“Explain it to me then.”
Isabella rubbed at her face, trying to find the words she needed. They stood in a pool of torchlight, which emphasized the dark rings around her mother’s blue eyes.
How much worse must I look?
She glanced down at her torn cloak and misshapen woolen tunic. She cut a different figure indeed to the last time she had visited her parents’ home.
Slowly and deliberately, Isabella placed her rings back on her fingers, hoping the display of compliance might help her cause.
“How do you know all of this?” she asked, stalling for time.
“About Hamish McIvor?”
Isabella shrugged. “I did not even know that was his full name.”
“Then you cannot know him very well.”
Out of nowhere, Isabella had the urge to unburden herself. To admit to her mother that she knew Hamish better than any woman, not his wife, had any business to.
That she loved him.
Instead, she held her mother’s gaze in the flickering torchlight. “How did you know?” she repeated.
Morwenna took her arm and guided her along the path toward the keep. Isabella was reluctant to move further from the dungeon, but she felt unable to resist her mother’s urging.
“We have a visitor. He arrived some days since, with a claim which disturbed us all.”
Isabella stopped in her tracks. “Who?”
Morwenna also paused and Tristan’s cloak puddled around her feet. “Your betrothed. Lord Gaunt.”
Isabella reeled as if she had been slapped. The news chilled her more than the wintry wind gusting through the courtyard.
Lord Gaunt was a guest at Wolvesley.
She had an uncouth urge to spit on the cobbles. “And you believe Gaunt’s claims over mine?” Wide-eyed with incredulity, she shook her head.
“He is the man you plan to marry. What are we to do but offer him hospitality when he arrives unannounced mere hours before a snowstorm? What can we do but believe him when he tells us you are in grave danger?” At this, Morwenna’s voice wobbled, and Isabella realized how much her family must have worried for her safety.
“I understand,” she whispered. “But now you see me, fit and well. And I ask you to hear me when I say that Hamish is a good man. I brought him here myself, to plead for help. Instead, he is thrown into the dungeon like a criminal.”
“’Tis a twist, Isabella, which you must allow us time to understand.”
“I cannot allow that.” Isabella wrung her hands. “Not when he is so gravely injured. He saved my life, Mother. Twice. Without Hamish, I would have suffered the fate you most feared.”
Her mother looked into her eyes and Isabella gazed honestly back.
“Please,” she added.
Morwenna smiled, sadly. “What help do you seek?”
“The return of Hamish’s lands. They were confiscated by the King and given to Lord Gaunt, who has done naught to deserve them.” In her fervor, she adopted the analogy once used byHamish. “Imagine, Mother, if that happened to us. How could we survive the loss of Wolvesley?”
“Ah, Isabella.” Morwenna reached out to smooth back a loose strand of her daughter’s hair. “It does my heart good to see you standing here before me. But I am even gladder to hear you talk with passion and certitude. In these last years, you have made yourself passive and small, but now the fire inside you burns brightly once again.”
Isabella blinked in surprise. “I do not think Tristan shares your opinion.”
“You must remember, this is a man’s world we live in. Since your husband died, Tristan and your father hold themselves responsible for you. Both of them have been half crazed with worry. Tristan would have ridden out to Ember Hall with the first signs of thaw this morn, but young Lucan took a fever some days since and Mirrie could not bear for Tristan to leave her side.”
