His gaze didn’t waver. “No, mistress. I’m so sorry. It was his weak heart. And ill humors from traveling in the rain.”
“Papa never travels in the rain. And he certainly didn’t have a weak heart!”
“Are you sure? I—”
“Thank you,” snapped Queen Mary. “That will be all.”
The page immediately bowed low and hurried away, but Catherine barely noticed. Shocking, crushing cold enveloped her, making her body shake and vision gray.
Dead.
Sounds erupted. An awful high, keening wail like a soul condemned to purgatory. Women shouting and heavy boots crossing the stone floor. Chairs scraping and steel flashing. Clamping her hands over her ears, she fought to escape the noise, awkwardly falling from her stool and huddling in a ball.
Dead.
Without warning, impersonal arms hauled her to her feet and a pungent blend of lavender and vinegar assailed her nose. The world spun and spun, and she coughed and clawed at the arms, desperate for an anchor, some way to halt the terror advancing on her like a relentless French army.
The scent came again, choking, overwhelming, but finally relief, as she fell into blessed darkness.
Everything about the day screamed death. From the unnatural slate-gray sky and bone-chilling wind to the dull, ponderous rhythm of the church bells confirming another soul’s departure.
Sir Brandon FitzAlan pulled a flagon of wine from a hidden pocket in his thick black cloak and took several healthy gulps. He was entirely too sober for this and his damned servants were to blame for his rare state of total awareness. Instead of wine, he’d been presented with watered ale all day. One particularly hardy soul, a fourth generation maid with the temperament of a bear woken during hibernation, had actually set a goblet of warmed milk in front of him at breakfast.
Milk.
His stomach lurched, and he coughed, pulled the cloak closer about him, and strode forward past several clusters of gray-and-black-clad mourners who wished to pay their respects but weren’t familiar enough to the family to enter the crypt. As always, he ignored the curious stares, the whispers, the deferential curtsies and bows from those who feared or respected his very powerful family.
God’s blood, he was weary of death. Not only that, he was disgusted by the ugly, hollow shell England had become under the rule of Bloody Mary Tudor—the beheadings and burnings all in the name of her cursed religion. If this woman had her way, England would be naught more than Spanish territory, dragged back to the dark ages and ruined. She’d even managed to lose the jewel of Calais back to the French; Old Henry would be turning in his grave.
Some called the queen generous. Indeed, so generous she’d sent Arthur Linwood, the finest man he’d ever known, the doctor who’d saved his mother’s life, into the heart of a small plague outbreak. Robbing England of one of its most gifted physicians. Robbing a child of a beloved father.
Damn her to hell.
Finally reaching the Linwood family crypt, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. His hose was no match for the cold, damp stone but the discomfort was naught compared to grief and rage. His friend and savior was dead.
“Why?” Brand burst out, anger almost robbing him of breath. “I don’t understand. Why you, Arthur?”
“I don’t understand either.”
His head jerked up at the soft, tear-soaked voice. He hadn’t even seen the woman sitting in a shadowed corner, dressed in a heavy and rather shapeless black velvet gown, with a modest black hood and thick lace veil covering her face. Yet the pure misery in her tone reflected his. She wasn’t a casual acquaintance or a courtier attending to see and be seen. This woman had truly adored Arthur Linwood.
“Forgive me, madam,” he said, inclining his head. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You aren’t,” she replied, standing and pushing the veil back from her face.
Brand sucked in a harsh breath at the perfection revealed—thickly lashed, deep blue eyes set in a pale oval face with a slightly pointed nose, high cheekbones, and full, pink lips, all framed by pitch-black curls. Had such a beauty been Arthur’s lover? His friend’s wife had long passed, no doubt the man would have been lonely with only a young daughter for company. If so, he’d been remarkably discreet. In their country jaunts, their many alehouse meetings, Arthur had never mentioned a woman, only his pride and joy: clever, amusing little Carey. Perhaps she was Carey’s nurse? Her aunt or older cousin? In which case he could leave with a clear conscience. Even in her terrible grief, she had an air of quiet gentleness that spoke of a kind and loving guardian to a child.
“Sir?” she said, briefly resting her hand on his. “Are you well?”
He frowned at her concern, unnerved by something rarely shown to him as much as the heated jolt from her light, innocent touch. He clearly needed to find himself a lusty wench and a great deal of wine. Tonight.Yet first he had to pose the question.
“Well enough,” Brand said, clearing his throat. “I don’t mean to be indelicate, but by chance are you a relative? Perhaps little Carey’s nurse? Arthur was a dear friend, and I should like to know his daughter will be well cared for, and to offer funds if needed.”
“It is very kind of you to care about my well-being, but I’m not so little.”
He froze. “What? You can’t be Carey! She’s a girl, not, er…”
Unexpectedly, she smiled, a ray of sunshine in the cold, gloomy crypt.
“It is Catherine Mary actually, but I never could pronounce it as a child. I’m not sure why Papa would speak of me as if I were still young. I’m twenty.”
Brand stiffened. He could guess. What loving father would want a heretic, a nobleman’s wretched bastard, lusting after his beautiful, pure, Catholic daughter?
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said gruffly. “Apart from your age, of course. I am Sir Brandon FitzAlan.”
Her eyes widened.
“Then my father misled us both. For when he spoke of his
