“At least you need not worry about hurting Lady Agnes’s feelings,” Isobel said.
“That is for certain.” Jamie laughed. “As soon as I left her house, she ran away to the nunnery.”
“It was kind of you to stop to see her there before leaving.”
“She is hell-bent on remaining at the nunnery,” he said with a smile. “If the abbess fails to persuade her father through reasoned argument, Agnes intends to chain herself to the altar.”
Isobel held her belly as she chuckled. “Pray, do not make me laugh, or I may have the babe right here in the yard.”
As they walked, Isobel’s expression grew thoughtful. “Tell me, what went wrong with Linnet this time?”
Jamie blew out his breath. “Simply put, Linnet wants revenge for something that happened years and years ago more than she wants me.”
“I see,” Isobel said and nodded to herself.
“Tell me, how can I convince her to forget the past?” Isobel stopped and turned her serious green eyes on him. “Did you never consider helping her settle her old scores?”
“What? Help her with such foolishness?”
Isobel raised her eyebrows at him and then began walking again. “ ’Tis not foolishness to her.”
“But it is foolish nonetheless—and dangerous besides.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Why can she not leave it alone and be happy to be a wife and mother like other women?”
Jamie turned in time to catch Isobel rolling her eyes. “If she were like other women, she would not be the woman you love,” she said. “Try to understand her. If you felt a great wrong had been committed against, say, your mother, could you rest?”
Isobel knew precisely how protective he felt toward his mother; she always made her points with razor-sharp accuracy.
“But Linnet promised me she would let the past be.” Breaking her word to him still rankled.
“You know how it was for her,” Isobel said. “When Stephen and William found her and Francois, they were living by their wits, stealing food and protecting themselves with an old sword. It cannot be easy for her to forgive the men who put them there.”
“But she thinks nothing of poking a stick at these men,” he said, raising his hands in the air, “no matter how powerful they may be.”
“All the more reason she needs you,” Isobel said.
Who knew women were such bloodthirsty creatures? “I suppose I shall have to help her. God knows she cannot do it alone, no matter what she thinks.”
Stephen caught up to them then, leading Jamie’s horse. “My wife put you on the right path?”
“Do you doubt it?” Jamie put his arm around Isobel’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Wish me luck, for I fear we shall have our wedding in the Tower.”
Isobel grinned at him. “At least you shall be together.” He bid them a final farewell and mounted his horse.
As he made the long journey to London, Agnes’s strange words of parting nagged at him, drawing his mind again and again, like an infected wound.
“Pray for God’s protection,” Agnes had said, “for I have seen demons hovering over the lady you seek.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Linnet was beneath the water, rocked by the motion of the sea. Her heart began to race because the sea was too dark for her to see the surface, and she did not know which way to swim.
Gradually, she realized the rocking motion was not the sea, but someone carrying her. Her head pounded. She recalled someone grabbing her from behind… and the strong medicinal smell of a cloth over her face. She sniffed. Damp wool now. Was she wrapped in a blanket? She felt confined, swaddled as tight as a babe.
A voice came out of the darkness. “Any trouble?” “None.” She felt the rumble of the deep voice of the man carrying her.
The voice sounded familiar… A jolt of indignation ran through her: This was Carter, the very man she had hired to protect her.
She forced herself not to struggle. There was nothing she could do wrapped up like this—and letting them know she was awake might squander a later opportunity to escape.