Isobel stood with her back to Anselm’s hiding place, but he could see her head bobbing in frequent acquiescence as the miller’s mouth flapped with silent words. Unfortunately, a sudden gust of wind sprang up, preventing him from hearing the rest of the conversation between the miller and his niece.
Taking the basket from Isobel’s hand, John Miller planted a clumsy kiss on his niece’s cheek. Anselm exhaled, hard. If he was not much mistaken, that looked a lot like a kiss of farewell. The bark of the tree crumbled beneath his fingertips, so fiercely did he grip on to it. Thank the spirits! She was staying.
“Jack? Where are you, you lazy streak of piss?” The miller’s head swung from side to side as he searched for his slovenly son. Yawning and stretching, Jack lumbered from where he had been hiding at the back of the wagon.
Impatiently, John thrust the basket Isobel had given him into his son’s hands. “Take this and get aboard.”
Jack clambered onto the driving seat, then he turned to look at Isobel. “Are you sure you want to stay home all by yourself, cousin? Come with us, do, for Edgeway has a great many diversions.”
Arms folded about her waist, Isobel shook her head.
Anselm smiled. Nice try, fool.
The miller slowly hoisted himself up onto the seat beside his son and took up the reins. “Until tomorrow, then. Farewell, niece.” Clicking his tongue, he flapped the reins, and the horse set off, gradually gathering momentum, dragging the creaking, rumbling wagon behind it.
The dust cloud receded into the distance, and still Isobel stood motionless, watching until the wagon was out of sight. As the sound of the rumbling wheels faded, Anselm swore he saw her shoulders sag. Relief? Why? Slowly, she made her way back to the mill and closed the door behind her. With the miller’s departure, peace returned to the village along with the new dawn.
The sky blushed red and then orange, heralding the imminent arrival of the sun. Hands crossed beneath his head, Anselm lay back in the grass and watched the day arrive. Now that he knew Isobel was home alone, he was in no hurry to face her. Not until he was quite calm and in control of his turbulent emotions.
He had all day. Perhaps all night too, if fortune remained on his side.
A cockerel crowed. Daybreak at last.
Little by little, the sun peered over the line of the horizon and crept timidly from her bed. Although she had done the same thing every day for countless lifetimes of men, she remained as shy as any maiden. Gaining in confidence, she rose higher into the sky, and the formless shadows of night retreated before her, cowed by her rays of golden fire until, at last, light and life returned to the land.
As Mullin woke up, Anselm resumed his hiding place behind the fallen tree trunk, for he had no desire to speak to anyone except Isobel this day. Although he felt no hunger, he took a bite of the bread he had brought with him to fortify himself for what lay ahead.
Unseen by the villagers, he watched them emerge from their homes, calling brightly to one another as they picked up their farming tools and set off for another day in the fields. The younger women and grandmothers went along too, many with babes strapped to their backs, while the older children gamboled about them, getting underfoot and shouting and laughing as they ran.
Still he waited. At last he saw a spiraling thread of smoke rising up from the smithy and heard the regular chink-chink of the blacksmith’s hammer. As if the sound were a prearranged signal, he got up, stretched, and brushed himself down. One last swig of ale, and he was ready. The time for action had come.
He crept down the hill, stamping the numbness from his legs, all the while fearing detection. But no one hailed him. The village seemed deserted.
He hurried along the path that led to the mill, wishing at the last moment that he had taken the time to bathe. Bending his head, he took a sniff at his tunic. To his relief, he detected nothing too offensive, mainly the scent of fresh air and leather. Besides, what did it matter? Why should he care how he looked? After their last disastrous meeting, it was unlikely that Isobel would come anywhere near him.
Even so, vanity made him sweep back his hair and attempt to smooth it into something resembling neatness, but it was too long to be properly tamed and hung obstinately about his face and shoulders in an unkempt mass of burnished gold. He huffed at his own stupidity. When Isobel discovered him standing uninvited on her threshold, his appearance would be the least of her grievances.
Before his courage failed him, he raised his hand and rapped smartly on the wooden door. Tapping his foot, he waited, but there was no response. He knocked again then pressed his ear to the cracks between the oak planks, holding his breath as he listened for sounds of life. Nothing. Could she have slipped out of the back door perhaps?
Following the wall of the building, he came upon the backyard of the mill. It was a small space, stacked with fractured grinding wheels and littered with other broken mill parts that no one seemed in any hurry to clear—a place where machinery came to die.
He caught his breath and stopped walking. Someone was attempting to wrangle a linen sheet onto a sagging washing line. A pair of slippered feet poked out from beneath the lower edge of the wayward sheet as it almost brushed the ground. Delicate little feet. Feet Anselm recognized all too well: Isobel’s.
The damp fabric kept snarling about her calves, resisting her efforts to peg it to the line. Several hens pecked about in the dirt, getting beneath her feet, and adding to her vexation.
“Shoo!” she snapped. “Get you gone, you little pests.”
Anselm smiled. Without thinking, he strode across to where she struggled and in one smooth movement pulled the sheet neatly onto the line. “There. All done.”
“You!” The sheet twitched aside, and there she was, peering at him between her laundry. “What in Erde are you doing here?” Her eyes seemed too wide for her pale face.
Granted, this was hardly the warmest greeting he had ever received, but Anselm was undeterred. Indeed, he had nothing left to lose.
“Good morrow to you too, my lady,” he said with a smile. “Have you missed me?”
“Aye. Like a dose of pox, I have. Go away!” She bent to pull another garment from the basket at her feet. A shirt this time. One of her uncle’s, judging by the size of it. No one could deny that the miller and his son were much more presentable since Isobel had come to live with them. Well, superficially, at least.
In the mood to be obliging, and because there was nowhere else he wanted to be, Anselm helped himself to a couple of wooden pegs and picked up another wet sheet from the basket.
“What are you doing?” Isobel demanded, hugging her uncle’s shirt to her like a linen shield.
“Is that not obvious, sweeting?”
“Not to me—no.”
With a heavy sigh, he threw the sheet over the line. “Very well. Then allow me to explain; if damp clothes are not to become musty, they must be hung up in order that—”
“Anselm! Oh, you really are the most irritating beast. That is not what I meant, as well you know.”
“Ah.” He arched his eyebrows. “You still recall my name, then?”
“How could I forget it?”
“I am flattered.” Vadim was right. She did look unwell, and a little thinner too, from what Anselm could see beneath her gaping shawl. The bodice of her blue gown hung looser than it had the last time he had seen her wearing it.
“You have no reason to be,” she snapped. “It was not a meant as a compliment.”
“Oh?” But her heated words did not wound him; they only served to increase his amusement. Joy made him want to laugh out loud, but he somehow managed to check the urge. Isobel would never warm to him if she thought he was mocking her. But despite his best efforts, he could not conceal his smile. For the first time in weeks, he felt alive.
Isobel sent him a look of pure poison. A pink spot of color flushed each of her
cheeks, vastly improving her washed-out complexion.“How could I forget the name of the most arrogant peacock to ever strut the Norlands?” she demanded. “I only wish that I could.”
Anselm smoothed the sheet until it hung squarely over the line. “Oh, I am sure that is not the truth, my lady.”
“Stop calling me that! I am not, and never will be, your lady.” She rammed a peg onto the shirt she was hanging, savagely securing it in place. “Now if you will excuse me, m’lord, I have work to do, even if you do not.”
Anselm sighed and raked back his hair with one hand. “Please, Isobel,” he said, all teasing gone. “Can we not just talk for a while?”
She pulled the washing line downward and peered over the top of it, suspicion glinting in her narrowed eyes. “About what?”
The time for honesty had come. He took a step closer. “I have missed you so,” he murmured.
“Liar!”
“No. ’Tis the truth. Look at me.” He placed his hand over hers where it rested upon the washing line. “Can you not read it in my countenance?” To his dismay, she snatched her hand away and seemed determined to remain cold.
“Go away before my uncle returns and finds you here. He would not take kindly to you bothering me in this way.”
“True enough.”A shiver of doubt crept up Anselm’s spine. Bothering her? Was that how she saw him now, as an unwelcome hindrance? “However, your family are unlikely to return home before tomorrow.”
Isobel gasped. “Have you been spying on me?”
“Yes.” There was no reason to deny it. “I saw them leave earlier. Market day, is it not?”
“Ugh!” Isobel returned to her laundry, violently slamming the pegs into each garment in her haste to accomplish the task. “You, sir, are unbelievable.”
This was not going as planned... not that a plan of any kind had ever existed. What could he say to regain her favor? Think! As always when he was with Isobel, the right words deserted him. He had nothing, and still she looked at him sternly. A ball of ice formed inside his chest. He had come too late. Isobel’s heart had cooled too much, its flame of affection snuffed out.
Too late. Were any two words more bitter?
Whether she returned his feelings or not, he could not bear to have her go through life thinking ill of him. What was this? Another symptom of love?
“Isobel, please—”
“Just be gone.” Her voice trembled. “Leave me in peace!”
The last thing he wanted was to upset her, but it seemed—albeit unintentionally—he already had. “Forgive me,” he said. “If that is what you truly wish, then I will do as you command. I had hoped we could part as friends—”
“As friends?” She all but shrieked the words at him, incredulity blazing in her violet eyes. “How could we possibly hope to be friends? ’Tis much too late for that... too late.”
Those wretched words again.
To his consternation, her severe expression crumbled, revealing the raw pain she had kept from him. Hidden behind the sheet at the other side of the washing line, she disappeared. Heart leaping, he swept aside the laundry that barred his way and hastened to her side.
He crouched down in the dirt beside her. “Sweeting?” The endearment escaped him before he could check it, but Isobel seemed not to notice. Sitting in the dust, she held a damp shirt over her head, and her shoulders trembled violently. Though she made no sound, he knew she wept.
Remorse flooded his heart in a hot torrent of regret. “Oh, Isobel.” Desperate to make amends, he dropped to his knees, barely noticing the sharp stones that pierced his flesh. “What vexes you so, my love?” He reached out to touch her, but his hand hovered in the air just above her shaking shoulder. He had caused this misery. Him. His comfort was the very last she needed to receive. “I am sorry. I should not have come.” Slowly, he withdrew his hand. Always, he had put his own feelings first. Until now. “Shall I summon one of your friends to keep you company when I leave?”
“Leave?” The word came out as half-sob, half-laughter. “You w-would leave me n-now?” She peered out from beneath her uncle’s shirt, accusation glinting in her glistening eyes.
“Yes.”
“Oh, go, then!” she cried, retreating beneath the damp shirt again, holding it tightly about her head. “’Tis what you do best.”
He frowned, greatly confused. It sounded almost as if... “You want me to stay?”
“Go. Stay. It hardly m-matters anym-more... I ...” Her sobs increased until he could not bear to hear them any longer. Her misery pierced his soul like barbed darts.
“Come here, love.” He drew her shaking body to him, making no attempt to remove the shirt she held about her head. “Ssh.” Enfolding her stiff little body in his arms, he tucked her head beneath his chin. “There now,” he murmured, gently rocking her as he might comfort a weeping child. “What is all this about, hmm?”
Little by little, Isobel released the death hold she kept on her uncle’s shirt and, instead, she clutched at the soft leather ties of Anselm’s tunic. Gradually her sobs subsided, and he felt her body relax.
“Better?”
“Mmm.”
“Do you think... that is... might I remove your uncle’s shirt from your head now?”
“No.”
“Whyever not?”
“B-because I look ug-ugly.”
“You, ugly?” He chuckled. “Impossible.” Giving her no opportunity to protest, he grabbed the hem of the shirt and, taking care not to catch her hair, he gave it a swift tug. Suddenly there she was, looking up at him through eyes of shimmering violet. To be sure, they were a little puffy, but the look of vulnerability suited her. She had never looked lovelier.
“When you went away. I thought... I thought...” She sucked in her lower lip and shook her head.
“But I came back.” He caught her chin and raised it on the tip of his finger, making her look at him when she would have turned away. “I love you, Isobel. I always will—”
She shook her head, but Anselm cupped her face, stilling her negative response with his hands. Foolish protests be damned. Whether she denied it or not, his heart finally recognized the truth. It was there all along, had he but looked for it. There, blazing from her eyes for all the world to see. Without doubt, Isobel loved him in return.
He inhaled, reacquainting himself with the scent of her. “I tried to stay away from you, but I cannot. Look at me!” he commanded when she glanced away. “If ever a love was meant to be, it is ours. The spirits made us for one another, sweeting. Why should we rail against them and fight what is inevitable?”
Attuned as he was to her moods, he sensed an unspoken sorrow lurking behind her answering smile.
“Harken to me, Isobel. Whether you admit it or not, you are mine now,” he said fiercely, “just as I am yours.”
Isobel gave a small wistful sigh. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it is simple.” He sprang up from the dust and extended his hand to her. “Come. Your chores can wait.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Isobel gave him her hand. His flesh burned, rejoicing in the touch of her skin against his. “But you cannot, my lord?” she asked with a laugh.
“No,” he replied quite seriously. “I cannot. I have waited quite long enough already.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They followed the course of the river high up into the very mountains that gave it life, for there was something he wanted her to see, a place beyond the knowledge of even local folk; a treasure more precious than any amount of polished gems, and it lay within the entrance of an insignificant-looking cave.
The cavern of the waterfall. His and Vadim’s most secret place.
They had found it by accident one day, back when they were boys, roaming and exploring together in the wilds as was their wont. A sudden rainstorm had caught them una
wares, soaking them to their skins, and they had been forced to seek the protection of the isolated little cave.
Building a small fire in the entrance—more for its cheerful company than because they required heat—they sat to wait out the storm. Long minutes passed, and still the storm did not abate. At last, bored with watching the rain, and to take their minds off the gnawing hunger in their stomachs, they began exploring at the back of the cave in the hopes they might find more murals of the ancestors: vivid hunting scenes depicting animals and people that had long since turned to dust.
But hidden by a small rockfall at the back of the cave, with the aid of their makeshift torch, they discovered a small opening. Taking turns to hold the torch aloft, they cleared the rubble, eventually exposing a small hole in the rockfall, just wide enough for two inquisitive and skinny boys to crawl through.
Scrambling on their hands and knees, chattering in merry voices about their unexpected find, they found themselves in a narrow rock-lined tunnel, high enough for them to stand upright. By the fading light of the dying torch, their breaths echoing loudly in the blackness, they followed the passage to its source.
There came a deep rumbling that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. Quietly at first, the sound increased with each footstep.
Although Vadim walked on, seemingly unaffected, Anselm was afraid. The sound was much too loud to be the sound of a slumbering bear. Heart pounding in his chest, he shivered as all of Ma’s terrifying tales of the underworld came back to haunt him. Stories were all well and good at home, sitting by a well-stoked fire and surrounded by family and friends, but out here, alone in the hills, such stories quickly lost their luster.
Courage failing, he begged Vadim to turn back, but his friend paid no heed to his protests. Instead, he took his hand and dragged him deeper down the endless passage of darkness. The terrible grumbling increased with every footstep, angry and ever constant.
When the torch finally gutted and died, Anselm almost screamed, crushed by the stifling darkness. Only the unwavering admiration of his friend kept the scream locked in his throat. Back then, Vadim’s disapproval had been a more terrible prospect than any beast of the underworld, no matter how fearsome. But only just.
Ironheart Page 12
