By His Majesty's Grace by Jennifer Blake

escape but to abide by the king’s will. William was good enough to accept it.”
    “How convenient.”
    “You don’t ask if I’m guilty.”
    “Would you tell me if you were? If you are only going to protest your innocence, then where is the point?”
    It was difficult to fault her logic, though it would have been pleasant if she had appeared to care one way or the other. That was apparently too much to expect. And if he did not look directly at her for any length of time, he discovered, he could attend to what she was saying instead of how she affected him.
    “What if I’m not?” he asked after a moment.
    “Then it will be shown, and all will be as before, yes?”
    His every hope depended on it, and every future plan. “As you say.”
    She looked up at that, as if something in his voice had snared her attention. “You doubt the king’s justice?”
    It was the king’s motives Rand doubted, though it would be foolhardy to say so. The sentiment could become a weapon in her hands, and he had not the least idea how she would use it. “It will turn out as God wills.”
    “Or as the king wills,” she said in tart reply, “which is supposed to be the same thing as he claims divine right. What I should like to know is why I was not told of this charge, was given no hint that you were involved in such a crime.”
    His smile was grim. “That’s easily answered. There was no crime.”
    “It’s all a mistake, then.”
    He inclined his head as he thought of the tender and helpless babe he had helped bring into the world. “I pray it may turn out that way.”
    “Who could have accused you? Have you no idea?”
    “None whatever.”
    “But there was a child?”
    Rand made no reply. He had pledged to remain silent. He did not go back on his sworn oath.
    “Not long after Henry Tudor arrived from Bosworth last year,” the lady observed, her gaze resting on his face, “rumor circulated of a Frenchwoman who had landed in Wales with him for the invasion and traveled in his baggage train. She never put in an official appearance at court, possibly because of his immediate betrothal to Elizabeth of York. Henry would have wanted nothing to stand in the way of his being wed to the daughter of Edward IV as it promised to add legitimacy to his claim to the throne….” She stopped, sending him an impatient frown. “Don’t look so hunted, no one can hear us!”
    “It isn’t your lovely neck that may be stretched if Henry is displeased,” he said in dry reproof, “though it could be if you continue in this vein. That is, unless you are offered the ax as a noblewoman.”
    She ignored that last sally. “What other vein is there? I only speak the truth.”
    “The truth is what the king declares it to be.”
    “So cynical. I did not know you were at court long enough for it.”
    He glanced ahead to where the first riders of their long cavalcade approached the ford for a small stream. In the meadow behind them, a lark sang and a warm wind swept over the wheat awaiting harvest so it waved like a golden sea. The scents of ripening grain wafted around them, along with the dust of their passage and the hint of ripening berries from a distant hedgerow. All was well with their line of march for the moment.
    “I was a part of Henry’s court long before he reached England’s shores last year,” he said finally. “It was enough.”
    “You left it of your own will, then. Could be that’s why he has ordered you brought back. Those who wear the crown are often suspicious of men who withdraw from their august presence.”
    “So it’s dangerous to get too close and dangerous to stay away. What is a peaceable man to do?”
    She watched him a long moment before she spoke. “You really don’t care for court life.”
    “I prefer Braesford, where my labors make a difference that can be seen, where there is time to watch the sunrise, the rain as it sweeps down the mountainsides and the fat lambs in the fields.”
    “A farmer in