The polite yet merciless words caused icy chills to dance along Brand’s spine. There were a great many brainless thugs in Mary’s army, but the captain was not one of them. He would follow his orders to the letter, using whatever brutal means of torture necessary.
And Brandon FitzAlan, like a lovesick fool, had already shown his one true weakness. Carey. Not for a moment could he bear to see his betrothed whipped, in stocks, or worse.
Uttering a foul curse, he shook off the soldiers’ loosened grasp and held out his wrists in a gesture of surrender.
“Very well. To London.”
Chapter Seven
“Make way! Make way for the godless traitor filth!”
Gritting his teeth at the bellowed words, Brand turned his head just in time to lessen the impact of yet another rotten vegetable. For the endless journey from Guildford to London, he and Carey had been bundled into a cart with thick iron bars. That, at least, offered some protection. But as soon as they entered the city proper, they had been hauled out, wrists bound tightly behind their backs, and forced to trudge the streets with cold, cramped limbs. They looked like beggars in their dirty, wrinkled clothing, while this particularly sadistic guard constantly announced their newly acquired status.
The people of London responded as they always did. Some silently pitying, others turning away in relief it wasn’t them, and a third group who laughed, jeered and threw waste at the fall of a former royal favorite, and the black sheep of a very powerful family.
“Whip the devil’s servant and his whore!”
“Not so high and mighty now, are ye?”
“Guilty. Cut off both their heads!”
He thought he’d be immune to the insults. That life as a bastard and Therese’s death had long ago armored him against casually cruel strangers possessing no facts yet instantly passing judgment and pronouncing guilt. But Carey’s tearful bewilderment and cries of fright and pain as she’d been taunted, spat on, and hit with all manner of foul things brought back the crushing shame, anger, and despair at the injustice of punishment for a crime not committed.
Yet even humbled as he was, the fierce protectiveness he felt toward her remained steadfast, the urge to sign his own death warrant by attacking the guards and those crowding the streets for causing her pain overwhelming. Carey saw something in him that no one else did. For once not his family name and connections, the more prominent position at court it could offer. Nor his inherited and accumulated wealth, the opportunity of a minor title or fine London home.
Just him.
How or why, he didn’t know, but in offering him everything, believing in him, she in turn had made him believe.
An unholy cry yanked him back to the present.“
Repent, sinners. Repent or burn!” screeched a young mother to his right, before a cold, pulpy mess hit the back of his head and sprayed fetid juice onto his neck and down his doublet collar.
By all the saints, he hated this city.
“Brand.”
He turned his head at Carey’s soft cry, just in time to see two leering lads take aim at her breasts with an armful of overripe tomatoes. Stepping to his left, he pivoted in front of her and deflected them with his back. He already carried the sweet scents of blood, grime, and various kitchen scraps, what were a few more servings of unwanted food?
“You know,” he said conversationally, walking backward as though he did it every day of the week, “if Lucas were here, he’d be cursing the ungodliness of vegetables and how unpleasant they were to eat and wear. And I’d be forced to agree with him. So I am most relieved he was ordered home to cool his heels in Cornwall.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and attempted a smile. “I…I don’t know. Sure I read in one of Papa’s books the softer the pulp, the better for one’s skin—”
“Oi! Back in formation, you!” barked a guard to their side.
So proud of Carey’s spirit, Brand ignored the red-cheeked man entirely and bent down, brushing her cheek with a kiss. “Indeed.”
“By the by, I know you miss him.”
“Lucas? Don’t be ridiculous. Tis a miracle the boy has made it to fourteen. Rafe and Annabelle de Vere must be saints, or consume enough wine to float a warship.”
“Ha. Admit it, you wish for brave, amusing, troublemaking sons just like him. Like you were, I imagine.”
“Sons perhaps, not sure about daughters though. I’d be driven to drink, no, far worse—driven to attend church as soon as you birthed them. Imagine the mayhem a mob of ebony-curled, sapphire-eyed FitzAlans might create—”
A heavy blow made his ears ring, and he stumbled for a few steps before regaining his balance. Probably a good thing, because he was getting far ahead of himself. Yes, she had miraculously agreed to his entirely unromantic proposal in the heat of passion, but there was still so much she didn’t know about him. His father Arundel. The dark secrets of his first marriage to Therese. How deeply his anti-Catholic sentiment ran. Even if by some miracle the queen called a halt to this evil and freed them, Carey could well still turn her back on him when she discovered all the ugly truths.
Flexing his throbbing jaw, he looked steadily at Sergeant Red-cheeks. The guard sat straighter in his saddle, glaring back at him with beady ferret eyes. “I said back in formation, FitzAlan. It is less than a mile to the palace, you godless sinner. You should both be thinkin’ of final confession, not laughin’. Reckon a taste of the rack might help. Sure they’d love you to visit…aw, now don’t fret, mistress. Her Majesty might be merciful and send you straight to the block or pyre, being as you were a favorite for so long.”
“Or,” said Brand, baring his teeth in a parody of a smile, “we’ll both be found innocent of all
