I, Richard - Elizabeth George [86]
Never, Malcolm thought for the thousandth time, never tell a drunkard your secrets or your dreams.
“It was Elizabeth of York,” he said again. “She was ultimately responsible.”
Sheriff Hutton was not an insurmountable distance from Rievaulx, Jervaulx, and Fountain Abbeys. And tucking individuals away in abbeys, convents, monasteries, and priories was a great tradition at that time. Women were the usual recipients of a one-way ticket to the ascetic life. But two young boys—disguised as youthful entrants into a novitiate—would have been safe there from the arm of Henry Tudor should he take the throne of England by means of conquest.
“Tudor would have known the boys were alive,” Malcolm said. “When he pledged himself to marry Elizabeth, he would have known the boys were alive.”
Bernie nodded. “Poor little tykes,” he said with factitious sorrow. “And poor old Richard who took the blame. How'd she get her mitts on them, Malkie? What d'you think? Think she cooked up a deal with Tudor?”
“She wanted to be a Queen more than she wanted to be merely the sister to a King. There was only one way to make that happen. And Henry had been looking elsewhere for a wife at the same time that he was bargaining with Elizabeth Woodville. The girl would have known that. And what it meant.”
Bernie nodded solemnly, as if he cared a half fig for what had happened more than five hundred years ago on an August night not two hundred yards from the pub in which they sat. He shot back his third double whiskey and slapped his stomach like a man at the end of a hearty meal.
“Got the church all prettied up for tomorrow,” he informed Malcolm. “ 'Mazing when you think of it, Malkie. Perrymans been tinkering round St. James Church for two hundred years. Like a family pedigree, that. Don't you think? Remarkable, I'd say.”
Malcolm regarded him evenly. “Utterly remarkable, Bernie,” he said.
“Ever think how different life might've been if your dad and granddad and his granddad before him were the ones who tinkered round St. James Church? P'rhaps I'd be you and you'd be me. What d'you think of that?”
What Malcolm thought of that couldn't be spoken to the man sitting opposite him at the table. Die, he thought. Die before I kill you myself.
“Do you want to be together, darling?” Betsy breathed the question wetly into his ear. Another Saturday. Another three hours of bonking Betsy. Malcolm wondered how much longer he'd have to continue with the charade.
He wanted to ask her to move over—the woman was capable of inducing claustrophobia with more efficacy than a plastic bag—but at this point in their relationship he knew that a demonstration of postcoital togetherness was as important to his ultimate objective as was a top-notch performance between the sheets. And since his age, his inclinations, and his energy were all combining to take his performances down a degree each time he sank between Betsy's well-padded thighs, he realised the wisdom of allowing her to cling, coo, and cuddle for as long as he could endure it without screaming once the primal act was completed between them.
“We are together,” he said, stroking her hair. It was wire-like to the touch, the result of too much bleaching and even more hair spray. “Unless you mean that you want another go. And I'll need some recovery time for that.” He turned his head and pressed his lips to her forehead. “You take it out of me and that's the truth of it, darling Bets. You're woman enough for a dozen men.”
She giggled. “You love it.”
“Not it. You. Love, want, and can't be without.” He sometimes pondered where he came up with the nonsense he told her. It was as if a primitive part of his brain reserved for female seduction went onto autopilot whenever Betsy climbed into his bed.
She buried her fingers in his ample chest hair. He wondered not for the first time why it was that when a man went bald, the rest of his body started sprouting hair in quadruple time. “I