Cicely's King Richard (Cicely Plantagenet Trilogy) (17 page)

She did not want him to be uncle, king or friend. She wanted so much more. She wanted
him
.

Their eyes met, his unfathomable, hers still wide with her shattering new insight. She saw him in a blur of sudden tears. ‘Please do not be kind to me, for I cannot bear it,’ she whispered.

‘Cicely?’ He raised her chin. Always he would touch her, and always she would be glad of it. Such small gestures, so natural to him, so beloved to her. But now . . . now she did not have the sophistication to cope with it.

‘You stop my heart, can you not see it?’ she said at last, only too heedful that every moment she was with him like this, the greater the peril of following Bess into an awful admission.

‘I would not do anything to hurt you, not for the world.’ He hesitated, and then took a curl of her long dark russet hair as it fell past her shoulders. He spread it slowly between his fingers and thumb, an attention that was sensuous and bewitchingly enticing. His hair, her hair. So similar, so subtly stirring, rich and erotic.

Her tears stung. What had happened here today? How had it suddenly become so clear? How could she have failed to recognize how she felt about him? And yet . . . when he spoke to her as he now did, behaved as he now did, how could she have ever
not
known?

‘Have I offended you?’ he asked, taking his hand away.

‘No.’ She pressed her lips tightly together in an effort to control herself. ‘I—I am afraid for you. When I leave here I will not know what happens. I will not know if you are safe.’

‘What will happen is that I will trounce the Tudor upstart. I will be safe and then you will return.’ He smiled again, but there was a shadow over him.

It was a shadow she could not bear to see. She was so acutely conscious of him that her whole body trembled. The room was filled with tension, overflowing with unspoken words and feelings that it was hard to draw breath. Finally she understood herself. She was guilty, exhilarated, confused and yielding, but above all joyful to see at last what had been there all along. ‘I love you,’ she whispered, a tear travelling slowly down her cheek.

He did not seem to hear, but brushed the tear aside. ‘No weeping for me, please,’ he said, hesitating but then permitting his thumb to stroke her.

Was it simply comfort? Or did it mean much more? She only knew that he was temptation itself, sin itself, and she had no defence. Nor did she seek any. Her fate was sealed, and there was no going back. She found her voice. ‘There
must
be tears. Do you not see that I love you? I
love you as Bess does, and I cannot stand the pain.’

‘Oh, my sweet, sweet Cicely . . .’ He whispered her name, and she saw more in his eyes in that moment than she had ever seen before.

‘Do not hate me, please,’ she begged, so overcome that she felt she drowned in the flood of self-knowledge that inundated everything. Common sense was denied her now, and she stepped right to him and slipped her arms around his neck and allowed her parted lips to move longingly over his cheek. She had become the very embodiment of love, a being of sheer desire, all restraint cast aside just for this one illicit moment of holding him, not as her uncle or king, but as the man she longed for. She hardly knew her lips dragged achingly towards his, with a carnal need of such passion and meaning that it laid waste everything she had ever believed of herself.

At any moment he would push her away, distraught that she, the niece he trusted, was as guilty as her sister.

Chapter Nineteen

But Richard did
not push her away. Cicely felt his momentary resistance, and heard the brief catch of his breath. Once again he was confronted by a niece’s desire . . . but was this different? Would he be as repulsed as before, and thrust her away from him? Would he look upon her with disgust and disbelief?

Slowly, at first hesitantly—reluctantly, even—his arm slid around her waist and he drew her closer. His hand went to the nape of her neck and his fingers pushed richly into her warm hair. Her heart threatened to halt as he began to return her kiss. It was not the kiss of an uncle, for it burned her lips with its potency. He was no fond kinsman now, but a lover, ardent, aroused and unchecked.

He pulled her even closer, enveloping her in his arms and kissing her as if he would blend her body into his. She had never felt so much, or so completely. He tasted of mint, so cool, fresh and clean, and yet his lips were not cool, they were warm and pliable, cherishing and delighting her senses. She was weightless, adrift on pure emotion, loved and loving . . . until he drew back, brought to cold sanity by the degree to which he had given in. He removed her arms hastily and stepped away.

‘No! For you are my niece, my niece!’
Overcome, he ran his hand agitatedly through his hair. ‘You should go, Cicely, and forget this has happened.’

Tears leapt to her eyes again. ‘Forget? Never!’

‘Please.’

‘Being your niece does not stop me from loving you as I should not,’ she whispered, so choked that her words were almost incomprehensible. ‘I did not know. I did not know that the feelings within me were of this kind. Until now. Suddenly I see it all so clearly. If I embarrass you, disgust you, I cannot help it.’

He caught her hand and linked his fingers impulsively through hers. ‘No, Cicely, you do not embarrass me, and you certainly do not disgust me. Do you think I could kiss you so if that were the case? You are not at fault. In your innocence, you did not know this for what it is, but I have known all along.’

She gazed at him through tears. What was he saying?

‘I know what I do, Cicely. I am not an untested boy, and certainly not the innocent you may have thought me to be. Since my marriage I have never played with fire in my private life, because I have seen what it can do. So no matter how great the temptation, I have remained my own master. If that has made me the target of coarse curiosity, I could not care a jot. Your father gave in to temptation time and time again and eventually it ruined him. Forgive me, Cicely, but you know that the man he was in the end was not the man he had been in the beginning.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘And now,
now,
I have permitted fire to enter my private life, and I am in danger of letting it consume us both. You do not deserve that. I am by far old enough to know better. You have every right to expect more of me.’

She could not grasp his meaning; her thoughts were spinning so out of control that she could only fix upon that one word, ‘old’. ‘You are but thirty-two, I am sixteen. I see nothing wrong in that.’

‘In your seventeenth year?’ He trapped her glance.

‘Yes.’

‘Cicely, have you not realized what I have just confessed to you?’

‘I cannot think. I am in such . . . I do not know what I am in, save that it is more wonderful than I had ever dreamed. I love you, and that is all that matters to me.’

He searched her eyes. ‘Oh, sweet Cicely, you say I stop your heart, but you have demolished mine.’ He turned away. ‘As for age, if that is what concerns you, you are old enough for it not to be any problem, but that does not matter because I am your uncle. Your uncle, Cicely. It is forbidden, and even if a thousand dispensations were to be granted, in my eyes it would still be wrong.’

‘But not in mine.’

He smiled. ‘No, not in yours, but there are rules, bars that should not be crossed, and this is one of them. I have not set those rules, but I do want to observe them. At this moment I am not doing so. Nor have I for some time. Since you, Cicely. Think back. Have I
ever
behaved towards you as just your uncle and king? Have I treated you as I have everyone else? The answer is no. I have often wanted to be with you, and have always made the opportunity.’

John’s words echoed within her.
I feel that there is someone else he thinks of. A woman.
She stood there, her body and mind still in the grip of his kiss. ‘You have done nothing wrong,’ she said then. Nothing he had
ever
done to her had been wrong.

‘Yes, Cicely, I have.’

‘Then so have I,’ she answered with raw honesty. ‘I can hardly credit how blind I have been, but today, at last, I can see. Do you say that my love is the less for being so close to you in blood?’

‘Please listen to what I am saying, for I think you do not understand. I feel too much for you, Cicely, and it is wrong. The fault is mine, not yours, because I have done precious little to prevent this, and I am the one who should know better. It was always within my power to stop myself. Now it is too late.’

He felt too much for her. He had said it, and meant it. The world seemed to move too slowly around her, and she was rooted, unable to do anything but gaze at the man she loved so very much. ‘But you do not really want to stop yourself, any more than I do,’ she breathed. ‘I know it is wrong to feel as I do for you, but it is also too perfect to be wrong. With every second that passes now I am deeper in your heart, as you are in mine. It is what I want. What we both want. Do you not see this love for its beauty?’

‘Yes, of course I see it, but you must accept the truth about me, Cicely. I am a hypocrite. Because of you, my love for Anne faltered in the end.’ He paused. ‘Not that she ever truly loved me. I know that. I have always known it.’

Her heart was igniting as she realized more and more that he felt for her as she felt for him. ’I do not know how
any
woman could not love you completely, utterly, without hesitation or doubt,’ she said softly. ‘What is there about you that
cannot
be loved? Nothing. Nothing at all.’

He smiled gently. ‘Perhaps that is why I am so drawn to you, Cicely. I see in you what you see in me. I have always thought of you too often and too much. I have failed those who mean the most, especially you. And there is John. I behave as if pleased to permit him to marry you, when all the time I want you myself. I love you, Cicely, and not as your uncle.’

He loved her. He
loved
her. She could not speak. Could not breathe. All sound had deadened, except for his words. And they were so sweet to her that she could have wept.

‘Cicely, my guilt and remorse is such that it weighs upon my heart. If I could turn time back upon itself and put a leash upon my weakness, I would, but now it is beyond my will to undo what I feel for you. It has never happened to me before, this feeling of intolerable need, this worship of your smile, of everything about you. So do not see me as a shining knight, beyond reproach, because every time I look at you, I make a mockery of my responsibilities.’

‘No!’

Richard managed a regretful laugh. ‘Our love is incestuous, Cicely. It is an ugly word, but true nevertheless. It is the self-same sin I stood up in public to deny so strenuously when it came to Bess. The self-same sin I have only just told
her
I could never countenance. Of course I could not countenance it with her, I do not
love
her. But I think of committing that sin with you, Cicely. I think of it often, and I long to do it. The gossip was so right, but it alighted upon the wrong niece. My honour is as distorted as my back.’

New tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Please do not describe yourself like that. In my eyes you are peerless, and if you desire me, then I am the happiest of creatures. I love you as you are, as you always have been and always will be.’

‘Oh, Cicely, will you
never
see me clearly?’

‘I
always
see you clearly,’ she cried, her voice breaking, ‘and never more so than now. If you had another chance, and time really could be reversed, would you not have returned my kiss? Would you have rejected me?’

His eyes were expressive. ‘I should say yes.’

She longed to go to him again, to steal another kiss from those lips, but something about him prevented it. She could only stand there, absorbing every beloved feature. ‘I may be like Bess, but I am a thousand times luckier because I know what it is to be kissed by you. Not just a fond buss upon the cheek, or a polite bow over my hand, but a kiss upon my lips. The kiss of the man, not the uncle. The kiss of the lover.’

‘Please, Cicely, for each word shames me more.’

‘We have not lain together, we have done nothing wrong. A kiss is not a sin.’

‘That kiss was, and you know it,’ he countered. ‘I feel so much for you that even now, when everything that has been unsaid is suddenly in the open, its hazards so manifest, I am in danger of letting my heart rule my head.’

She gazed at him, so tempting, so alone, so racked with guilt. The passion he inspired in her was almost insupportable. ‘
Please
do not turn me away from you now, for I could not bear it. I will go to Sheriff Hutton, I will do whatever you want of me, but please do not deny me your friendship. Do not be as cool with me as you are with Bess. I do not know how she can bear it, for I know it would surely deny me the will to live.’

Her words moved him. ‘How can you still feel this for me? I have used you shabbily. I
know
how sad you are for me, how warm-hearted and gentle you are, how much you care for me, and today I made you stay with me. I knew it was wrong, that I was courting a danger that should never even exist, but still I did it. I could not prevent myself, because I did not want you to go with Bess, but to stay and feel for me what I feel for you. And you do, Cicely, you do. Now it has led to this. I have what I want—your love—but I cannot have you in the fullest sense of the word. If I could make you my queen, I would. Do you understand? That is how much I feel for you. I would honour you as no other, not even Anne, whom God knows, I loved at first. You rise above everything, Cicely, for you are my soul’s mirror. With you beside me there is nothing I could not do. You make me feel . . . invincible. You comfort me so much that I cannot bear it when you are not with me.’

‘You say such beautiful things,’ she whispered.

‘Maybe I do, but no uncle should feel that way. You are my brother’s child, Cicely. Too close. Far too close.’

‘And you blame yourself for what has happened tonight? I
made
you kiss me.’

He smiled. ‘No, Cicely, I let you persuade me. There is a great difference. I surrendered without even a token pretence. For those brief moments I could hold you as I wanted to, kiss you as I wanted to. I knew what I did, that I made you love me even more. It was what I wanted so much. Your love. You.’ He drew a long breath. ‘I will always want you, but it is time to think of you, not me. It may be belated, but I
must
face my accountability. You need me to behave as I should, not as I wish.’

‘As you
should
? No, that is not what I want! If you tell me to go now, and forget these past minutes, then I will, but without
ever
forgetting or discarding my love.’ At last she went closer, to touch his sleeve with a hand that shook so much she could only stop it by gripping the rich cloth. ‘
Do
you want me to go?’

He was silent for a moment. ‘Again, I should say yes.’

‘But will you?’ She made him look at her. ‘Will you?’

‘Cicely, I have just told you that I manipulated what has happened here tonight, that I contemplated your seduction and even began it. Do you not realize it?’

‘I kissed you,’ she repeated.

‘No, Cicely. I enticed you. I played upon your feelings, and knew exactly what I was doing.’ He held her eyes. ‘I want there to be no misapprehension, for it is too important. If I do not say all this now, there will come a day when you finally do realize it, and then you may despise me.’

She hesitated. ‘Why do you not see that there is nothing you can do that will change my love or regard? You can hurt me, yes. With one word, one cruel dismissal, you could destroy my heart so that it will never recover. But you cannot stop me loving you. Maybe it is now you who do not understand. Whatever it was that you instigated this evening, I am glad of it, because if you had not, we would not be standing here now, saying these things to each other. We would not know we loved each other.’

‘Oh, I would still know I loved you,’ he said a little wryly, ‘but if I had left you alone, would you still feel as you do now, I wonder?’

‘Maybe not tonight, but I was close to the realization. Just how many more times could I have been with you and not seen the truth? I have always known I loved you, I merely mistook the nature of that love. Even so, I knew it went too far, knew there was something too strong and different. You are an exceptional man, Richard Plantagenet, and if you thought of seducing me tonight, I wish you had, for by now I would have had all of you, and that would make me . . . Oh, I do not quite know, save that I would nurse my good fortune into eternity.’ She ran a fingertip down his cheek, as he had earlier to her. ‘I have been sleeping, but am now awake—to a love that has been waiting to be accepted.’

He was affected, and although he looked away, she was sure she saw tears in his eyes. ‘It does not matter how we feel, Cicely, we still have to turn from this. It cannot be spoken of again, and we cannot let it be known in any way. To anyone. Certainly not to John.’ His eyes became suddenly anxious. ‘Not to John,’ he said again.

‘How can you imagine I would confide this? To do so would hurt him, but it would also hurt you, and that is something I could
never
do. I still love John. I will be all to him that he desires, but you alone will be in my deepest heart. Not even my confessor will know, for I value it too much to put it in danger.’

‘Your confessor would not believe you anyway. He considers women to be incapable of telling the truth.’ Richard observed with faint irony.