“And my lady?” the boy asked by way of greeting.
“She is well, Philip,” Amaury said with a wry smile, then sobered. “Though she feared I killed her father.”
Philip looked affronted on Amaury’s behalf. “She should know better, my lord. She should recognize that you are not such a base fiend as that.”
“She has learned to distrust men and their motives, Philip.” He wondered if there had ever been anyone in her life that Isabella could trust. The possibility made him ache for what she had endured – and redoubled his resolve to prove himself worthy of her.
He would not betray her trust.
“Then we must ensure she learns the truth of you, my lord.”
“Aye, Philip, we must.” He had not meant to share his uncertainty of Roland, but she had surprised him – and Isabella’s reassurances had been as beguiling as her conviction of his own innocence. He had not realized how alone he felt in his endeavors, not until Isabella offered her support. He glancedback toward distant Marnis, seeing now the alliance and solace that could be found in marriage –and fiercely desiring more of it. “They say that winning the greatest challenge offers the most sublime reward, after all.”
“I dislike, my lord, that you left her there again. Surely she is surrounded by enemies?”
“I fear that is so, Philip.” But she had aided his escape instead of revealing him. The fact of that gave Amaury encouragement. “That is why I gave her the poison stone.”
The boy looked startled. “Sir!”
“It alone can convince my lady that I am worthy of her trust,” Amaury said. “Perhaps it holds a sorcery beyond what I know of it. I can only hope.”
“Aye, sir. When do we return to Marnis? Or do we?”
Amaury considered this. “I think I must pay my respects to my lady’s father when he is laid to rest.”
“Two more days,” Philip said. “If they will admit you.”
“If my lady does as I have suggested, she will ensure that they do.”
Was Amaury right?
It defied belief that a stone could detect poison, but Isabella had to cede that there were marvels in heaven and earth not yet understood. She considered the matter for the remainder of the night – once she finally persuaded Mallory and the others to leave – and decided the sole course was to do as Amaury had suggested.
She would test the stone, and thus, the conviction of her husband.
In the morning, Isabella chose the red dress again and secreted the stone in her purse. She opened the portal to the solar only when she was fully dressed, and found most of the household awaiting her there.
Her days of solitude had clearly come to an end.
She was in command, Isabella reminded herself as she swept through the portal and passed them. Simon walked slightly behind her and she spoke to him. “I would see my father before I break my fast,” she said crisply. “I would sit vigil with him alone.”
“Of course, my lady.”
Her will was readily done, and no objections were made. Isabella soon found herself alone in the chapel, where her father lay upon his back. The morning sunlight touched his still figure, glinting off the gems in the pin at his shoulder. His cloak flowed beneath him and around him, his boots were polished, his tabard was fine and his beard was combed – and yet he looked diminished. He was vastly smaller than he had appeared, a mere shell of the forceful man she had known.
A frail older man. He could have simply died.
Or he might have been assisted over that threshold.
Whoever had dressed him for burial had eased away the signs of stress and he looked to be sleeping peacefully. With such a view, Isabella could almost forget his agony as he breathed his last. Almost, but not quite.
She had not been overly fond of her father, but no one had the right to take his life from him before God deemed it to be at an end.
She had to know.
Isabella stepped forward, kneeling beside her father’s shoulder as if to pray there. She had her back to the doors that opened into the chapel. From behind her, no one would be able to see what she did. She quickly placed Amaury’s stone againsther father’s motionless lips, halfway expecting his eyes to fly open and his voice to ring out, chastising her for her folly.
Instead, the stone changed hue. She stared in awe as a darkness spread over its surface like a black cloud, one that turned the stone’s mottled green hue to obsidian. She lifted it away and a touch of green returned on the side furthest from her father’s corpse. When she lowered it again, the entire stone was again suffused with black.
