CHAPTER THIRTEEN #3
When she'd been seated across from Ancelin and Hilda, she'd been too panicked and desperate to even think of arguing with their demands.
Now, in the quiet of the passageway with Walter safe in her arms, the nature of what she'd agreed to was beginning to sink in.
She had even less freedom than she'd had before; she would go nowhere and do nothing without Hilda or one of her spies watching.
Ellyn was already happy to report back on her comings and goings; Bet seemed to have no objections, or else valued her position too highly to voice them.
Likely Bridget would be just as amenable.
She was well and truly trapped here, just as if she were chained in a dungeon.
And she'd been forbidden from seeing Constance again.
She moaned. Walter's head jerked up in alarm, and she stroked his hair until he subsided, squeezing her eyes shut so he wouldn't see her tears.
She'd had no choice. She had no choice. But never to see Constance again - never to hear her laugh or see her smile or feel Constance's hand in hers'- never to wake in her arms, or sit side-by-side with her at the workbench, or rest her head on Constance's shoulder as the hour grew late - it couldn't be borne.
The injury was too great, the pain too sharp.
Tearing herself away from Constance would be like tearing herself in two: even if the wound did not kill her, the bleeding would.
When she had first agreed to stay on in Hilda's household, there'd been little point in doing anything else.
She'd had no one and nothing but her son, so why should she not agree to make herself miserable under Hilda's thumb to keep him?
It was hardly a sacrifice. It wasn't giving up the woman she loved.
She could not have conceived, then, of loving and being loved like that, much less having it snatched away.
She had not yet seen a vision of her future where she knew true, uncomplicated happiness - free of her husband, free of Hilda, free of everything but her love for her child and for Constance.
Now she had - and she had to give it up.
She didn't know if she could survive it.
But she had to survive it.
She permitted herself one sob - only one.
Then she put her shoulders back and drew in a deep breath.
Hilda had told her to go upstairs and see to the girls.
She'd be angry if Isabel disobeyed her. She had to be careful, now; she had to be sure not to offer Hilda any opportunity to pounce.
She had lived like this before, with Geoffrey.
She could live like this again. If she knew anything, it was how to survive.
Constance would worry, she thought as she got to her feet.
She would wonder why Isabel had disappeared so suddenly, with no warning.
Isabel would have to figure out some way to get word to her of what had happened.
But she couldn't think about that just now.
For the moment, all her focus had to be on making sure she was secure in her position here.
She could think of other things once that was accomplished.
She tried hard to push away the thought that it never would be.
# # #
It was a week before the storm broke - a week of staying constantly on her toes, jumping to do whatever she was told by either Hilda or the girls (Ancelin having absented himself from the house not long after their meeting), and trying to make herself as small and unobtrusive as possible whenever she was not being called on to do something.
If the girls noticed that the dynamic of the household had shifted, neither seemed to care much; Aline was still taken up with talk of her betrothal, and Petronilla had devoted herself to sulking while her sister was made much of.
Isabel almost found herself missing their sniping.
It was easier, when her charges offered some distraction - even an unpleasant one - not to let her thoughts drift back to Constance, to her smile on that golden morning when they had woken up together, on the press of her lips to the crown of her head.
On what she must be thinking, now that Isabel had vanished.
Was she angry? Worried? What would she do?
She had her answer shortly. It was the Friday following her disastrous meeting with Hilda and Ancelin, and she was seated in the nursery working on her mending basket.
Walter was napping, and the girls were going through new silks that their father had brought back on his previous visit home.
Their chatter gave Isabel a headache, but she gritted her teeth and ignored it. There were worse things, she knew.
"Isabel!" The sound of Hilda's voice made her heart sink even as she looked up. Hilda was standing in the doorway, with that awful smirk playing about her lips again. The girls both looked up as well, sensing some impending scene. "You've a visitor downstairs."
"I can't think who would come to visit me," Isabel said, but she let her mending slide off her lap and into the basket as she stood.
It was not entirely true - Elizabeth might, if she was concerned about not having seen Isabel for some time.
There was an outside chance of it being Matthew, for the same reason, though he usually shunned this house.
Or - her heart thumped painfully at the thought - it could be Constance.
Isabel had never told her precisely where to find her at home, but she was a clever woman, and she knew the family name - so perhaps . . . ?
"You may as well come and see, then," Hilda said, still smirking, then turned on her heel and went out. Isabel got to her feet and followed, feeling her chest tighten. Whoever it was, that look on Hilda's face boded ill.
She got to the bottom of the stairs, then stopped, feeling the blood drain from her face.
Jack Folet was standing just inside the door of the main room, his thumbs hooked into his belt, looking around with an idle curiosity as if his presence didn't threaten to destroy everything Isabel had been trying to accomplish.
Hilda stood opposite him, her arms crossed, her expression openly triumphant.
And no wonder: Jack could not have better played into her hands if he'd strode in and announced to all and sundry that he was here to see his concubine.
"Ah, Isabel," Jack said when he saw her. She cringed in inward horror at his familiarity. "Constance sent me after you - she was worried you hadn't been to visit lately. I had an errand to run nearby, so I offered to stop in. I hope you're well?"
"Quite -" Her voice was faint and tremulous to her own ears, so she cleared her throat and tried again.
It would not do to show weakness. "Quite well, thank you.
I have -" She would not look at Hilda again.
If she did, she was not sure she could maintain her composure.
"I have been greatly occupied," she said, "With - sundry tasks.
Mistress Marillac has required my presence here, and I cannot be spared for the sake of a visit. "
Jack looked at Hilda, then back at her. She could see him calculating, but she did not know him well enough to guess what he would do or say.
She prayed he was not of her brother's temperament: an outburst would be disastrous beyond measure.
"My sister mentioned also," he said carefully, "that you had some embroidery still in your possession that she required for Leah's gown.
" He addressed himself to Hilda. "Isabel has been assisting my sister in preparing a dress for a young bride.
Her help has been invaluable. I hope you are compensating her well for her work? "
Isabel concentrated on her breathing, largely to keep herself from crying.
In. Out. In. Out. He'd been clever to bring up the embroidery as a pretext, but oh, if he went on calling her Isabel - if he showed himself too interested in her welfare, or abnormally defensive of her - Hilda would draw the obvious conclusion.
Isabel couldn't even blame her for it. It wasn't as if the truth suggested itself to anyone who did not already understand it.
And if she decided that Jack's presence here was proof that Isabel was not fit to remain under her roof . . .
"She eats at my table and sleeps under my roof," Hilda said. "As would any servant in my employ. That is quite compensation enough, in exchange for what she provides. And now, if you have said all that needs to be said . . . ?"
Isabel did not fail to notice the way Jack's expression tightened.
"Almost," he said. "There is the matter of the embroidery.
Might you spare Isabel for a quarter-hour to deliver it to my sister?
I believe she also required some instruction in the matter of how to attach it to the gown, or some such.
I know little about it, I'm afraid." He shrugged.
"And, of course, Isabel must be paid for her labour.
As a servant would be." His voice sharpened on the last sentence, and Isabel stared daggers at him, thinking stop it, stop it so loudly that she was half-surprised he didn't hear her. "Is that amenable to you?"
Hilda looked like a cat with a bird in its claws. "Oh, no," she said. "That would hardly be fitting. I have been concerned enough already regarding Isabel's good character. I surely cannot be expected to allow her out of my sight with a strange man, with only your word as surety to her conduct."
Jack's brows creased. "Her conduct?"