Malice Stalks the Leopard, Book 2, The Vespers Trilogy. The sense of normalcy that settled over The Leopard after the Vespers massacre in 1282 is shattered by the brutal murder of the Archbishop of Palermo and his faithful secretary. The de Rogerio family becomes the unwilling guardian of a Secret on which the fate of a royal dynasty depends, and Ysabella, now seven months pregnant, is thrust into a horrifying confrontation with a pitiless killer while friends and family members are held hostage by a threatened queen.