With her heart thundering in her ears, she began walking toward her enemy. Mychell had lied to her, given her the wrong name. The man with the cane was not dead. He was right here at Windsor. Mychell must also have lied when he claimed the man was just an intermediary, a lackey like himself.
The fiend’s back was to her. She took in the fine brocade stretched over a broad back gone to fat, and the elaborate liripipe hat with a long tail drawn forward over his shoulder.
He was talking with Gloucester and Eleanor… and Pomeroy. But she barely took note of the others; even Pomeroy did not matter. She had made a vow that day as she hid under the bed. At long last, she had found her enemy. Ten years she had waited. And now he was hers.
Her heart pounded in her ears, blocking all other sounds, as she started toward him through the crowd. A glimmer of reason broke through her trance:Not here.Not here in the hall before all these people.
But she needed to see his face. Making a wide circle, she worked her way around the room until she stood behind a pillar opposite him. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the pillar while she gathered herself. Despite all her efforts to find him, her enemy had hidden from her at every turn. Now, finally, she would know who he was.
Would she recognize him? Would he be an old friend of her grandfather’s, as the others had been?
The advantage was hers now. She must not forewarn him that she knew who he was. And that she intended to destroy him.
She drew in a deep breath and walked around the pillar.
The group had shifted so that Pomeroy once again blocked her view. All she could see of the man was dark hair and a fat cheek, pink with good health. In her memory, his voice was an old man’s. But here the villain was, in the prime of life, with years before him to enjoy the fruits of his unearned prosperity.
All thought of carefully choosing her timing, of working by stealth, went out of her head when the man threw back his head and his hearty laugh rang out above the noise of the crowd. How dare he enjoy his life after destroying her grandfather? How dare he, after leaving her and Francois to face the world alone and penniless?
She remembered the fear of getting caught stealing and losing a hand. She remembered hunger clawing at her belly when they did not manage to steal enough. She remembered the English soldiers cornering her and Francois in their empty house in Falaise. She remembered the lechery in the soldiers’ eyes that she did not fully understand and yet made her ill with fright.
All of it happened as a consequence of this man’s acts against them. Red rage grew in her until her body pulsed with it. She could not bear that he should walk this earth another day, another moment.
As she moved toward him, she felt for the thin blade she kept strapped to the inside of her forearm. She gave her arm a snap, and the blade slid loose from its sheath and fell into her cupped hand. As she folded her fingers over the hilt, she imagined sticking it into the middle of her enemy’s chest.
She needed no plan. His time had come.
Justice was hers.
“Quickly. She is there,” Martin said.
Jamie followed his squire’s gaze and saw Linnet. She was moving through the milling guests like a hunter stalking forward, her eyes on her prey.
“You were right to fetch me,” Jamie said without taking his eyes off Linnet. God’s beard, what was she doing?
Jamie eased his way around an elderly couple, then quickened his pace. But a massive woman in red velvet stepped in front of him, and he lost sight of Linnet behind the woman’s expansive headdress. He stepped to the side and looked over the heads of the noisy crowd, tension thrumming through him. Where in the hell was she?
A moment later, he saw her emerge from behind a pillar. Her eyes were fixed dead ahead, and she took no notice of the people who attempted to speak to her as she brushed past them. Jamie had seen that same fierce expression on the faces of warriors charging into battle.
But who or what was she charging toward? As he plunged through the crowd again, he followed the direction of her gaze… to Pomeroy. Damnation, he didn’t know Pomeroy was here. Good God, she was headed straight for him. What in the name of all the bloody saints did she plan to do?
Jamie pushed his way through the guests as quickly as he could without knocking anyone to the floor. When she was but five feet from Pomeroy, Jamie stepped in front of her. She gasped and looked up at him, her eyes wide and unblinking, as if he’d wakened her from a dream. Taking her firmly by the arm, Jamie wheeled her around and marched her toward the door.
“God’s blood, Linnet,” he hissed in her ear. “I told you I would take care of Pomeroy.”
When he finally got her out of the crowded hall, he kept going. He intended to take care of Pomeroy once and for all this time. But he would deal with Linnet first.
He marched her all the way up the stairs to her chamber, shoved her inside, and slammed the door behind them.
“I swear, you will be the death of me,” he shouted at her. “What were you about to do to Pomeroy? You had murder in your eyes.”
“Nothing,” she said in a voice that still sounded dazed. “I was not going to touch Pomeroy, I swear it.”
He took hold of her shoulders and gave her a shake. “I told you I would take care of him.”
She was shaking so violently that he ground his teeth to make himself stop yelling at her.
“It was not Pomeroy,” she said.