- 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑖𝑔𝑛 -
It's the year 1464 and Eleanor Woodville lives at Grafton Manor as one of the younger daughters of Jacquetta and Sir Richard Woodville. At 11 years old, her worries are little and her joys great but her o...
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~My Very Own~
25th of July 1474, Middleham....
All she knew was pain. Her limbs felt as if they were being torn from her sockets, her head was pounding and sending waves of the most sickening nausea she had ever experienced. Sweat trickled down her forehead, made her nightgown cling to her like a second skin, mingling with the blood that coated her legs and the bed below her.
Any food that was offered to her, she turned away, any water that she weakly sipped upon would be vomited back up in mere minutes.
Her throat was rubbed raw so that it hurt when she gasped in what air she could, rendering her unable to speak, the only noises escaping her being screams and groans of agony.
Her vision shifted oddly, sometimes darkening so that she feared she would go blind, sometimes blurring so that the caring figures of Marie, Anais, Anne and the midwife twisted into faceless creatures that moved around her, mocking her, taunting her.
She could not hear their encouraging words, their pleas for her to stay with them whenever she seemed on the brink of unconsciousness.
A part of Eleanor wished that she would slip away from the world at times, that God would grant her just a moments rest from the hell that had become the labour of her fourth child.
But it was not to be and she forced her weary body to continue while tears filled her eyes, streamed relentlessly down her cheeks, her only salvation being the damp cloth that mopped at her brow.
She wished Richard was by her side, wished that he could hold her in his arms, stroke her hair, even simply be in the same room! But he was banned from the bedchamber until the babe was born even though he had more than once demanded to be let inside to aid his wife.
Anne had kept him at bay when he had all but forced the door open with Francis by his side. She had somehow managed to push him from the room, her thin arms suddenly seemingly possessing the strength of the finest knight as Anais joined her. Together they sent the two men from the chamber, though Richard was craning his neck to try and see Eleanor until the door was slammed in his face and locked.
He could not bear to hear her screams but could neither bear to leave his position pacing outside of the door. He had promised to never leave her while she suffered. And he would not leave her now.
Francis watched him from where he leant against the corridor wall, silently wondering to himself what it would be like to be worried about his own wife so much. But, try as he might, the only woman he could ever imagine caring for was Anais. Sweet, funny, beautiful Anais. His Anais.
She was the keeper of his heart. Yet she was someone he would never be able to have....
He jumped, snatched roughy from his thoughts, as another one of Eleanor's heart wrenching screams echoed throughout the castle and was instantly glad that they had sent the children on a visit to the nearby Bolton Castle with Jack.
