by P. J. Fox
Had he changed his mind?
She studied the bed, the bedding, everything. The bed was just more wood, and the bedding was a shade of blue that in daylight might harmonize with the tiles. If daylight ever came here. The walls were more of the same, wooden paneling overtopped by a thin coat of plaster that covered the stone. Plaster that was meant, not to look decorative but to act as a further layer of insulation against the punishing elements outside.
Finally, she sat down.
Moments later, she started as a loud rap came at the door. She’d been face down on the coverlet; she must have fallen asleep, although she had no memory of doing so. Dazed, she sat up. A second later the door opposite opened, admitting a tall and spare-looking woman with a long face. “I thought you might want to take a bath,” she said matter of factly.
“I—where’s Rose?” Isla blinked, still unable to believe that she’d fallen asleep at all. She had no memory of doing so, and no sense either of time passing. It might have been ten minutes since she’d sat on this bed, or ten hours. She hadn’t meant to be so rude, demanding to know where Rose was like that, but confusion had robbed her of her filter.
“I don’t know a Rose.” The woman regarded her blankly. “Do you want a bath or not? Dinner’s in an hour. I let you sleep as long as I could, but you’ll have to rush.” And then, in a softer tone, “I checked in on you before, right after Alec had shown you to your room, but you were as silent as the dead.” She studied Isla for a long minute. She couldn’t have been all that much older, but she seemed it. Her face was careworn, but the true clue was her eyes. She regarded Isla steadily, with neither pleasure nor disapproval.
She was, Isla realized, waiting for an answer. “I—yes,” she said. “I’d love one. And thank you.”
“I’m Luci,” the woman said.
“I’m Isla,” Isla replied, feeling once again like she’d been caught flat-footed.
Luci smiled slightly, the faintest ghost of an expression that was visible mostly in her eyes. And then she turned and left. She returned a few moments later, followed by half a dozen girls who all worked to shoulder a massive tub. The tub was placed on the tiles before the fireplace and Luci busied herself there while the girls took turns filling the tub with massive ewers. Then, nodding, they took their leave and left.
Isla, feeling awkward, was left alone with Luci.
Who turned in that minute from the fire, clutching a white-hot brand.
Her face was lost in shadow. Isla focused on the glowing tip, suddenly incapable of speech. Luci took a step forward. Isla stumbled backward and, tripping, hit her head hard against the bedpost. The world around her grayed in and out, and she saw stars.
Luci’s eyes narrowed. “What?” she asked.
Isla opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
Luci took another step forward, the brand still held before her. Isla bit her lip so hard that blood flowed, metallic and nauseating in her mouth. And then Luci plunged the brand—a fire poker, it was just a fire poker—into the tub. The water hissed, like a cornered animal, as steam billowed forth. Luci, mid-operation, continued to stare at her blankly. “I’m just heating up the water,” she said.
Isla sank to the ground and, huddled there, burst into tears.
She told Luci the story as Luci undressed her and helped her into the tub. She was treating Isla like a small child, firm in her expectations but encouraging of Isla’s progress. Isla wondered if Luci herself had children, and decided that she must. As Luci scrubbed her back, releasing weeks’ worth of accumulated filth, Isla continued to sob. For what had happened with Father Justin and for the fact that she was still so afraid, all this time later. For the fear that she’d never be fully in control of herself again. For the misery of the journey and the sheer relief that it was over and the fear that she hadn’t found her place of refuge after all. That she’d once again be an outsider; that she was doomed to be an outsider forever. Luci, meanwhile, only listened and said nothing.
Gradually, she began to relax. The tub was dumped and more water brought in; the water, as it poured through the hole in the garderobe, was as gray as the stones from which Caer Addanc had been made. But as the evidence of Isla’s journey drained away, she found that she felt a little better. And when she got back into the tub, this time so Luci could wash her hair, she resisted the other woman’s ministrations less.
She hated help, as a general rule; she was an independent person and well capable of washing her own hair—or, indeed, of dressing herself or doing anything. But she was too exhausted this night, both physically and emotionally, to do much except let life happen to her.
Luci scrubbed at Isla’s scalp with some sort of astringent mixture and the skin there tingled as it finally breathed again. Isla’s trunks had been brought up and another of the nameless servants investigated the contents. Isla wondered again where Rose was. Where Mica was. Her room felt strangely empty without her cat, always underfoot at the worst possible time and forever wanting food.
Luci helped her out of the tub and, wrapping her in a sheet that was almost a shroud, directed her to sit down. She then, without consulting Isla, began the process of turning Isla’s long and still-wet hair into a series of complex braids. Luci was a no-nonsense hairdresser and she pulled painfully on Isla’s scalp but Isla said nothing. She found the pain cleansing, in a way that a bath was not. Around her, total strangers continued to unpack and examine her clothes. Her box of trinkets, made for her by Hart like her string of beads. Her life’s possessions, what few there were.
Finishing, Luci smeared Isla’s braids with some sort of paste that smelled pleasant enough although Isla couldn’t identify the scent.
Wordlessly, she directed Isla toward the mirror. This was an import from the East, of a quality that couldn’t be reproduced in Morven. The best mirrors at Enzie were little more than polished plates, giving only the most general impression of one’s reflection. But this was like looking at oneself in a pool of standing water, only the faintest ripples detracting from an otherwise perfect image. And as Isla saw herself, truly saw herself for the first time since leaving home, her breath caught.
Privation had made her cheekbones stand out more than usual, but under the sheet her thin frame was robust from so much exercise. She’d lost weight, weight she couldn’t afford to lose, but still retained a certain roundness of limb. Her hair, dark to begin with, looked so black that it was almost blue and it shone. Whatever Luci had done to it had worked.
She smiled slightly, pleased—and surprised that she was pleased. She couldn’t ever remember feeling pleased with her reflection before. Her skin was still pale, but with the faintest dusting of freckles from so much time spent outside in the sun.
Whatever happened next, she reflected, she was alive. She had that much. And for the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful.
FORTY-NINE
Her sense of wellbeing was short-lived, dribbling slowly out of her as she walked down the shadowed hall like water from a cracked cup until she was once again gripped with that strange sense of unease that had come to dominate her life of late. She was a stranger in a strange place, without friend or ally. What she’d initially greeted as the start of a new chapter had been, she decided, merely the product of exhaustion. After being on her own for so long, and responsible for herself for so long, having someone else care for her—even if it was a stranger and even if it was only her basic needs—felt wonderful. Like a warm, comforting embrace from the loving parent she’d never had.
Luci had dressed her in a simple gown of silver-gray wool, held in place with a matching kirtle. And then she’d opened the door and bid Isla to seek out her family in Tristan’s private sitting room. Where he himself would, undoubtedly, escort her to dinner. She hadn’t been offered an escort to walk that short distance and nor should she have needed one; her room was merely down the hall from the mezzanine that circled the sitting room. She had but to traverse that one hall and then she was there.
But the hall seemed longer to her somehow, now, than it had when she’d walked it the first time; on her way to her room and accompanied by servants. Now she was alone and, rather than a chance for rest, was confronting the unknown. Her reception by Tristan had been cold; she didn’t know what to expect and the more she dwelt on that fact, the more she was afraid. What if, all along, he truly had been playing at some sort of ruse?
And now that he’d gotten her here—as he had his other wives—he’d dropped the act?
The torches flickered and sputtered in their brackets, casting weird shadows on the walls. Shadows that seemed to move a good deal more than, strictly, they should. And apart from the pop and hiss of wood and oil, and the sound of her own feet, there was no noise.
She swallowed.
A hand closed on her shoulder and, quick as lightning, she found herself pressed against the wall. Her breath exploded from her chest, leaving her mouth working like that of a fish out of water. A second hand had cushioned the back of her head, or the impact would surely have flattened the back of her skull. As it was she saw stars for the second time in an hour.
She struggled to regain her breath as black eyes bored into hers. “You,” Tristan hissed.
His nose was a mere hair from her own. Another man’s breath would have been hot on her face but of course Tristan did not breathe. Still, his hands on her were warm. He must have fed recently. The thought was as uncomfortable as it was unwelcome. One hand still cupped the back of her head but the other had moved up to her throat and poised there, half caress and half threat. She was acutely aware that one swift jab of his thumb would puncture the vein at the side of her neck. His touch was ungentle.
She tried to move but he had her in a vise grip. His body was pressed against hers, pinning her in place. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. She hadn’t expected to see him here—or at all—and hadn’t heard him move behind her. But of course she hadn’t; he made no sound when he moved. He wasn’t human.
Her tongue darted out, nervously wetting her lips. His gaze darkened. There was more than a little of the predator there, and she was suddenly afraid. Afraid in a way that she hadn’t been, not for a long time. Not since the night that he’d glamoured her, what seemed like a thousand lifetimes ago. So much had happened since then, or so she’d thought, but again in an instant she’d become the victim and he the other.
She swallowed.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” The words were soft and sibilant, almost an invitation.
She shook her head the merest fraction. “No,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She hadn’t intended to respond, hadn’t intended to do anything more than deny his claims, but her mouth opened of its own accord. She spoke falteringly at first, as frightened as she was, but with conviction. She hadn’t even known that the words were there, waiting to be spoken, until she heard them along with Tristan. “No. You’ve been avoiding me.”
He relaxed his grip on her neck slightly, his head cocked to the side as he listened. “You left, just left me in that horrible place and the only thing that made it bearable was knowing that it wasn’t permanent. That I was coming to you.” She paused again, and swallowed. Her voice still wasn’t much above a whisper. She felt the tears threaten again, a hot pricking against the backs of her eyes. “But then—nothing. No word.
“I kept waiting to hear—something! I know you can.” She bit her lip, hard, in a bid to keep control of her emotions. He’d appeared to her before; she knew he could. But he hadn’t. And then…. “And then I came here and there”—and there was no welcome—”and you didn’t want me. You treated me like a stranger. And yet you accuse me of avoiding you!” Her voice broke on that last word, and a single tear trickled down her cheek.
The pressure eased as he withdrew from her the merest fraction, considering.
“You left.” She more mouthed the words than spoke them.
“When you arrived,” he said slowly, “you seemed…displeased to see me.”
“I was uncertain of my reception and—and I was dirty!” she blurted out.
He seemed entirely surprised by this remark, if Tristan could ever be said to truly show surprise. “Dirty?” he echoed, as if considering the idea. “And you thought that I’d care? Or could care about such a foolish thing?”
Something in her chest eased, releasing more tears as it did so. “Yes!” she insisted. “All men care for such things. They want women to be docile and beautiful and sweet-smelling—”
He kissed her.
His kiss was hard and bruising, not giving but taking. He twisted his clawed hand in her hair, pulling the mass of braids free as he pulled her head back to give himself a better angle. He forced her mouth open roughly, under his, as his other hand slid to the small of her back. Her small noise of surprise was lost. He tasted the same as she remembered, and smelled the same: of wool and leather and horse, clean smells, and…something else. The faintest undercurrent of an exotic scent.
She tensed, resisting him, and then she was kissing him back. His need was her own. She sought his lips hungrily, the conversation of moments before forgotten. Her fingers twisted in his short hair as her body molded to his. He was hard, unyielding, and there was a power to his movements that frightened her. He could, if he so chose, crush her as easily as she might crush a handful of rose petals. And with as little emotion; although she might regret the loss of the rose more. Still, she couldn’t help herself. This was the man—the creature—she loved.
And she did love him. Nothing had changed. At least not for her.
She’d wondered, during those long weeks on the road. Wondered if their time together had been nothing more than a dream, pleasant to remember but ultimately meaningless to real life. She’d wondered again, when she’d first seen him that afternoon. She knew now that she’d been trying to protect herself through the only means she had: obscuring, under a shell of doubt, the far more terrifying doubt that he might not want her after all.
But she knew now that it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no armor she could have built up around her heart that would have protected her from this moment. All it took was the feel of his lips on hers for her to be back in the gardens at Enzie Hall and completely under his power. If love made fools of men and women both then this was something more than love; his lips, his hands, his mere presence had stripped her of her reason.
The hall was still empty, but for the two of them. These were, after all, Tristan’s private quarters. There had been no sign of her father, or Hart, or even Rowena. But it wouldn’t have mattered; they could have all been watching her, standing around her in a circle, and Isla wouldn’t have cared. If Tristan didn’t care—and he obviously didn’t—then she didn’t, either. All she wanted was him, and she didn’t care how.
At long length he broke the kiss, leaving her gasping. Her chest heaved under the thin material of her gown. Her scalp was painful, where his nails had scored her flesh. She gazed up at him, and said nothing. She’d waited for this moment, for the moment of their true reunion, so long that she could scarcely credit its being upon her. That here he was, her lover, in the flesh and not merely in her dreams. Dreams that had plagued her almost every night since their parting; some of which left her cold and worried, others of which left her bathed in a thin sheen of sweat. Trembling, tormented by a complex host of desires that she could not name.
He was still holding her. “I thought, perhaps, that you’d suffered a change of heart.”
“I thought you had.”
“Isla I…have no intention of letting you go.” Tristan paused, considering his choice of words. Isla waited. The atmosphere between them was tense with expectation, if not tense in the same manner that it had been before. The kiss had broken down some barrier between them, a barrier that Isla had sensed but been unable to name. Now she thought she could.
“But that being said I…want you to want to be with me. To remain here, in this place. A place fo
r which I’ve sensed that you have little liking. I have…I suppose that the correct term would be concerns.” He considered the word. “Concerns that, in time, you’ll come to regret your decision. It is, ah, one thing to forge ahead in the wake of disaster, one’s mind filled with horror, and quite another to stand by that decision in the cold light of day.”
“Father Justin,” she said.
“Yes. Father Justin.”
“He has nothing to do with us.”
“Us?” Tristan echoed.
“Well,” Isla floundered, “I mean….” She chewed her lip.
“My wishes,” Tristan replied gently, “and intentions, remain unchanged.”
Isla tried, and failed, to suppress another small sob.
He held her to him and this time, he was gentle. She buried her face in his chest. He stroked her hair idly with his long, elegant fingers and she found herself irrationally upset that all of Luci’s hard work had gone to waste. She must look a sight, and here she was on her way to dinner. She hadn’t understood how much of a raw wound her fear had become until Tristan, with those few simple words, had healed it. With those few simple words, and with his touch. When she’d first seen him again, he’d felt like a stranger. But over the past ten minutes the distance between them had melted. It was as though he’d only just held her the night before.
She felt exhausted and out of sorts, like she’d just taken a ride on a wild horse. Her stomach roiled, too. Up and down, up and down, and now—what?
“Isla,” he asked, “do you still care for me?”
She met his dark gaze. “I love you,” she said simply.
