captivated by the enchantment he offered?
These thoughts would lead to her desperation, which was what Malcolm had been assiduously massaging for months, whispering at the most tender of moments, “Oh God, if I'd only known what it was going to be like to have you, finally. And now to want you completely…” And then the tears, wept into her hair, and the revelation of the agonies of guilt and despair he experienced each time he rolled deliciously within the arms of his old friend's wife. “I can't bear to hurt him, darling Bets. If you and he were to divorce… How could I ever live with myself if he ever knew how I've betrayed our friendship?”
She'd remember this, in the farmhouse bedroom with her hot forehead pressed to the cold windowpane. They'd been together for three hours that morning, but she'd realise that it was not enough. It would never be enough to sneak round as they were doing, to pretend indifference to each other when they met at Gloucester Grammar. Until they were a couple-legally, as much as they were already a couple spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically-she could never have peace.
But Bernie stood between her and happiness, she would think. Bernie Perryman, driven to alcohol by the demon of fear that the congenital abnormality that had taken his grandfather, his father, and both of his brothers before their forty-fifth birthdays would claim him as well. “Weak heart,” Bernie had doubtless told her, since he'd used it as an excuse for everything he'd done-and not done-for the last thirty years. “It don't ever pump like it ought. Just a little flutter when it oughter be a thud. Got to be careful. Got to take m' pills.”
But if Betsy didn't remind her husband to take his pills daily, he was likely to forget there were pills altogether, let alone a reason for taking them. It was almost as if he had a death wish, Bernie Perryman. It was almost as if he was only waiting for the appropriate moment to set her free.
And once she was free, Betsy would think, The Legacy would be hers. And The Legacy was the key to her future with Malcolm. Because with The Legacy in hand at last, she and Malcolm could marry and Malcolm could leave his ill-paying job at Gloucester Grammar. Content with his research, his writing, and his lecturing, he would be filled with gratitude for her having made his new lifestyle possible. Grateful, he would be eager to meet her needs.
Which was, she would think, certainly how it was meant to be.
In the Plantagenet pub in Sutton Cheney, Malcolm counted the tip money from his morning's labour. He'd given his all, but the Aussie Oldies had proved to be a niggardly lot. He'd ended up with forty pounds for the tour and lecture-which was an awesomely cheap price considering the depth of information he imparted-and twenty-five pounds in tips. Thank God for the pound coin, he concluded morosely. Without it, the tightfisted old sluts would probably have parted with nothing more than fifty pence apiece.
He pocketed the money as the pub door opened and a gust of icy air whooshed into the room. The flames of the fire next to him bob-bled. Ash from the fireplace blew onto the hearth. Malcolm looked up. Bernie Perryman-clad only in cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a T-shirt with the words
“Malkie!” Bernie cried out joyfully, and went on as he always did whenever they met. “Malkie ol' mate! How 'bout a chess game? I miss our matches, I surely do.” He shivered and beat his hands against his arms. His lips were practically blue. “Shit on toast. It's blowing a cold one out there. Pour me a Blackie,” he called out to the publican. “Make it a double and make it double-quick.” He grinned and dropped onto the stool at Malcolm's table. “So. How's the book comin', Malkie? Gotcher name in lights? Found a publisher yet?” He giggled.
Malcolm put aside whatever guilt he may have felt at the fact that he was industriously stuffing this inebriate's wife whenever his middle-aged body was up to the challenge. Bernie Perryman deserved to be a cuckold, his punishment for the torment he'd been dishing out to Malcolm for the last ten years.
“Never got over that last game, did you?” Bernie grinned again. He was served his Black Bush which he tossed back in a single gulp. He blubbered air out between his lips. He said, “Did me right, that,” and called for another. “Now what was the full-on tale again, Malkie? You get to the good part of the story yet? 'Course, it'll be a tough one to prove, won't it, mate?”
Malcolm counted to ten. Bernie was presented with his second double whiskey. It went the way of the first.
“But I'm givin' you a bad time for nothing,” Bernie said, suddenly repentant in the way of all drunks. “You never did me a bad turn-'cept that time with the A-levels, 'course-and I shouldn't do you one. I wish you the best. Truly, I do. It's just that things never work out the way they're s'posed to, do they?”
Which, Malcolm thought, was the whole bloody point. Things-as Bernie liked to call them-hadn't worked out for Richard either, that fatal morning on Bosworth Field. The Earl of Northumberland had let him down, the Stanleys had out-and-out betrayed him, and an untried upstart who had neither the skill nor the courage to face the King personally in decisive combat had won the day.
“So tell Bern your theory another time. I love the story, I do, I do. I just wished there was a way for you to prove it. It'd be the making of you, that book would. How long you been working on the manuscript?” Bernie swiped the interior of his whiskey glass with a dirty finger and licked off the residue. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He hadn't shaved that morning. He hadn't bathed in days. For a moment, Malcolm almost felt sorry for Betsy, having to live in the same house with the odious man.
“I've come to Elizabeth of York,” Malcolm said as pleasantly as he could manage considering the antipathy he was feeling for Bernie. “Edward IV's daughter. Future wife to the King of England.”
Bernie smiled, showing teeth in serious need of cleaning. “Cor, I always forget that bird, Malkie. Why's that, d'you think?”
Because everyone always forgot Elizabeth, Malcolm said silently. The eldest daughter of Edward IV, she was generally consigned to a footnote in history as the oldest sister of the Princes in the Tower, the dutiful daughter of Elizabeth Woodville, a pawn in the political power game, the later wife of that Tudor usurper Henry VII. Her job was to carry the seed of the dynasty, to deliver the heirs, and to fade into obscurity.
But here was a woman who was one-half Woodville, with the thick blood of that scheming and ambitious clan coursing through her veins. That she wanted to be Queen of England like her mother before her had been established in the seventeenth century when Sir George Buck had written-in his
Young Elizabeth had been bundled out of London and up to Yorkshire, ostensibly for safety's sake, prior to Henry Tudor's invasion. There she resided at Sheriff Hutton, a stronghold deep in the countryside where loyalty to King Richard was a constant of life. Elizabeth would be well protected-not to mention well guarded-in Yorkshire. As would be her siblings.
“You still hot for Lizzie?” Bernie asked with a chuckle. “Cor, how you used to go on about that girl.”
Malcolm suppressed his rage but did not forbid himself from silently cursing the other man into eternal torment. Bernie had a deep aversion for anyone who tried to make something of his life. That sort of person served to remind him of what a waste he'd made of his own.
Bernie must have read something on Malcolm's face because as he called for his third double whiskey, he said, “No, no, get on with you. I 'as only kidding. What's you doing out here today anyway? Was that you in the battlefield when I drove by?”
Bernie knew it was he, Malcolm realised. But mentioning the fact served to remind them both of Malcolm's passion and the hold that Bernie Perryman had upon it. God, how he wanted to stand on the table and shout, “I'm bonking this idiot's wife twice a week, three or four times if I can manage it. They'd been married two months when I bonked her the first time, six days after we were introduced.”
But losing control like that was exactly what Bernie Perryman wanted of his old friend Malcolm Cousins: payback time for having once refused to help Bernie cheat his way through his A-levels. The man had an elephantine memory and a grudge-bearing spirit. But so did Malcolm.
“I don't know, Malkie,” Bernie said, shaking his head as he was presented with his whiskey. He reached unsteadily for it, his bloodless tongue wetting his lower lip. “Don't seem natural that Lizzie'd hand those lads over to be given the chop. Not her own brothers. Not even to be Queen of England. Sides, they weren't even anywheres
