Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Isobelle escaped her other binding and walked carefully down the steps alone.
Gaspar met her at the bottom of the stairs, his face as pale as the moon the night before.
He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around her middle.
With his ear pressed against her and her fingers running through his hair, he apologized once more for not thinking of a better way to have hidden her from the patriarch.
“There wasna time.” She lifted his chin and smiled into his eyes. “I understand. I do.”
Gaspar took a shaky breath, and pressed his forehead to her middle. “He took my boat, Isobelle. Our way off the island. I thought he would only take Icarus, but he took the boat as well.”
Dread tried to settle on her chest again, but she would not have it. “We will think of some other way off the island. If we swim out into the lagoon, to the busy channel, a boat will surely stop for us.” Then a sickening thought presented itself. “Or do ye not mean to leave with me?”
He stood and led her into the solar. He took a seat and pulled her onto his lap.
“Listen, my love.” He wove his fingers through hers and held their hands to his chest. “I do not wish to keep anything from you. The patriarch is going to return in five days…with an executioner. But I vow to you, I will see us safely off the island long before then. Together.”
She smiled. The news of an executioner dimmed in importance when the man she loved planned to stay by her side.
“We’ve five days then,” she said cheerfully. “Dinna fash. I canna speak Italian, but I understood the disagreement. And I know the number cinque, aye? It was either five days or five journeys.”
Some of the worry smoothed from his brow and he smiled with relief. “You stayed so still, I assumed you understood nothing.”
She pushed a bit of his hair from his face and tucked it behind his ear. She laughed when he shivered. “Weel, I’ve been taught, lately mind ye, that it is best to remain quiet when men of the church are about.”
He laughed. It was a rare, but glorious sound. “The rosary was a nice touch.”
“Oh, aye. I thought so meself, just as ye were coming through the door. Almost hung meself with them.”
He turned their hands and worried over her bloody wrist. “I am sorry for this,” he whispered, then kissed the bruised flesh. It was as exquisite a touch from his warm lips as any other had been. And far too brief.
“No need. If we’ve five days to find a way off the island, let us not waste them with more apologies, aye?
And will ye be coming with me, not because ye fear the patriarch’s wrath, but because…
” She bit her lip and looked down, unable to finish.
Releasing her was one thing. Loving her was quite another. “Because…”
“Because I love you.” It was not a question. “I wish to leave with you, Isobella, and remain with you, if you’ll have me.” He shook his head. “I meant to say, Isobelle.”
“Auch, now. Did I say I mind?” She couldn’t help but smile wide with the sudden rightness settling in her chest. “Though Isobella sounds too pretty a name for someone with questionable hair.”
His brows lifted while he touched the odd locks on her head. “Your hair makes no matter to me. But I do love to see your eyes so easily. How long will it take to grow again? A year? Two?”
She frowned. “I dinna ken. My head feels a bit lighter. I may need a pillow now, like I’ve ne’er needed one before. But I doona mind the cool air blowin’ on me neck now and again. Though, in Scotland I would freeze.”
“With the whole of the world to choose from, where shall we go?”
She considered it a moment. She’d been so desperate to go home, to where she was dearly loved, she could think of nothing else.
But that desperation was gone. Did she long for the sights and sounds and smells of the Highlands?
She did. But now she had a longing of another sort.
She’d been alone in the world—excepting a cousin who had been unable to stay with her much.
Now she was alone no longer, if the look in her dragon’s eyes was to be believed.
“How far must we go to be beyond the patriarch’s reach? I hardly expect the man will be overly pleased when he finds us gone.”
Gaspar’s brow lowered like that of a pensive dragon and she could not resist the impulse to kiss him there.
He looked up and gave her a wink. “We would be safe in France. Word will spread throughout the Church States, but with Charles VI trying to steal Naples, the patriarch will not be reaching beyond Milan.”
He freed his fingers from hers, kissed her hands, and released them. Then he braced his arms behind him, allowing her to leave his lap if she wished. But she kept her seat.
“It is likely I will be a hunted man, Isobelle. There will be a price on my head and many a man will try to search me out. Are you certain you’d like to spend your life with a dragon who was once capable of locking you in his tower and demanding your submission?
It is a frightening tale for any woman, to have endured it. ”
She thought he might go on, but he left it at that. She’d told him she wanted no more apologies, but that was what he was giving her. One last plea for forgiveness.
“I havena seen that scaly monster for quite some time. I am fair to certain he’ll not be back. Misguided beast. But I believe his replacement is a well-meaning lad.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I vow I will never hold you against your will again.”
“Auch, well, the question is, do ye wish to hold me against yer heart? As I wish to hold ye against mine?”
His arms wrapped around her once more. “Do you mean it, Isobelle?” His whisper made her shiver.
“Aye, I do. Over, and over, and over again.”
Taking any gold in their pockets would weigh them down and drown them if they had to swim from the island.
But since Isobelle didn’t want Gaspar to leave her often in order to sustain them, wherever they decided to go, she thought they should take a little something along.
And that thought led to another, which led them to test the large bench in the water, to see if it might float with both of them and a little bit of coin as well.
It did not. The water seeping between the planks was the problem.
So they tried wrapping her Ross plaid around the bench.
The wool was woven so closely, it was a great improvement.
They assumed the worst, that it would not hold indefinitely, but they decided it was worth the risk.
After all, if the odd boat began to sink, they could let the coins go and rely on their ability to swim, a talent Isobelle assured him she possessed when she was not hampered by skirts.
They decided to wait for the tide, which was due to hit the island on the south side in the early morning, and thus push them north, toward the mainland. If they were not pulled onto a boat, they could hope the plaid would hold until they reached the distant shore.
By the time the sun set in the west, they were exhausted. They bathed in the drinking water they’d be leaving behind, dressed for their journey, then ate their suppers on a blanket on the beach. If they slept indoors, they might sleep past the tide, especially with as weary as they were.
Isobelle sat facing the water with Gaspar at her back trying to work a brush through her clean but wet hair. Though the water glowed a lovely pink from the dying sunset, her attention was not on the water, but on a small black speck that appeared and disappeared behind distant waves.
“Do ye see that black bit, on the horizon?” She leaned to the side and pointed.
Gaspar peered over her shoulder and chills bubbled up her spine and spread to the back of her ears. She never wished to be farther away from him than she was at that moment.
“Yes. I see it,” he said. “It is a boat.” He tossed the brush on the blanket and hurried to his feet. “I’ll get a torch. Hopefully, they’ll see it. We may get off the island without getting wet!”
Isobelle strained to keep the black bit in sight as if her concentration might prevent its disappearing.
She was pleased when it was still visible when Gaspar reappeared with the burning brand.
He carefully waved the fire over his head in a wide arc and she shielded her eyes so the light wouldn’t blind her from seeing the boat.
Then the little spot stopped disappearing behind waves. It remained steady, though it no longer moved to the side.
“It’s coming,” Gaspar said. But there was no celebration in his voice. And he’d stopped waving the torch.
“Are you disappointed we will no longer be alone?” she said with a laugh.
He shook his head, unsmiling. “No, my love. I worry who is coming to our door.”