by C. J. Archer
She didn’t answer immediately but hesitated at the side of his bed, watching him, her eyes unusually soft and her face slack with weariness. For her to be anything other than sharp and alert meant something must be wrong.
"What is it, Mother? What has happened?"
She opened her mouth but shut it again and exhaled a long breath through her nose. "Nicholas, there is something I must tell you. And it’s not going to be easy for you to hear."
"It’s Isabel, isn’t it?" Panic made his heart race and his voice shake. "I sent her a message this morning and I’ve heard nothing since. Is she all right? What’s happened to her?"
She held her hand up and he obeyed with silence but very little patience. "She is not ill or anything of that sort." She sounded irritated, as if Isabel’s wellbeing shouldn’t have been his first thought. "Your message never reached her."
"What? Why not? I gave Mary precise instructions—" He stopped at the subtle lowering of his mother’s gaze. Experienced in the ways of liars, he guessed what must have transpired earlier. "You intercepted Mary, didn’t you? Isabel never received my message because Mary never sent it." Not willing to condemn his mother if she was innocent, he tried to keep the accusation out of his tone but it wasn’t easy. He knew her answer before she gave it. Knew deep in his soul that his mother had betrayed him.
"I told the maidservant I would take the message to Mistress Camm."
"Her name is Isabel to you, Mother. She is your daughter-in-law and always will be so call her by her given name."
A muscle in her cheek jumped. "Do not judge me until you know everything. I admit I intercepted the message, but I had good reason. Your wife is a witch."
He frowned, studying her closely for any sign that she had gone insane and should be carted off to Bedlam. But apart from her statement, she seemed perfectly rational. Not even an eye twitch. So he did the first thing that came into his head. He burst out laughing.
"Isabel? A witch? Good Lord, Mother, that is taking your prejudice against her a little too far. She is no more a witch than you or I. Although you do seem to dress the part these days," he added, still chuckling.
She smoothed down her skirts and lifted her nose even further in the air. "Do not insult me."
"I’m sorry," he said, suddenly turning serious, "but after all the insults you have laid on my wife, you should expect some in return. So tell me, what has Isabel being a witch got to do with you intercepting my message?"
Her fingers stilled and flattened against her skirts. "I needed to speak to her before she returned here. You see, she broke our agreement. An agreement we struck six years ago when she nearly killed me with her witchcraft."
"Nearly killed you? With her witchcraft?" Six years ago. When everything changed and his world fell apart. Six years... Anger surged, propelling him forward. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers digging into the padded sleeves. "Mother, what are you talking about?"
Her eyes widened in alarm and he let go. "Her mother was a witch too," she said, as if that were a reasonable defense.
"Go on," he whispered, hardly breathing.
"Isabel and I were arguing one day and—."
"What about?"
She shrugged. "I can’t recall and it doesn’t matter now. The point is, she lost her temper and then I felt someone shove me very hard in the chest. I tumbled backwards into the wall. Isabel hadn’t even touched me."
From his limited knowledge of witchcraft, it certainly sounded like something a witch could do. "How do you know it was her?"
"She admitted it. She apologized and told me she might have caused it to happen."
"Might have?" His own temper rose as the blood pumped loudly between his ears. "Did she or didn’t she use her powers?"
Again she shrugged. "She says her powers were new and as such uncontrollable."
"There, you see? It wasn’t intentional."
"She is a witch, Nicholas! That fact alone is the issue. Imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t been discovered until months or even years later! Imagine if someone other than me had been the focus of her temper that day. Good Lord, everything would have come undone. Everything."
He shook his head, not quite comprehending what she was saying and still not believing what he was hearing. Isabel a witch? Why had she never told him? "Everything? Like what?"
She threw her hands up, more spirited than he had seen her in a long time. "Our family would have become outcasts, our name forever sullied and tainted by the disease of witchcraft. No one would want to know us or conduct business with us. Your sister would never have married Lord Bute, you would never have become friends with Lord Ashbourne. And worse—all the Merritts born of Isabel’s womb, and their children, and their children, would have witch blood in them. Unholy abominations for eternity."
"You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?" He huffed out a laugh although he’d lost his sense of humor some time ago.
She blinked at him. "You don’t seem concerned by what I’ve told you."
He shrugged. "She is still just Isabel to me."
She leaned forward and placed a hand on his arm. "Son. My dearest boy." She spoke softly, earnestly. "You have been duped by a wicked woman who only married you for your money."
He scoffed. "Don’t be ridiculous." That accusation was even more far fetched than the last one. It didn’t even need a vehement denial because he knew his mother couldn’t honestly believe it herself. There was absolutely no indication that Isabel had married him for money. At the time of their wedding he was still only the second son and not entitled to anything except a small annuity.
He moved away, leaving her fingers caressing nothing but air. Her lips pinched into a thin line. "I didn’t want to tell you this, but now I must. She used her witchcraft to kill your father and brother so that you would inherit and now she has tried to kill you too—"
"Enough!" He threw back the covers and got out of bed. Dizziness flooded him and he leaned against the bedpost to steady himself. "You have said enough, Mother." Despite his hard breathing, he sounded almost normal. "Isabel had nothing to do with the accidents because she was with me when they happened."
"She doesn’t need to be present to use her powers."
He couldn’t be sure about that, but he could be sure about Isabel. She was innocent. "And she certainly wouldn’t poison me. I know it."
"How? How could you possibly be sure she didn’t hire someone—"
"Because I know it in here." He grabbed his shirt over his heart and tugged on the sweat-soaked linen, almost ripping it from his body in his anger.
"Don’t be so dramatic, Nicholas," she said with a wave of her hand. "You can’t possibly know—"
"I do," he said. "But there is just one more thing I want you to tell me before you leave this house, this city, forever."
She swallowed, her skin paling as she must have realized he meant what he said.
"Tell me what happened after the incident," he said. "What did you say to Isabel to make her leave Lyle Hall without a word of goodbye?" This was at the heart of everything that had torn him apart over the last six years. He ached to know and held his breath as she considered her answer. "Well?" he prompted, leaning heavily into the bedpost in an attempt to hold himself up.
"Does it matter now?" she snapped.
"It matters. It matters very much."
She stood, her back straight, her head tilted in defiance. "I told her I would tell you and the authorities what she was unless she left Lyle Hall for good."
So Isabel had left without seeking his opinion or his confidence. She had believed he didn’t love her enough to accept her as a witch. Disappointment momentarily displaced his anger until he remembered how young she had been, not only in age but experience of the world. She would have been frightened and alone, so very much alone because he had been away on a mission.
He had not been there for her.
Unable to stand any longer he sat on the bed and rested h
is elbows on his knees. He lowered his head, too heavy to keep up, and pushed his fingers through his hair. Damn it, he was her husband and he’d failed her. Failed her terribly. He deserved every second of the misery he’d endured over the last six years. How could he ever expect her forgiveness? How could he ever make it right?
He looked up. His mother’s hand hovered only a few inches away but it quickly dropped to her side and she turned her face away, but not before he saw the tears in her eyes.
He didn’t have it in his heart to forgive her. Not yet.
"No doubt your agreement with Isabel was that she could not tell anyone where she was going, least of all me, and that she could not contact me ever again. Am I right?"
She nodded but still didn’t turn to look at him.
Anger bubbled to the surface again, more controlled but no less forceful. "You didn’t even give her any money," he said bitterly.
"I did!" She spun round, her eyes blazing not with tears but with hurt nevertheless. "Do you think me as cruel as that? I offered money and I told her she could keep her own jewels but when I went through her rooms the next day, her things were all still there." She licked her top lip. "I thought..."
"What?"
"I thought she wouldn’t be needing them. That she had taken her own life."
A fresh wave of nausea gripped him and he pressed a hand to his stomach and closed his eyes to wait it out. Isabel would never have chosen that option. The nausea vanished and he reopened his eyes to look at the woman who had caused him so much pain.
"And all this so I would annul the marriage," he said, incredulous.
"I would never have urged that upon you if your wife had been normal instead of...what she is."
"I bet it has eaten you up inside that I have refused to do it these last six years," he went on as if she’d said nothing. "Just as I refuse now."
"Nicholas," she said in a soothing voice as she knelt before him, "what I have done I did for you."
He stood and pushed past her, not bothering to address any of her drivel. Let her spout about honor and duty for as long as she wanted. He was done with that now. He only wanted to see Isabel. To hold her and tell her he loved her even if she had horns and a tail. Oh God, he had been a fool. A stupid fool and he was going to make it all up to her. Starting with slow, meaningful love-making. Then he would take her away from all this. Perhaps a few months by the sea then they would find a new home, just themselves. His mother and sister could keep Lyle Hall. He didn’t want it with them in it.
"In time you will see that I only want what is best for you," she was saying from somewhere behind him as he changed his shirt. "You must understand—"
"Mother," he said, pulling the shirt over his head, "I no longer wish to see you."
She gasped. "But—"
"I don’t care if you stay here in London, return to Lyle Hall or whatever. Just leave this house and don’t come near either myself or Isabel again. I will contact you if I ever want anything from you. Do you understand?"
"But..." Her protest died. She tilted her head. Her jaw was set hard and her glare was even harder as she watched him pull on his doublet and jerkin. She stood like a burnt and blackened tree stump in a fire-ravished forest, bleak and alone but defiant to the end.
***
Isabel couldn’t keep the new lightness out of her heart. She served customers with a smile, chatted freely with them about current events and even did some of Fox’s chores for him when he failed to do them properly the first time. Earlier that day she couldn’t do anything without bursting into tears or cursing Constance, God and everyone else who’d had a hand in her fate.
It wasn’t that Isabel felt happy now. How could she knowing Nick was about to learn she was a witch? He might know already. He might at that moment think her an evil shrew and be thanking his good fortune that he was rid of her. The authorities might also have been alerted already. That thought alone dampened her spirits somewhat. But, all things considered, she felt a sense of freedom she hadn’t felt in some time.
Freedom came with the truth. She had nothing to hide from Nick anymore. He knew her very worst, darkest secret.
Freedom, and a newfound sense of her own strength, also came with her defiance of Constance. Isabel would not leave London. She would not leave her home, her friends or work because Constance wanted it. No, she had been driven away by her once, she would not be again. She would stay and fight and face the consequences.
The only real consequence that mattered now was that Nick would rush through an annulment. His smooth words and tender caresses would be forgotten as he no doubt couldn’t wait to cut ties with her. Her heart lurched, tightened.
She would never see him again except perhaps as part of his investigation, if indeed he was a spy. Somehow that seemed not to matter anymore. She was innocent but if he now believed her guilty then she would find some way of fighting the charges. And if she failed in that, then so be it. She could face death because she had nothing to feel ashamed of in her life. She had always done what she thought to be right. Besides, she had not chosen to be a witch—surely that counted for something in the Afterlife.
It seemed fitting that she was thinking of Hell when the door opened and Nick stumbled in looking like he’d just risen from there. Startled, Isabel quickly turned to her customer and tried to recall whether comfrey should be mixed with marigold or mallow to make up a poultice for cuts.
"Isabel," Nick said, wiping the back of his hand across his top lip, "I must speak with you."
"Wait your turn," the customer snapped, her heavily made-up eyes raking over him. "I’d ask him to leave if I was you, Mistress Camm, he’s dripping sweat all over your nice clean rushes."
"Uh, perhaps you should take a seat," Isabel said to Nick. She indicated the stool but he shook his head and opened his mouth to speak. "I’ll be finished here in a moment," she added before he could say anything. If he was going to arrest her then he could wait.
The customer accepted her wrapped packages, paid and pulled on her gloves, all the while keeping her fierce gaze firmly on Nick. "Good day," she said politely to Isabel before turning back to him. "Now you may speak." She left, muttering about rude gentlemen and what the world was coming to.
"You have some scary customers," Nick said, watching the woman go. His breathing had calmed and the color had returned to his cheeks but he still looked like a man who’d left his sickbed too soon.
"She’s a whore whose specialty is discipline, so Meg tells me. I think it’s the scariness that her customers like." He smiled and she swallowed because he looked so beautiful when he was happy. And he was happy. He still looked like he needed more sleep but the new freedom in her heart was reflected in his face.
He approached the counter but instead of stopping on the other side like a customer, he rounded the end and came up to her. "Isabel," he murmured, catching her hands and bringing them to his lips. He kissed her knuckles lightly, his eyes closed, his lips lingering as if savoring the taste of her.
Isabel’s insides melted, the tightness around her heart loosened and she blinked back tears. She must not cry. Crying was stupid, childish, and... She tried to wipe her tears away with her shoulder because he still held her hands, and bit her lip because it was the only way to stop it quivering.
Nick opened his eyes and let go of her hands so he could hold her cheeks instead. His thumbs traced the tracks of her tears but the gentle caress only produced more despite her struggle for control.
"Isabel, I’m so sorry," he whispered.
She frowned, shook her head. "What for?"
"Everything. My mother, not knowing, not telling you I’d love you no matter what."
Her breath fled in a loud gasp. "You love me?" It came out weak, shaky—exactly how her knees felt. Her heart on the other hand hammered against her ribcage, bursting to get out.
"Of course." He spoke as if it were never in doubt. "Isabel," he muttered, a smile tweaking the corners of his lips, "you really
didn’t know?"
She shrugged one shoulder. "I...wasn’t quite sure."
"But," he frowned and looked uncertain, "I often told you I loved you."
"All the time," she agreed. "I just never believed it." Because he was never around, he never told her where he was going or what he was doing, and he was an incorrigible flirt with every woman in Kent and beyond. How could she have ever been sure? Especially now when he knew what she was.
"Do you believe it now?"
She nodded, smiling. Yes, she knew. He wouldn’t have come to her knowing she was a witch if he didn’t truly love her. "Actions speak louder than words," she told him.
His frown deepened. "What does that mean?"
