The Uncrowned Queen by Posie Graeme-evans

turned to a thread of smoke.
    â€œDoes it please Your Majesty to rest?” Louis de Gruuthuse bowed as he spoke.
    The deep respect he offered was small solace to Edward for now he must give heart to his men. It was an easier task in battle—a reflex operation to swing a sword or an axe in response to years of training; the fear snuffed out in action. No time to wonder what was right, only time to act. This slow game of politics was different. This was thought above physical strength and a truer test of who he was in many ways. And so Edward raised his head and smiled warmly at his host, a real smile this time. “Certainly it does, dear friend,” he said, yawning, and linked his arm through that of Louisde Gruuthuse. “You know, Louis, this will make a great tale in the telling when you visit us in London,” he went on. “How the king went to bed one night and, in the morning, woke with the solution to his little problem.” Edward laughed, and his genuine lightness of tone drew relieved chuckles from his brother Richard and William, his closest friend. Their spirits lifted. There would be a way; there was always a way.
    But later that night, alone in the great bed, Edward lay with eyes open in the darkness and his mind turned and churned on the fair, safe words from his brother-in-law. Could the man not see the danger if he allowed Edward to swing on the gibbet of chance? Or did he not want to see? And was his sister, the duchess, true to her family’s cause, or had her great love for her husband distorted her loyalty to her original home? Edward frowned as he remembered the wedding so little time ago, his sister’s hand trembling as he’d placed it in that of her new husband after the nuptial mass at Damme.
    And Anne. His Anne. Why did he still yearn to see her, to touch her, when so much else was at risk?
    Perhaps the itch of the flesh was a useful distraction and his dreams of her, the clear heat of his thoughts when he remembered her face and her body, was God’s kind way of giving him relief from the endless tension of his days. Blasphemous thought! The priests would be shocked if he confessed such things. But still, could it be so?
    Yes. God was merciful, for Edward’s last images before deep sleep took him were of Anne—laughing, reaching out a hand to touch him, kissing his mouth—rather than the harrowing specters of loss and disgrace that had haunted these last days.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Leif placed the first split log on the fire he’d started in Anne’s workroom, and then another, carefully lifting the kindling beneath so that air rushed in and made the flames leap and catch. The room was cold but, because it was small, would warm rapidly if he built the blaze well. At first light he’d occupied himself in cutting wood for all the fireplaces in Anne’s home. Everywhere he’d looked on the farmstead there was work half done in preparation for winter. Anne needed more men to help her, and someone to oversee their work, or she’d be taken advantage of. He did not like to think of that. At some very deep level of his being, he wanted the mistress of this house to be warm and safe. He shook his head; he was avoiding the truth. He could stack all the logs he liked, but there’d be no warm, safe winter for Anne de Bohun.
    Standing in the open doorway unseen, Anne watched Leif and found herself smiling. For such a large man he did his work neatly, taking pride in the tidy stack of logs he’d built beside the hearth.
    â€œThank you for the fire, Leif, and all the wood you’ve cut. It will be very useful.”
    The seaman spun around, startled. Anne smiled again as she sat on a joint stool and picked up her carding comb. There was a mass of unspun wool in a basket by her feet; she bent to select a hank of it. “The year has truly turned. It’s cold today.”
    Leif nodded as he fed the fire, watching from the corner of