Chapter Seventeen
Isobella bowed her head. What person went on a dangerous mission into the past without knowing why she’d been chosen, or what exactly it was that she, and no one else, could do?
Someone who was dying, that’s who.
She raised her gaze to find Gaharet contemplating her.
There was no hint of tension in his shoulders, no tightening of his jaw to suggest he was angry.
Instead, he seemed almost amused, and… Something else glittered in his eyes.
A kind of knowing smugness. As if he knew exactly why she was here.
Which was impossible. How could he, when she didn’t? But what if he did?
Before she could formulate the words to ask him, a rotund woman with gray hair pinned in a bun and a flour-dusted apron wrapped beneath her enormous bosom waddled up to the table.
At her side was a large, grizzled wolf. A werewolf.
But who? It couldn’t be Lance, not here in the d’Louncrais keep, and Stef had never mentioned any other members of the pack.
“If you have finished with your meal, child,” she said to Isobella, “I will take you to your bedchamber and get you settled.”
Isobella stared at her plate, shocked to find it empty but for the meat juices. She’d been a vegetarian since she was a teenager, and she never thought she’d change. The wolf in her had had other plans. It bewildered her how tempted she was to lick the plate.
“Anne, why not have the other maids take care of things?” There was an unexpected gentleness to Gaharet’s voice. “Take some time for yourself. To grieve.”
Stef had spoken of Gaharet in glowing terms, almost awe. He’d brought the Langeais wolves back from the edge of extinction. To the modern-day Langeais wolves, he was a legend. He was still intimidating, but his concern for Anne was touching.
Anne dragged in a heavy breath, her body deflating as she released it. “Tumas is gone.” She reached down. The old wolf nudged his head under her hand and she ran her fingers through his fur. “Life moves on. And so must I. Working keeps my hands and my thoughts busy. I will take care of the girl.”
Gaharet sighed. “Very well, but should you need time, all you need do is ask.” He turned to Isobella. “Anne will take care of you. Rest well, and we will talk more of this on the morrow.”
Isobella rose, and Edmond followed suit. Aubert remained seated, staring at his plate.
“Aubert, Edmond, we have things to discuss in the library.” Gaharet’s tone brooked no disagreement.
Were they in trouble for turning her? She should stay and defend them. It wasn’t their fault. She’d asked them to—begged them. Aubert wouldn’t look at her, focused on his food.
Edmond jerked his head toward the door. “Go with Anne. Sleep. You are newly turned and need your rest.”
“Are you—?”
“All is well, Isobella.” Edmond urged her toward the doorway. “We will see you on the morn.”
“If you’re sure?” She would speak up if they needed her to. She owed them that much.
“Go,” Aubert snarled.
Isobella flinched, then ducked her head.
She couldn’t blame Aubert for being angry.
But it still hurt. She sighed and let it go.
She would talk to Gaharet tomorrow. Erin regarded her, a well of sympathy in her eyes.
Or talk to Erin, and Erin could talk to Gaharet.
Yes, that’s what she’d do. No point in making a fuss in front of everyone.
With one last glance at Edmond and Aubert, Isobella followed Anne from the hall.
“Come, child.” Anne led Isobella up a stone staircase.
“It is late, and you must be tired.” She gestured to the wolf close on her heels.
“Never mind this one. He is more of a nuisance than a harm, getting under my old feet and leaving fur all over my kitchen.” Yet as Isobella followed her up the stairs, Anne’s fingers wove through the fur of the wolf’s ruff.
In a room with a large bed and simple furniture, not dissimilar to Isobella’s vague recollections of another room in another keep, Anne drew her toward a table beneath the shuttered window with a basin of steaming water.
“Come now. Let us get you out of these travel-worn clothes.” With gentle but determined hands, Anne unlaced the stays of her dress. She sent a glare at the wolf. “If you have not a mind to leave me be, old wolf, you can at least turn your back. Give the girl some privacy.”
The wolf curled himself into a ball by the door, his nose tucked beneath his tail and his eyes closed.
Isobella might be new to being a werewolf, but it was obvious to her what was going on.
With the press of his lean body into Anne’s side, the angling of his grizzled head beneath her hand, the tap of his nose to her palm, the wolf touched Anne as much as any of the werewolves downstairs did their mates.
As much as Gabriel touched Annabelle. Isobella suspected the wolf would not leave Anne were Gaharet to command him to.
She was also certain, for all her grumbled words, Anne didn’t want him to.
Anne pulled Isobella’s dress over her head. “On the morrow, I will have the boys bring you up a nice big barrel for you to bathe in, but for tonight a quick wash will have to do.”
Isobella’s underdress followed and then her chemise, and Anne busied herself stoking the coals in the brazier and folding down the covers of the bed as Isobella washed.
The woman was efficient, motherly, but sadness hung over her like a heavy blanket.
She’d lost someone. Isobella had figured that much out in the hall. Tumas. Son, husband, brother?
Isobella recognized grief in the slump of her shoulders.
In the way she would pause as though a memory had snuck through her careful facade, then close her eyes and sigh, before busying herself, her hands, as though work, distraction, could give her a moment’s reprieve.
A moment to pretend as though nothing had changed.
It had been the same for Isobella’s papá when her mamá had died.
“Here, child.” Anne handed her a clean chemise. “You will want something to sleep in. Seems uncomfortable to me, but you young ones seem to prefer it. Especially those that have turned up unexpected like.”
Isobella slipped the chemise over her head.
“Now sit down here, and I will comb your hair, get those tangles out. It will be a right mess if we leave it for the morn.”
Isobella didn’t argue. She was happy to be the woman’s distraction, Anne’s moment to forget. And her curls hadn’t had any attention for a while and were in desperate need.
Anne raked the comb through Isobella’s hair. “Tsk, tsk. I shall have a word with those boys, leaving your hair in such a mess.”
Isobella touched her hand to head, her fingers snagging on a nasty snarl. Lord, she must look a fright. “To be fair, they had far more important things to worry about than my appearance.” Things like Faucher.
Anne worked the comb through another knot. “I know naught of your travels, but putting up with one overbearing oaf is more than enough for any woman, and you have had to deal with two.”
“They have been nothing but kind to me.” They’d saved her life.
“And well they should, for Gaharet would tan their hides were they not.”
“Well, they—”
“They are good boys.”
Boys? Two hulking warriors in their mid-thirties, who’d likely seen more violence and death than she would in ten lifetimes, were hardly boys.
The memory of Edmond in the clearing, testing his sword, and Aubert, shirtless, chopping wood, filled her mind.
Not boys. Men. Raw and vital in a way Douglas had never been.
Stirring her body in ways Douglas never had.
Oh, please. A woman would have to be stone-cold dead to not have some reaction to them.
“They might look big and scary, and a little wild at times, but do not let them fool you. Neither Edmond nor Aubert would ever hurt you. Never you mind Aubert’s scowls.
It is all bluster. Takes everything to heart, that boy.
Feels too much, if you ask me. And Edmond, rescuing all those strays, including that little thief.
” She waved the comb about. “More than mischief, that one, but Edmond has taken him in hand all the same.”
Strays? Was that what she was? A stray Edmond had rescued. Like Remi? They hadn’t turned Remi. No, but he wasn’t dying either.
“You know Aubert and Edmond well?”
Anne set the comb aside to braid Isobella’s hair.
“I have known those boys since the moment they slipped from their mother’s womb.
The biggest babes I had ever helped deliver.
Unusual for twins. It would have been a concern if their mother had been human.
Stayed big as they grew, too. Bigger than all the lads of their age.
Oh, and competitive, trying to outdo each other.
Especially when—” Anne sniffed, and tied off the end of her braid.
“’Twas a blessing there were two of them, for the other lads could not best them. ”
Especially when what?
Anne gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Off to bed with you now. A newly turned werewolf needs her sleep.”
Isobella let Anne guide her into bed and tuck the covers around her. “Especially when what, Anne?”
Anne fluffed up her pillow and gathered up her dirty clothes. “Never you mind.” At Isobella’s frown, she said, “It is not my story to tell. I will say this—their bond was not always so strong, but they are inseparable now. As it should be.”
Anne licked her fingers and doused the candles. “Sleep well, child. I will come wake you in the morn.”
Then Anne was gone, and the grizzled wolf with her.
As Isobella lay in bed between the cool linens, her body sinking into a mattress softer than it had a right to be in the tenth century, Anne’s words lingered. On what she’d said as much as what she hadn’t.
Aubert and Edmond had competed over something, and it had changed things.
Something big. Or someone. A sour taste settled on her tongue.
Isobella rolled over and faced the door, pushing the unpleasant sensation down.
She had no right to feel anything but grateful, and whatever had happened, with whomever or whatever, was none of her business.
She was here for one thing and one thing only.
To help the Langeais wolves with Faucher.
Faucher.
She flopped over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling.
Wouldn’t the Faucherians get a shock if they discovered Faucher had witch blood?
So hell bent on ridding the world of shifters and witches and anything paranormal, yet their beginnings, the man whose teachings they followed, was the very thing they abhorred.
Isobella rolled over onto her side. Was that the key to bringing him down?
Find his origins? Gaharet seemed to think it important.
And what of Cordelia? How in the name of all that was holy were they supposed to deal with her?
A woman who’d created a type of shifter the world had never seen before—or since—was not to be ignored.
The irregularities in the ancient stone walls offered no answers.
Isobella plumped the pillow and rearranged the covers. Her body craved sleep, but her mind wouldn’t rest. She counted the beams of the roof. She counted the knots in the wood. The rough stones in the walls.
The coals in the brazier burned low, and finally her eyelids drooped.
She had two last thoughts before she slipped into blessed sleep.
If Isobella managed to pull off the mission of the century and rid the world of Faucher, now she was cancer free, she could plan her way back home.
And when she did, should she take Douglas back with her to face the coven, or should she leave him here to suffer his fate?