But … maybe Isobelledidregret abandoning her life of luxury, even part-time, to go with Gwen on her patrols.
Gwen’s heart did an unpleasant somersault inside her ribcage. ‘We only have to hang in there a little longer. Oncewe hear back from your parents, once you have access to your dowry, we’ll be free.’
Isobelle was rigid in her arms, and only shook her head mutely, gazing fixedly at some point near Gwen’s shoulder. She let Gwen tilt her face up, but her eyes were even more thickly veiled, her feelings uncharacteristically shrouded.
‘I love that you thought of making breakfast,’ Gwen said. ‘But this sort of thing happens all the time. Don’t you remember that night we camped with all those cursed mosquitoes, when I tripped and dumped the whole pan of rice into the fire?’
‘I remember,’ said Isobelle, but her voice was still pinched and hopeless.
Gwen pulled her closer, and lifted her hand to stroke Isobelle’s hair.
Isobelle jerked away, her eyes widening as she groaned. ‘Don’t, my hair is so gross!’
Gwen blinked, and for a moment they just stared at each other – then, as one, they began to laugh. Isobelle’s chuckle was a little tired, and a little sad, and her cheeks were still wet, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Gwen’s heart unclenched.
‘Remember, there’s a hot spring waiting for us when we reach the sea.’ Gwen wrapped her arms around Isobelle’s waist and clasped her hands together, holding her close. ‘Steaming water up to our necks, and all the potatoes we can eat, I feel sure.’
Isobelle made a sound that was half a laugh, half a little moan of longing. ‘I dreamed about potatoes last night,’ she admitted, her hands resting on Gwen’s forearms, fiddling with the worn lace crochet of her sleeves. ‘I was at a table filled with them every way you can imagine – au gratin, lyonnaise, fondant, or spiralised on a stick … even just boiling them, mashing them …’
Gwen huffed a soft laugh. ‘I usually just stick ’em in a stew.’
Isobelle laughed in response, and then, with the mercurial unpredictability that Gwen found as fascinating as she did irritating, those blue eyes immediately filled with tears again. ‘See? You love potatoes, and I couldn’t even just fry them in the most basic way.’
‘Isobelle … look at me.’ Gwen waited, and when Isobelle declined to respond, she squeezed her again until Isobelle gave a squeak of protest.
‘Not fair,’ she muttered, brow furrowing in an accusatory frown. ‘A real knight wouldn’t manhandle her lady that way.’
Gwen flashed her a grin and then sobered, willing the girl in her arms to hear her, to see her sincerity. ‘Isobelle … I swear to you, with all my heart, the only thing you ever have to do to make me happy is just be here with me when I wake up.’
Isobelle’s eyes slid from hers. ‘Okay.’
Gwen’s throat closed on all the things she didn’t know how to say – all the things she didn’t know if sheshouldsay. If Isobelle really was regretting her choice to run off towards adventure with Gwen, it’d be the worst kind of emotional manipulation for Gwen to start rambling about how desperately, helplessly,insanelyhead over heels in love she was with her.
Gwen shoved that thought down into the pit where she’d banished all the nightmares about the dragon, the place she could never tell Isobelle about. That pit was also where she kept the sick, stomach-wrenching dread that occasionally rose without warning or reason to claim her as she went about her days. And her awareness of Whimsitt’s increasing demands and hatred for her.
It was quite a large pit, large enough to house all the fears that had been plaguing Gwen, with increasing frequency and intensity, over the last few months.
Large enough to put them away, but not deep enough, nowhereneardeep enough, to keep them there.
‘Come on,’ Gwen said, hearing how brittle her own voice sounded, and hoping Isobelle was still too focused on the potato disaster to notice. ‘We’ve got some apples left, and some cheese – we can snack while we saddle the horses. If we hustle, we’ll get to Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea before sundown.’
Gwen reined Achilles in, glancing over her shoulder as Isobelle’s horse dropped to a walk and ambled along intheir wake. Achilles turned his head too, eyeing the pair and then rolling that eye up and back towards his rider. His gaze dripped with such accusatory disgust that Gwen would have been in stitches, if she weren’t also, by now, thoroughly tired of the other horse’s histrionic temperament.
Achilles had made no secret of the disdain he felt for the pretty little mare they’d got for Isobelle in one of the villages they’d visited on their rounds. Isobelle had fallen in love with her at first sight – and indeed, she was one of the loveliest horses Gwen had ever seen, a dainty Andalusian pale dapple grey, with smoky-black mane and tail that faded to white at the ends. She looked like magic – as if, were she to turn her head just so, her unicorn’s horn would flash out of invisibility into the gleam of the sun.
When they’d entered the stable, Isobelle had run to the mare, eyes bright with admiration, and was stroking her nose by the time Gwen reached her with the stable owner at her side.
‘Oh, what a wonderful eye you have, lady,’ the owner had said. ‘I can let you have her for a discount.’
Isobelle had given a squeal of delight and leaned her whole body against the stable door, like a child coveting the sweets on display in a shop. Gwen, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes and cast a sidelong look at the stable owner. ‘A discount?’ she asked. ‘Why?’
The man had spread his hands in the universal gesture of innocence. ‘Because I see the lady’s heart, yes? She isin love. I too love this beautiful horse, but who am I to intervene with fate itself?’
The price for the mare, while at a discount, had still used up most of the money Sylvie had given them as what she laughingly called ‘an adventure grant’. Sylvie wasn’t short on funds, these days, nor on the independence to disperse them as she pleased. Becoming a widow, it turned out, was an excellent loophole for escaping the control of the menfolk in one’s life. And though Whimsitt allotted them some supplies, he’d given them barely enough to make it from town to town.
Unfortunately, it had taken Gwen and Isobelle less than a day to find out why the man had been willing to ‘part with’ the horse for such a modest amount.
The beast was awful.
