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Joshua straightened up and turned to her, his face shadowed. He took a step forward and Diana went to meet him. But she only got close enough to catch at his arm as he crashed to the floor.
When she knelt beside him, he was burning with fever.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ISMAY
APRIL 1461
Those that were adversaries and enemies to the Duke of York, on the thirtieth day of December the Year of Our Lord 1460 they fell upon the duke and killed him outside Wakefield, and his son Edmund the Earl of Rutland. When the death of these lords was known, great sorrow was made for them. May God have mercy on their souls.
On the twenty-ninth day of March the Year of Our Lord 1461, on that most holy Palm Sunday, our lord and great king Edward, son of the slain Duke of York, did defeat the enemies of the people in battle at Towton in Yorkshire. Margaret of Anjou and the aforesaid King Henry, being ill-loved by those they claimed to rule, fled to Scotland. The Sun in Splendor now shines over all.
Ismay was not surprised when one of her men told her Edward was coming to Havencross. He’d been in the North for more than a month now, mopping up the last pockets of Lancastrian resistance after Towton. Not that she’d been expecting him to come see her. She didn’t expect anything anymore.
Except one thing …
At fully seven months gone, there was little chance of hiding her condition. Ismay stood in the forecourt, hand resting on the swell of her pregnancy, and watched England’s king arrive at her home.
It was so hard to credit—careless, reckless, impudent, charming Edward as king. His father, yes. Richard of York had been a natural to politics and governing and the kind of worrying that leaders did. Edmund had had some of those gifts, but Edward? She supposed they would all just have to wait and see.
He hadn’t taken on royal airs, at least not yet. He swung down from his horse and patted the shoulder of the boy who took his reins. Then he came straight to Ismay and took her hands in his, quick eyes and quicker mind understanding all.
“I am glad,” he said, “that there will be something of Edmund still in the world. I am so sorry, my dear sister, that I could not bring him home to you.”
Ismay would never have guessed that Edward’s kindness would be the thing that broke her. She had not cried when the first rumors reached her of the Battle of Wakefield, had not cried when those few of her men who survived the battle returned to Havencross, had not cried when those men told her of Edmund’s brutal death, her seventeen-year-old husband murdered by the Duke of Somerset while attempting to reach sanctuary.
Now she wept. So deeply and for so long that she was hardly aware when Edward easily swept her up and carried her inside.
When at last the flood receded, she and Edward were alone in the small space that had long ago been her father’s study. He handed her a cup of spiced wine and, by the time she’d drained it, Ismay felt scoured clean—and empty. The emptiness where Edmund was not, and would never again be, short of heaven.
“Do you have any questions for me?” Edward asked.
She shook her head. “I know all I ever want to know about what happened at Wakefield.”
“So do I,” he said grimly.
For the first time, Ismay considered someone else’s grief. Edward bowed his head over his clasped hands, and she studied what she could see of his face. His jawline was sharper and his left cheek showed the ravages and scars of recent battles.
“Edward.” She leaned forward and placed one hand atop his clenched ones. “I am also sorry. For you, your mother, your siblings … oh God, Richard and George are so young still! Your father—”
Edward pulled away. “My father should have stayed put inside Sandal Castle and waited for me to arrive.”
She wanted to say something more, to acknowledge the loss of the brother he’d been so close to, something as graceful as he had managed for her. But before her eyes she saw Edward put on the mask of leadership.
Of kingship.
“I can’t stay,” Edward said abruptly. “I’m expected at Middleham to make decisions about the prisoners.”
“I appreciate you coming to see me.” Ismay hesitated before adding, “Your Majesty.”
He looked almost angry for a moment, but Edward of York, Edward the Earl of March and, it seemed, even Edward IV of England retained his innate sense of humor. His lips twitched into a reluctant smile and he leaned back in his seat, long legs stretched before him.
“I didn’t come for you to fawn over me,” he said. “We have business, you and I. With my father gone, I’m the head of the family.”
For a brief moment, Ismay wondered what Cecily Neville would say to that.
Edward plowed on. “You, Ismay, are a member of my family, and so will Edmund’s child be. It goes without saying that, even without those ties, I would consider it a matter of honor to ensure a girl raised in my father’s household never lacked for anything. But you are tied to us, legally.”
