The lass giggled and shook her head. “Troppo grasso,” she said and held her arms in a circle to mimic the old woman’s round belly.
“Fat?” Isobelle made the same gesture, but puffed out her cheeks as well.
“Si.” The lass nodded. “Grasso.”
Isobelle repeated the word. The child nodded again.
Isobelle pointed to herself. “My name is Isobelle.”
“Isabella?”
“No. Isobelle.”
“Ah. Il mio nome è Britta.”
“Britta?”
“Si.”
They shook hands and the lassie giggled.
The thought of another suitor strolling by gave Isobelle an idea, and with Britta’s help, she was able to learn a few choice words that would go far toward communicating with the old woman, using more than just head shakes and shrugs.
Britta returned to her perch in the window. Isobelle returned to her little rectangle of dirt. It had been so long since the last prospective suitor, she began to wonder if Signora Crescento had run out of possibilities and feared she’d learned a bit of Italian for no reason at all. But soon, the sound of footfalls returned, and Isobelle made no pretense; she looked up right away, assuming that the sooner the man was on his way, the sooner the old woman would come.
But it was not a single man walking past her cottage. It was half a dozen. And herding them from behind like a well-trained collie, was Signora Crescento.
Isobelle stood and faced her visitors, all men she’d seen before. Each one of them looked far too eager for her peace of mind. They eyed her hair, her clothes, and one looked a bit greedily at the cottage. That one stumbled forward with some firm encouragement from the old woman, bobbed his head, then lifted his chin as if he were on display in some sort of slave market.
Isobelle swallowed a chortle that would have proven to all and sundry she was not a strictly sober woman.
Signora Crescento said something unintelligible, but considering her tone and the hand on her hip, meant something to the effect of, “What is so wrong with this one?”
Isobelle rubbed her face to hide her grin until she had it under control. She didn’t bother to hide her Scottish brogue, for she was fair to certain she had the words right. “Troppo breve,” she said.Too short.
The man’s brows shot up, as did Signora Crescento’s. But while the short man appeared insulted, the old woman looked quite pleased. She pushed the first man out of her way, then shoved the next man forward. He frowned over his shoulder, clearly unappreciative of the old woman’s roughness.
“E questo?” the old woman asked.
“Troppo...fiero.”Too fierce. At least she thought that was what it meant. She’d simply glared at the girl to get the right word. For all she knew, it meant angry or frightening.
To Isobelle’s surprise, the man nodded, put his hat on his head, then offered both her and Signora Crescento a slight bow before walking away with his head held high.
Undaunted, the old woman pushed the next one forward. He was timid as a mouse, only glancing at Isobelle and briefly holding her gaze before looking at his feet. He’d been much braver without the audience, poor man.
“Troppo grasso,” she said quietly, so as not to hurt the thin man’s feelings any more than was necessary.
He grinned and walked away. A dozen paces later, he laughed quietly.
The next one was a bit too bold. He leered at her, winked at her. She could hear his labored breathing that she feared had nothing to do with the incline of the lane. It was this man she would have in mind when she barred the door every night.
“Troppo...” She had no Italian word for him. There was a limit to what she and Britta could devise with only a bit of mimicking. “No,” she finally said. “Just, no.”
The man continued to leer, unwilling to be dismissed with no reason. Since she’d left Scotland and the protection of her brother and his high station in their clan, she’d come across many of his sort. If she shied away from him, he would pursue her.
She stepped forward abruptly and did not stop until there was but a hand’s breadth between them. The man’s nostrils flared and he took in the details of her hair, her apron, her lips. He grinned to one side of his mouth.
Though it turned her stomach to do so, she leaned toward him. Narrowing her eyes, she repeated, “No. Absolutely no.”
