By His Majesty's Grace Read Online Free PDF Page B

right. He had also married Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV, thus uniting the red rose of Lancaster with the white rose of York, ending decades of fighting.
    So much blood and death, and for what? For the right to receive the homage of other men? For the power to take what they wanted and kill whom they pleased?
    “And the present Henry is wholly deserving of the crown he has gained?” she inquired.
    “Careful, my lady,” Braesford said softly. “Newly made kings are more sensitive to treasonous comments than those accustomed to the weight of the crown.”
    “You won’t denounce me, I think, for that would mean the end of a marriage greatly to your advantage. Besides, I would not speak so before any other.”
    He met her gaze for long seconds, his own darkly appraising before he inclined his head. “I value the confidence.”
    “Of course you do,” she said in short rejoinder. Few men bothered to listen to women in her experience, much less attend to what they said.
    “I assure you it is so. Only bear in mind that in some places the very stones have ears.” He went on with barely a pause. “In any case, Henry VII is the last of his blood, the last heir to the rightful king, being descended on his mother’s side from John of Gaunt, grandfather to Henry VI. With all other contenders executed, dead in battle or presumed murdered, he has as much right to the crown as any, and far more than most.”
    “Descended from an illegitimate child of John of Gaunt,” she pointed out.
    His smile turned crooked, lighting the gray of his eyes. “Spoken like a true Yorkist. Yet the baseborn can be made legitimate by royal decree, as were the children of John of Gaunt by Katherine Swynford, not to mention Henry’s new consort, Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth. And as with the meek, they sometimes inherit the earth.”
    “Do you speak of Henry,” she said after an instant of frowning consideration, “or mean to say that you inherited your father’s estates, as he was once master at Braesford?”
    “I was awarded them, rather, for services rendered to Henry VII. Though I promise you I earned every hectare and hamlet.”
    “Awarded a bride, as well,” she said with some asperity.
    Rand tipped his head. “That, too, by God’s favor, as well as Henry’s.”
    The former owner of Braesford, if she remembered aright, was named McConnell. Being baseborn, Rand had taken the name of the estate as his surname, identifying himself with the land rather than with his father. It was a significant act, perhaps an indication of the man. “I was told the reward was, most likely, for finding the golden circlet lost by Richard in a thornbush at Bosworth. Well, and for having the presence of mind to hand it to Lord Stanley with the recommendation that he crown Henry on the field.”
    “Don’t, please, allow the king’s mother to hear you say so.” A wry smile came and went across his face. “She believes it was her husband’s idea.”
    Henry’s mother, Lady Margaret, was married to Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby, as everyone knew. Though she had set up her household at Westminster Palace with her son, living apart from her husband by mutual consent, she was yet protective of Stanley’s good name.
    “It was the reason, nonetheless?” Isabel persisted.
    “Such things come, now and then, from the gratitude of kings.”
    His voice was satirical, his features grim, almost forbidding. He was not stupid by any means, so well knew the fickle nature of royals who could take away as easily as they gave.
    Yet receiving the ripe plum of a fine estate that had once belonged to a traitor was not unusual. The late bloodletting, named by some troubadour as the War of the Roses, had gone on so long, its factions had shifted and changed so often with the rise and fall of those calling themselves king, that titles and estates had changed hands many times over. A man sitting at the king’s table today, lauded as a lord and dressed in