The door scraped against the floor.
“God’s blood!”
De Roche’s voice rang out behind her as she pushed off, flinging her arms out. She grasped at leaves and branches as she fell crashing through the tree. For a moment she hung, suspended in the air, clinging by the fingers of one hand to a spindly branch. It snapped, and she fell again.
“Ooof!” The breath was knocked out of her as she landed on her stomach on a thick lower branch.
De Roche was shouting above her for help. Since most the servants were abed, she still might have time to escape. Circling her arms around the branch, she slid over the side, hoping to hang down and drop safely. Her palms stung from being scraped. Before she was ready, her hands let go.
Arms and legs flailing, she fell the last few feet to the ground. She tasted blood and dirt. Squeezing her eyes shut against the throbbing pain in her ribs, she dragged herself up to her hands and knees. The next thing she knew, her feet were dangling in the air.
“I cannot breathe,” she squeaked to the man holding her up by the collar.
“Lady Hume?” the man said, surprise in his voice. “I thought you were an intruder.”
A cold chill of fear swept through her. The man holding her was Thomás LeFevre.
He set her down so that her feet rested on the ground, but he did not release his hold.
“Send the servants back to bed and wait there,” he called up to de Roche. “I shall bring you what fell out of the window.”
Turning back to her, he said, “I take it you were as displeased as I to learn of my cousin’s duplicity.”
He must think she jumped because she learned of de Roche’s prior marriage. Thank God, neither man had reason to suspect she knew about the murder plot!
Isobel tried to clear her head. Though shaken and bruised, she was not seriously injured. She must try to get away before LeFevre took her upstairs. However poor her chances, they were better with one man than two. She must choose her moment carefully.
LeFevre stood behind her, calm but alert, his hands resting on her shoulders as if he were a friend or lover. It was odd, both of them waiting and listening. The sounds of voices and people moving about the house gradually subsided. One by one, the rooms on the courtyard went dark, save for her solar.
LeFevre clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her roughly to the doorway. Isobel grabbed the doorframe with both hands and tried to scream. Barely breaking his stride, he jerked her hands free. She struggled against him, kicking and biting as he dragged her relentlessly up the stairs.
When they reached her solar, LeFevre kicked the door open. He hauled her across the room and shoved her into the bedchamber. She fell sprawling across the floor. When she looked behind her, alarm pulsed through her. Both LeFevre and de Roche were staring at her.
“I’ve never seen a woman clad in men’s leggings before,” de Roche said, examining her from head to toe. “I shall have to ask you to wear them for me again.”
She could not defend herself against both of them. But if she waited until the last minute to pull her knife, she might succeed in killing the first who tried to touch her.
De Roche took a step toward her. Fine. It would be he who felt her blade. He deserved to die at her hand.
“Wait!” LeFevre put his arm out to stop de Roche.
That was not lust in LeFevre’s eyes. Still, his penetrating gaze frightened her even more than de Roche’s.
“Pull your hood up and push your hair into it,” LeFevre ordered her. “Do it now, or I shall do it for you.”
If he took hold of her, she could lose her chance to pull her knife. She did as she was told.
LeFevre narrowed his eyes. Then his expression cleared, as if he found the answer to a question that had been puzzling him.
“She was with FitzAlan at the abbey,” LeFevre said.
“What?” de Roche said. “How could she?”
“She was there, dressed as she is now,” LeFevre said in a flat tone. “And she saw me.”
De Roche started to speak again, but LeFevre cut him off. “You recognized me from the first, when we met outside the parlor,” LeFevre said to Isobel. “It was a mistake for me to dismiss the fear I saw in your eyes.”
“What shall we do?” de Roche asked, the edge of panic in his voice. “We cannot have our involvement in the abbey attack known. The Dauphin would distance himself from us without a second thought.”
