“And what was the boon she asked of you?”
“To find out the actual cause of her father’s death—”
Norfolk banged his gavel. “Arthur Linwood passed of a fever. Master Clements, your witness is to clarify a charge of fornication, please phrase your questions more appropriately.”
“Beg pardon, your grace,” said Clements, paling. “Sir Brandon, on the day of March twenty-fifth when Mistress Linwood caused the death of that poor young man and escaped her guards, did she coerce you into taking her to safety?”
“She caused no deaths. And no, I chose to assist her.”
“Did she bribe you with use of her body in exchange for the protection?”
“No, she did not.”
“I see. When you both fled to Guildford with Master Lucas de Vere and three servants, had she coerced or bribed you to do so?”
“No, she did not.”
“But whilst in that town, at an inn, you shared a room with Mistress Linwood. Did you engage in carnal relations with her outside the holy bonds of matrimony?”
Brand hesitated. “I…”
“Come now. The court can easily order an examination of Mistress Linwood to establish her virginity or lack thereof.”
Nausea roiled his gut at the thought, and he gritted his teeth. “Yes, we engaged in carnal relations.”
Clements beamed, his relief palpable at a positive answer. “Pray continue. Did Mistress Linwood instigate the carnal relations?”
As one, every man in the room leaned in like a pack of starving hounds to a fox. He ignored them all and instead looked at Carey, meeting and holding her gaze, attempting to convey a silent promise of care and loyalty.
“You insult me, sir. I am a man of much experience and Mistress Linwood an untouched virgin. Of course it was not her who instigated.”
“So you claimed her maidenhead at that inn?”
“Yes. I am entirely at fault. Mistress Linwood is a clever, amusing, kind, and beautiful woman who I had developed strong feelings for, and when an opportunity arose to indulge my base desires, I took it. Any punishment for this crime is mine and mine alone to bear. If a whipping is called for, then let me be whipped at once and be done.”
He glanced again at Carey, and this time she sat straighter on the stool, a hint of color at her cheeks and her gaze steady. In one deliberate movement, she touched two fingers to her lips, then her heart. The room erupted in noise at the gesture, and Norfolk nearly hammered a hole in his wooden desk as he attempted to bring the hall under control.
Quickly the duke conferred in whispers with the other members of the panel, in what looked to be a rather heated discussion.
“Thank you, Sir Brandon,” Norfolk said coldly, several minutes later, “but this court will decide the recipients of punishment and what that punishment will be, not you. As a matter of fact, we the council find your comments startling and clear evidence of an unreasonably fatigued mind. After rest and refreshment, you will no doubt answer with much improved thought and logic. We will adjourn and recommence on the morrow.”
Instantly he knew what must be said. Yes, it was the worst possible time for honesty. He was in a corrupt court with his freedom, his possessions, and if his own trial proceeded like this, potentially his very life on the line, but he was so bloody weary of lies and pretence. Of being a powerless pawn in the games of noblemen.
Damned if he would play for another moment.
“With all due respect, your grace,” he said loudly enough for the entire hall to hear him, “my ardent admiration, care, and support for Mistress Linwood will not change. Not tomorrow, or any other day. So make your ruling and let us be done with this charade.”
Norfolk’s eyes bulged. “Then you leave us no choice but to find you guilty of fornication. With respect to the other charges, you will be taken to the Tower and privately examined further.”
“No,” said Carey hoarsely, leaping off her stool and gripping the railing as she leaned forward. “No, no, no! He spoke untruth. It wasn’t him, t’was me on the street, at his home and at the inn. I—”
“Silence!” roared Norfolk. “Judgment is passed. And you, madam, shall be heard in the morning then learn your own fate. Guards, remove the prisoners.”
In a moment of clumsily exquisite timing, both sets of guards tried to march them down the middle aisle first. Within a tangle of bodies, he managed to elbow two men out of the way, and crush Carey’s lips with his, one hard, brutal, final kiss of farewell.
Mary and her nobles had won.
It was over.
Chapter Eight
Brand had announced publicly he cared for and supported her. Which made him the most wonderful—and unwise—man in England.
Hugging her arms around herself, Catherine paced the short length of her palace prison chamber. The night was pitch-black and the moon barely a sliver of crescent in the sky, but she couldn’t sleep. Not with these fierce emotions pounding her body and soul like battering rams. Did she laugh with the sheer joy of loving and being cared for in return, the perfection of their night together, when she learned the blissful secrets of passion? Or sob her heart out knowing it would never happen again, indeed that Brand was lost to her forever and tonight might well be her last in the mortal realm?
She groaned aloud and dropped to her knees. The stone floor scraped through the thin wool gown, but prayer was prayer, even without the familiar comfort of polished wooden rosary beads to twist through her fingers.
“Blessed Virgin, I beseech thee, hear my prayer in this, my darkest hour—”
Terror silenced her as the creak and grind of her chamber door being slowly unlocked echoed through the tiny space. No! It wasn’t time. She had until morning. Unless Brand had faltered under further torture and they now possessed enough information to declare her guilty? Was she, like her father, to be denied a full trial, denied even a formal execution and killed in secret?
“Wh-who goes th-there?” she croaked.
The door opened, and a well-dressed man stepped into the room.
“Mistress Linwood. I apologize for the hour, but I must speak with you in all haste.”
Shock dropped her jaw, but somehow she managed to form words and force them past a desert-dry tongue. “My Lord Arundel. Come in. Do you wish to sit?”
“Yes. No. Damnation, this is a sorry business,” the earl snapped, adjusting several glittering gems on his fingers and rubbing his chin in quick succession. “Don’t know what your father was thinking, creating such a tall tale as Her Majesty not truly expecting a child. The horror of it. The disgrace! Do you know what that would do to the queen if that news spread? What it would do to England? When you know the assertion is false?”
“I do,” said Catherine softly. “It would be dangerous and devastating for the realm, and for every faithful Catholic. But never shall I know why my father said such a terrible thing, when he was cut down in cold blood, far from home and far from me.”
Arundel looked away. “Well. You think you are the only one to lose a loved one suddenly? These two years past I watched the burial of my son and daughter. Younger than you! Now I have but one child, a daughter, remaining.”
She stared at the man for the longest time. Never had she been so close to the exalted earl before, and now she was, a truth was suddenly so very clear.
“Oh really?” she whispered fiercely, fury at how this man had treated her beloved making her bolder than she’d ever been. “Just the one daughter?”
He cursed viciously. “If you understand that, then perhaps you understand why I come here. Brandon is foolish and headstrong, just like his mother. He seeks to battle those on the council, battle the queen, because he had you and wrong-headedly thinks it might be something more than simple lust. Should my son be racked for that sin? Should he die for it?”
Misery weighed on her shoulders like a load of rocks. “No. I couldn’t bear it.”
“Do you care for him?”
“I love him,” C
atherine said starkly.
“Then I beg you, let him go.”
“Let him go? You are right, he is headstrong, and perhaps foolish to care for an orphaned nobody like me. But thanks to his mother and grandfather and uncle he is a man worthy of great respect. Brave and strong, willing to fight for justice and protect those weaker than him. I love his warmth. His kindness. The way he curses. The way he kisses. The way he grumbles at Lucas even as he teaches him how to be the best of men. Yes, my lord, I love your son Brand, and you ask me to turn my back as if he were nothing? As you did his whole life?”
Arundel spluttered. “You go too far, girl. I gained him what he has, a house, knighthood, fortune, position at court.”
“All pale compared to a father’s open pride and affection. You deny your son at every turn, call him cousin when he is not.”
“I cannot claim him now. Not when I have my young grandson’s future to consider. The scandal…”
Puzzled, she frowned. “Old King Henry acknowledged his natural son. Men do all the time. Tis the talk of a week then forgotten.”
“Indeed, but Henry Fitzroy did not murder his wife.”
Catherine choked on a breath, like she’d been pummeled in the stomach.
“Wh-what?”
An expression flashed across the earl’s face, too swift for her to decipher.
“I didn’t want to have to say this. The shame is a great burden to bear. But you know Brandon was married?”
“Yes, to Therese Fairfax.”
“I blame myself. Therese was too young, but Brandon so…so…desperately in love with her, he begged me to help him win her hand. What could I do? It was the first time he’d come to me for assistance, apart from securing your father’s services for Susanna, of course. So they were wed, and all was well for a while.”
“And th-then?” she asked shakily.
“Brandon is very possessive. He…accused Therese of seeing other men, even that the babe she carried wasn’t his, and they had many terrible fights. Until one night, he drank far too much then dragged her out to the lake behind their country home and drowned her.”
“I cannot believe that,” she said dizzily, her head whirling as she remembered snatches of court conversations, the heaviness surrounding Therese Fairfax’s sudden death. “Brand would never…there would have been a trial…he wishes to wed me…”
“No! I mean…all the witnesses disappeared, but the whispers, they will swirl forever. My dear, again, I beg you. Not just for his sake, or mine, but your own. Deny him. Tell him you don’t love or want to marry him, that it was a passing fancy, nothing more.”
Numb anguish settled like a suffocating cloak. Brand himself had warned her he was darkness and danger, although she’d never imagined his past could include such a grave sin. And yet…even guilty, even if a dead woman forever held his heart, life without him still stretched ahead of her chasm, gray and equally empty.
“What do you wish me to do?” she said dully.
“If you are gone, he will enjoy court as he should. Marry a suitable lady, become a father, be welcomed at every hearth and free from the taint of treason. And you shall live.”
“How?”
“There is a ship departing for France in a few hours. I will give you passage, enough money to begin a new life far from here as a boon to my son. Also because I know what it means to be falsely accused, arrested and imprisoned, and do not wish that on any soul, least of all a true Catholic and good servant of the queen. Let me help you.”
Catherine shuddered, her heart breaking.
“I must pen him a letter.”
Arundel’s shoulders sagged. “No, he wouldn’t believe that. Come with me now, say your farewells, and you’ll be safe from him, from the queen and council. I swear it on my life.”
Cold enveloped her, and a single tear slid down her cheek, but she nodded slowly.
“Very well.”
“FitzAlan. Get up, wretch.”
The swift boot to the shin would probably result in another bruise, but he was beyond caring. Since the moment he’d left the court he’d been in this tiny windowless chamber, unfurnished save a rickety wooden chair, while several senior clerks took turns questioning him on every aspect of the past few weeks. They seemed to believe taunting him, denying him food and sleep, and pouring freezing water over his head when he didn’t answer fast enough would gain what they wanted.
Ha. These men could try forever, even rack him to within an inch of his life, and he still wouldn’t confess to a crime he hadn’t committed. Nor would he implicate Carey. Fatigue and pain were nothing compared to the memory of their last kiss, her signal in the courtroom that he held a place in her heart. That sustained him now. Would have to.
“FitzAlan!”
Brand blinked and smiled pleasantly at the scowling, pock-faced guard. “You bellowed?”
“I said get up. Yer bein’ moved.”
“Excellent. The view from this chamber is most substandard.”
He rose to his feet and for one awful moment thought his shaky legs would buckle under him. But at last they steadied, and he stretched to full height, flexing muscles that burned from misuse.
“Come along then,” the guard said, gripping his upper arm. “And don’t give me no trouble, or you’ll be gettin’ the thrashin’ those clerks were too soft-bellied to give.”
It felt like they trudged the silent hallways of St. James’s Palace for hours, and trickles of perspiration soon bathed his temples as he focused on remaining upright. But instead of leaving for a barge to Traitor’s Gate, they continued on to a section of the palace where the carpets were richer and thicker, the tapestries newer and more colorful.
He frowned. “Are you lost? This won’t get me to the Tower.”
The guard ignored him, abruptly halting in front of a nondescript, partially open door. A moment later he was shoved through it, the door swiftly being closed and locked behind him.
Alone in the candlelit space, Brand rubbed his eyes as a strange, heavy scent enveloped him. Incense. He was in the chapel antechamber? Why the hell would he be brought here?
Light footsteps sounded behind him and he spun, the ill-thought movement nearly sending him crashing to the floor. God’s blood, now he was hallucinating, for an angel stood before him. A shockingly pale, sapphire-eyed angel only missing her wings.
“Carey,” he said hoarsely, one hand reaching out for her, but now his legs ceased to function and he staggered, bumping into a cloth-covered side table. Yet it didn’t matter, for a moment later she hurled herself into his arms, buried her face against his chest and dampened the collar of his filthy doublet with tears. “Brand…”
“What are you doing here?” he said, tangling his fingers in her unbound hair, taking her lips in a hard, lingering kiss. “What am I doing here? How did you arrange it?”
She pulled back slightly, one hand sliding up to trace his forehead, jaw and lips. “I-I have c-come to…”
“Come to what, sweetheart?” he said. Carey was far too pale, too tense, and the agonized misery in her eyes made his gut churn in trepidation. “Tell me.”
“Mistress Linwood has come to make her farewells,” said a crisp, familiar voice as Arundel stepped out of the shadows. “After much discussion, she accepted my offer of passage to France and funds for a new life there. She knows there is nothing left for her in England but the queen’s wrath and a dishonorable death. For that is the only decision the council can and will come to.”
Acute unease swirled, and he stared hard at his father. “After much discussion? What could the Earl of Arundel possibly have to privately discuss with a condemned prisoner, my lord?”
“She guessed, Brandon. About our…true relationship.”
“Even now, you cannot say the words. But how is that information worthy of such a generous boon as freedom?”
“I told her the rest. About—”
“He told me all about Therese and her death,” said Carey, cupping his face
in her delicate hands. “And despite that, I lo—”
“Despite…what?” he replied, gently removing her hands from his face and turning to his father. “Precisely which version of the story did you share with my betrothed?”
Arundel hesitated, a distinctly hunted expression appearing on his face. “The truth, of course.”
Icy rage surged through his veins, and he stormed toward the earl. “Liar.”
“Brand! No!” said Carey behind him, but his fist had already curled with the force of thirty years of anger and ploughed into Arundel’s face, sending an arc of bright red blood spraying across the antechamber wall.
“Damnation, boy,” Arundel hissed, yanking a handkerchief from his cloak pocket to stem the flow. “You broke my nose.”
“I doubt that. The FitzAlan nose is rather robust. But a few more blows should do the trick.”
“All right! All right. Perhaps I told the supposed story. But no one believes your version, Brandon. And there are no witnesses.”
“Incorrect. There were several witnesses, and they are all safe and well in a location I won’t share. They know Therese never wanted to marry me, nor I her. They know she wept every day for her lost calling as a nun, how she loathed her forced marriage and the marriage bed. And they know her pregnancy tipped the hatred into madness, as she dressed herself in ancient chainmail and waded into the lake while I met with my steward…”
He paused, as the familiar grief and anger and guilt threatened to send him to his knees. “She took her own life rather than be married to me and birth my child. I knew then that my mother was wrong and all others were right. I was poison. A worthless bastard—”
“No,” said Carey fiercely, yanking his arm until he faced her, taking both his hands in hers. “No you are not. You are everything I ever wanted, ever dreamed of. I love you. I cannot help loving you and will do so forever. Whatever happens, the only reason I would go to France alone is to see you safe and well, after all you did for me.”
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