“I thought you would know. I do not even know what day it is.”
“Do not tell me you have lingered in that chamber two entire days?”
“How should I have left it when the door was secured against me?”
“You are singularly devoid of initiative, Isabella,” Faydide complained. “Tell me of these tidings.”
“I know naught of them. Father is unlikely to confide in me, even if I ask. I am no longer his daughter, if you so recall.”
“Oh, he may repent of that,” Faydide said, leaning back in the tub again. She was well aware that Isabella waited and clearly did not care.
Isabella, though, guessed how to rouse her step-mother. She sank down onto a stool, as if content to wait. “Who are the strangers in the hall?” she asked with apparent idleness.
“Strangers?”
“Aye, three of them, two men and a woman. All richly garbed. I had no notion Father expected the arrival of guests.”
“Nor did I,” Faydide said with avid interest.
“Perhaps Edmund might confide the fullness of the tale.”
“Edmund,” Faydide said with heat. “Is gone.”
“Gone?” Isabella turned to face her. “How can he be gone?”
“He vanished during the night, with nary a word of explanation to any soul under this roof. Your father is vexed beyond all expectation to be so abandoned. He said it revealed the truth of Edmund’s alliances. No doubt he entered the service of that returned knight, out of some homage to his father.” Faydide studied Isabella. “Perhaps you know more of his choice than anyone else.”
“Me? Why should I know more of Edmund’s choices? He left Montvieux after our nuptial vows were exchanged and rode here with Denis.”
“Your nuptial vows,” Faydide sneered. “You would be clever to forget they ever occurred, Isabella.”
Yet she was unlikely to do as much.
“It seems as if a feast is being prepared,” Isabella mused. “That will be most welcome.”
“A feast? But Denis’ funeral is on the morrow and the feast to follow.”
“Perhaps it has to do with these mysterious guests.”
Faydide rose from the bath with such haste that water flowed over the sides and onto the floor. Her maid hastened to her side to wrap her in a length of linen, another maid taking her hand to assist her from the tub.
Isabella was tugging off her boots, looking forward to even a tepid and shallow bath. She became aware that Faydide was watching her, that cunning smile curving her lips. “What is amiss?” she asked.
“Naught. I simply had a notion.” Faydide’s eyes lit. “What would you grant to me, Isabella, if I convinced your father to let you remain here at Marnis instead of being dispatched to a convent?”
“I am not certain he could be so persuaded.”
Faydide tilted her head. “He would if you agreed to disavow your match. You could swear that you were forced.”
“Yet I was not.”
“If you will not deny the consummation, then it might be arranged that you could be wed to another.”
Isabella frowned. “I cannot see that it would be advantageous to begin that new match with a lie. Any man is like to realize that I am no maiden.”
“I doubt he will care. His future will be secured as the future Lord de Marnis. That, after all, would be the sole reason any man would accept you as his bride. He can name a bastard as his heir, if it comes to that. Or truly, deny that bastard when he has a sonof his own.” Faydide smiled and fluttered as her maid offered her a clean chemise, her sole interest in the fripperies of her toilette.
Isabella no longer saw any cause to hold her tongue. “I cannot see what incentive there would be for me in such a scheme,” she said. “I might welcome the convent instead.”
