Chapter Forty-One

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

ISMAY MARCH 1471

Ismay met Warwick and his men outdoors in the forecourt. She only managed to keep calm because her son's life depended on it, and because she'd spent years watching the Duchess of York in the most stressful moments of her life. She channeled the erect posture, the lifted chin, the neutral expression that Cecily Neville had evinced on the day Ludlow fell to the Lancastrians and she waited for Warwick to come to her.

Though he was more than ten years older than the last time she'd seen him—which had been on that same day of Ludlow's fall—at forty-two, Warwick retained the energy that had always been his most marked characteristic. He dismounted, tossed his reins to one of his men-at-arms, and commanded the dozen others to "secure the gate and the yard. No one leaves until I say so."

"Do you always treat those you visit like you're entering an armed camp?" she asked.

He stood at the base of the steps and studied her with the impersonal manner with which he'd assessed her at age twelve. He didn't smile, but then Warwick rarely did, leaving the charm to his royal nephew.

"My aunt would be proud," he said. "But then, you always had a little spirit to you. You know why I'm here."

"To offer me another Neville marriage?"

"Right now you must be wishing that you'd accepted Johnny."

"John Neville—a man who sold out his king."

"A man who chose his family."

"Edward is your family as well. What does your aunt think of your new allegiances?"

"As one of her sons stands with me, she is … pragmatic about the matter."

"Is she pragmatic about your alliance with Margaret of Anjou?" Ismay would never believe that the Duchess of York would accept her nephew's alliance with the hated former queen and the Lancastrian men who'd murdered her husband and second son.

Warwick ignored the thrust. "If you've sent your servants away, as it appears you have, it must be because you don't want me spreading rumors about your son's true parentage."

"It's no secret that he does not carry the name of his father." She couldn't bring herself to openly call her child a bastard.

"Shall we continue this discussion inside, Lady Ismay? Do you really wish to discuss your most personal affairs in the open air?"

"I will not have armed men in my home."

"They will remain here. Would you like me to discard my sword, as well?" he asked with elaborate politeness.

"That won't be necessary." If Warwick wanted to kill her, he'd manage it with or without his sword.

She brought him to the ground-floor study, where she'd met with Edward nine years ago. Warwick chose to lean against the table, arms folded. Ismay remained on her feet.

"I'll admit," Warwick said, "I'd rather lost track of you this last decade. A silly girl who'd failed to seize any advantage from her connections with my family—what did I care what she might be up to? But George, well, George had a very interesting story about the pretty Ismay whom he had been quite attached to as a boy and how she'd shut herself away up north after bearing a bastard child. George seemed to think Edward responsible."

He did smile at her now. "And yet, in ten years I had never heard your name so much as cross Edward's lips. If there's one thing Edward likes to talk about, it's his women and his children. The Woodville witch has shouted about it often enough. And then I remembered the last time I saw you, the night before Ludlow fell. You were clinging to my cousin, all right, all red eyes and trembling lips. But it wasn't Edward you clung to—it was Edmund."

Since he seemed content to hear himself speak, Ismay didn't try to stop him.

"And Edmund was never as cavalier as his brother. He had a romantic streak a mile wide and I considered it highly likely that your bedding came only after marriage."

"Why do you care?" she asked. "Married or not, Edmund has been dead for ten years."

"You were raised among Yorkists; you understand the intricacies of inheritance. Since the moment Edward became king, George has been his heir."

"I understood the queen has at last given birth to a son."

"In sanctuary at Westminster. I'm not worried about an infant. And George is conveniently on my side, being married to my eldest daughter."

"And?"

She would make him say it, a realization he seemed to have reached.

"You want me to spell it out? Royal succession depends both on legitimacy and the order of birth. Edmund was the next eldest brother in his family, George coming third. If Edmund left a legitimate son, that son replaces George."

"None of this matters though, as you've managed to drive Edward out of England and returned Margaret of Anjou's son to England. Conveniently married to your younger daughter."

"I think you know better than that, Ismay. I needed money and men, and she could give me both. Edward turned out to be disappointingly stubborn, in ways George is not."

"The kingmaker wants to rule," Ismay said. "You will use Margaret of Anjou and her son, then rid yourself of them when no longer convenient. And you think George will be more pliable in your hands, especially as your son-in-law."

"Quite. My job is to ensure there are no other Yorkist claimants. At some point Edward will return with young Richard, and they will fall on the field like their father did. Edward's detestable queen cannot stay in sanctuary forever—and infants are notoriously fragile. That leaves only your son, and Edmund's."

"How fortunate for you that my son is dead. He died of a fever this winter."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe what you like. Search where you will. There is no child here."

She had known he would not take her at her word. She had known how hard it would be to lie to Warwick's face, which was why she had sent her servants away. But Ismay realized that she was no longer afraid of Warwick, so long as Edmund was out of his reach.

His men tore the house apart, from cellar to solar, ripping down tapestries and emptying barrels as though she'd hidden a nine-year-old in a cask of flour. Everywhere in her beautiful house was the sound of footsteps, many heavy-booted feet tramping through the corridors, men's voices, the pounding of steel dagger hilts on closed doors and caskets, reverberating through her head and bones until she thought she'd go mad.

It was fully dark by the time they'd cleared the house and the outbuildings. Ismay had been a silent spectator to all of it, kept within arm's reach of Warwick at every turn.

The two were now in the kitchen garden courtyard, the outline of the old chapel against his back. Most of the men she'd ever known gave signs of a slipping temper. Warwick simply struck her with the flat of his hand without warning, hard enough to snap her head to the side.

"Where is he?" he demanded.

"There is no child here." It was the only thing she'd said for hours.

"Do you think I don't know how to make people talk?"

"I think you can make people say what you want to hear, which isn't the same as telling the truth."

"We'll see."

Maybe , she thought, staring at his cold face, I should still be afraid of him .

But the man he directed to hold her had barely laid his hands on her when one of the guards he'd left at the gate strode rapidly around the corner with a sweat-soaked, panting courier at his heels.

"What?" Warwick barked.

"News, my lord. Edward of York and his brother Richard, having landed at Ravenspur, have been permitted entry into the city of York."

Ismay couldn't help herself—she started to laugh. She should have guessed that even in his own extremity and without trying, Edward would manage to help her.

Warwick loomed over Ismay, his man still holding her firmly from behind. "I told you that someday you'd regret your lack of enthusiasm for my plans." He gripped her upper arm with his left hand and said to his man, "Take the cover off the well."

Before Ismay felt more than a flash of confusion and fear, Warwick pulled his dagger and reversed it in his hand with a single flip. She realized what he meant to do just before the dagger's hilt struck her in the temple.