that she may not be successful.”

Heather was to remember this conversation in the months to come and wonder if at that moment Anne Fairfax had a premonition of her own tragic fate.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Richard managed to lose himself in his work, trying to forget his pain at losing Heather. He had done everything possible to see her alone, to press her for an answer, but she was always just out of his reach like an elusive butterfly. He had nearly given up hope that she would ever love him again. He had even begun to believe that perhaps she would be better off with Courtenay, yet one look at Heather swept such thoughts from his mind. He was selfish in his desire. The thirst for her love could not be denied.

“Richard, I like this not at all,” he heard Stephen Vickery exclaim as he paced the floor of the library. Now that he was in residence at court, it was his friendship for this man that saved his sanity. “That man, that ‘imperial ambassador,’ oversteps his bounds,”

“I don’t like it either. We did not risk our lives to be ruled by such as he.”

Stephen Vickery pulled at his red-gold beard in agitation. “Our hands are tied. You must understand Mary. All those years when her father had cast off her mother and declared Mary a bastard, she had only one sympathetic ear—her cousin, Charles V. Spain, her mother’s country, her kinsman, were her only friends. Is it any wonder that she still looks to Charles for guidance and advice and thus to this man Renard?”

Richard stopped his pacing. “I understand. But for the man to actually think to cut Elizabeth out of the succession to the throne. That is unthinkable.”

“He has not actually proposed such a thing to the council.”

“No, but I have heard him talking with the queen. He will do so after the coronation. And as to this imprisonment of our archbishop, Cranmer. I know he instigated it.”

Rising from his chair, Stephen Vickery sought to calm his friend. “Mary would have been tolerant, even with all that has been done to her, if not for Renard’s constant suggestions. And of course Cranmer has preached against the Mass as an abominable blasphemy….”

“There have been aggressions on both sides. Bishop Bonner’s chaplain had a dagger thrown at him in front of a crowd, a gathering that deeply resented his Catholic preaching. Damn! Many more instances such as this and Mary will cease to listen to us, to those who urge moderation, and turn instead to Seton’s kind, who love to agitate.” Clenching his jaw, he asked, “By the way, just where is Seton? Why has he not been to court?”

Vickery smiled. “I fear a touch of vanity has overcome him. While I was in London I noticed him spending an  inordinate amount of time with a merchant. No doubt when he makes his entry here at Greenwich he will look like a peacock.”

“With a merchant, you say? Which merchant?” A feeling of foreboding gripped Richard.

“Why, Thomas Bowen. Our lovely Heather’s father.” He laughed. “I have yet to forget the kiss that beauty gave to me in the Tower. It was nearly worth risking my life for. Of course my
wife
would have my head if she ever heard me say so.”

Richard closed his eyes, remembering a time when he too had felt the softness of her lips, the glory of her body. How could she ever known how many times he dreamed of her, longed for her?

“At least we have not had to suffer Seton’s foul temper, Richard. We should thank our good fortune. Let the merchant have him, I say. Seton can hardly do us much harm looking for cloth.”

Richard was not as soothed. Seton hated him; this he knew all too well. The thought that the visit to Thomas Bowen was more than just a desire to purchase fine cloth was uppermost in his mind.