By His Majesty's Grace by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online

stepped forward, saluting with a mailed arm and gloved fist.
    Braesford came to his feet with a frown between his dark brows. “Welcome, William, as always, though I thought you settled at Westminster. What brings you this far north?”
    “The order of the king.” The man addressed as William pulled a paper from the pouch at his side and passed it across the width of the high table to Braesford.
    Isabel recognized the newcomer as William McConnell, a man she had seen about the court. Turning over his name, studying his features and something of his manner, she felt the stir of presentiment. He was similar in size and feature to Rand, though McConnell’s hair was more badger brown than black, the jut of his nose less bold and his eyes brown rather than gray. Recalling, abruptly, some whispered comment heard more than a year ago, she realized this was Braesford’s remaining half brother, the third of three, he who had once thought to inherit the hall where she sat until it was forfeited after their father was executed.
    “What is it?” Braesford asked, accepting the roll of parchment, unfurling it so the great seal of the king appeared, impressed into wax as red as blood.
    “An unpleasant errand, in all truth.” McConnell directed his gaze somewhere above the high table, upon his family banners that hung there.
    “Aye, and that would be?”
    His half brother cleared his throat with a rasp, speaking in a voice that reached into the most distant corners of the room. “Randall of Braesford, you are charged with the crime of murder in the death of the child born these two months past to Mademoiselle Juliette d’Amboise. By command of His Royal Majesty, King Henry VII, you are directed to leave within the hour for London, in company with your affianced wife, Lady Isabel of Graydon. There, you will appear before the King’s Court on the charge lodged against you.”
    Murder. The heinous murder of a child. Isabel sat unmoving, so mired in disbelief she could hardly take in the implications of the charge.
    Even so, three things were blindingly obvious to her.
    There would be no night spent in the bed of the master of Braesford, not if she was to leave with him at once for London.
    There might never be a wedding if he was convicted of the murder.
    The curse of the Three Graces of Graydon had not failed.

3
    F ury ran like acid through Rand’s veins. It striped his thought processes to such a sharp and raw edge that he was able to order the packing of supplies for his men and his guests, to direct the continued operations for the manse and the coming harvest, all while mentally cursing his king who was also his friend. Or who had once been his friend, in the days of their exile.
    What in God’s sweet heaven was Henry about with this charge of murder of an innocent? Mademoiselle Juliette d’Amboise’s newborn babe, a small mite with Juliette’s full-lipped mouth and Henry’s pale blue eyes, had been in rosy health when Rand last saw her. He had stood sentinel on the keep wall as little Madeleine, as Juliette had named her, left Braesford Hall with her mother. Henry himself had sent an armed troop to see his mistress to a place of quiet seclusion, so must know full well the baby had not been harmed.
    Henry was a secretive man, and who could blame him? When only four years old, he had been taken from his mother and placed in the custody of a sympathizer of the Duke of York. Being fostered in a family not his own was common for the scion of a noble house, as it was thought to promote independence and allow instruction in the art of war without any weakening favoritism, but this was the house of the enemy. Henry had escaped that imprisonment when his doddering cousin, Henry VI, briefly regained the throne from the Yorkists under Edward IV, but was forced to ride for his life when the aging king was murdered. He, with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, barely reached the coast and took ship for France ahead of Edward’s forces—who