Sitting on the rocking chair, she swayed back and forth, looking out at the herbs growing in the courtyard between the buildings. And the aching began to bleed out of the recesses inside her.
She’d tried so hard to escape the memories when she’d left the Duvall house. The memories returned to her some nights, in her nightmares, but it was daylight now, and they still returned with a vengeance, the realities of what happened years ago pressing against her chest, feeling as if they might suffocate her.
The hatred in her heart was still there, with a vengefulness that she’d never imagined. The guilt and shame—though Aunt Emeline told her over and over that she had done nothing wrong.
But her aunt didn’t know everything. She didn’t know about the baby Isabelle had brought into the world but couldn’t keep alive. The baby her milk should have sustained.
She rocked back and forth again, and tears filled her eyes, unbidden.
Victor was a wicked man. She knew that now. With Uncle William and Aunt Emeline’s help, she’d learned what was right and loving and good in a family. But the most painful memories from Virginia weren’t the ones of Victor. The hardest ones were of the morning she’d lost her son.
The day of his death and the ones that followed bled together in a collective blur. She’d experienced true happiness for the first time in her life when she held her child in her arms. For the first time, she too had family, like the Paynes. Someone to belong to. Someone to love her in return.
But she’d been too young to care for him.
Incompetent.
That was the word Mrs.Duvall used as the carriage bumped along the road that warm spring day. It was a word that had stitched itself to her heart and her mind. Any tugging on the thread ripped at her very core.
On that terrible journey, her mistress had given her something for her pain, something that plunged her into a dark sleep. When she woke again, she was in a soft bed in Baltimore. Mrs.Duvall was gone, Aunt Emeline sitting at her side.
Blinking, she glanced around her room. Stephan had already moved her trunk down from the top floor to the foot of the double bed. Inside, buried under clothes and a coverlet, she found the baby blanket she’d crocheted before her son was born—an ivory-and-teal pattern from yarn left over from a blanket she’d made for Mrs.Duvall when the woman thought she was expecting.
Isabelle lifted the blanket and nuzzled her cheek against it. This memento was all she had left of her beautiful boy.
Someone knocked on her door, and she tucked the blanket back into her trunk before closing the lid. Then she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.
She had to hide again behind the façade that had become so familiar in Uncle William and Aunt Emeline’s care. Not that they required her to pretend; they just saw her as someone she was not. As the woman she—and they—wanted her to be. A woman she needed to become.
When she opened the door, she found Mr.Payne’s boy waiting for her. In his hands was the stem of a rose—a delicate peach-colored flower that was just daring to unfold.
But she never bought roses from the floral garden. They reminded her too much of Victor Duvall.
She eyed it skeptically. “Where did you get that?”
“From a man selling them outside.” He held the stem out to her. “Thank you for letting us stay.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, taking the rose from him. The fragrance was as delicate as the color. The aroma of beauty and spring.
He held out his hand. “My name’s Isaac.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Isaac.” She reached out her hand to shake his. “My name is Isabelle Labrie.”
“You have an awfully pretty name.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you approve of it.”
“And you serve the best lemonade I’ve ever tasted.”
She tilted her head. “Do you need something?”
“Just to say thank you.” He paused, and she waited for him to give the real reason for his visit. “And to let you know that Master Payne is a fine man. He treats his slaves right.”
She nodded warily, not about to argue the evils of slavery with a child, especially if he thought his master was kind. When the time was right, she and Stephan would offer him the freedom to become his own master. To treat himself with even more respect than his owner did.
“He better keep treating you well.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
