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a need to involve my father’s men.”
    She went very still, and he wished he could see her face without the damned veil obscuring it. No matter how ugly and misshapen she had become, he would prefer to at least try and read the thoughts on her face. After a moment, she rose, wordlessly, and went to the door. “Wilhelm, rise. I have need of you.”
    Philipe lay back and stared up at the smoke-stained wood of the canopy. He had never been the cleverest of liars, but he’d thought that a lie by omission, especially when it mattered so vitally, would have come easily to him. Now, he would be forced to tell them all. They would likely cast him out. There was no love between them, and any friendly feeling that had existed had been destroyed fifteen years ago, as the fire had destroyed the castle.
    Wilhelm came down the steps, clad in a long bed robe. His hair was mussed, his cheeks unshaven, and his eyes darted about the room, passing scrutiny over Philipe more than once. “What is it? What’s happened?”
    “I am fine, stop fretting like an old woman,” Johanna snapped, shrugging away his solicitous hand. “It is the prince. I find his subterfuge tiresome and hoped he might speak more plainly to you, who offered him shelter.”
    “Subterfuge?” Wilhelm squeezed his eyes shut. “Sister, I am tired. It is early, and I was…much wakened last night.”
    “I am sorry,” she said, and for the space of those words, Philipe heard the woman he had once loved, tender and kind. She went to the hearth, tucking her skirts between her legs to keep them clear of the coals. “I would not ask, but I fear we may be party to some plot we know not of. You and I both know our existence here, our very home, is precarious. I would not have some spoiled royal intrude and destroy us both.”
    “I would never seek to destroy you,” Philipe assured her. But when he looked to Wilhelm, he saw suspicion in his face.
    “My sister does not give over to fantasy easily,” Wilhelm charged cautiously. He took the bench from beneath the table and drew it closer to the bed, sitting at the end and leaning his elbows on his knees. “Perhaps you’d better explain to us both what brought you so far north, unaccompanied.”
    Philipe looked to Johanna. She lifted a heavy pot to hang over the coals and wiped her hands on her skirt. It was the work of a servant, not the noble woman she was. Not the princess she could have been. He swallowed his guilt and met Wilhelm’s eyes again. “I was traveling to the border lands,” he lied, hating himself for it. “My man-at-arms was killed on the road to Lord Fueil’s keep.”
    Wilhelm nodded. “Who killed him?”
    It would have been so much easier if he’d just assumed bandits or some kind of accident. But Wilhelm was far too clever. If bandits had killed Jessop, Philipe would have ridden straight to Fueil for protection, instead of traversing the dangerous valley at an inhospitable time of year. “My father’s men killed him.”
    Johanna made a sharp sound, and Wilhelm straightened, his expression dark. “And why would your father’s men wish to kill one of their own?”
    “It was a misunderstanding.” That was no lie. It was a misunderstanding that had led his father to believe he conspired against him. A simple, stupid misunderstanding.
    “If, by mistake, your man-at-arms was murdered, why did you not request aid of Lord Fueil? Certainly his castle was closer, and the welcome guaranteed to be much warmer.
    “We were surrounded, I did not feel it was safe.” Philipe shifted, wincing as he jostled his arm. “I was traveling incognito, for my own safety.”
    “Are things so bad in the kingdom that you must conduct yourself so?” Wilhelm’s shrewd eyes narrowed. “Surely a prince must require more protection than a bad disguise and a single guard.”
    “As I said before, there was a misunderstanding.” Let him leave it there, Philipe prayed. He did not like tricking them into an arrangement