“Isobel,” he said softly.
She dropped her hand. The first tear fell and she wiped it away. “Each of us was hurt by the pace at which we burned through life, or by Peter Boyd, or by both. It was only a matter of time. Before it was my turn.”
“Your turn for...?”
“My turn to catch fire, I suppose?” Another tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped it away.
“What did this man do to you?” His voice was harder now. He sounded upset. “Isobel?”
She studied his face. Was he angry with her?
No, she didn’t think so.
Was it Peter that he resented? No one ever resented Peter Boyd.
She continued carefully, watching him. “Well, Peter’s favorite, AnaClara, did not enjoy Iceland. It was too cold, the sky was too white, and she did not get on with the Vagns, our hosts. And so she left. After just a month. Sometimes she did this—she left us. She was the only one brave enough to walk away without the fear of not being invited back in. Naturally, that is why Peter loved her the most. She was not held entirely in his thrall.
“And when she left, Peter finally, at long last, after two years of traveling together, turned his attention... on me.”
“Oh,” said North, his voice filled with dread.
“I’d waited so long to have him, only him, just for myself,” she said through a lump. “And for a time, I was the chosen one. Also for a time, it was everything I thought it would be. He was charming and affectionate and attentive. I worked doubly hard to please him. Like most revered leaders, he was conveniently helpless. I served as everything from his valet, oiling his boots, to his minstrel, singing him to sleep. I set about learning the Icelandic language at an eye-burning pace.”
“And you were in love,” said North quietly.
“I was so in love.” The tears fell freely now.
“Do you love him still?” asked North, his voice less than a whisper.
She shook her head. “No. I have no regard for him. Hate is too strong a feeling for what I have for him. When I think of him, I feel nothing but an empty road, going to nowhere.”
“But you are crying,” he said.
She swiped at the tears, smearing them with the raindrops on her face. “I cry for the girl I was. The stupidchoices, the stupid hope, for how I believed I was a part of this wonderful, special thing, when I was really all alone.”
“What happened?” A whisper.
“What do you think happened? By July, AnaClara had returned, saying she missed us, that life was dull with her parents. She began a campaign to lure us to the French seaside.”
“And you... quarreled?” North asked.
“With whom? AnaClara? No. She and I rarely spoke, and now we had even less to say than before. Peter and I? Also no. I became anobserver. I held my breath, and waited, and watched to see who he would choose.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “To think I actually thought it might be me. He’d seemed so contented in Iceland. The volcanoes captivated him. He’d made the acquaintance of these pirates who captured your cousin—this is how I know of them—and he spent days playing high-seas adventurer in the water off the coast of Reykjavík. He longed to see the phenomenon of the lights in the sky in late September.”
She laughed again. “If I required the scenic highlights of the country to sway him in my favor, Iknewthe answer.”
“How did he settle it?” North asked.
“He came to me the evening that AnaClara returned—he cornered me alone—and said something like, ‘I’ve moved your case from my bedchamber to the room with the other girls. We would not want to confuse or distress AnaClara now that she’s finally returned to us.’ ”
“No,” North said, exhaling, drawing out the word like a hiss. He reached out and grabbed Isobel at the biceps, holding her at arm’s length.
She allowed this, sagging a little, soaking in the strength of his large hands through the bulk of the coat.
“There is more,” she said, her voice as quiet as the fog.
He shook his head, ducking a little to see her face beneath the brim of the hat.
“I was with child by then.”
