Honor Bound

by C. J. Archer

  Darling? She stepped back onto the street for a better look but the woman wasn’t close enough to the window to be seen. Isabel craned her neck and stepped even further back but a horse ridden too fast on the slippery stones nearly knocked her over so she retreated to the side of the road.

  Perhaps it was only Mistress Plunkett up there. Yes, that must be it. But ‘Darling’? And the tone had been chiding, familiar, not that of a landlady to her tenant.

  The maidservant let Isabel in when she knocked. "Mary, who is upstairs with Sir Nicholas?"

  "Mistress Merritt," Mary said taking Isabel’s cloak and gloves.

  "But I—" am Mistress Merritt she stopped herself from saying. Mistress Plunkett knew Isabel was Nick’s wife but she’d apparently not passed the information onto her maid. Isabel frowned, momentarily struck dumb as all sorts of wild (and illegal) scenarios filled her head. But when reason prevailed, she realized the only other Mistress Merritt she knew of was Constance. His mother.

  "I see," she said bleakly. Those wild scenarios were looking more appealing.

  Mary stood aside but Isabel didn’t move. The same feet that couldn’t wait to see Nick now didn’t want to go anywhere near him. Or, more to the point, anywhere near the woman with him.

  "Perhaps I’ll come back later." She spun on her heel and strode to the door.

  "Your cloak and gloves!" Mary called after her.

  "Oh, yes, of course." She turned back to take them but froze when a black shadow emerged at the top of the stairs. Isabel handed her cloak and gloves back to Mary. Fleeing now would only look cowardly and that was not how she wanted to appear in front of Constance Merritt.

  Her mother-in-law, dressed in a widow’s black velvet gown and severe black hood in the Spanish style covering her hair, descended the stairs as if they were her own at Lyle Hall and she were the queen herself.

  Mary drew in a gasp and bowed as if before royalty. Isabel couldn’t blame the girl. A tall and sturdily constructed woman, Constance was an imposing vision in her widow’s clothes. Isabel had often felt the same revered dread when the Merritt family matriarch had entered the room, but she was surprised to find that she no longer feared her. Why should she? There was nothing else Constance could do to Isabel now. She'd already done her worst.

  Isabel waited at the bottom of the stairs until Constance reached her. But Constance stopped on the last step so she remained towering over Isabel. Her eyes, blue like her son’s and yet lacking their warmth and humor, flicked over her daughter-in-law.

  "Well," she said in that odd way she had of speaking without moving her jaw, "it seems you have broken your agreement."

  The public acknowledgement of not only their prior arrangement but their prior knowledge of each other surprised Isabel. She had expected Constance to pretend to be meeting a stranger, which is exactly what Isabel herself had decided to do. It would serve both of their interests to play the game—Isabel wanted to stay out of Nick’s life and Constance wanted to keep her out of it. But then, Mary was the only witness and to Constance, a maidservant wasn’t the public. She was nobody.

  Isabel could sense Mary’s sudden interest in the conversation by her stillness. "Not intentionally," Isabel said. "Nick walked into my shop—"

  "Your shop!" Constance’s sharp eyebrows forked. "I do believe Master Shawe isn’t dead yet."

  "No, that’s not what I meant, I—"

  "Nor is his son," Constance added before Isabel had finished, "who will inherit the business. Not you."

  "Lawrence is a physician not an—"

  "Lawrence is it?" Constance peered down her beaked nose at Isabel. "Rather impertinent to address a man of his standing by his first name, don’t you think?"

  "I find it easily differentiates between the father and son," Isabel said, her own jaw tightening as she tried to keep her temper in check. "And Lawrence doesn’t seem to mind."

  "I’m sure he doesn’t," Constance said under her breath.

  "If you’re implying—"

  "Oh dear, now this is rather awkward," said Mistress Plunkett emerging from her parlor like a rabbit from its hole. Her gaze darted from Constance to Isabel and back again, probably wondering how to handle the odd situation of mother-in-law seeing daughter-in-law after six years estrangement. "Mistress Merritt the elder," she said to Isabel, "arrived this morning and will be staying in my guest rooms until Sir Nicholas is recovered." She cleared her throat. "Isn’t that lovely?"

  The warmth of the fire drifted out of the parlor and swelled around Isabel, but it wasn’t enough to melt the ice that had settled into her bones at the first sight of Constance. "Lovely," she echoed.

  "And, she didn’t even know of Sir Nicholas’s predicament until her arrival, did you Mistress Merritt? What a shock for you, poor thing." Mistress Plunkett clasped her hands, prayer-like, and faced Isabel. "She’d already decided to come to London to visit him, but to be greeted by this calamity...what a trial." She shook her head. "And, ah, Isabel here," she said to Constance, "cured your son."

  "He’s not completely cured yet," Constance said.

  "Which is why I’ve stopped by this morning," Isabel said through a forced smile. "To check on his recovery." She moved towards the stairs but Constance blocked her way.

  "I’ve sent for a doctor," she said. "He’ll ensure Nicholas receives the correct cure."

  "He has received—"

  "The doctor will also monitor my son’s recovery. So you see you’re no longer required here. Good day." Constance remained an impenetrable wall on the stairs, looking remarkably like a witch from the old verses in her black widow’s clothes and fearsome expression.

  The irony made Isabel smirk despite her seething anger and that clearly rankled Constance even more. Her back stiffened, her forehead grew heavier and she looked like one of the angry bears in the baiting ring ready to lunge. Isabel’s smile broadened. It wasn’t intentional, it just seemed to happen.

  "Good day," she said, taking her cloak and gloves from Mary again and heading for the front door. Constance followed a nervous looking Mistress Plunkett to the parlor but instead of entering, she stopped and pretended to admire a small tapestry hanging on the wall. It seemed the old crow wanted to make sure her daughter-in-law left.

  Mary, having followed Isabel, looked from one to the other with a confused frown.

  "Never mind, Mary," Isabel said quietly so Constance couldn’t hear. "It’s a long and complicated story. Can you tell Sir Nicholas that—" What? That she had been turned away by his own mother? That would only lead to questions she didn’t want to answer. "Nothing. Pretend I was never here."

  On the walk back to the shop, Isabel tried to suppress the unease rising within her. But by the time she reached Bucklersbury the unease had turned to dread. In Constance’s eyes, Isabel had broken her promise. She was back in Nick’s life after walking out of it at his mother’s urging. No, not urging, insistence. Constance had made Isabel promise to never see him again, and clearly that was no longer the case. It didn’t matter that Fortune had played a major hand in their reunion. Constance would never see it that way. She wouldn’t want to. And Isabel was in no doubt that her mother-in-law would exact payment for the broken promise in the most terrible way she knew how.

  She would tell Nick why Isabel left.

  She would tell him about the witchcraft and the uncontrollable powers that had nearly killed his mother six years ago after the two women argued. She would remind him that Isabel would taint his reputation and worse, her witch blood would infect the family line. Their daughters would be witches in the eyes of the law and God. Constance would ensure Nick hated and feared his wife and then she would renew her endeavor to have him abandon her.

  Isabel expected nothing less.

  She felt sick to her core. She stopped and rested against a post outside St Mary Woolchurch to catch her breath because it seemed to have suddenly left her. Her vision blurred as tears welled and she gripped the post to steady herself. Damn her ill luck. No, da
mn interfering mothers-in-law.

  She didn’t expect Nick to stand up for her against the old crow. He was a clever man. He knew the way of the world—that a man’s duty was to his family name and lands first—and he would see that his mother was right. Being married to a witch would only bring the wrath of the queen’s representatives down on himself. If he insisted Isabel remain his wife then he could lose everything—his lands, his knighthood and his position at court.

  And he wouldn’t be the only one to suffer. His younger sister would not be able to secure a good marriage, his servants and tenants would lose their generous master and possibly even their employment and farms. A lot of lives and livelihoods depended on Nick.

  He was not a man that let people down.

  Isabel forced herself to continue on to the shop. The cold wind bit into her skin, numbing her face but unfortunately not her mind. She couldn't stop the terrible, insidious thoughts about her bleak future. Bleak only if she allowed Constance to ruin it. In the end she came to a conclusion—there was only one way to circumvent the ruination of both her life and Nick's.

  Flee.

  The idea pecked at her as she opened the door. She greeted Fox and his customer, a woman whose name escaped her, as if the day was like any other. She told Fox to keep serving while she checked their supplies in the storeroom.

  But instead of checking the stock, she sat on a barrel and thought through what she needed to do for her flight from London. She would need to pack and organize someone to take care of Old Man Shawe then tell Lawrence and Fox she would not be returning. What reason would she give? Something...she would think of something.

  Meg would worry, so she would need to be told too. Perhaps her friend would come with her now she was also at a loose end. They could go...

  Where? The question struck Isabel like a blunt axe. She had nowhere to go. She had no family, no money, no friends outside of London. She was all alone, even worse off than the first time she left Nick. Back then she had the name of someone who might help, Shawe, and a place, Bucklersbury Street in London.

  But it was all different now. She doubted anyone in her hometown of Winchester would remember her, let alone care. Her parents were gone, their friends were old and unlikely to help a girl who had left her husband.

  She had seen what happened to women like her, women with no one to take them in. They became whores or beggars or worked as washerwomen for barely enough money to feed themselves. They worked until their muscles screamed in agony and their fingers were nothing but bloody stubs. They suffered the insults of the respectable married women and the lurid advances of the men. No one wanted to help them, no one cared if they went without food or shelter or if their clothes were riddled with fleas and their bodies riddled with disease. Eventually, through the constant grind to stay alive, they lost the will to live. If they were lucky and someone knew their name, they were buried in a marked grave on consecrated ground. But that was rare for a woman with no husband, no family, no friends. Most simply faded into the mists, not a thought spared for them, not a memory wasted.

  The horror of Isabel’s future stretched before her.

  Damn Constance! The heartless, conniving, ruthless crow! Isabel swiped at a tear then jumped off the barrel and kicked a jar. It slammed against another earthen jar, smashing them both into the wall with a loud crash. She’d forgotten how destructive her temper could be. It was the reason she hadn’t lost it since that day six years ago. That awful, cursed day when everything had gone wrong and her life had changed forever.

  The jars’ contents scattered amongst the pottery shards, the scents rising above the others in the small room. Isabel bent to clean up the mess. She picked up the dried leaves but they disintegrated in her hands, making an even bigger mess on the floor. She stared at the untidy room, willing it to be clean but it seemed her powers, her damned powers that had got her into so much trouble in the first place, didn’t extend to neatness.

  Suddenly the mess seemed insurmountable, like a huge mountain she had to climb. She knelt amongst the herbs and broken jars and burst into tears.

  CHAPTER 10

  The physician’s hands were cold and he smelled faintly of vinegar. Isabel’s hands were never cold and she always smelled delicious.

  It wasn’t Dr. Kendall’s fault that Nicholas didn’t listen to a word he said—he was probably an excellent doctor—it was more that Nicholas couldn’t get his mind off Isabel. She should have returned to check on him that morning but according to his mother, Isabel had sent word that she would not. It had left him with a sense of hollowness that he couldn’t banish.

  The arrival of his mother had been the other surprise for the morning. It seemed she had left their estate in Kent the moment she received his message to send Isabel’s belongings. He was pleased to see her—perhaps she could convince Isabel to tell him why she had left. And also to return.

  But he was beginning to have doubts that his mother would co-operate. She didn’t seem all that eager to visit Isabel, even after he told her she had saved his life.

  "You’re lying in bed looking paler than a ghost," she had said in her typically stoic way. "She has not cured you. I’ll send for a physician."

  And she had. But Dr. Kendall had said nothing Nicholas didn’t already know from Isabel herself. In fact, the physician even asked Mary to fetch a tonic from Shawe the apothecary until Nicholas showed him the bottle Isabel had left.

  "It seems there is nothing more I can do for your son, Mistress Merritt," the doctor said, packing his instruments into his bag. His mother paid him and he bid them both good day with a nod.

  "See," Nicholas couldn’t resist saying when the doctor had left, "I told you she was a very capable apothecary."

  "She’s not an apothecary," she said from the foot of his bed.

  "She’s as good, if not better, than most."

  "And yet she is not an apothecary. She is a shop girl."

  It seemed his mother would never accept the fact that Isabel had made a life for herself here in London. A life that didn’t involve her son, a life that didn’t need him.

  The thought caught him off guard. He felt dizzy, nauseous, as if the effects of the poison hadn’t entirely worn off. But it wasn’t the poison that made his heart clench, it was the realization that Isabel had moved on. Over the last few days he had been hoping she would tell him why she had left so he could fix it and get her back, when all along he hadn’t considered that she didn’t want it fixed.

  That she didn’t want to come back.

  "What is it?" his mother asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning over him with a deeply furrowed brow. "Are you going to be sick? Shall I call Dr. Kendall back?"

  He waved her away. "No. Just...send for Isabel."

  The black velvet of her gown shushed ever so softly as she stiffened. "The doctor—"

  "Forget about the doctor! I need to see Isabel." He rubbed a hand through his hair in an attempt to calm his frayed temper. "She should have been here this morning. It’s not like her to break a promise."

  "Do I need to remind you that she broke a very big one?" She flicked dirt or lint or perhaps nothing at all off the bedcovers.

  "That's different." But his denial sounded as hollow as he felt.

  His mother stopped her fussing and placed her hand over his. "She's changed hasn’t she? Hasn’t she, Nicholas?" she urged when he didn’t answer.

  He shrugged. "She’s still the same underneath. Still kind, considerate—"

  "Kind! Considerate!" She snorted. "You think a woman who leaves her husband is kind and considerate?"

  He looked down at their hands. "I’m sure she had a good reason," he added quickly.

  "A good reason? What reason could be good enough to humiliate you in front of everyone? Not just your family and friends, but also your servants and tenants! What she did to you was an outrage, an abomination against God."

  "Mother," he said on a sigh, "we’ve been through this." Many, many times over th
e years. Whenever he spoke to her about renewing his search for Isabel, his mother had urged him to abandon it for good. He supposed that as a mother she was angered on his behalf and that she felt hurt to see her son so distraught. It explained why she couldn’t forgive Isabel, and why she didn’t want Isabel back in their lives—she must be afraid she would hurt him again. It was a valid reaction under the circumstances.

  "Perhaps you can help," he said, sitting up. "Isabel might open up to you about her reasons for leaving. Then you could tell me and I could fix it."