“Were you born on the Payne plantation?”
“No. I was born at the Duvall’s.”
She knitted her fingers together in front of her waist. “You said your mother ran away when you were a baby.”
Isaac picked up a piece of driftwood and tossed it on the pile. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you know the name of your mother?”
Alden saw the boy smile, but he didn’t hear Isaac’s answer.
Isabelle backed away from him. “I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I have to take a walk,” she said, but it looked to Alden like she might collapse instead.
He hurried to her side and saw tears streaming from her eyes like the river water over the rocks. “Are you all right?”
She waved him off. “I just need a few minutes.”
Then she hurried away from him and the mining camp, forging her own trail down the riverbank.
Chapter 38
Sierra Foothills
August 1854
The river rushed below Isabelle as she ran, but she didn’t see the water. All she could see was the baby boy swaddled in her arms, his eyes gazing up at her with complete abandon. Like she would never leave him. He’d trusted her to care for him, and she’d left him to fend for himself with a man who was mad. And a woman who hated him.
She stumbled on a rock, hidden under the grass, and picked herself back up, the image in her mind shifting from the calmness in her baby’s eyes to chaos. Crying. Mrs.Duvall arched over her bed, yanking her arm.
Blood streamed from a gash in her hand—a wound from the rock—but Isabelle didn’t stop to tend to it. Her heart—it beat so fast that she felt as if it might explode into a thousand pieces.
She hadn’t suspected Mrs.Duvall or the midwife of lying to her. In her heart, she’d thought she had failed her baby. It was her milk or her youth or something she’d done wrong during the delivery that took him.
All along, she’d believed what Mrs.Duvall had told her, that her son was dead.
But Isaac had survived.
And he’d been forced to grow up in a snare of lies too. He thought his mother had abandoned him.
Isaac’s mother wasn’t a princess. She was a simple, broken woman, masquerading as the niece of the French couple who had rescued her.
At the time, she’d thought her mistress had done a rare kindness in helping her escape Victor’s grasp, but really she’d stolen away Isabelle’s son.
Oh, why had the woman lied to her?
But even as she ran along the bank, dodging the mesh of driftwood, Isabelle knew exactly why Mrs.Duvall had lied. Her hatred was venomous. Victor had abused Isabelle with his warped view of love, torturing her in the night hours that she feared. Instead of helping Isabelle, Mrs.Duvall had blamed her for her husband’s obsession.
And that’s what Victor had been. Completely obsessed. As if he would somehow find happiness if he humiliated her and then conquered her body, mind, and the depths of her soul.
Her hand traveled up to the pale pink lawn of her dress, and she cupped it over her right shoulder. The senior Master Duvall once promised that he’d set her free, but after his father’s death, Victor made it quite clear that there would be no freedom for her. Ever. Then he’d branded her so she would never leave him.
The pain of losing her baby had seared her heart, but the branding iron scarred her in a different way. It was the constant reminder—long after her shoulder healed—that no matter where she went, she could never fully get away from the man who owned her. Even though she’d tried for years, the cucumber-and-lemon cream had done nothing to fade the brand of his rose.
Her toe caught another rock, and she stumbled again, collapsing onto a bed of grass along the bank. The rush of river had quieted to a gentle hum here, giving life to the crimson columbine that blossomed on each side.
