Ah, there it was. Her husband’s name, spoken like a curse wrapped in expensive silk. Tristan’s jaw tightened as the familiar weight of guilt settled on his shoulders like chainmail.
“I thought it best?—”
“You thought!” The riding crop connected with his shoulder in a sharp crack that echoed through the suddenly silent hall. The blow stung, but not nearly as much as the raw pain in her voice. “You thought it best to disappear like some coward, leaving me to wonder if you were dead or merely too ashamed to show your face!”
“Isolde, cease?—”
“I will not cease!” Tears carved tracks through the careful application of cosmetics that had probably taken her maid an hour to perfect. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like? Geoffrey treats me like damaged goods now, a poor investment that’s lost half its value. ‘The de Valois name isn’t what it once was, my dear,’” she mimicked in a cruel falsetto. “’Perhaps you should be more... discreet... about family connections.’”
Saints preserve him. His proud, brilliant sister, reduced to apologizing for their bloodline to a merchant’s grandson who’d bought his way into nobility with gold earned from wool and grain.
“You know?” he asked quietly, all the fight draining out of him like ale from a cracked cup.
“Of course I know what Guy did.” She wiped at her tears with hands that trembled with fury and grief. “I’m not some empty-headed ornament, despite what Geoffrey seems to think. I have eyes and ears and the wits to use them. I know Guy planted those letters. I know he’s been skimming profits from the eastern routes. I know he used your passion for exotic foods to make you the perfect scapegoat.”
The admission hit him like a mace to the solar plexus. All these months of isolation, of believing himself alone in his knowledge of the truth, and she had known. Had been fighting battles he’d abandoned her to face.
“Isolde,” he began, but she stepped forward and slapped him—properly this time, with enough force to snap his head to the side and leave his cheek burning like fire.
“That,” she said, her voice deadly quiet, “is for abandoning me to face Geoffrey’s lectures about our family’s reputation alone.”
Before he could respond, she threw herself into his arms with such force that he nearly staggered backward. Her tears soaked through his shirt as she pressed her face against his chest, her slight frame shaking with sobs that had clearly been held back for months.
“And this,” she whispered against his collarbone, her voice muffled but fierce, “is because I’m so bloody glad you’re still alive that I could weep for a se’nnight. Even if you are an absolute fool.”
Tristan’s arms came around her automatically, muscle memory overriding the shock of her presence. She smelled of roses and expensive unguents and something that was uniquely Isolde—sharp intelligence wrapped in silk and stubborn determination. His baby sister, who’d married for gold instead of love to save their family’s coffers, was now trapped with a husband who saw her disgrace as a personal affront to his carefully purchased respectability.
Rachel had been attemptingto sneak out of the great hall when Lady Drama Queen had made her entrance, and now she was trapped watching what felt like the medieval equivalent of a Lifetime movie—all expensive costumes, family trauma, and enough emotional baggage to fill a cargo ship.
The woman was absolutely stunning in that effortless way that came from generations of good breeding and unlimited access to the finest everything money could buy. Her gown probably cost more than Rachel’s entire wardrobe, and she wore it like armor made of silk and bad intentions.
She also looked like she could fillet someone with a particularly pointed comment while maintaining perfect posture and a serene expression. Basically, she was everything Rachel would never be—elegant, sophisticated, and probably capable of eating soup without getting it on her shirt.
The emotional reunion was touching and all, but Rachel was getting a serious contact high from whatever expensive perfume the woman was wearing. It smelled like roses had a baby with a French garden and raised it on a diet of pure luxury. Her own borrowed medieval dress suddenly felt like it was made from potato sacks and regret.
“Isolde,” Tristan said, his voice carrying that careful formality Rachel had come to recognize as his emotional armor, “may I present Rachel Carter, a... guest at Greystone.”
Lady Isolde’s dark gaze—so similar to Tristan’s but somehow sharper, more calculating—swept over Rachel with the thoroughness of a health inspector examining a questionable restaurant. Rachel felt herself being catalogued, evaluated, and quite possibly found wanting, all in the span of a heartbeat.
The taste of nervous anticipation flooded her mouth like she’d been chewing on pennies.
“Aguest,” Isolde repeated, the words carrying just enough skepticism to make it clear she found the explanation about as believable as a gas station sushi special. “How... interesting. And from whence do you hail, Mistress Carter?”
“Kansas,” Rachel said, then immediately regretted it as both siblings’ eyebrows climbed toward their respective hairlines like they were trying to escape their faces entirely. “I mean... very far away. Like, really far. You probably haven’t heard of it. Different... kingdom. Very small. Practically microscopic, really.”
She was babbling. She was definitely babbling, and Lady Perfect was probably storing every awkward word for future blackmail purposes.
“Indeed.” Isolde’s smile was the kind that made diplomats nervous and merchants check their purses twice. “And what brings you to my brother’s... charming... estate? Surely you’re not another of Geoffrey’s tedious business associates come to discuss investments in wool futures?”
The way she said Geoffrey’s name, like it left a bad taste in her mouth, made Rachel’s estimation of the mysterious husband drop faster than a soufflé in a thunderstorm.
“I got lost,” she said, which was technically true if you counted being lost in time, space, and any reasonable expectation of indoor plumbing. “Tristan was kind enough to offer shelter.”
“How very... charitable... of him.” Isolde moved closer, her expensive perfume preceding her like a cloud of French sophistication that made Rachel feel like she’d been rolling around in a barn. Which, let’s face it, wasn’t entirely inaccurate given her recent accommodations.
“Geoffrey always says charity is a luxury we can ill afford in these trying times. Though I suppose he means charity that doesn’t directly benefit his coffers or his social standing.”
The bitterness in her voice was sharp enough to cut glass, and Rachel felt an unexpected pang of sympathy. Apparently even medieval trophy wives had their problems.
