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and thus could do nothing to elevate Lady Mortimer’s stature. In spite of his commitment to his wife, Anne was still Charles’s first priority, and for her he would do anything.
    Thomas Brandon entered the room a moment later with long, labored strides. He was a middle-aged, heavily over-weight man with sagging jowls and thick black brows that merged in the middle and gave him a serious countenance.
    He was wearing a predictably dour black velvet long coat with ermine mantle and cuffs.
    “Charles.” He nodded blandly as he approached.
    “Uncle.” Charles nodded in return.
    “I would ask what brings you here but I can assume it is the only thing that ever brings you to Southwark.”
    Charles steadied himself. It was always the same volley, which elicited the same need to restrain himself. “You know very well what my request is to be used for.”
    “So you do maintain that Anne’s needs remain great.
    Yet I wonder . . . another doublet, is it truly? A new jewel, perhaps a fencing lesson? Or is it Italian lessons now? The need to keep up never ends, does it?”
    “Nor does the desire. Yet as a Brandon yourself, you should know that well, Uncle.”
    “More avaricious than ambitious, are we now?”
    “Feel free to see them as equally as you like. So, will you give it to me then?”
    “Because you are my brother’s son, and only so, I shall consider a loan to you—not a gift.”
    “As always, you are too kind.”
    There was a tense little silence. “I shouldn’t think you will want to tell your wife about this.”
    “Our dealings do not concern her.”
    He smiled strangely and leaned back in the chair. “Ah, in spite of how you insist on playing the game, Charles, everything a married man does concerns his wife, or should.”
    “Not this.”
    “Very well. I shall honor that,” he said on an irritated sigh. “But you know people talk, especially those at court.
    And your wife, as well as mine, does attend the queen.”
    “Then, Uncle, see that your wife knows nothing more of this than does my own.”
    Thomas steepled his hands as his elbows balanced on the carved chair arms. The ermine cuffs spilled back from his wrists as he considered the request. Charles knew that he enjoyed drawing this out as long as he possibly could. “And just why should I do that when this is not the first time you have come to me for funds—nor, I presume, will it be the last?”
    “Because I am the dearest friend of the next King of England, the current king is an old man—and I have learned well from my father’s brother about greed and about self-preservation.”
    Thomas Brandon was apparently at a loss for words after that, since he stood and went out of the room to fetch the money his nephew had written to request from him.

    The next morning, as a thick white fog swirled at his ankles, Charles ducked down to pass through the low doorway in the cozy bedchamber of a little country house not far from London Bridge. The house was comfortable and stylish, yet a far cry from the family estate his uncle had inherited. A toddler sat before the fire on the rush mat–covered floor, playing with a stick and ball. Another child, a slightly older boy, with hair in gold ringlets, handed his mother a cup of Anjou wine as Charles drew off his gloves and approached them. A serving girl curtsied awkwardly to him, remaining near the door.
    Seeing him, her clear blue eyes brightened and she almost smiled. “You’ve come after all,” his sister, Anne Shilston, said on a sigh.
    Charles sank into the chair at her bedside and took up her hand. “I told you I would,” he warmly replied, his lips curved into a patient smile that no one but Anne ever saw.
    “You should learn to believe me by now.”
    “It just gets so lonely out here with you away at court.”
    He patted the little boy’s head and smiled affectionately at him. The contrast between his fine velvet doublet and the boy’s more modest linen shirt was stark to him in the