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Authors: Brenda Joyce

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Cass stared, trembling. “So you admit that something terrible is happening here, and that one by one we are all falling victim to tragedy?”
Antonio took a swig of his drink. “Let us assume, for one moment, that you are correct. That Isabel is present, that she sent you a message. What should we deduce from those two facts?”
“She is intelligent and capable of a certain amount of willful action,” Cass said promptly.
“This is nonsense,” Gregory cried. “There's a murderer on the loose. That is a fact. All the rest is nonsense.”
Cass faced him furiously. “Is it nonsense that your father died—and it was not an accident? Is it nonsense that you grandfather also died—brutally, tragically? Is it nonsense that Antonio's wife disappeared while here? That my sister has vanished? That the electrician is dead—murdered? And now Celia is gone, too?” She faced Antonio, who had risen to his feet. “Did your grandfather die here?”
Antonio nodded, eyes riveted on her. “What do you mean, that my father's death was not an accident?”
Cass squared off. “My aunt killed him,” she said.
 
 
Gregory had gone to bed. Cass had thought he hadn't seemed very happy about going upstairs to sleep alone, but she had not suggested that he sleep in the library, and his set face had told her that his macho pride was dictating his decision. That was fine with her.
Antonio sat at the desk, hunched over it, reading Catherine's journal. Every time Cass heard him turn a page, she would turn to look at him, wanting to go to him and hold him. But she did not.
She was afraid now of his rejection. She was afraid of what he might find in Catherine's journal. She was afraid they would never be able to recover from the fact of Catherine's guilt—if it was a fact.
Cass was praying that her aunt had been mistaken.
But there was no time to agonize now. There was too much work to do—and she kept feeling that there was not enough time in which to do it. It was already eleven o'clock. She was going through the books, files, and folders crammed into the bookcases, looking for a clue—any clue—that might help them understand Isabel so they could fight her. But how did one fight a ghost?
What Cass knew about the supernatural was based on television talk shows and dramas, movies, popular fiction, and maybe the occasional New Age self-help book. It boiled down to one bottom line. Ghosts were supposed to be laid to rest; instead of haunting people, places, and things, they were supposed to go to the “light.” But how did one send a ghost off to Heaven—or hell?
Antonio suddenly closed the journal with a thump. Cass whirled, a biography of Queen Mary in one hand, a biography of her sister, Queen Elizabeth, in the other. The shelves were filled with medieval history books and the biographies of famous historical figures, most of it pertaining to the subject of Spain and the Spanish, or Europe. But Cass was finding more and more works on Tudor English history—and specifically for the period of time when Isabel had lived. Cass could imagine why.
Antonio sat slumped back in the chair, his second scotch in hand.
Cass walked over to him. “Are you all right?” she asked uneasily, afraid to touch him.
He turned to look at her. “They were having an affair.”
“I'm sorry,” Cass said, wishing to know more.
He rubbed his temples. “Your aunt was filled with guilt. So was my father. They both, I think, never stopped loving their respective spouses.
But that did not stop them. I do not understand what actually happened … how your aunt and my father actually crossed the line. They did not understand, apparently, either.”
Cass swallowed, thinking about all that her aunt had said. “Did she eventually come to despise him?”
“Yes.”
Cass stiffened. That was not the answer she had hoped to hear.
He stood abruptly and walked over to the children, bending over his son to rearrange the blankets. Cass found herself moving to stand behind him. “Do you think my aunt killed him?” she managed. “Purposefully?”
He faced her. “I do not know, Cassandra. I just don't know.”
“Are there any clues in there about Isabel?”
He stared. “They were both obsessed by her.”
“What?”
“The two of them came here to work side by side uncovering every aspect of her life. They were both obsessed—to the point where my father called your aunt Isabel and she imagined herself to look like her ancestor.”
Cass suddenly stared. “Antonio, you and I … we are here, working side by side, doing the exact same thing.”
“I know.”
 
 
He dreamed of fire, and in the midst of the flames, she was always there, leering at him, the demon woman from his childhood. Gregory tossed restlessly, perspiring, even though he slept in nothing but a pair of briefs.
Wake up,
the creature in his dreams whispered.
Wake up.
He did not want to wake up, but he did not want her there, either, in his dreams, with that beautiful yet ugly face. How could a woman so beautiful be so evil? he wondered.
Wake up.
Gregory's eyes shot open and he was suddenly, abruptly, awake.
And he knew he was not alone.
He stiffened in fear, then saw the woman standing at the foot of the bed, a shadowy outline in the darkness of the night-blackened bedroom.
“Gregory?” Tracey whispered.
Realizing that it was Tracey, not that creature, Isabel, he shot up. “Tracey! Are you all right?”
She came forward and was sliding into the bed; he gripped her thin shoulders as her moon-colored hair fell over his hands and wrists. “I think so,” she whispered hoarsely.
He dropped his hands, throwing his legs over the side of the bed, groping almost blindly for matches and the candle on his night table. When the candle was lit, he held it up and met her pale blue eyes. “Thank God!” he cried, cupping her head with one hand. “Thank God. What happened? Where were you?”
She just looked at him. “I'm fine. Please hold me now.”
He realized she wasn't fine. There was a bruise on her face the size of a baseball. Her T-shirt and shorts were dirty and torn. And was that blood he saw specked on her clothes? He froze.
“Please,” she whispered again.
He set the candle down and pulled her into his arms, thanking God that she was alive, because secretly he had believed her to be dead. Just like he
knew
Margarita was dead. He knew it with his heart and soul—with all of his intuition.
Tracey was thin but warm, wonderfully warm and alive in his arms, and she was trembling. He stroked her hair and her back. And the moment her body responded to his in the timeless way of male and female, he became aware of her that way, too.
He was instantly erect.
She smiled against his cheek, then they turned their heads and their mouths met and mated almost immediately. As Gregory moved over her, his tongue in her throat, it crossed the back of his mind that this was so insane.
She found and stroked his penis, and he could not wait. He tore her shorts off, the G-string with it, and frantically his hands moved over her pubis. An instant later he was driving deep within her, and they were both crying out.
Within moments, it was over. Tracey's orgasm felt violent to him, and he came immediately. Too late, he had forgotten a condom again. Too late, he had also forgotten to ask her if she was using birth control.
Damn
it, he thought, suddenly so sated he was unable to move.
She laughed.
The sound was odd and he stiffened, rolling to his side, looking at her.
Isabel smiled at him.
Gregory leapt from the bed, staring in absolute horror at the reddishhaired
woman from his childhood nightmares who lay half-naked in his bed.
“Get out,” he screamed.
Isabel laughed again.
The ravine was covered with brush, and she crunched down, amidst the myriad branches, praying the brush and the night would hide her.
She could hardly breathe—never had she run so far, so fast, in such terror. But she did not dare make noise, even now; panting harshly, she was trying to hide the sound. She was terrified.
Above, on the cliff from where she had fallen, she could hear the occasional scuffing of shoe upon stone. Or was it wind upon branches?
Did it matter? She was going to be discovered.
Rocks and stones dug into her shins and knees. Her fingers clawed the hard dirt ground. She tasted dirt, and fear.
And she tasted blood. There was so much of it. It was her own.
 
 
They worked side by side, removing books, browsing through them, placing each in distinct piles by subject and time period. Folders were added to the piles. The night was terribly silent.
And it was dark. The fire had died down to the merest of small flames.
Cass wished it were later; she wished the sun would come up. She no longer enjoyed the nighttime; she had become afraid of the dark. She glanced at Antonio. He remained very disturbed. What else had he read in Catherine's journal? What wasn't he telling her? “Antonio?”
He looked at her, a book in his hands. “Yes?”
“Something has been bothering me the more I think about it. Isabel did not communicate ‘he' betrayed me. She used ‘they' betrayed me.”
He leaned one shoulder against the bookcase. “Assuming you saw what you saw.”
Her temper flared. “I saw what I said I saw. And if Isabel did not communicate those words to me, then someone else around here is a rotten prankster. And then that would mean there is also a murderer on the loose. And who would that be?” When he did not answer, she said, “Hasn't there been too much coincidence? God, my aunt is dead!”
He reached for her. “I believe your aunt had a heart attack, but there does seem to be a terrible amount of coincidence. We are doing exactly what it was that my father and your aunt were doing—obsessively digging into Isabel's life.” He met her eyes. “And we also crossed the line.”
Cass was motionless, loosely in his embrace. Then she stepped away. “Yes, we did.” She was trying not to feel hurt about his phrasing; it was impossible.
“History repeating itself,” Antonio said softly.
Cass hugged a book to her breasts. Catherine and Eduardo had become lovers, and she and Antonio had become lovers. “I've already wondered about this. There is one thread that seems to connect everything.”
“And what is that?” He was intent.
“Violence. What we did was violent, or at least, I think so. Your father, your grandfather, my aunt—they all died violently. I mean, even if Catherine died of natural causes, I was there. It was brutal. A car accident—if it was an accident—is violent. The way Tracey hit me—”
“She hit you?” He stared. “Why didn't you tell me sooner?”
Cass was grim. “She didn't mean it. She flipped out. She was not herself.”
He absorbed that. “So what are you suggesting? That Isabel, who also died violently, has somehow spread this contagion?”
Cass started. She hadn't considered Isabel's death in the equation, but Antonio was right. “I don't know, Antonio,” she said. “But you are a de la Barca, and I am a de Warenne. The two families, involved again. Aunt Catherine seems to have been very right.” Grief stabbed through her. She wondered if it would always be that way.
“What about the electrician? Why has he been murdered? He is neither a de la Barca nor a de Warenne. He was an innocent bystander. Maybe his death is coincidental.”
“I might buy that—except he was stabbed with a knife that came from this house.” Cass sighed. “I'm having enough trouble trying to understand why she hates my family, too.”
“Sussex forced her into the marriage to Alvarado.” Antonio shrugged. “Human beings are so complex. What motivates you might not motivate me. Isabel might have hated her uncle for the simple fact that he arranged the marriage.”
“Maybe, on some other subconscious level, she hated him because he took her father's place.”
“Maybe.”
“So who are ‘they'? Sussex and her husband?”
“We are jumping to conclusions,” he said, but he smiled.
Cass smiled back. “Yes, we are.” They had begun to enjoy themselves. Her smile faded. Now was not the time for pleasant debate. Her aunt was dead, Tracey and Celia missing—just recalling that made her sick inside—and Isabel was lurking about. Cass almost thought that she could feel her listening to their conversation. “We have to find out what happened to Isabel. Because then we can figure out what it is that she wants.” She turned back to the book she held in her hands.
He stopped her. “We may be giving Isabel far too much credit, Cassandra. I still cannot fathom a ghost with an agenda.”
Cass stared back. “I truly hope you are right. But I know you are wrong. History is repeating itself.” She glanced down at the book she held—a study by different authors on the reformation. “We have to figure Isabel out, find out what she wants—and give it to her—or stop her, if it is us that she wishes to destroy,” Cass said grimly, flipping open the book. As she did so, a piece of paper fell to the floor.
Before she could retrieve it, Antonio grabbed her arm. “You have this amazing imagination,” he said harshly. “But now you have gone too far!”
She met his gaze. “There is a pattern, damn it, and we both know it.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me, or to you, or to anyone else,” he said firmly. “We will find Tracey and Celia, and all will be well.”
Cass straightened. “What if we can't find them?”
He hesitated. “Tomorrow we will bring in the police, and tomorrow I want everyone to leave.”
Cass did not move. “I do not like your tone.”
“I have not finished my work here. I will stay.”
Cass could not believe her ears. “You can't stay here alone!”
He turned away, but not before she saw just how determined his expression was.
Cass stared at his back. How could she leave if he remained behind? She began to tremble. A disaster, she thought, it would be a disaster waiting to happen.
Or another tragedy.
“She's setting us up,” Cass whispered. “Divide and conquer.”
“Nonsense,” Antonio said sharply.
“You cannot stay here alone,” Cass said grimly. “I can see it in your eyes. It's her. Isabel. You won't leave because of her. You've been playing the devil's advocate, but you believe. You believe everything I've been saying!” she cried.
He crossed his arms. “What is that paper which fell out of the book?”
She felt furious.
Stubborn man!
She bent down to pick up the slip of paper. It was a carefully folded page. The moment she opened it, she realized it contained more of Edurado's notes.
“What is it?” Antonio asked too sharply.
“I recognize your father's handwriting,” Cass said, “but I still can't read Spanish.” One word did jump off the yellowed page at her. Sussex.
Antonio took the page. He squinted against the dark. “This says, ‘Farmer, pages five hundred sixteen to five seventeen, Grantham, pages twenty-two to twenty-three and two hundred eight, Sussex.'”
Cass blinked at him, immediately aware of excitement stirring within her. “I just saw those books—one of which, at least, is Mary Tudor's biography.” She bent over one pile, sorting rapidly through, and came up with the two books. “Which pages in Farmer?” she asked.
“Pages five sixteen to seventeen,” Antonio asked, squatting beside her.
Cass scanned a long page. “I need more light.” She rushed over to the fireplace, Antonio beside her. “This is about Sussex's appointment to Mary's council shortly after she became queen. It mentions here that he did not join her cause until the very last minute, just days before her coronation. Of course, he was not the only nobleman to do so.” Cass felt disappointed. “There is nothing new here.”
“The Grantham. That is a biography of Queen Elizabeth, I think.”
Cass ran back for the other book. “Twenty what?”
Antonio told her the pages and Cass found them. She said, “Well, here we go. Sussex was also appointed to Elizabeth's council, just days
after her coronation.” She looked up at Antonio, then turned to page 208. “And he was accused of treason at the end of the first year of his reign.” Cass was perplexed.
A silence had fallen over the room.
It was so deep and yawning that Cass was jerked out of her speculations, suddenly worried, suddenly uneasy—and afraid. The dread in her increased impossibly. She glanced up, but both children continued to sleep peacefully. Just behind her, the fire was dying, reduced to a few of the tiniest flames.
Cass handed Antonio the book and let him read the entire page, suddenly chilled to the bone. Something was going to happen before the night was out—she felt certain of it.
Something was going to happen now.
Antonio looked up and their gazes met. “Is that significant?” she asked in a whisper. She kept glancing warily around. “Am I somehow missing something? Grantham goes on to say Sussex did escape with his life—although he lost his title and his lands. This was well after Isabel's death.” She continued to whisper.
“He was a man of political expedience—a political survivor,” Antonio said. “For most of his life, it seems. He changed allegiance to support Mary, then did the same to support her sister. But such political creatures were hardly unusual at the time.”
“No, they weren't,” Cass said slowly. “I guess what this means was that he was not a man loyal to any cause or conviction. He was loyal to himself.” She turned, but no one was standing behind her. Isabel did not stand behind her.
Antonio stood. “It is odd, don't you think, for him to have married his niece off to a Spaniard?”
“Yes, it is. What are you saying?” But even as Cass spoke, she suddenly knew, and could not believe she hadn't grasped this before.
They stood unmoving, staring at one another. One single candle continued to burn, not far from where the children slept. Cass could hear Antonio's breathing. It was rapid and shallow now.
The violets surfaced, rapidly.
“She's here,” Cass said. She wanted to reach for his hand. She could not move.
Antonio slowly turned and scanned the room.
Suddenly the page containing Eduardo's notes, which she was holding, burst into flames. She cried out, dropping the burning paper, backing
away. Antonio raced over to stamp on it repeatedly. And then the fire was out.
Ashes remained on the carpet, a small scattering of ashes, with just a few small sections of the charred page.
Motionless, Cass stared at the ashes, then she looked up at Antonio. He was as white as a ghost.
“Ashes,” Cass said. She looked around everywhere, expecting Isabel to materialize at any moment, and then what? Then what would she do? And what if the children awoke and saw her? What if she turned on them? She had set the page on fire. What else could she do?
The silence remained vast, absolute, and the scent of violets began to rapidly diminish.
Cass realized she was shaking like a leaf.
Antonio stood motionless, staring back at her, wide-eyed. Cass knew he was realizing the exact same thing. He inhaled, hard. “Sussex,” he said. “The note she burned was about Sussex.”
“She hates, him,” Cass whispered. “We were right.”
“He used her,” Antonio said, his tone returning to normal now. Their gazes locked.
“And she is letting us know it,” Cass finished.
They were married at Westminster Cathedral on July 28, 1554.
In the bishop's hall, Isabel sat beside her groom at the head of the longest of four dining tables, where course after course had been served. She remained dazed. Had it only been a month ago that Sussex had informed her of the count of Pedraza's desire for her hand? That interview felt like it had happened a lifetime ago.
Isabel was only vaguely aware of the revelry around her. On a raised platform, Queen Mary and Philip sat side by side, above Isabel and her husband, dining from plates of solid gold, while the groom, the bride, and all of the guests dined on pure silver. All around Isabel and Alvarado de la Barca, Spanish and English lords and ladies ate and drank without pause—beer, ale, and Spanish wines were on the table, and thirty or forty courses had been served. There was dancing, too, but it hardly went well, as the Spanish did not know the dances of the Englishmen.
Isabel barely noticed the awkwardness, the sulking, the boisterous good cheer, the noise, the laughter, the queen and her consort, who had yet to be crowned king.
And even had she noticed, she would not have cared. There was naught that she cared about. Not even her future as a countess of a faraway land.
And no amount of scolding from Helen had managed to make her care.
Isabel became aware of Alvarado, who was feeding her morsels of pigeon and partridge, which she dutifully accepted, even though her stomach was threatening to discharge its contents. He then offered her wine from his own silver goblet, and she forced down a sip. She knew she should at least attempt a smile; she could not. Someone not far from her at her table whispered, “How frightened she is, poor dear.” Was she frightened? How could she be frightened? This was probably a dream. A poorly conceived dream.
And then she espied Rob sitting farther down the table, with Lady de Warenne.
Isabel stiffened in shock. It was as if ice water had been thrown upon her, and suddenly the dreamy quality of the day vanished. She felt herself swallowing, she tasted the heavy red wine, and she could hear the deafening noise of laughter and conversation in the hall. She stared. His wife was a comely young woman with very dark hair and pale skin. Rob stared straight ahead, not looking her way.
And suddenly Isabel wondered,
What have I done?
And the words whispered again and again in her mind.
Haunting … taunting.
She trembled, seized with sudden panic and fear, her husband's thigh pressing against her own now. Had she actually become this man's wife? She could not recall the Catholic ceremony. She could not recall preparing for the wedding. Her panic increased. She could not remember a single outstanding day in the past month, just as she could not recall the long interview with her uncle when he had presented her with de la Barca as a suitor.
Suddenly she looked directly at the man sitting next to her.
He wasn't much taller than she. He was very dark of skin, almost ebony of eye, and neither attractive nor homely. But he rarely smiled. And looking at him now, Isabel felt sheer terror.
She was wearing a silver gown, encrusted with thousands of tiny white pearls and hemmed with rubies and sapphires. For the first time
since she had been dressed that morning, Isabel realized how heavy the dress was. But the weight of her gown was nothing like the weight of her own sudden, absolute despair.
I shall die,
she thought,
and soon.
But it will not be soon enough.
Suddenly a huge noise filled the hall, shocking Isabel once again, and she realized that as one, the wedding guests were standing, as was her husband. Their cries of ribald encouragement filled the hall. Isabel felt her husband's hand upon her shoulder, and immediately she looked up.
He smiled at her, slightly, the first time he had ever done so.
Isabel could not smile back. She realized that dinner was over, and that she and Alvarado would be escorted back to the chamber they would share for the next few days, as custom demanded. She could not move.
And she felt Rob's eyes.
Without conscious volition, Isabel met his gaze for the first time in months.
His regard was blinding in intensity. She stiffened, and quickly she looked away.
“Rise, my sweet, rise,” her husband commanded softly in the language they were using to communicate—French.
Isabel found herself on her feet, an image of Rob's expression competing with images of a huge four-poster bed draped in cloths of state.
Oh, God.
How would she be able to receive Alvarado? How?
And what if he realized she was not a virgin?
Isabel suddenly remembered that Helen had hidden a pin in the folds of her gown. Somehow Helen had known the truth. Isabel began to shake.
And the crowd was rushing them from the hall.
 
 
In the darkness he caressed her bare breasts, her waist, her hips.
Isabel lay unmoving, shivering, eyes tightly closed. Rob's image and memories of their love and passion refused to leave her be.
He spoke to her in Spanish, his voice deep and thick with lust.
Isabel hardly knew what he said, but she heard her reply—a choked sob.
“Do not be afraid,” he whispered, moving over her.
Isabel tensed, for he was hard and ready, and she could not reply. How could this be happening? How? What had she done, she wondered, for God to punish her so?
He entered her, not abruptly, but in stages, with difficulty.
Isabel cried out, because he was hurting her.
More Spanish followed, the words low and meant to soothe.
Isabel could not relax. Tears streamed down her face. Too late, she realized the terrifying vastness of her mistake. Too late, she realized she still loved another man.
“I am sorry, I am sorry,” he said, and then he was straining in her, again and again. This time Isabel felt the dams burst, and she wept, without control.
 
 
A high sun streaming through shutters that were only partially closed awakened Isabel.
And in that same singular moment, the realization struck her rudely that she was now, truly, the count of Pedraza's wife.
The despair washed over her, again and again. Isabel opened her eyes reluctantly, with dread. She saw that his side of the bed was indeed empty. She closed her eyes in relief, wishing for nothing more than the sanctuary of sleep. But she was awake now, and for the moment, nothing would change that.
English tradition demanded they remain within their chambers alone together for several days. Isabel bit her lip to keep tears from filling her eyes at the very notion.
She finally sat up, brushing her eyes with her fingertips, yearning for Zeus or even Helen. It was done. She was wed, and to a powerful and fine nobleman. She must accept her lot in life. She must make the best of it. She must please Alvarado, her husband, until death did part them.
Isabel slid from the bed, her heart so heavy, then glanced down at the blood left on the sheets from the many pricks she had given to her fingertips. Her husband had not even bothered to check the bed for signs of her innocence. Bitterness welled up inside her.
Rob had said he'd married a widow and an heiress. She had assumed his wife to be older, a hag. But she was young and pretty, and Isabel felt sick just thinking about it.
Do not do this to yourself,
she tried, but her own silent plea had no effect. All she could think about was that she did not want to be this Spaniard's wife, no matter how fine and noble he was, and how she truly hated Anne de Warenne.
Abruptly Isabel stood, and naked, she went to the robe already hanging on the wall hook. She slipped it on, went to her trunk, and lifted
the lid. She hesitated, her pulse going wild, then dug deep into the midst of the trunk, finally extracting a thick volume of poetry.
Her heart slammed as she held the book to her chest.
Quickly then, she hurried to the bed, sat down, and extracted the three letters she had hidden within the tome—all three missives sealed and unread, all three from Rob.
She stared at the seals. He had been trying to communicate with her ever since he'd confessed to his marriage. But she had not been able to send the letters back, their seals unbroken, or to toss them into flames. Thus she had kept them.
She was trembling. In the past, the voice of reason had warned her not to keep the letters—and not to read them, either. Now, not daring to think, Isabel used her nail to slit open one of the letters.
She read, “My dearest Isabel, I offer you my most sincere felicitations regarding the great occasion of your betrothal to Alvarado de la Barca. I can conceive of no more worthy alliance for you than this, such a great and fortunate match. My dear cousin, thoughts of you remain with me always, filled with cousinly devotion. So much time has elapsed since we last spoke, and I entertain so many regrets for that lapse, that I pray you will agree to receive me before the nuptials. Forever your most loyal and devoted cousin, Admiral Robert de Warenne.”
Isabel stared at the letter in her hand. The page was shaking violently, but no, it was not the page, it was her own hand.
What did this missive mean?
Isabel could not breathe.
Cousinly devotion … no more worthy alliance?
Was this a jest?
But he had suggested they meet. Before her wedding. But why? To offer her more hearty, merry congratulations? Or for another reason?
Cousinly devotion.
Was that what he now felt?
What if he still loved her? What if he'd wanted to meet with her to tell her that?
She read the letter again. He had signed it, “Forever your most loyal and devoted cousin.” What did that signify? Did it signify anything?
And suddenly she was seized with determination—to meet Rob, forthrightly, and to demand what his professions of loyalty and devotion meant. If he no longer loved her the way he once had, then she must know, and she must know it now. Because, dear God, she thought she still loved him.
The outer door to their apartments scraped open and booted footsteps sounded.
Isabel froze. But only for one instant, and then she slipped the opened letter, its envelope, and the other two inside the book, and as she slammed it closed, the footsteps grew louder, approaching. Isabel saw the broken wax seal on the bed, besides her hip. As Alvarado stepped through the doorway of the bedchamber, she moved to sit upon the pieces of crimson wax, the book clutched tightly in her hand.
He was studying her.
Isabel stared at him, her heart thundering with fear, thinking,
If he finds these letters, he will know all and I am doomed.
“Isabel?” His regard became searching. “Are you ill?”
Isabel smiled then, the strain of her deception a crushing weight upon her. “I feel weak,” she whispered.
“You did not eat last night,” he said, his gaze going from her face to the book she held in her hand.
Too late, Isabel looked down at the volume, her heart pounding so loudly, surely he could hear, and then, slowly, she looked up and met his eyes.
He came forward, unsmiling, and before she could take another breath, he took the book from her. Briefly he glanced at the title. “Poetry?” His brows lifted and he laid the book on the table where a tray had been laid out with bread, meats, cheeses, and ale while she slept. He shook his head. “I detest that brew. Do they not know I drink only wine?”
Isabel leapt to her feet, trying not to look at the book on their breakfast table. Did a piece of parchment protrude from the pages? “I shall make certain, my lord, that from now on, wine is served with your every meal,” she said quickly.
He faced her, eyes warm. “You please me very much, Isabel,” he said.
She wished she blushed. But she felt as if there was no color at all in her face—just as she felt as if no warm blood ran in her veins. She was so cold, so terribly chilled. “I am glad,” she said softly.
The light in his eyes changed. “I had thought to share some bread and wine with you. But looking at you, faced with your beauty, it moves me to other thoughts.”
Isabel did not move. She could not.
He came forward, and as he slid his hands over her arms, her gaze moved over his shoulder to the book that lay upon the table. “My thoughts move me to begetting an heir,” he said, low.
Isabel lifted her gaze to him, smiled, and said, “Those are my thoughts exactly, my lord.”

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