He bowed and turned to leave her life forever.
“Wait, B-Brand,” she burst out, unable to bear the thought of losing a man both closely linked to her father, and the first to make her heart skip a beat. “There is something. A service, I mean.”
“Yes?”
“I would know how my father died.”
He frowned. “They did not tell you? I assumed given where he was, he had fallen victim to the plague.”
Frustration and uncertainty rose in her belly, a sensation undiminished since she’d awoken in her father’s rooms and remembered the brief and rather vague explanation of his death. She was a learned doctor’s daughter, not some silly noblewoman who even feared bathing.
“No. The other court doctors said nothing of the plague. Although his body was prepared and buried immediately, they returned his satchel, boots, cap, and crucifix to me.”
A long pause stretched to eternity.
“What exactly were you told, Catherine?” he said finally, his face impassive, but his green eyes were stormy and massive shoulders taut with tension.
“That he died of a weak heart, and a sudden onset of ill humors after being caught outside in heavy rains and mud. But, Brand, his health was always excellent. And he never traveled in poor weather. Ever. Papa always told me to expect him a day or two later because riding in the rain is bad for the chest and lungs, and he couldn’t abide carriages.”
“If the queen is due to deliver her child shortly, he would have made all haste to return to the palace. Perhaps he didn’t wish to worry you with a health matter.”
A sudden bone-deep weariness made her shoulders sag. “Perhaps. No, you’re right. I am being fanciful. Forgive me, it has been—”
“I’ll find out,” Brand said roughly. “He was my friend, and I’d not have you distressed. Just give me a week or so.”
Before she could reply, he bowed low and strode from the crypt, taking his warmth and strength away.
Rubbing her arms, Catherine shivered. With one last glance around the oppressive, confined space, she hitched up her gown and hurried out into the damp London air, over to where a bored guard sat perched on a rock between a row of grave markers.
The man got to his feet, a look of relief on his ruddy face.
“Ready to return to the palace, Mistress?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Brand would visit soon. She had one thing to look forward to, at least.
Chapter Two
If there was one thing he couldn’t abide, it was a mystery.
Resting one elbow on a solid wooden ledge, Brand stared hard out a diamond-paned library window of his London home to where the gray, choppy Thames was doing its best to offer the passengers of several barges an impromptu freezing bath. Exactly what he felt like doing to several suddenly discreet citizens. Discovering the details of Arthur Linwood’s passing should have been an easy task, yet he’d hit a stone wall of pale-faced silence at every turn. Nonplussed, he’d sent out several of his own men to see what they could unearth. Because he didn’t trust the queen as far as the belly in front of her, he’d also instructed another to keep a discreet eye on Catherine and report even the slightest suspicious behavior towards her. Lucas was a loyal lad, even if he was a talkative troublemaker and possessing a fourteen year old’s unique ability to demolish thrice his weight in food. He just couldn’t watch over her himself. Catherine was too young. Too vulnerable. Too open. Too beautiful. Too damned everything. A base, wine-soaked heretic like him would be poison to an innocent like her, yet he’d been unable to banish the woman from his mind. Clearly, the sooner this odd matter was resolved, the better.
“God’s blood, Brandon! You’re not listening to me.”
Masking his irritation, he turned and smiled pleasantly at Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel. The dark-eyed, older lord was about the most powerful in the kingdom, a devout Catholic and someone who never missed an opportunity to aggressively further his own interests. As evidenced with this particular one-sided conversation.
“Of course I’m listening to you, Father. You wish me to leave the agreeable and supremely peaceful existence of widower and re-enter the unholy state of matrimony. Unfortunately I have yet to hear from you a single good reason why.”
Arundel scowled, an expression which did his overly prominent nose no favors.
“A request from me is reason enough. It’s been four years. If you do not marry again, the rumors surrounding Therese’s death will never abate. I am only thinking of your well-being. And that of your mother. Susanna must be very lonely in the country without the companionship of another highborn woman. I should insist she come to London and take her rightful place at court.”
Brand somehow suppressed a laugh. His father could insist all he liked, but it would take several armies to remove his mother from their West Berkshire estate. She hated London and Arundel equally, and as his grandfather’s passing had left her explicitly and generously provided for, the earl couldn’t even bend her to his will through blackmail.
A fact which frustrated the man no end.
“As always, I will pass on your greetings and good wishes.”
“Bah. Tis unnatural, her acceptance of your sinful and wayward existence.”
Brand’s fists clenched. “She understands I have no desire to wed again.”
“You must. Despite past events—”
“My lord. Such a benign phrase for my wife taking her own life.”
His father’s gaze turned colder than a northern wind. “…despite past events there are still many noblewomen willing to accept your hand in marriage. You have a duty to your family to sire sons. A duty to God
