The Bride Thief. Susan Paul Spencer
so ill of such a man?”
“By the rood!” the baron swore angrily, setting his goblet down with such crushing force that red wine spilled over the table and onto the floor. “You’ll not speak to me, or to your cousin, in such a froward manner!”
“Oh, Father,” Evelyn said between gasps of laughter. “’Tis too funny! Can you not see? She’s in love with him! Isabelle—” more laughter, gusting harder “—Isabelle’s in love with Sir Justin! Would he not be horrified to know of it? Can you not envision his face if he knew that such a—such an ugly mouse was in love with him?”
Sir Myles was too occupied in scowling at Isabelle to pay his daughter notice. “You’re wrong,” he said to Isabelle, “if you think I’ll ever let you wed. Save yourself trouble, my girl, and heed me well. Keep your thoughts on money and numbers, not on men. If you value your brother’s life, and your own, then understand what I say.”
But Isabelle couldn’t. Her unfortunate temper had taken control, and she was furious. For days now, as they played their game with Sir Justin, it had been simmering. Each afternoon, when he arrived and so urgently pleaded his cause, only to be turned aside by their cruel lies, it had grown hotter. Isabelle had spent four long years suffering and laboring as nothing better than a slave in her uncle’s house. Now, every insult, every unkindness, seemed to well up and burn. Holding her uncle’s gaze, raising her fist, she crushed the writing quill in her hand, mangling the instrument with labor-strengthened fingers until it was beyond use. Without expression, she dropped the broken quill on the open ledger.
Even Evelyn stopped laughing.
The silence that ensued was complete, until at last Sir Myles said, “That was unwise, Isabelle. I shall have to punish you. You shall abide in the cellar without food or drink until that account is finished. If it is not done by morning, when the banker arrives to meet with me, I shall write Sir Howton a missive regarding Senet—”
“He has naught to do with this!” Isabelle cried furiously, taking one step toward her uncle.
“You’re wrong, my dear,” Sir Myles replied calmly. “He has everything to do with it. You will go to the cellar and finish with that account before the sun rises in tomorrow’s sky—” he pointed at the book with a hard finger “—else Senet will return here to London, where he shall be made to rightfully labor for his care, in the lowliest manner I can arrange. I make you my promise on it.”
“Send him to White Tower, Father,” Evelyn suggested with purring satisfaction. “Have them put him to work cleaning out the garderobes. Or, better yet, offer him as a suitable gong farmer.”
The image of her beloved younger brother slaving daily at such a horrible, filthy task—emptying latrine pits—rapidly cooled Isabelle’s fury. She could just imagine her uncle doing such a thing to bend her to his will. He was a cruel man, as wicked as sin in most of his dealings. She’d been too closely involved in his world for too long to take the threat lightly.
Swallowing the angry words she longed to say, Isabelle stepped back and slowly sat in her chair. Her uncle’s soft chuckle told her that he understood her surrender, and she bowed her head.
“Most wise, my child. Most temperate. I shall have a new writing quill brought to you in the cellar, and plenty of candles and ink to work by. When you have dutifully finished your task,” he said, savoring the words, “and when I have approved it, you will be released.”
It was late before Isabelle was finally let out of the cellar and led, by a lone servant bearing a candle, through nightdarkened halls to the small room that was her bedchamber. Exhausted, hungry and cold, her bones aching from long hours spent crouched over her uncle’s accounts in the cellar’s dampness, she wearily prepared for sleep. In a few short minutes she had removed her clothes and put on the one nightdress she owned, unbraided her hair and brushed it, and washed her face and hands. Gratefully lying down beneath her covers, she muttered a few words of prayer, crossed herself once and, pushing all troubling thoughts of Senet aside, fell asleep.
So deeply did she slumber that at first she mistook the voice for a dream—the same dream she’d had nearly every night since she first met Sir Justin Baldwin. But in the dream, Sir Justin, being a creature of her own making, never actually said anything, and this time, his fourth whispered invocation of “Lady Isabelle” at last pierced the fog of her sleep-ridden brain with realization. By then it was too late. Sir Justin’s hand closed over her mouth just as her eyes flew open to see him sitting beside her on the bed, and the scream that naturally followed was thoroughly muffled.
“Do not,” he warned, his voice low and firm. “I mean you no harm, and I do not wish to hurt you. Be quiet and all will be well.”
“What—?” she cried when he lifted his hand.
“Hush,” he commanded. The next moment, he placed a cloth over her mouth, ignoring her struggles while he quickly tied it behind her head. Isabelle tried to strike him, but found, to her increasing dismay, that her hands were already tied, as were her feet. She screamed again, this time into the cloth, and Sir Justin took her head in his hands, holding her still as he bent over her, eye-to-eye.
“My lady,” he said patiently, “I wish you would not. There is no cause for such distress, and if you do not cease, I will have to make you insensible, which I profess I am loath to do. Already I regret the necessity that made me bind you. If you will but trust me a little, I vow, on my honor, that all will be well.” Then, picking her up, he carried her to the chamber’s one window, out of which a rope dangled. Stopping suddenly, he looked down at her, the thoughtful expression on his face fully at odds with the rampant fear that possessed Isabelle. “I meant to say this before,” he told her, “but forgot. Chris says my mind is ever scattering.” Sitting on the sill, balancing her on his lap, he swung one leg out the window. “I’ve wanted to tell you this past month, but never found the chance. I find you very beautiful.”
Isabelle had always been rational. Always. Even during those unfortunate moments when her temper got the better of her. Very English, her father had said disapprovingly. May God be praised, her mother had said with thanks. But rationality, in the wake of Sir Justin’s calling her beautiful, disappeared as if Isabelle had never known it, and the stupefying result was that he had tossed her over his shoulder and carried her all the way down the length of her uncle’s grand manor house before it even occurred to her that she should put up a struggle.
Sir Christian Rowsenly—a man she would never have thought capable of such a heinous crime as kidnapping— was waiting for them on the ground.
“It took long enough,” Sir Christian whispered tightly, bringing forward two saddled horses. “I was afraid you’d been discovered.”
“She wasn’t there,” Sir Justin replied, handing her over to his friend while he, himself, mounted one steed. “I thought perhaps you’d mistaken which chamber was hers, or that Sir Myles, being rightfully ashamed at keeping his own niece in such a mean place, had lied about it when he took you through the dwelling. I was going to search her out when she at last arrived, and then I had to hide and wait until she had prepared for bed and fallen asleep.”
“I don’t want an explanation now,” Sir Christian told him, lifting Isabelle into Sir Justin’s waiting arms. “God’s feet. If the ward sergeant catches us we’ll be drawn and quartered. Let’s get us out of London, right quick.”
“Aye, and so we will,” Sir Justin agreed, ignoring Isabelle’s squirming as he tightly tucked her up against his body and wrapped her within his cloak. With one strong arm he held her captive, with the other he guided his horse to the cobbled street that faced her uncle’s home.
“Go to sleep,” he advised her quietly as they set out toward what Isabelle knew to be the direction of Bishopsgate. “The guards at the gate have been paid to let us pass without