Linnet blew her nose loudly and half coughed, half sobbed. Stephen narrowed his eyes at her—something was not quite right here. Deciding not to press her at the entrance, where anyone could be watching, he led the way to his room.
The servant assigned to watch him was frantic. “Where did you go, sir? You should have told me—”
“Be gone until morning,” Stephen said as he shoved the man out of the room, “or I shall tell them how easy it was to slip by you.”
As soon as he slammed the door, Linnet threw her arms up and danced around the room. “Was I not wonderful? You did not guess! François, you should have seen his face! And de Roche’s!”
He clenched his fists to keep from strangling the girl.
“How could you believe Isobel would throw me out?” Linnet asked, rolling her eyes at him.
“Tell me the reason for this farce,” he demanded.
In the blink of an eye, Linnet’s face changed from delighted self-congratulation to anguish. “Isobel sent me away so I could tell you that de Roche and his cousin are plotting to kill King Henry.”
What?His head was spinning. “How does she know this?”
“By spying on de Roche, of course,” Linnet said.
Stephen sat down and closed his eyes. Alone, without a friend in this city, Isobel was spying on de Roche while living in his house? He shook his head. “What can she be thinking?”
“She is only doing her duty,” Linnet said.
“Is Isobel quite certain of this plot?”
Linnet nodded. “Aye, she found a letter from his cousin in a locked drawer.”
God help her, she was taking chances!
“The cousin writes that all is set to murder the king in church upon some grand occasion.”
Murder the king! He stopped to think. “I wonder if they mean to do it at the knighting at Easter…”
“That is what Isobel believes,” Linnet said. “And she says the cousin is Georges de la Trémoille, because the letter is signed ‘T.’ ”
Stephen nodded, his thoughts on Isobel. “But why did Isobel devise that ruse to send you away? Surely she could have found another way to get a message to me.”
Linnet’s fair skin went red, and she would not meet his eyes. Stephen turned and raised an eyebrow at François.
Blushing as fiercely as his sister, François stepped next to him and whispered, “As we were walking here, Linnet told me de Roche was… that he was… after her. She thinks Lady Hume used the message as an excuse to get her away from him.”
God’s blood. Stephen wanted to kill the man with his bare hands.
François straightened and said, “She is right to trust you to protect my sister.”
But who would protect Isobel when de Roche discovered the games she was playing? What could Stephen do now that she was living with the man? Nothing! Nothing at all. She was de Roche’s wife now, beyond his reach.
He must go quickly to warn the king. Easter was still two weeks away, but men would begin arriving sooner. The conspirators could be in Caen any day, ready to act. He swallowed hard at the thought of leaving Isobel, of perhaps never seeing her again. Still, he had to go. He could not let his king be murdered.
But how could he leave her?
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.
It was one of the Palais guards. “This young woman says you arranged a… meeting… with her.” The man waggled his eyebrows and jerked his thumb behind him.
Before Stephen could protest, a stunning woman with smoky dark eyes emerged from behind the guard. In a voice rich with unspoken promises, she said, “Claudette sent me.”
Stephen winked at the guard. “Claudette knows the best.”
