I dragged one leg over the casement, then the other, thankful neither bars nor glass panes blocked the way. My chemise snagged on something, but I tugged until I heard the linen rip. The crackle of flames behind me overcame my fear of letting go. Trusting in Guy’s promise, I hurled myself out and away from the burning building.
My weight took us both to the ground, jarring the arm I had broken only a few months earlier, but one look over my shoulder banished any thought of complaint. The entire chamber was engulfed in flame. Had I hesitated, I would be afire, too.
Guy’s arms tightened around me. He buried his face in my throat. “By all that is holy, Jane. I do not think I could have borne to lose you.”
Embracing him in return, I murmured incoherent words of thanks…and of love…but we had no time to indulge in tender exchanges. The entire house seemed likely to go up in flames. The blaze was already well past the point where it could have been contained by a few buckets of water.
We made our way to the stable, found the henchmen Guy had hired, and led our horses to safety. Some of my packs had been left with the mule and I hastily dressed in the first clothes I found. We spent the remainder of the night in a nearby field, watching the manor house burn. It was destroyed utterly, but at least there was no loss of life.
The next morning, after a brief return to Orléans to buy clothing and supplies to replace what we had lost, we set off again on the road south. Still dazed and disoriented by the night’s terrors, I did not realize for some time that the hired guards who escorted us were more numerous than they had been when we set out from Lyons. At least three more burly specimens had been added to their ranks.
“Do you expect to encounter robbers?” I asked Guy.
“I no longer know what to expect.” He turned in the saddle to study my face.
I forced a smile. He was not fooled, but I could tell that he was hesitant to speak. “What troubles you, Guy?”
“Have you any notion how the fire started?”
I shook my head and told him what little I remembered. “An ember?” I suggested. “Or someone careless with a candle?” Accidents with fire were not uncommon, although most people took sensible precautions to prevent them.
Guy continued to stew about it as we rode, the steady plodding of horses’ hooves the only sound in the morning stillness. Belatedly, I came to the same conclusion he must already have reached: It might not have been an accident.
“In early March, at court,” I said slowly, “I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my arm. I was unconscious for a time and had difficulty remembering afterward what had happened.”
His breath hissed in sharply. “So this is the second near-fatal accident you have suffered. Was anyone nearby when you…fell?”
“I had been talking with Ivo Jumelle when I lost my footing.”
“Jumelle!” The anger in his voice seemed out of proportion and he required several minutes to bring himself under control and speak calmly. “I told you that your father bought land with a partner, Jane, but I neglected to tell you his name. It was Alain Jumelle, Seigneur de Villeneuve-en-Laye et de Saint-Gelais, a member of the minor nobility. Ivo Jumelle is his youngest son.”
“Are you saying Ivo tried to kill me? But why? And how would his father know I had returned to France?”
“Why? After the reports of your death and that of your mother, Alain Jumelle laid claim to all the lands he and your father had purchased together. That you are still alive means he may now have to give up a considerable portion of his current wealth. As for how he knew you were no longer in England—Alain Jumelle was one of those waiting in the duke’s anteroom at Lyons for an audience with Longueville on the day you came to the French court.”
I gasped. “A horse-faced fellow?”
Guy nodded.
No wonder he had reacted with such surprise upon hearing my name. And then I remembered something else, the man with the long, narrow face I’d seen disembarking in Orléans. He’d seemed familiar to me. Now I knew why.
Alain Jumelle had been in the duke’s antechamber in Lyons. He’d been a stranger to me, but he’d known who I was as soon as he heard the name Popyncourt.
THE LAND MY father had purchased with Jumelle included a fine manor house. The entrance gate had been set into the center of a thick wall ten feet high and was wide enough to admit a cartload of hay. We rode through into a large and spacious courtyard at least an acre square. When a groom rushed out of the stables to our right to take our horses, I glanced nervously at Guy.
“What if Alain Jumelle is here?”
“We will throw him out.”
“But he is still half owner of the place. And what if the servants are loyal to him?”
“Then we will throw them out, too. He tried to murder you, Jane. That is grounds to call for him to forfeit everything in your favor. Besides, we have might on our side.” Behind us, swords rattled in scabbards as our hired henchmen dismounted.
Guy strode up to the entrance to the manor house and called out in a loud, carrying voice. “This is Mistress Jane Popyncourt come to reclaim her inheritance from her father. All those who wish to remain in her service will be generously rewarded.”
By the time we had climbed the eight steps leading to the door, it had been flung open to reveal an aged crone, her hair snowy white and her blue eyes faded and bulging. I stared at her. That small mole above her right eyebrow seemed familiar, and the way her front teeth protruded over her lower lip.
“I know you,” I murmured as she led us inside. There was no sign of Ivo or his father, or of anyone else.
“I was your governess, child,” the old woman said, “till your mother came and took you away. And a good thing she did, too.”
“You are Sylvie Andrée, the woman the gens d’armes arrested?”
“They were not just any ordinary soldiers,” she said with a cackle. “Sent by the king’s prévôt de l’hôtel they were, to question me about a crime at court.”
Finding it suddenly hard to breathe, let alone speak, I croaked out a question: “What crime?”
“Why King Charles’s murder, of course. Done in with a poisoned orange, he was.”
“That is a foolish rumor,” Guy snapped. “You should not repeat such things.”
She wagged a gnarled finger at him. “Your elders know better, boy. Do you think me a fool? I know what I know and what I know is that King Charles’s enemies killed him and then covered up the crime.”
I leaned forward and placed my hand on her forearm. “Was my mother the king’s enemy?”
“Why bless me, child! Whatever gave you that idea?”
“You were questioned,” I reminded her. “They came looking for my mother and they took you instead.”
“Ah, well. That is the way of things.”
I exchanged a look with Guy, both of us wondering if the old woman’s wits were wandering. “Why were they looking for my mother?”
“Have you not guessed?” She gestured with her free hand to indicate the luxury that surrounded us—fine tapestries, ornately carved chests and chairs, Turkey carpets, and Majolica vases. “The almighty Alain Jumelle, Seigneur de Villeneuve-en-Laye et de Saint-Gelais. He told King Louis she was to blame. Well, she did hand King Charles that orange, that’s true enough, but how was she to know it was poisoned?”
“Jumelle wanted my mother out of the way,” I said slowly, “so that he could claim lands that should rightfully have been hers. She feared he would be believed, so she ran before the gens d’armes came.”
“Jumelle had the new King Louis’ ear.” The old lady nodded sagely. “Your mother was right to be afraid, right to run. But when she left all of a sudden, that convinced King Louis that she was guilty.”