Virgin Widow Read Online Free PDF

with fanciful flowers and birds as in the Countess’s own bedchamber. The floor was of polished oak boards rather than the fashionable painted tiles that had been laid in Warwick Castle. I frowned as I picked up what this boy might think was lacking. But the wooden bedstead was canopied and hung with silk drapes that must surely please, with a matching silk bedcover. The deep green shimmered as a dart of sunshine lanced across it. There was achest and a press for garments. There was even a whole handful of wax candles in a tall iron candle-stand that could not be sneered at by anyone who wished to read…What more did he want?
    ‘And where have you come from?’ I hoped my brows rose in a semblance of the Countess at her most superior. How dared he sit in judgement on my home when his own was probably little more than a crude keep and bailey, with no improvements since its construction under William the Norman!
    ‘Fotheringhay. My father had a new wing built with wall fireplaces and lower ceilings.’ He cast another uncharitable eye around his accommodation.
    ‘This castle,’ I stated, voice rising, ‘is one of the largest in the country.’
    ‘That does not make it the most comfortable. Or where I would wish to be.’ He looked at me as if I were an annoying wasp. ‘Who are you, anyway?’ he asked.
    ‘I am Lady Anne Neville,’ with all the presumption of indulged youth. ‘Who are you?’
    ‘Richard Plantagenet.’
    ‘Oh.’ I was no wiser, although the name Plantagenet was a royal one. ‘My father is the Earl of Warwick.’
    ‘I know. The Earl is my cousin, so we are cousins once removed, I suppose.’ He did not seem delighted at the prospect.
    ‘Who is your father?’ I asked.
    ‘The Duke of York. He is dead.’
    I ignored the shortness of the reply, homing in on the information. Now I knew. ‘So your brother is King Edward.’ That put the newcomer into quite a different category in my mind.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How old are you?’ I continued my nosy catechism. ‘You don’t look old enough to begin your training as a knight. I am more than eight.’
    ‘I am twelve years old. I am already a Knight of the Garter.’
    ‘Only because your brother is King!’
    He shrugged as he bent to pat a hound that had wandered in, clearly not prepared to offer any more conversation.
    ‘I too am very important,’ I informed him. I had no dignity.
    ‘You are a girl. And still a child.’
    Which put me entirely in my place. I turned on my heel and stomped from the room, leaving him to make his own way or wait for Isabel’s tender mercies. I think it was Francis Lovell who eventually took pity on him and took him to my mother’s chamber. I was not there. Lady Masham had run me to ground in her fussy manner and scolded me for absenting myself from my lessons.
    I was not satisfied with my brief acquaintance.
    Richard Plantagenet continued to say little, buttook to his studies well enough. He intrigued me. His confidence. His quiet, self-contained competence. I began to haunt the exercise yard and the lists when I could where he practised the knightly drills. And I was right. He suffered. He did not have the stature or strength of muscle to hold his own against Francis, who was often pitted against him. Richard spent a lot of time sprawled in the dust and dirt. But he did not give in. And I had to admire his courage, his determination to scrape himself up from the floor. Quick and alert, he soon learned that he could make up in guile and speed for what he lacked in size and weight. He could ride a horse as if born in the saddle.
    But still he was often on the floor with a bloody nose and dust plastered over his face. After a particularly robust session with sword and shield, Master Ellerby sent him to sit on the bench as the side of the exercise yard. Still dazed, Richard Plantagenet rubbed his face and nose on his sleeve. I crept along by the wall and sat on the bench with him. An opportunity too good to miss, to find