Chapter Eighteen
A heavy knocking made Isabella wake with a start.
For a terrible moment, she thought herself back in the grip of her old nightmares.
Then reality took hold: she was in her girlhood bedchamber at Wolvesley; they had arrived late last night after a perilous ride over the moors.
Hamish was wounded, and Tristan had thrown him into the dungeon.
It was morning now. She could tell by the milky light streaming through the shutters.
The knocking came again; so heavy ’twas almost a hammering.
Perchance something has happened to Hamish.
Legs trembling, Isabella launched herself out of the high bed and stumbled to the door. She wrenched it open, expecting to find a messenger boy or Tristan’s personal manservant. But it was her sister, Esme, who barreled into the chamber and gathered Isabella into a tight embrace.
“Bella. It’s really you. You’re safe.”
“I am safe,” Isabella muttered. She was pleased to see her favorite sibling, but already irritated by her family’s insistence on emphasizing the danger she had faced. In truth, Hamish had kept her safe and been her protector, but no one seemed willing to hear this.
Esme held her at arm’s length and surveyed her critically. “I thought Tristan was exaggerating when he said you were dressed as a farm laborer.”
“I do believe these are your clothes I’m wearing,” Isabella replied airily. She had not had the energy to change last night, and had simply tumbled into bed fully clothed. The woolen tunic was now pulled even further out of shape, whilst the braccae bagged unbecomingly around her ankles.
“Aye, mayhap to till the fields,” Esme giggled.
“My appearance was not my main concern when I last dressed.” Isabella wrinkled her nose.
When was that, exactly? It seemed an age since she had last bathed.
The ingrained dirt in her fingernails was entirely at odds with the polished splendor of her surroundings.
She avoided her reflection in the gilded looking glass above the dresser.
“Never mind all that.” Esme tugged her toward the canopied bed and they sat side-by-side on the edge, as they had when they were younger. “’Tis wonderful to see you. I demand to know all that has happened.”
Isabella rubbed sleep out of her eyes and wondered where she might begin. It would be a relief, of sorts, to unburden herself to Esme—who had, after all, fallen in love with a man many might deem unsuitable—but the nuance of their situations could not be more different.
Adam had arrived at Ember Hall as Esme’s bodyguard; whilst Hamish had lived there as Isabella’s captor. Would Esme understand?
Am I brave enough to declare my feelings for Hamish?
Isabella eyed her sister uncertainly. Esme looked every inch the earl’s daughter, with her hair pinned elegantly on top of her head and her taffeta skirts trimmed with fur. ’Twas as if their usual situations were reversed. Esme had become the wise older sister, and Isabella the one in a scrape.
But of course, Esme’s air of wisdom and experience was to be expected. Her little sister was not only a wife; she was a mother.
“How are the twins? And Adam?” Isabella gulped down her instinctive pang of jealousy.
“Blooming, all of them. And ne’er have I been more grateful for their good health.” Esme put a hand to the pearls around her neck. “These last days have been dreadful, with all of us worried for little Lucan.”
“He is well now?” Isabella wanted to be sure.
“He is much recovered. Though his cough still lingers. The physician says he is out of danger.” Esme shifted on the bed as if ill-at-ease. “But Adam still fears the fever may be catching.”
“He fears for your boys?”
Esme nodded. “He wishes for us to return to Ember Hall,” she blurted out, folding her hands in her lap and fixing her gaze downward.
“Oh.” Isabella’s lips parted in surprise. Having only just found her sister, it seemed she was about to lose her again.
“I know. The timing could not be worse.” Esme shook her head regretfully. “He is correct, of course, we should not leave the hall empty. Look what has already happened.”
Her tone was light, but Isabella was not quite ready to laugh about her ordeal.
Especially when Hamish’s fate was still unknown.
To give herself time, she crossed to the long window and opened the shutters.
Her bedchamber looked out over the fountain, with a view all the way to the rose gardens.
But today, the predominant color was grey.
Grey clouds in the sky. Grey puddles stretching across the manicured paths.
It was not an outlook to inspire hope.
She crossed her arms over her chest to ward off a chill and turned back to her sister. “What about Jonah?”
Esme rolled her eyes. “Our enigmatic brother is as puzzling as ever. After so many years playing lord and master at Ember Hall, he now wishes to remain at Wolvesley. I cannot think what is keeping him here.” Esme pulled at a loose thread on the bed blankets.
“Of course, he refuses to explain his decision. But it means that Adam and I really have no choice but to return. Callum left the hall in Adam’s safe-keeping when he and Frida went to Scotland. ”
“Of course.” Isabella smiled and nodded, whilst inside she wanted to beg her sister to stay. She returned to the bed and grasped Esme’s hands. “I am so pleased to see you, even if it is for such a short time.”
“You must visit us soon,” Esme insisted. “Or we will come to see you at Greenock. Or wherever you may be,” she amended, having glanced at Isabella’s face.
Isabella could only nod.
Wherever I may be.
She leaned over and hugged her sister. So much was unknown, but of one thing, she was certain. She would not allow her jealousy to drive a wedge between her and Esme any longer.
“But for now, there is much you need to tell me and we do not have long left to us.” Esme became brisk. “Is it true you were held prisoner by a wild highland warrior who murdered three men in cold blood?”
Isabella blanched. “Those are not the words I would use.”
She looked past Esme to the patterns of light on the plastered wall, and a memory stirred of last night. Her mother had also accused Hamish of murder.
Could it be so?
She closed her eyes. It was not a thought she wished to linger on.
Esme cleared her throat to recapture her attention. “Is it correct that e’en now, Tristan is interrogating your wild Scotsman in the dungeons?”
Isabella’s mouth opened and closed. “I don’t know.”
“Forsooth, I woke you myself. ’Twas a foolish question.
But I hate to leave Wolvesley without understanding what has happened to you.
” Esme sat sideways and looked meaningfully into her sister’s eyes.
“You do have a story to tell me. I can sense it.” She reached out and grasped Isabella’s hands, holding them tighter when she tried to pull away. “Tell me,” she commanded.
The words bubbled up inside her and she had neither the strength nor the will to deny them. “I love him,” Isabella cried out. “Heaven help me, Esme, but I love my wild highlander. He is like no man I have e’er met.”
“You love him!” Esme shrieked so loudly that Isabella feared she would bring the maids running in. “I thought to hear a declaration of mere fancy. But love is so much better.”
“It is not.” Isabella shook her head soberly. “It is painful. Especially when there is so much against us. I am betrothed, and to Hamish’s sworn enemy at that.” Tears brimmed in her eyes and she fixed her gaze on a finely stitched tapestry hanging above the bed.
“These things are not important.” Esme smiled beatifically.
Isabella smoothed back a golden curl which had escaped her sister’s hair pins. “I am well aware that your love story ended well.”
“With much against us,” Esme interrupted.
“But that does not mean ’twill be the same for me.” Isabella twitched with frustration. Unable to sit still, she jumped off the bed and began to pace about the chamber. “Hamish’s lands and title have been requisitioned by the King. He has little to his name.”
“Adam had naught.”
Isabella flapped her hands at her sister. “Hamish has been imprisoned by our own brother.”
“The same brother who came to blows with Frida’s husband just days before blessing their union.” Esme smiled dreamily. “Love has the power to conquer all, Bella, you’ll see. Especially love that begins at Ember Hall.”
*
Sometime later, Isabella had bathed and dressed in a manner more becoming of an earl’s daughter.
Her emerald necklace, still gleaming and beautiful despite having spent the last days tucked beneath a grubby tunic, rested atop the creamy silk of a fur-lined winter gown.
Her hair, mercifully washed by her mother’s maid with lavender soap and an endless supply of warm water, had been braided and pinned up and over her head.
It felt strange to slide her feet into goatskin slippers, rather than the leather boots she had grown accustomed to.
The cold of the stone floor was more apparent, as was every groove and bump of the wooden staircase.
But she knew she must look the part she had been born to play.
The Rose of England.
Holding her head high, she walked gracefully into the vast, echoing, great hall and over to the stone fireplace, where her father waited in his throne-like carved chair.
Ignoring the huddle of men-at-arms, and the smaller group which all her senses told her Hamish stood among, she curtsied deep and low, not rising until she felt her father’s heavy hand on her shoulder.
“Isabella,” he said simply, his voice so beloved and familiar that tears sprang to her eyes. “Welcome home.”