Knight of Pleasure (34 page)

“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.”

LeFevre’s black eyes never left Isobel’s face.

“We shall have to kill her, of course.”

W
hen do we sneak back to get Isobel?” Linnet asked.

Stephen sat with the twins and Jamie at a simple wooden table in the abbey guesthouse. While the other men were preparing
to ride, he was giving Jamie a brief recounting of events and advising him of his plan.

“
You
are not going, Linnet.” He wished he did not have to take François, either, but he needed the boy’s help to get into de Roche’s
house. Damn, damn, damn.

Ignoring Linnet’s glower, he told Jamie, “I shall go back into the city after dark.”

“How many of us do you want to go with you?” Jamie asked.

“François and I will go alone. I need you to lead the men back to Caen.”

When Jamie started to object, Stephen held up his hand. “This is a command, Jamie. The king must be warned of the murder plot
without delay. He needs to know of the Burgundians’ treachery. I shall follow as soon as I am able.”

How he would manage to get to Caen with Isobel and François he did not know. He would worry about that after he got Isobel
out of de Roche’s house.

Jamie seemed resigned. Within a quarter hour, he had the men mounted and ready. Linnet was another story. Lips pressed tightly
together, she refused even to bid Stephen and François good-bye before riding off with the men.

Stephen changed into his regular clothes and wiped mud onto his and François’s boots to give the illusion of long travel.
At dark, they mounted and headed toward the city. A cold wind picked up with nightfall, giving them excuse to draw their hoods
low and wrap their capes close about them as they approached the gates.

If the men at the gate thought the merchant on the fine horse unwise to travel outside of the city accompanied by a single
servant, they did not bother telling him.

“Once you get me inside the house, come back and wait for me near the gate,” Stephen told François. “We need to make a plan
for you in case I do not return.”

Stephen ran a hand over his face and tried to think. Damn, damn, damn. “I wish I knew one soul in this wretched city I could
trust,” he muttered half aloud.

“What about Madame… er, Sybille?”

Stephen rolled his eyes heavenward. Lord above, was this wise? The courtesan had something else in mind when she whispered
her address in Stephen’s ear. Nonetheless, he had it.

“If I do not return by dawn, her house is on Rue St. Romain next to the small church,” he said. “Sybille can get a message
to Robert, and he will figure out how to get you back to Caen.”

They took a circuitous route to the narrow lane that abutted the back of de Roche’s house and stables. Then Stephen hid in
the shadows with the horses while François called out at the gate.

“ ’Bout time you showed your face, boy.”

The gruff greeting was followed by the creak of the gate. Luck was with them—the man had not been informed François was no
longer in de Roche’s service. Stephen eased his grip on his sword.

“You been gadding about the town again when you’re s’posed to be working?” the gruff voice continued.

“Of course!” François said. “How else would I have stories to tell you? I’ve brought you a flask of wine, as well.”

The man’s laugh rang out in the darkness. “Come in, then, you rascal.” Their voices faded as the gate clanked closed.

François was in.

Stephen paced up and down the dark lane, wondering how long he would have to wait. François said the man would be well into
his cups by this hour. The waiting seemed endless.

Would he find Isobel alone? God, please, he did not want to find her in bed with de Roche.

Killing de Roche would be satisfying, to be sure. But not in front of Isobel. She would suffer shock enough when he told her
the news Sybille brought. After hearing whispers in Paris of de Roche’s secret marriage, Claudette confirmed it with de Roche’s
mother, of all people. Stephen knew he would have to tell Isobel to convince her to leave with him.

When the gate creaked again, every muscle of Stephen’s body tensed. The outline of a figure appeared, leaning out the gate.

“Stephen,” François called out softly into the darkness. When Stephen joined him at the gate, François said, “ ’Tis safe.
He’s drunk as a bishop. He’ll not wake ’til morning.”

“Good work.” Stephen squeezed François’s shoulder as he slipped through the gate. “Let us hurry.”

“The door into the house from the stable yard is not locked,” François said in a hushed voice as they trotted across the yard.
“But Isobel’s rooms are at the top of the house. I can show you from the courtyard.”

Stephen touched the rope wound around his waist. It would be safest to bring her down from the window; the less time the two
of them spent walking through the house, the better.

“No talking inside,” Stephen warned when they reached the door. “As soon as you show me which window is hers, leave for the
city gate.”

Stephen barely heard the soft click and swish of the door. François had a talent for this. Once inside, François led Stephen
down a short corridor and around a corner. He stopped in front of a large window and eased a shutter open to reveal a square
courtyard of perhaps fifteen feet across. An overgrown tree filled the small space.

He heard a shout from the lit window above as something fell crashing through the tree.

“Get out, now!” he said to François. When the boy did not move, Stephen took hold of the back of his cloak and turned him
around. “Go!” he said, giving François a shove in his back.

Dear God, those were Isobel’s screams echoing off the walls of the courtyard!

Stephen spun around. He was halfway out the window before he saw the man standing in the shadows. Another man was leaning
out of the window above, bellowing his head off. It was all Stephen could do to make himself wait.

When the man in the courtyard pulled Isobel roughly to her feet, Stephen clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. He decided
he would kill this man before he left the house tonight.

“Send the servants back to bed and wait there,” the man called up. “I shall bring you what fell out of the window.”

Good. Better to have the servants abed when he and Isobel made their escape.

When the man in the window turned his head to bark orders at someone behind him, Stephen recognized de Roche’s ridiculous
pointed goatee. But who was the man in the courtyard? Not a servant. The voice was cultured, used to command. He thought he’d
heard it before, but where?

The man was experienced; he did not lose patience and move too soon. Instead, the devil’s spawn waited until the rooms went
dark and the voices stilled before dragging Isobel into the house. At least Isobel was not badly injured from the fall. She
was scratching and kicking like a madwoman.

What a woman! Jumping out the window!

She must have learned about de Roche’s wife.

Stephen followed them up two sets of stairs. With Isobel struggling at every step, the man did not once look behind him. At
the top, the man kicked a door open and carried Isobel inside.

The door closed behind them. Damn.

Stephen padded up the last steps and pressed his ear to the door. The two men were talking. He could not make out the words,
but something in their tone had the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

Stephen drew his sword from its scabbard. Though de Roche was a skilled swordsman, he was not as good as he thought he was.
His arrogance would lead him to make a mistake.

The other man worried Stephen more. If he had a choice, Stephen would take him first. Having made his plan, such as it was,
Stephen eased the door open with his boot.

Nothing happened. He nudged it a few inches wider. Now he could see the room—a small solar—was empty. The voices were coming
from the adjoining room.

Stephen stepped lightly across the room and pressed himself against the wall next to the open door. He could hear more clearly
now. De Roche was saying something about an attack on an abbey. An abbey? Could de Roche—

As the other man spoke, Stephen’s speculations came to a jarring halt. His words turned Stephen’s blood to ice.

“We shall have to kill her, of course.”

Stephen stormed through the door.

In that first instant, he saw where each person in the room stood in relation to him and to each other. Isobel was farthest
away, her back to the bed. Though her face was scratched, the fire in her eyes told him she had her wits about her. Thank
God. De Roche was two steps from Isobel.

Fortune placed the other man closest to Stephen. A black-haired man.

“Stephen,” Isobel called out, “he is the one who attacked the abbey.”

“You blasphemous pig, murdering unarmed holy men,” Stephen spat out as their swords clanked together. “I shall send you to
the devil!”

Stephen thrust his sword toward the man’s heart. At the last instant, the man leapt to the side. He was right to worry more
about this one than de Roche. Still, he would take the man.

From the corner of his eye, he saw de Roche take a step forward to join the fight. The fool had his back to Isobel. She was
already reaching for her dagger. Stephen wanted to shout at her not to take the risk, but his warning would draw de Roche’s
attention to her.

Stephen whirled around to parry behind his back. While the wild stunt did keep both men’s eyes on him, the black-haired man’s
sword nearly caught him. Stephen felt the blade slash the back of his tunic as he spun out of the way.

De Roche screamed and threw his arms up, arching his back. Eyes bulging and mouth agape, he looked caught between shock, outrage,
and agony. God’s blood, Stephen hoped it was a death blow. If not, the man would turn on Isobel with a vengeance.

Damn, he needed to finish this monk killer and help her. But the man was good. Too good. De Roche’s scream reverberating in
the small room did not distract him.