“Wait,” she called after them. “I will come with you.”
“Don’t be foolish—” de Roche began, but FitzAlan cut him off.
“Keep her here,” FitzAlan commanded, pointing his outstretched arm at de Roche.
Then they were gone.
Dropping her eyes on the floor, Isobel said, “I will wait in my chamber, as you suggested.” She dipped a quick curtsy and left before he could say a word.
Linnet caught up with her on the stairs. As soon as they reached her chamber, Isobel opened her trunk and took out the clothes she had been mending for Geoffrey.
“Cut six inches from the sleeves and leggings, and help me change,” she ordered Linnet. “Quickly now.”
She brushed aside Linnet’s objections. The voice in the back of her head told her what she was doing was foolish; she ignored that, as well.
Geoffrey was all she had in the world.
She could not sit here and wait. From the time Geoffrey was little, she was the one who protected him—from their father’s criticisms, their mother’s indifference, his own blindness to the world around him.
“If someone comes for me, tell them I am asleep,” she said as she strapped on her sword. “Say I am unwell, a headache.”
Thank goodness her cloak was a plain one. She told Linnet to fetch it as she pushed her hair under a cap. After giving Linnet a hurried kiss on the cheek, she pulled the hood over her head and ran out the door.
She got to the stables just as Stephen and FitzAlan were riding out. She ducked her head as they galloped past, then turned to see that they were headed toward the eastern gate, Porte des Champs.
When she found François inside, he was no more keen on her plan than his sister. Still, she made him help saddle her horse and swore him to secrecy. He looked so uneasy that she forgot her disguise and touched his cheek.
“I shall catch up to them in no time,” she assured him. “They will keep me safe.”
“Take good care, m’lady,” François said. “They are going to be very angry.”
She almost laughed—François was far more concerned about what Stephen and FitzAlan would do to her than the brigands and renegades.
Porte des Champs took her directly into the fields east of the castle. Far ahead, she could see two riders. She held her horse back, not wanting to close the distance too soon. Her plan was to wait to reveal herself until they were midway to the abbey, when they would find it easier to take her to the abbey than bring her all the way back to Caen.
Before long, she dismissed her fear of being discovered too soon. She was a good rider, but at each rise, the two men seemed farther and farther ahead. She lost sight of them altogether in the dips between.
When she crested the next hill, she could not see them at all. A surge of fear went through her as she realized how alone and vulnerable she was. She darted looks side to side and behind her. Should she go back? Heart pounding, she craned her neck and searched the empty horizon.
Suddenly, two riders burst out of the trees on either side of her. Her shrieks filled the air as they charged toward her. At the last moment, the two riders pulled their horses up. Their horses reared, hooves high in the air. Her horse shied away from them, nearly unseating her in its fright.
When Isobel saw who the riders were, she thought she might faint with relief. She pressed her hand to her thundering heart. “Praise God it is you! I thought you were brigands!”
“Isobel?” Stephen said, his eyes wide. “Isobel!”
She wanted to throw her arms around them both. The men were not nearly as glad to see her. In sooth, they looked as if they’d like to murder her.
“Are you possessed?” Stephen shouted at her. “Did you think we would not notice someone following us? If your screams were not so… so… sofemale,we might have run you through!”
He sounded as though he wished they had.
“You were a fool to come,” FitzAlan said. “And that de Roche is a bigger fool for not making certain you did not.”
“But I am here,” she said quickly. “Geoffrey and Jamie cannot be far ahead now. We must keep going.”
When she saw the look that passed between them, she knew she would get her way. But they were not happy about it.
“We shall take you to the abbey, and leave you there,” FitzAlan said. “In chains, if need be.”
