“No, no, no! No princess!”
“No huntsman!”
“Children, please stop it!” Isabella interjected.
“I don’t want to hear a story about a princess,” Ian complained.
“Then don’t listen,” Catherine countered.
“There will be no stories at all if you don’t cease shouting at each other. Immediately.”
The bickering stopped. But the quiet didn’t last.
“Maybe we should have two stories tonight?” Catherine ventured, rustling her bedcovers again.
“Yes, two stories,” Ian shouted, bouncing excitedly on his knees. “Tell the princess story first.”
Isabella smiled in spite of the calamity. Catherine and Ian’s two story compromise reeked of conspiracy, but she didn’t mind, especially considering this was the last time she would share this favorite bedtime ritual with them.
“All right. If you promise to be very quiet and go straight to sleep after we are finished, we shall have two stories tonight.” Isabella dragged a comfortable chair to a spot an equal distance between the two beds and sat down.
The children obediently lay back in their beds, heads resting against their pillows, eyes open and alert.
“I want to hear the story about the young maid with the pretty hair as fine as spun gold, who was locked in the tower by the evil witch,” Catherine declared.
“Rapunzel?” Isabella asked.
“Yes, Rapunzel.” Catherine hugged herself with delight. “She lowered her long, braided hair out the tower window so the prince could climb up to see her, and then he married her and she became a princess!”
Isabella sighed. How ironic that Catherine should choose a story about a young woman shut away in a lonely tower, separated from the world. It bore too uncomfortable a resemblance to the bleakness of Isabella’s own future.
Shaking off those strange thoughts, Isabella threw herself into the telling of Rapunzel’s tale, changing the pitch of her voice for each character and the volume of her delivery to add mystery and suspense. The children lay wide-eyed at the edge of their beds, eagerly listening to every word. But when she reached the part in the story where the evil witch casts Rapunzel from the tower prison and then waits to catch and harm the prince, Isabella had difficulty keeping her voice steady.
She felt an odd kinship and understanding of the suffering endured by the mythical Rapunzel, a woman banished from the man she loved and forced to live in the greatest grief and misery. With a true feeling of joy, Isabella related the triumphant ending of the tale, when the lovers are once again united and Rapunzel’s tears of happiness cure her prince’s blindness.
Isabella sighed. Of course, in the world of legend and fairy tales, there was always a happy ending. If only she possessed the power to write a happier conclusion to her own story, Isabella thought, but alas, in life one was rarely given the chance to live long and happily with a loved one.
Following Rapunzel, she launched immediately into the account of the huntsman whose kindness to an ugly old crone brought him a gold coin under his pillow each night and a magical cloak that would grant all his wishes.
At the end of Ian’s huntsman tale, Isabella noticed the children’s eyes beginning to droop, but they struggled valiantly to fight off sleep. Quietly she rose from the chair and extinguished all but one candle before walking over to Ian’s bedside. Still and silent, Isabella stared down at him for several long minutes.
The little boy’s eyes were shut, and his steady breathing indicated he was drifting off to sleep. Reaching out with a trembling hand, she tenderly smoothed the soft curls off his brow, then secured the covers tightly around his chest. Finally she bent low and kissed his cheek. She did the same for Catherine, all the while fighting hard against the tears shining in her eyes.
Returning to the chair, she swallowed determinedly past the lump of regret and sorrow lodged in her throat.
“Since you have behaved exceptionally well, I shall treat you to one last story, a tale that I have never before shared with you,” Isabella whispered. She filled her lungs with air, then slowly exhaled. “There was once a man who had to take a long journey, and when he was saying good-bye to his daughters ...”
It was nearly dawn when Isabella awoke. The heaviness in her heart made movement impossible at first, so she lay in her bed staring out the window. She made an effort to disregard, at least for the moment, the burdens on her mind and concentrate instead on nature’s beauty. The first faint rays of pink and yellow light burst upon the horizon, bringing the magnificent fields of green to life. It was a glorious sight. Truly, there was no place in the world like Whatley Grange.
Isabella realized she was biting her lower lip when she tasted the blood on her tongue. Defeated, she succumbed to her emotions and turned her head away from the outdoor splendor. Burying her face in the pillow, she wept loudly, but her many tears brought her heart little relief.
After a while, Isabella forced herself to sit up on the side of the bed and dangled her bare feet over the edge. A headache was beginning to form behind her eyes, but she willed away the discomfort. The earl had not returned to The Grange last night, and thoughts of him flooded her mind.
She had waited for Damien in Catherine and Ian’s room until the wee hours of the morning, lightly dozing in a chair. Dimly hearing the clock strike three, in the early morning hours she had brazenly gone to the earl’s bedchamber, but he was not there. His bedding was undisturbed, and she could not help but be curious about where he had spent the night.
Isabella’s thoughts remained on Damien as she removed her nightgown and put on her clothes. Her traveling clothes. Since she had refused to pack her belongings last night, Isabella next faced that unpleasant duty.
She arranged her clothing methodically upon the bed, then pulled her worn satchel from the wardrobe. She began packing her bag and belatedly realized that Lord Poole had given her so many gowns, she would not have enough room in her case to take everything.
