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Page 175
could without screaming. To echo Isobel's whisper could leave in doubt who told and who received secrets.
Isobel sneered and Alinor looked at her in wonderment. Could she be so stupid as to believe she could say such things because she was Lord John's betrothed? Did she forget the Queen, imprisoned for sixteen years? High place was no guarantee of safety. Yet Isobel had less to fear than most. The King would be in England a very short time and then Lord John would be the most powerful noble in the land. Alinor remembered John's eyes and Simon's tense body. John would not object to such a rumor about Richard. It would more surely mark him as the heir to the throne.
Every alarm mechanism Alinor had was screaming. Isobel as the wife of the heir apparent was dangerous. For some reason Isobel had disliked her from the moment they met. Safety lay in the favor and the life of the Queen, but how long could that be? And it was too horribly true that the King was not likely to breed up heirsnot only because of that which Alinor was trying to repress into the depths of her mind but because men died on Crusade, even kings. If Richard died, John would be Kingand Isobel would be Queen.

 
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