LITMIR.BIZ

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was for Johnnie to enforce the King’s will on the Brunsons. Instead, Johnnie had come home to himself. To know that family was first. Last. All.

      ‘If I do not go,’ she said, ‘if I do not try to sway him, he will come after all of us.’

      ‘He’ll come anyway,’ Johnnie said, with grim certainty. ‘One day.’

      ‘That may be, but my going would give you the winter.’ Would give them time.

      Johnnie and Cate exchanged swift smiles. Rob ran his thumb over the hilt of his dirk.

      She had always been closest to John and now he looked at her, puzzled. ‘I once suggested you go to court, didn’t I?’

      ‘Aye.’ And she had refused, knowing she would be mocked for her plain dress and her country ways. Things too selfish to concern her now.

      He took her hands. ‘So your heart is set on this?’ John said. ‘On meeting the King?’

      ‘The King?’ She let her fingers rest in his. ‘Do you think I make this journey so I can skip to a minstrel’s tune?’ This trip was her duty. Her father would be ashamed to think she had spared a moment’s thought for clothes or music. Or herself.

      Johnnie shook his head. ‘I don’t trust him around you.’

      She bridled. ‘I’m not one to be blinded by a king.’

      ‘You needn’t worry about Bessie,’ Cate added, loyally.

      John smiled at his wife. ‘It’s not Bessie or the King that I don’t trust. It’s Carwell.’

      They shared the silence of agreement. There, of course, was the problem. None of them did.

      ‘But the King does.’ Don’t insult me. The sharpest words he had said. She shrugged off the memory. Her brothers might have ridden side by side with him, but she refused to trust the man, with his half-truths and his changeable eyes. ‘That’s what matters now. Besides, with time enough by his side, I can find a way to prove he betrayed us.’

      Scarred Willie had escaped twice when they had allied with Carwell. Only when the Brunsons tracked him down alone did the man end up dead.

      John sighed. ‘He swore he didn’t.’

      Rob snorted. ‘And you believe him?’

      ‘You don’t kill a man without proof.’

      ‘You don’t send your sister to court with him either.’

      She sighed. ‘Argue amongst yourselves,’ she said, reaching for the door. ‘I’ll be packing.’

      And when she entered the courtyard, the first thing she saw was Thomas Carwell.

      Carwell stepped smoothly away from the door when he saw the flash of her hair, bright as a red-breasted bird flying over the valley.

      He raised his eyebrows, a silent question. ‘And?’

      She cocked her head without smiling. ‘As close as you are standing to the door, did you not hear?’

      He had tried to listen, dammit, but the walls were thick. ‘I heard only something of packing.’

      Behind her, the door opened and Rob stepped out. ‘Bessie, come back here! I’ll not let you leave with that unreliable—’

      He saw Carwell and snapped his lips shut.

      ‘You can say it.’

      ‘Turncoat.’

      A man who hid his badge to disguise his loyalties.

      He clamped his jaw against a harsh reply. The man didn’t trust him. So be it.

      John’s grim face appeared over Rob’s shoulder. He spared Carwell barely a glance. ‘You know nothing of the court, Bessie. Stirling’s a nest of vipers. You’ll be eaten alive.’

      She faced her brothers calmly. ‘Will I? Then let the vipers choke.’

      Stubborn wench. Her brothers might not trust him, but at least they were sensible enough to know it was unthinkable to put a woman, even this one, in such a position. ‘So we agree this is not for her to do.’

      Rob turned back to him and he saw a shift behind the man’s eyes. ‘I’ve not decided.’

      Damn. A misstep. Would Rob allow this, simply because Carwell opposed it?

      ‘Well, I have,’ Bessie said. ‘It’s the only solution.’

      Her brothers exchanged glances. Rob looked back at her, to make one final plea. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘I am sure that it is my duty,’ she said. ‘So step aside and stop wasting your breath.’ She looked over her shoulder at Carwell. ‘All of you.’

      He inhaled, ready to argue against this madness. ‘It’s mine to waste.’

      Suddenly, he faced three siblings and one wife, each with that ‘stubborn as a Brunson’ set of the jaw.

      John shook his head. ‘She’s right, you know.’

      Rob sighed. ‘Aye.’

      They won’t be able to stop me, she had said. How had she known?

      Both brothers turned to him now. ‘If anything happens to her,’ Rob said, ‘anything at all, it’s you who’ll be answering for it.’

      ‘She’ll be hostage to King James for your behaviour,’ he replied, smothering his anger. ‘If you violate the peace, do you expect me to defy the King for you?’

      They traded sceptical glances. No, they knew better than that. They still blamed him for what had gone wrong on Truce Day.

      No more than he blamed himself.

      ‘But her life,’ John said, glowering. ‘You must promise to protect her life with your own.’

      He looked at Bessie. Her chin was high, her lips were set and he wanted nothing more than to refuse. The last time he had made such a promise, he had failed. But this …

      No. He must not fail this time. ‘I’ll protect her life with mine.’ Her liberty? Well, that he could not promise.

      ‘And her reputation?’ John added.

      Bessie’s eyes widened. ‘I need no such—’

      ‘Aye.’ He’d see she got there and back untouched. ‘That, too.’

      ‘If anything happens—’

      ‘I’ve given you my word,’ he retorted, cutting off Rob’s threat.

      If anything happened to her, his conscience would punish him far worse than the Brunsons ever could. ‘We leave at dawn,’ he said to Bessie.

      She nodded, her damnable calm like a thistle scratching his skin. This woman was as steadfast and unmovable as a rock. And nearly as unresponsive.

      ‘Be ready.’ He turned and walked away.

      As Bessie took each familiar step down the tower’s spiral staircase the next morning, she trailed her fingers over stone walls her chubby fingers had reached for when she was a babe in her mother’s arms.

      The stairs rushed to the ground all too quickly.

      One step at a time, her father would say, when a task seemed too much

      Now, each step was a farewell. Each stone and plank and candle deserved its own goodbye.

      Cate greeted her with a hug when she reached the ground floor. Side by side, they walked to the door.

      ‘There’s flour enough to last the winter,’ she began, ticking off the things Cate must know when she was gone, ‘if you don’t make too many pies. Rob doesn’t like carrots, so when you make the stew, scoop his portion without them.

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