‘Can you imagine Lord Bingleton dealing with this?’ Isobelle asked, hands on her hips, making her voice light. If she showed fear, Gwen would want to leave and take her somewhere safer. And she couldn’t leave, not yet.
‘Not competently,’ Gwen admitted. ‘So what would you like to do?’
‘Tidy up,’ Isobelle said firmly. ‘And lock the door from now on.’
‘You don’t think we should—’
‘Can we decide in the morning?’ Isobelle asked, lowering her lashes, pressing a hand to her middle. Gwen wasn’t wrong, to wonder if they should leave. At least waiting until morning would give her a chance to think up a better excuse for staying.
Gwen stepped closer immediately, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. ‘Of course we can. Let’s get this back to rights. Shall I fetch the girls? It’ll go faster with all of us.’
Isobelle shook her head, and this part, at least, wasn’t feigned. ‘I just want to be with you,’ she whispered, tilting her head to rest it on Gwen’s shoulder.
‘Then you’ll have me,’ Gwen murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. ‘I’m sorry, Isobelle. What a mess. What kind of lowlife would you have to be …’
‘One with great taste,’ Isobelle replied, sounding only a little wobbly. ‘They went straight for my clothes.’
Gwen kissed the top of her head again, then released Isobelle to drop into a crouch and pick up her jewellery box. The lid came away from the body of it, and she winced. ‘We’ll fix it,’ she said, setting the box back on the floor and carefully transferring its contents back to the little sections where they belonged. ‘Oh no.’
Isobelle leaned in, and pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle her sound of dismay. One of her necklaces – a gift from Olivia – was smashed to pieces. It had been porcelain, Olivia’s little owl stamped into the clay. It was the samesymbol they’d shown Archer, the mysterious forger who’d manufactured Sir Gawain’s pedigree for them, to secure his cooperation.
‘Well,’ Isobelle said, marvelling at her bright tone. ‘Let’s hope we don’t need a favour from a mysterious shadowy contact of Olivia’s anytime soon.’
The two of them fell silent, tidying up together, moving around each other as they folded clothes and did their best to salvage Isobelle’s belongings. Isobelle didn’t know what Gwen was thinking, but her own mind was whirling.Hadthis been meant to scare her away? For what reason? Or had it been someone somehow driven by the curse? But why would it force anyone to do such a thing, and to her best hat?
‘Isobelle?’ It took her a moment to realise Gwen was speaking to her, and she turned, her dressing gown clutched in her hands.
Gwen was holding a much-folded piece of parchment, her eyes fixed upon the words written there. The silky fabric slipped from Isobelle’s grip to pool on the floor as she recognised it. The edges were dog-eared from spending so much time in her pockets, the creases fuzzy from folding and re-folding, though it was unfolded now.
It was the letter from her parents.
Gwen lifted her eyes from the words on the page and gazed at Isobelle. ‘What is this?’ she asked, her voice shaking.
Isobelle had been so focused on finding out more about the spell someone was casting on Gwen that she’d entirely forgotten about theotherthing she was keeping from her. Now, with a horrible feeling like she was falling, that other problem was marching back into view.
‘Your parents said no?’ Gwen asked quietly, her expression dangerously neutral. ‘No to giving you your dowry, giving us our freedom … and you didn’t tell me?’
Isobelle was floundering, desperately unsure which shore to strike out for. The truth? Some convenient lie? She was uncomfortably aware that it was only her absolute failure to think up a convincing lie that forced the truth from her now.
‘I was going to show it to you, I promise.’Eventually. ‘I just … didn’t know how to tell you,’ Isobelle admitted, almost inaudible.
‘How aboutGwen, my parents wrote back and said no?’ Gwen snapped, pink spots appearing at her cheekbones, green eyes lit with a heart-wrenching mix of anger and hurt.
It seemed so simple, when Gwen said it. But Gwen wasn’t the one who had watched her beloved waking from nightmares with a shuddering gasp, who had heard her call out at night as though someone were driving a knife into her soul. She wasn’t the one who had watched her champion being forced to dance to Lord Whimsitt’s tune, who had agonised over the strain wearing her beloved thin.
Isobelle felt like she was grasping at control as it disappeared down the drain, slipping through her fingers. She felt as though she could see this whole conversation unspooling in front of her, and it was leading somewhere terrible. ‘Gwen,’ she said, still in almost a whisper. ‘I was trying to protect you.’
‘By lying to me?’ Gwen whispered, the hurt in her eyes mixed with bewilderment.
Isobelle could feel it beginning to shatter, the fragile understanding they’d forged in the hot springs. Isobelle had meant every word, with all her heart – she was here, she was Gwen’s, as long as Gwen would have her. Only now, seeing the agony on Gwen’s face, did she realise how this must feel for her champion.
Like Isobelle’s faith in her had been a lie.
‘You were hangingeverythingon my dowry coming through,’ Isobelle blurted, her throat tight, her heart thumping far too hard, now. ‘And I didn’t know how to tell you that we hadnothing. You kept saying that we only had to wait until the letter came, and we could stop trudging around the county in the rain, living off burnt potatoes. That we could choose our own fate. That we could stop putting you through the pain of talking about the dragon over and over andoveragain!’
Gwen’s face paled. ‘You hid this from me because of my dragon nightmares?’
‘You were already carrying so much, how could I give you more to carry?’
