LITMIR.BIZ

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for a moment. “Belle’s in trouble,” he announced without a preamble. “At least, methinks she is.”

      Mark groaned inwardly. He had known Brandon’s natural daughter ever since the little minx first appeared at Wolf Hall dressed in a ragged infant’s gown. LaBelle Marie Cavendish attracted disasters like honey drew bears.

      “Tis an old tale twice-told, my lord,” he muttered. He sipped his mulled cider to steady his nerves. “Methought Belle was married a few years ago. Her troubles should be her husband’s now.”Poor sot!

      Opening his eyes, Brandon leveled an icy blue glare at the younger man. “She was. The boy’s dead. Thereby hangs the reason for her present distress.”

      Mark squelched his impulse to ask if Belle had driven her late spouse into his early grave. Instead he took another drink of cider while his heart beat faster.

      Brandon emptied his own mug before he continued. “Cuthbert Fletcher was never my idea of a husband for Belle. The boy was a weakling, though pretty in his features. Belle took one look at that milksop—God rest his soul—and declared that she must have him as a husband or else she would die. Nearly drove me stark mad with her artful wheedling.”

      Mark snorted in his cup. Comes from spoiling her rotten since the age of two. “But you allowed the match,” he observed aloud.

      When Mark had heard of Belle’s nuptials four months after the event, he had toasted the health of her luckless bridegroom in Irish whiskey. He had never gotten so drunk in his life as he did on that rainy night.

      Brandon gave him a meaningful look. “Because Cuthbert would take her, despite her…background.” He cleared his throat. “None of the young noblemen looked twice at my Belle once they learned she was born of a French commoner on the wrong side of my blanket. Belle was the fairest maid at Great Harry’s court when we took her there two years ago, yet not one of those strutting peacocks would stoop to woo her—except that whey-faced Cuthbert—the son of a wool-merchant.”

      Mark tightened his grip around his mug at the thought of pretty Belle being snubbed by a gaggle of flap-mouthed galliwags dressed in satin. The lass had more spirit in her little finger than most men possessed in their bodies—and that was usually the trouble with the headstrong vixen. He massaged his forearm where it had broken eight years ago—the last time he had seen Belle.

      “Most men never bother to look beyond their own noses,” he remarked. A trickle of sweat rolled down the back of his neck despite the coolness of the twilight’s air. “So Cuthbert died?” he prodded.

      “Aye,” Brandon growled. “Of a fever this past June. Belle wrote us a heartbroken letter.”

      Mark blinked. “She doesn’t live nearby?”

      Brandon attempted to pour himself more cider from the pitcher but splashed most of it on his nightshirt. After swearing under his breath, he replied, “Nay. My good Kat gave Bodiam Castle to the newlyweds as Belle’s jointure estate. Belle is still in Sussex.”

      Mark’s eyes widened. “A most generous gift from your lady wife,” he murmured.

      He remembered Bodiam well. Nestled in the middle of Sussex’s rich farming country, the castle’s honey-colored walls had mellowed since it was first built in the fourteenth century. The moated fortress had turned into a comfortable home under the loving care of Brandon’s wife, Lady Katherine. Now the estate reaped a huge annual profit from its diverse crops. A dart of jealousy skewered Mark.

      As the fifth son of a middling nobleman, he had inherited nothing from his father except a good family name. Nor had Mark gained any land of his own in Ireland as he had expected, despite the blood, sweat and tears he had poured into that contentious sod. No wonder Cuthbert had been eager to marry Belle! Mark himself would have married a hag witch for such a prize as Bodiam.

      Brandon frowned into his half-filled mug. “Cuthbert’s brother and sister were with Belle when her husband died. In July, she wrote that they were still at Bodiam to keep her company. Then…nothing. I sent her a letter in August but received no answer. Belle may have her faults, but she has always been an excellent correspondent.”

      Mark raised an eyebrow at this revelation. That brat never sent me one word of contrition for nearly destroying my sword arm. Not one jot or tittle of remorse!

      Brandon continued, “Kat and I worried about her unusual silence, but we thought she was busy with the onerous tasks of managing the estate. Or that she was still overwhelmed by her grief.”

      Mark drained his cider. Belle—someone’s wife! He vividly remembered her on the cusp of womanhood when she was thirteen. The thought of her lying…in bed…her long blond hair streaming on a burgundy coverlet…beckoning…naked…

      “More?” Brandon shattered Mark’s increasingly lusty daydream.

      “What?”

      “More cider?” Brandon waggled the pitcher.

      Mark nodded and served both himself and his former master as he had so often done in days of yore.

      Brandon furrowed his brow. “I intended to visit Belle as soon as the king’s Michaelmas tournament was concluded. I did not dare to miss that event. Great Harry has not been himself these days after the execution of his latest wife. Poor little Catherine Howard!” Brandon shook his head, then frowned. “Indeed, the king’s temper has grown as monstrous as his body.”

      Mark gasped. “Soft, my lord. Your words hover close to treason. These walls could harbor unfriendly ears.”

      The young knight had just come from Henry’s court where the nobility of England cowered in Westminster’s drafty galleries while they waited for the next horrific eruption from their erratic sovereign. Mark had been very thankful to receive Brandon’s urgent summons away from that royal hellhole.

      Brandon waved aside any disloyalty. He glowered at his lower body that was trussed in splints and miles of tight bandages. “Then this devilish thing happened. A simple jousting practice with my brother in our own tiltyard! My new charger stumbled on a pass and fell—pinioned me under him. The horse is a beauty, but marvelously heavy.”

      Mark eyed the bandaging and shuddered inwardly. “Your angel must have been riding on your shoulder. I’ve known men to die that way.”

      Brandon chuckled wryly. “You sound like Kat.” His brief smile dissolved. “But to the point. I have lain here for nearly a month, bedridden worse than my aged father on his ‘creaking’ days. Then a fortnight ago, I received this.” He plucked a wrinkled paper from the side table and held it out to Mark. “Tis from Montjoy. Do you remember that old badger?”

      Nodding, Mark took the letter. “He still lives?” he asked, picturing the ancient steward of Bodiam, now supposedly in quiet retirement. The man must be nearly a hundred years old. Mark scanned the short note. “He writes with a cleric’s hand. His letters are clear.”

      “What do you make of his message?” Brandon growled.

      “‘A black cloud has shrouded Bodiam Castle,”’ Mark read aloud. “‘All loyal retainers have been dismissed. Visitors are sent away. Last evening, a village lad spied Mistress Belle high in one of the towers. She begged him to send for her father. Then the boy was chased from the home park by several armed men. Come quickly, my Lord Cavendish. Methinks your daughter is in great peril. Montjoy.”’

      “I am a man on the rack, Mark,” Brandon said hoarsely. “My Belle needs me and I cannot move from this dankish bed!” He slammed his fist into one of the bolsters. It exploded in a geyser of goose feathers. The two men stared at the fluttering down that filled the small bedchamber. “Kat will boil my brains for supper,” Brandon mumbled morosely. “Tis the fifth pillow I have destroyed since Montjoy’s letter arrived.”

      Mark’s mouth went dry. To the best of his knowledge, Belle had never begged for anything in her life. Bargained, demanded, schemed and coerced—but never

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