guest chambers where she could expect to find servants waiting for their masters and mistresses to retire, including the maidservant the steward had assigned her.
She missed her footing on one of the low, worn steps and fell on her hands and knees. A strong hand grabbed her arm and started to pull her up.
Panicking, she swung hard and hit a face.
Armand de Boisbaston’s face.
“God’s teeth!” he growled, putting a hand to his cheek.
“You scared me!” she exclaimed, her heart beating like a startled bird’s wings. “I thought you might be one of the assassins.”
“If I was,” he said through clenched teeth, “it might be because you aroused my suspicions with your behavior in the hall tonight. I gather it’s not usually your habit to converse with every male in the hall, or dance with any man who asks, but you were certainly the merry gadabout tonight. You couldn’t have drawn more attention to yourself if you tried.”
Adelaide didn’t appreciate his criticism and raised her chin. “I thought time was of the essence, so I talked to as many men as I could. Are you truly distressed to think I put myself at risk, or are you upset because a mere woman might prove to be more useful in such a matter than a mighty warrior?”
“I’m upset because you deliberately put yourself in danger.”
“If I can prevent a battle for the throne, then I’ll put myself in danger. And where was all this noble concern for me when you kissed me and risked my reputation?
“What have you done to determine who is plotting against the archbishop and William Marshal, my lord, except talk to Randall FitzOsbourne and dance with Lady Mary? Have you already determined, as I have, that it was most likely not any of the noblemen in the hall this evening that we heard? Have you, too, concluded that it must be a high-ranking servant, clerk or soldier to speak with such an accent and yet not be in attendance on the king?”
“I’ve not been idle,” he impatiently replied. “I spoke with Godwin, one of the soldiers here, and he told me three men left Ludgershall before the evening meal—a clerk from Salisbury with a message for the bishop, a steward from a castle belonging to Sir Francis de Farnby, and a tailor from London who’d brought some samples of cloth for the queen.”
“I hardly think a London tailor could be the perpetrator of such a plot.”
“If he was a tailor,” Armand shot back.
That gave her a moment’s pause before she continued just as defiantly. “Perhaps the conspirators are not gone, and since they may still be here, we should continue to look for them, in any way we can.”
“I will not allow you to put yourself in jeopardy.”
She wasn’t going to let him, or any man, intimidate her, or tell her what to do. “You have no right to rule me, my lord, so I don’t need your permission, your protection, your approval or your help to do what I must do. Now, if I have your gracious leave, I am going to bed, and tomorrow, I may very well discover I have to speak to several of the king’s clerks. That, I will do, whether I have your permission or not.”
She swept her skirts behind her and continued up the stairs, determined to prove to Armand de Boisbaston that she was no flighty, foolish woman overwhelmed by his looks, his kiss or his masculine arrogance.
While pretending to fall in love with him because he had made that necessary.
ARMAND GLARED after Adelaide a moment, then turned and marched back down the steps to the hall. God’s blood, of all the high-handed, stubborn women! She was precisely the sort of female he would never marry!
He was so angry and engrossed in silently denouncing Adelaide, he didn’t see the shadow that shifted in the flickering torchlight when he left the stairwell.
Or the person who made it.
CHAPTER SIX
“WHERE ARE YOU off to, Godwin?” Armand asked the soldier as they crossed the courtyard together after breaking the fast the next morning.
Instead of a gambeson and helmet, Godwin was dressed in tunic, shirt and breeches. He’d also been whistling a jaunty tune as he skirted several puddles left from the previous night’s rain.
“I just finished my turn on the walk and now I’m on my way to the village,” Godwin replied.
“May I join you? I’ve had a yearning for some fine ale, and the earl’s told me many times about an alewife here who makes a good brew.”
That was certainly true. However, Armand also didn’t want to remain in the castle where Lady Adelaide would be, and it was possible that one or two of the conspirators might be staying in the village.
It had been enough of a strain breaking the fast in the hall with her—acting as if he wanted nothing more than to win that lady’s love, gazing at her from afar as if she were the goddess of his fortunes, all the while knowing her answering smiles were only intended to make their ruse believable.
At least he hadn’t had to sit beside her. Even if he had, though, surely he would have been able to control himself better than he had last night.
“Aye, that would be Bessy,” Godwin replied with a chortle. “I’m surprised you never tried some of Bessy’s best before. It’s a full-bodied brew—just like her.”
“I never stayed in Ludgershall long enough before,” Armand admitted as they went through the barbican and headed for the village.
As the sun warmed his back and sparkled on the water of the small river that wound its way through the lower meadow known as Honey Bottom, he noted that Ludgershall was clearly prospering under the rule of the Earl of Pembroke. Several two-story half-timbered buildings, with stalls for merchandise below and living quarters above, lined the green. A smithy belched smoke into the crisp morning air, and several elderly men had gathered beneath the wide oak beside it, sheltered from the summer sun. Other cottages were spread along the road before giving way to farmers’ fields.
The aromas of smoke and cooking meat, chickens and pigs, wet wool and mud, all combined to remind Armand that he was back in England, and free. He’d spent many happy hours in the village on his family’s estate, avoiding his stepmother.
His cell in France had been as dark as dusk during the day, as chill as autumn, and black as pitch at night. He’d had no candle, no rush light, no torch—nothing to relieve the gloom. That had preyed on his mind as much as his regrets, his fears for his men, and his concern about Bayard, who’d been commanding another of the king’s castles before it, too, had fallen.
The sight of the tavern, with its sign portraying two stags’ heads swinging outside the door, brought his thoughts back to the present, and the pungent scents of ale, straw, beef stew and bread filled his nostrils as Godwin led the way inside the low building.
Several farmers were seated in a corner, deep in discussion about the wool crop. A traveling merchant napped in the corner near the hearth, a plate containing a heel of bread and the remains of a thick stew near his elbow, his mug of ale clutched in one hand and precariously perched on his large belly. Two young men were sprawled at another
