Chapter Sixteen
“You’re making a mistake.”
Isabella could not believe this turn of events. She had been less surprised to encounter a band of highland raiders at Ember Hall than she was to behold such stubbornness in her beloved brother.
“A terrible mistake,” she added, folding her arms and tossing back her braid of hair.
Tristan seemed hardly to hear her. Even in the darkness, she could see that his face was pale and he was breathing hard.
’Twas almost as if he had been the one to grapple Hamish to the ground.
But he had done no more than give the order.
And wounded as he was, Hamish hadn’t even put up much of a fight.
Isabella stifled a sob, along with the urge to rain her fists upon her brother’s chest to make him listen.
“Have you been treated ill?” he asked, scarcely even glancing in her direction.
“Nay, not once.” She pushed away memories of Alaric pinning her to the floor of her bedchamber. “But I will answer no more questions until you come to your senses and release Hamish. He is—my friend.”
She had been about to announce that Hamish was the man she loved. But by the way Tristan had folded his arms over his fur cloak and fixed her with a piercing stare, she could tell he was in no mood for declarations of love.
“Your friend who has been holding you captive and starving you by the looks of it.”
“I have not been starved. But our ride here was long and tiring.” Her voice wobbled as she realized that she was not only chilled to the bone, she was also weak with hunger and exhaustion.
The adrenaline that had carried her over the moors was all spent.
But now was no time for weakness. “Did you not see how I was the one to ride the horse into our gates?” She drew herself up to her full height.
“I saw a horse out of control and you on the back of it looking like a beggar woman.” Tristan screwed up his face with distaste. “Forsooth, the rings on your fingers are the only things I recognize about you.”
Isabella reeled with disbelief. “You dare to criticize me because I do not come before you in a fine gown?” She abandoned her dignity and screeched across the cobbles.
“I am your sister, Tristan. Or have you grown so high and mighty you only judge a woman’s worth by what she is wearing?
I have learned that some men look beyond such material trappings.
But if appearance matters so much to you, here, you can have each and every one of my rings.
” In a fit of rage, she snatched her rings from her fingers and flung them across the yard where they landed at her brother’s feet.
He glanced down with a small shake of his head. “Bella, what are you doing?”
“Don’t you dare call me that.” Tears clouded her vision. “That is the name my family uses. But you cannot be my family whilst you are so cruel and uncaring.”
“Cruel and uncaring,” Tristan shouted her words back at her, finally becoming the brother she knew with the loss of his steely composure.
“I have been worried almost to death about you. We all have. And then you berate me for doing what any brother would. God’s blood, I have every right to kill that man you describe as your friend. Mayhap I should have done.”
“Nay.” Isabella clenched her hands into fists. “If you harm him in any way, I will—”
“What will you do?” he demanded, ignoring the line of men growing behind him, all of whom were looking studiously in the opposite direction. “Will you tell Father? Because he is of the same mind as I.”
Isabella shook her head, unable to comprehend this turn of events.
Running footsteps came from the stone archway that led from the house, and moments later, Isabella was pulled into her mother’s embrace.
The familiar scent of lavender was enough to make her sob all anew, as was the feel of familiar hands smoothing her hair and drying her tears.
“My child,” said Morwenna, the Countess of Wolvesley. “’Tis really you.”
Distantly, Isabella recognized that her mother was as pale-faced and careworn as Tristan. The countess was dressed in a plain gown of heavy brocade with only a shawl for warmth. Her long, grey-blonde hair was loose down her back.
“You were sleeping,” she said.
“I have not slept for more than two nights,” her mother corrected with a small smile. “But your father has slipped into a fitful slumber which I did not like to wake him from.”
Isabella recalled her brother’s words. “I do not wish to see him in any case.”
“She is near hysterical, Mother,” Tristan opined, untying his own cloak and placing it gently around his mother’s shoulders.
“We have all been worried about you, Isabella,” said Morwenna gravely. She caught Tristan’s hand and squeezed her thanks, but Tristan’s face was as closed as a book.
“She is not inclined to listen to our worries; only to plead the cause of the man who took her prisoner.”
Morwenna stood between her two children and held out her hands for peace.
She and Isabella were of a similar height and build, meaning that her son towered above her.
“Tristan, my dear, I see a line of loyal men awaiting your further instruction. And Isabella, my darling daughter, I believe you have dropped something.”
The countess bent down and gracefully retrieved Isabella’s jewels, as behind them, the stablemaster cleared his throat.
“Should we stable the highlander’s horse, milord?”
“For certain you should,” Isabella answered before her brother was able to refuse. “And there is a pony somewhere loose in the grounds.”
“We have caught him, milady.” The stablemaster, who Isabella had known all her life, gave her a reassuring smile, but waited for Tristan’s nod of acceptance before taking Luar’s reins and leading her to the barn.
Morwenna pulled Isabella a few steps away from the men and deliberately placed the jewels in her palm, closing her fingers around them.
“Keep these safe,” she murmured. “You never know when you might need them.”
“What use are trinkets when a good man is lying injured in our dungeon? For no clear reason?” Isabella was half inclined to throw the jewels back onto the cobbles, but her mother’s hands were still covering her own.
“These are a good deal more than trinkets, Isabella,” Morwenna chided.
“And the man in our dungeon is Hamish McIvor. He is responsible for the slaughter of three men in the service of Lord Gaunt. Men who were to form your escort party to Greenock. Moreover, he has been holding you captive at Ember Hall. My ancestral home,” she added, raising her pale eyebrows when Isabella went to interrupt.
“Pray tell me if I have misunderstood anything.” Her mother released her hands and lifted her chin, as if daring Isabella to disagree.
“You have misunderstood everything.”
Isabella felt as powerless as she had as a child. Her whole body trembled with a combination of cold and distress as the situation she thought she could manage spiraled further out of control.
“Explain it to me then.”
Isabella rubbed at her face, trying to find the words she needed. They stood in a pool of torchlight, which emphasized the dark rings around her mother’s blue eyes.
How much worse must I look?
She glanced down at her torn cloak and misshapen woolen tunic. She cut a different figure indeed to the last time she had visited her parents’ home.
Slowly and deliberately, Isabella placed her rings back on her fingers, hoping the display of compliance might help her cause.
“How do you know all of this?” she asked, stalling for time.
“About Hamish McIvor?”
Isabella shrugged. “I did not even know that was his full name.”
“Then you cannot know him very well.”
Out of nowhere, Isabella had the urge to unburden herself. To admit to her mother that she knew Hamish better than any woman, not his wife, had any business to.
That she loved him.
Instead, she held her mother’s gaze in the flickering torchlight. “How did you know?” she repeated.
Morwenna took her arm and guided her along the path toward the keep. Isabella was reluctant to move further from the dungeon, but she felt unable to resist her mother’s urging.
“We have a visitor. He arrived some days since, with a claim which disturbed us all.”
Isabella stopped in her tracks. “Who?”
Morwenna also paused and Tristan’s cloak puddled around her feet. “Your betrothed. Lord Gaunt.”
Isabella reeled as if she had been slapped. The news chilled her more than the wintry wind gusting through the courtyard.
Lord Gaunt was a guest at Wolvesley.
She had an uncouth urge to spit on the cobbles. “And you believe Gaunt’s claims over mine?” Wide-eyed with incredulity, she shook her head.
“He is the man you plan to marry. What are we to do but offer him hospitality when he arrives unannounced mere hours before a snowstorm? What can we do but believe him when he tells us you are in grave danger?” At this, Morwenna’s voice wobbled, and Isabella realized how much her family must have worried for her safety.
“I understand,” she whispered. “But now you see me, fit and well. And I ask you to hear me when I say that Hamish is a good man. I brought him here myself, to plead for help. Instead, he is thrown into the dungeon like a criminal.”
“’Tis a twist, Isabella, which you must allow us time to understand.”
“I cannot allow that.” Isabella wrung her hands. “Not when he is so gravely injured. He saved my life, Mother. Twice. Without Hamish, I would have suffered the fate you most feared.”
Her mother looked into her eyes and Isabella gazed honestly back.
“Please,” she added.
Morwenna smiled, sadly. “What help do you seek?”
“The return of Hamish’s lands. They were confiscated by the King and given to Lord Gaunt, who has done naught to deserve them.” In her fervor, she adopted the analogy once used by Hamish. “Imagine, Mother, if that happened to us. How could we survive the loss of Wolvesley?”
“Ah, Isabella.” Morwenna reached out to smooth back a loose strand of her daughter’s hair.
“It does my heart good to see you standing here before me. But I am even gladder to hear you talk with passion and certitude. In these last years, you have made yourself passive and small, but now the fire inside you burns brightly once again.”
Isabella blinked in surprise. “I do not think Tristan shares your opinion.”
“You must remember, this is a man’s world we live in.
Since your husband died, Tristan and your father hold themselves responsible for you.
Both of them have been half crazed with worry.
Tristan would have ridden out to Ember Hall with the first signs of thaw this morn, but young Lucan took a fever some days since and Mirrie could not bear for Tristan to leave her side. ”
Isabella knew a tug of guilt. She had never spared a thought for what her family might be going through in these last days.
Her nephew had always been a hale and hearty child, but even the strongest boy could weaken and die in the perilous years of childhood.
She pulled her cloak further over her shoulders. “How is Lucan now?”
“Praise God, the fever has broken.” Morwenna gave her a small smile. “Although darling Mirrie has now taken ill, perchance with exhaustion and worry as much as anything else.”
Isabella gulped. Ahead of her stood the mighty keep of Wolvesley Castle. Built on a scale to intimidate and impress, its defenses had never once been breached. Inside these walls, she had believed her family to always be safe.
“I’m sorry,” Isabella whispered.
“You were not to know.” Morwenna took a breath. “I cannot answer for aught else. Speak to Tristan in the morn, when you have slept and bathed and become more yourself.”
Isabella’s thoughts spun around in a tight circle. She hugged her arms about herself and looked down at her scuffed boots on the immaculately cleared path. “I am not the woman I was,” she began.
“Aye, you have learned something new about yourself. I can see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice,” Morwenna interrupted. “But you are still Isabella de Neville. Still the Rose of England. It will do no harm to remind people of that. Especially when you are petitioning for their help.”
Isabella thought back to her days at Westchester, and how she would don a pretty dress as if it was a suit of armor, readying herself for battle.
Back then, ’twas as if her gowns and jewels were the mainstay of her days.
Now she knew there was so much more to life.
But she recognized that her mother was right; there was still a sort of power to appearance.
Power which she could channel to Hamish’s cause.
The prospect of a warm bed was most alluring. Up above, the bright lights of the keep beckoned her home.
Immediately, she was flooded with guilt, like a drenching from a pail of water.
“I cannot go inside and rest in comfort whilst Hanish languishes in the dungeon. He is injured and had only me to tend to his wound.” She closed her eyes at the memory of the deep and jagged cut up on the cold and lonely moors.
“He needs a healer, Mother. As well as food and drink.”
Morwenna eyed her speculatively. “And if I promise to provide all of this, you will go into the keep and do as I ask?”
Isabella wanted to protest that she should visit Hamish and personally oversee what care was provided for him. But she could see it was a battle she had no hope of winning.
“I will,” she said.
“You will eat?” Morwenna raised her eyebrows.
Isabella’s stomach rumbled traitorously. “If you promise to take food to Hamish.”
Morwenna put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Do not doubt me, child. You are home now. All shall be well.”
With that, Morwenna turned and walked gracefully back toward the courtyard, leaving Isabella to complete the journey to the keep alone.
As she climbed the wide stone steps, she thought of her mother’s words, taking comfort from the knowledge that these castle walls housed the people she loved and trusted most in all the world.
She paused by a stone lion, made villainous by the flickering shadows created by torchlight overhead.
The lion was cold to her touch and she stepped away, irrationally afraid.
Behind her, the famous Wolvesley fountain was silent and unmoving; the deep water in the pool still half frozen. Isabella took a deep, ragged breath.
Even Wolvesley Castle was not invulnerable to change.
And on the morrow, she would have to face Lord Gaunt.