Chapter 14 #3
As the viscountess turns back to her other conversational companion, Isabeau grips her spoon tightly. Her gaze is fixed on her soup as if it has insulted her. This time, I must be her protector.
Under the table, I gently take Isabeau’s other hand and squeeze it. “She means no harm.”
Isabeau entwines our fingers and holds on. Her voice is soft enough that I have to lean in to hear her say, “They were in love. All these years. Mother is . . . not always easy to love, but he adored her.”
“My father was a hard man, but he was the softest of . . . He was . . . He and my mother had the sort of love that drove her,” I offer softly. “I understand more than I can say.”
Isabeau peers at me intently. “Do you? I have no siblings. My trusted confidante has passed. I must now shelter my mother, and I must wed.”
“Every member of the peerage must consider those things. The fact that we have a voice in our matrimony is the rarest of gifts.” I try to pull my hand away. “I, too, have inherited a title with weight I cannot fathom.”
I know that she will think I mean “earl,” but I cannot speak the whole truth.
Not yet. In some way, perhaps her burden is weighty.
The duke was too generous with his money, too happy to make wagers, and I suspect that if not for the crown supplementing his accounts, Maudite’s estate would be in dereliction. That burden I do not share.
For a moment Isabeau looks painfully pensive, and then she blurts out, “Her Grace has insisted that I bear a child. That we find a man to . . .”
“Isabeau! No!”
“There’s a madness about her on the matter. Marriage is not enough. She insists that I must carry an heir for the title.”
“Could you take in a foundling? Surely there are—”
“I suggested as much. She hurled a decanter at me.” Isabeau takes a steadying breath.
“I am at a loss, Gabrielle. She will acquiesce to my plan to marry a woman, but she is adamant that I also carry a ‘child of the Maudite blood.’ From the moment Father died, she has been pressuring me. She claims I can satisfy my curse if I do so.”
The second course is brought to the table. Prawns, lobster au gratin, mutton pie, French beans, mushrooms in cream, damson tart, and almond tart.
“Your curse demands being impregnated?” I fear that my doubts are too deep to say the words calmly, but it is a ludicrous claim.
“I know curses are as rare as hen’s teeth since the Queens’ Treaty, but that one seems odd.
Is she . . . in need of rest? Grief can be difficult for gentle constitutions. ”
“My mother? Gentle?” Isabeau gives me a look of admonishment. Then she seems to think about where and why we are here. “I apologize. I should not be burdening you with my troubles in your time of grief.”
Once the dinner guests begin filling their plates, I whisper back to her, “We are friends. You may speak freely.”
“She insists a dire fate will befall me if I fail,” Isabeau confesses.
“Don’t all mothers think it’s a dire fate to lack a child? Or perhaps she is speaking from her own loneliness now that her beloved is gone?”
Isabeau offers a weak smile. “How are you faring? Is there anything I can do to ease your grief or . . .”
“Promise me that you will be careful with your own safety,” I blurt out.
She pauses. “Gabrielle? Love?”
“He died in Brimmond Wood,” I confess. “He died in the wood, and I was there with him.”
“How? Why?” Isabeau clutches my hand under the table. “You must let the Hunter handle these things. I will speak to Auntie Mor again about sending word to him.”
I make a noise and quickly hide my face in the hope that Isabeau thinks it was a sob or muffled grief sound.
When I pull my hand away, I realize my mother is looking at us.
She is still steadily weeping without a sound as she listens to the snippets of conversation that rise and fall, but a sliver of a smile graces her lips when she sees us.
Without warning, I see that she stares at us as the queen has done, and this time, a flicker of hope for the future flares inside me.
Now is not the time, but as I hold Isabeau’s hand, I understand that there is something strengthening about finding the person who is your haven.
My mother had that. She had a partner in this life, one she accepted even though she knew death would take him early and he chose her over his duty.
He asked her to stop trying to carry babies because he would rather have her in this world than a son.
Father chose her over duty. Mother chose him, knowing that she was destining her child to this duty.
I cannot give her back her heart, but I can find the monster who took her husband. I will find the beast and slaughter it for her.
I will protect her and Rylan, Father, I swear silently. I will sit here as you would have wanted, and then tomorrow I will resume my search for the creature.
And afterward, I will tell the truth to the woman who already holds my heart in the palm of her hand, who has held it for years, and maybe Isabeau will not reject me.