by L. L. Muir
She gave a single nod, then turned to examine the ironwork. Her next step faltered and she glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide.
“My, my,” she breathed. “Does the Pope come to visit much? I expect you allow him his key.” She stepped forward and caressed the intricate pattern in the screen that was worthy of any artist in Venice. Small fleur de lis covered the lower three quarters of the screen, while the top quarter was arrayed with holes in the same pattern. Here and there, one of the small symbols was turned on its head, drawing the observer forward, drawing in the eye, demanding attention as one tried to discern the true pattern. The closer one moved, the more brilliant the pattern. Not unlike the woman herself.
Gaspar resisted the draw of the screen and forced his eyes to remain upon his new guest. Her eyes scanned the room even as she closely examined the screen. She’d missed nothing. Not the fact that the screen ran down the middle of the floor and turned at an angle near the end, creating a cell from the far half of the stone room to the front. The screen was anchored to walls and floor, as were the bars to each side of a section of screen that acted as a gate. Another solid section of screen hung from the ceiling and attached to the top of the more intricate section. For the prisoner, there would be no escaping over the metal walls. Neither could there come any threat from outside them.
Of course, there was no such threat. Gaspar himself would be the only person to see her, and he would be no threat, though she would not believe it now. But he’d made special arrangements for her to be perfectly safe from himself, even if he were tempted to touch her a second time, which could never happen.
It might seem unfortunate that the little holes allowed only a modicum of light to pass through them, thus leaving the inner half of the room in shadow, but Gaspar had designed the room with just that in mind, so he might watch her at times without her knowledge, to assess her progress.
Curious as a child, but still wary, she stood to the side of the gate and peeked into the cell. She would have noted the narrow bed and stool. The chamber pot. The small table and single candle.
“More than they allowed me in my tomb,” she murmured.
The sudden wave of sympathy caught him off guard. She was lying, of course. He needed to remember to trust nothing she said. Nothing. But it would explain why she was so terrified of being locked away.
He resisted the urge to order her inside and bit his tongue while he waited for her first step inside the gate. But he thought it best to keep his post until the gate was securely closed. Isobelle Ross was no simpleton, and he had to remain on his guard lest she think of a clever way past him.
She paused and glanced back at him, noting his stance. “Ye demand me trust, but ye canna seem to give it in return, aye?”
He laughed. “You, my lady, are far too clever to trust. I admit it freely.”
She snorted delicately and walked to the window. He was certain she was taking the tower’s measure, guessing her chances of escaping.
“Dare I ask,” she said, still looking out the window, “the true reason ye’ve brought me to yer little paradise? Ye’ve promised no fire. And if ye would see me drowned, ye could have left me to the sharks. So. Do tell.”
He waited for her to face him before he answered, hoping to witness her perfect understanding when it finally came.
“My lady, I have brought you here to save your soul, to take you back from Satan’s ranks.”
“Oh, is that all?” She grinned. “Then I should be back in my cottage by breakfast, I reckon.”
He allowed himself to smile at her jest, though inside he was disappointed indeed. She did not understand anything. Yet. But he was going to help her, even if it killed him to do it.
She kept her gaze on the blue waters outside the window and started only slightly when he swung the gate shut. The click of the lock was both satisfying and sad, knowing she was finally in his care, but that there would ever be a solid wall between them.
She would need a few moments alone to allow her new situation to settle in her mind, and then they could begin. But first, he needed to refresh himself…
…with the coldest water he could find.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Isobelle stood at the window and waited for her escort to leave. She would not dissolve into tears while he watched, though it was plain to see he was waiting for her to do just that.
A swish of fabric behind her. Footfalls moving out the door and down the steps. She was alone, though the feel of him lingered in the room.
How could one man raise so many emotions in her in only a morning?
His eyes were beguiling. To spend any length of time looking into them would be any woman’s downfall. And to have the man pressed against her… She shivered. It would be folly to dwell over long on the memory of it. In fact, it would be wiser to allow her thoughts to simmer and steep into a fine hatred of the man instead.
Man? Hah! A monster. No different than the pious jack-n-apes who’d forced Montgomery to bury her alive. Oh, how she wished she could visit that wicked bastard in his sleep.
She noticed her hands first, her fingers shaking over the edge of the window. But it wasn’t just her hands shaking. The vibrations moved up her arms, into her shoulders. The back of her head shook where his fingers had held her, had protected her head from knocking against the rough wall. She pulled her shoulders up to still the movement. Then she heard the shake of her breath, felt the floor move beneath her as her knees joined in. A hundred times, the shaking had overtaken her while she waited inside her would-be tomb, waiting for her brother to rescue her, not knowing if it was possible for him to break through the thick stone floor upon which her tomb had been erected.
She forced her eyes to remain open and searched the distance for sunlight dancing on the waves.
“Ye see?” she whispered to herself. “Outside. I’m outside.” She stretched her shaking limbs between the bars, rustled her fingers together. “Air. Sunshine. Sea.”
Outside.
Eventually, the shaking ebbed away. And the tears began.
~ ~ ~
A while later, there came slow footsteps in the stairwell. More than just her captor. A few more steps. A pause. More steps.
Isobelle’s curiosity could be contained no longer and she turned. Was she to be a sacrifice? Would a true monster be coming to collect her as his dinner? There had been a dragon carved into the wood above the arched doors, and a dragon carved on a pylon next to the dock. Was there a dragon living within her very tower?
She marveled that her tears and tremors had ceased, that the memory of her tomb and the fear of another such sentence was more frightening to her than the fear of a scaled beast that might be coming for her. Perhaps it was due to the fact that such a beast would kill her swiftly—a merciful death—while men who once sat in judgment of her had no mercy at all.
But this time, she’d been arrested, imprisoned—albeit an unusual prison—and yet she could not say for certain her captor lacked compassion. There had been something in the way he looked at her, almost pitying, that made him different from the priest who had so gleefully sentenced her to death in Scotland.
This man, with his painfully beautiful face, had already plucked her from an unfriendly sea, had stood at her back while she recovered herself, had allowed her to take her plaid. He’d even given her hope that she might return again to her little cottage—though she could never return in truth, for Signora Crescento now feared her to be a witch. And even if she returned there on the morrow, the suspicion would grow and spread like a fire on a dry moor. She would be forced to move on, forced to leave no word for Ossian, for if she left a trail, those who sought out witches would be able to follow.
Without Ossian to stop her, she’d likely go home, even if it meant her death.
Thus, her captor may not be a monster, but he had surely ruined her new life in Venice. At least it was reason enough to hate the man. It was not much, but if she protected that little seed of hatred
, it would keep her from looking too deeply into his eyes…
The servant he’d called Icarus shuffled into the room backward, carrying the ponderous end of a long wooden bench. The man’s face was dark red and his cheeks pumped like billows as he walked beyond her vision into the shadowed side of the room on the far side of her decorative cage. Carrying the other end of the bench was her tall tyrant who looked only mildly uncomfortable with his load. His tunic and cape were gone. His white under-tunic hung against his lean stomach. At the shoulders were tied full white sleeves that billowed around his arms, giving her no sense of his strength if not for the ease with which he’d thwarted her escape.
He gave her barely a glance before turning away, disappearing through the door. His servant limped along behind, one hand pressed to his back. The door remained open. Their descending footsteps were easily heard.
Why the bench? What purpose would it serve? Would she be expected to entertain an audience? Would a jury of the kirk’s men sit before her and wait for a confession? Or did they hope to see some madness overtake her, to compel her to do something only a witch would do?
Well. They would be sorely disappointed on both counts.
She stood on the bed and peered through the little holes that decorated the upper edge of the iron wall. The bench was a stretch of brown shadow. No markings. No notches carved into it. No curve to the wood. With nothing to hint at its purpose, she was left wondering. The possibility of an audience left her a bit wounded, betrayed by her captor.
Her handsome captor.
What could he be thinking, to bring her here? To a remote island, away from the city, away from the church and its leaders? An inconvenience for any who might be brought to see her. Or…
Or is he hiding me from them?
A flash of hope caught in her chest. It made no sense to hide a witch, unless… Unless he thought she might be of use to him.
“Hah!” Would that she were a witch, for the first charm she would attempt would be something to get her free again.
Was it only this morning she had awakened in her own cottage, free from the interference of any man? Left on her own. Abandoned by Ossian. The first day of a life she alone would determine?
Only that morning?
What heinous thing had she done that God would see her penalized yet again in a stone room? What sin had she committed this time?
“Why must I be punished?” she shouted to the ceiling and to God beyond.
When the echoes of her voice were gone from the room and from her head, she caught movement by the door. She stepped off the bed and moved to the gate so she could see her captor clearly. Dressed the same as before, he stood with arms folded, his shoulder resting against the frame. He didn’t smile, but there was some form of excitement just below the surface. It might have been just the reflection from the window, but some type of light danced in his dark eyes.
“Not punished, Signorina.” His voice was deep, almost caressing. “Saved.”
He searched her face for a moment, and when he didn’t seem to find what he was looking for, he spun back out of sight. She listened carefully, to be sure he was really gone before she sat on the bed…and wondered if she dared take heart in a word like that.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Gaspar pulled a fine gray tunic over his head and chided himself for having entered her chamber without proper garments. The woman had reacted no differently than the rest of her sex, raking her gaze over him, assessing his body. He was usually immune to such attention, but for some reason, this woman’s assessment had caused him a moment’s pause.
Bah! She’d been inside his home for little more than an hour and already vanity had sunk its teeth in him. But no more. Never again would she have reason to look closely at him. There was simply nothing he could do about his visage. He refused to walk about with a mask, and he certainly wasn’t about to torture her with a dark sack over her head. But wiser clothing could keep her from appreciating his body, at least.
The memory of that morning swamped him like an unexpected tide. She’d called him perfetto. She’d looked him in the face and seen nothing of the scars he’d created there. Unlike anyone he’d encountered since coming to Venice, her gaze had not been frightened away from the silver gash. In fact, she seemed not to mind the damaged flesh at all.
Perfetto. His memory strained to hear it again, exactly as she’d said it. Perfetto.
He’d grown to hate the word in his youth. And for the first time in his life, it had sounded like an endearment.
He imagined pressing her against the wall again, commanding her to repeat it. Heaven help him!
Vanity invaded his chest, threatened to make camp within him, but he refused to let it stay. She could not think him perfect now. No doubt he was a monster in her eyes, the beast who had watched her from the shadows at the abbey, who’d turned her words against her. Who had locked her in a cage and shown no compassion for what might have happened to her in the past.
Every man and woman of the church states could view him as God’s Dragon and it bothered him not a pip. But now, in his own home, with a woman who reminded him of simpler days, when he’d been a simpler man, the title grated him.
But did he truly wish her to see him as just a man?
He’d faltered in the boat, believing he could look her person over and keep his thoughts chaste. Then he’d touched her as he’d vowed not to do. If he’d simply closed the door and held tight, he’d have had no reason to hold her. He’d pressed her against the wall when he could so easily have forced her in the other direction, into the cell, and closed the gate, putting cold iron safely between them.
He should have anticipated. He should have known himself better.
He should have never sent Icarus to find her in the first place.
~ ~ ~
When they’d arrived at the island, Isobelle had watched her captor so intently, she’d noticed little more about the island than the dragon carvings. And now that she’d seen all there was to observe out her window, she was curious what lay behind her little tower, on the south. Would there be a garden flourishing in the warm Italian sun?
Perhaps she was about to find out, for someone was ascending the stairs once again. She hoped he’d reconsidered, that he might be coming to offer her a look around the island and a moment or two to sit near the water. But one thing was certain, if he let her out, she’d never enter the tower again unless she was well and truly dead.
Considering the confident cadence, she expected her captor to be the one coming to call. And she was right. She turned her back to the window, but moved no further. The precious opening on the outside world was her salvation at the moment. To remove her from it would cost someone a great deal of effort, and pain. Unless, of course, she was given her freedom.
If the tower room were the face of a clock, the solid iron wall ran, like the long hand, from just south of center to the twelve and was attached to the wall there. The window sat at the nine. The bottom section of that clock was cut off by the only straight wall that ran from the eight to the four and kept the room from being perfectly round. The door was located at the four. On the other side of that straight wall was the staircase with a small landing at the top. The short hand of the clock would be represented by the gate with all its artful holes. It ran from the southern end of the wall, off on an angle, toward the seven.
Her visitor stepped in the door at the four o’clock mark.
Now dressed in grey that made his eyes seem darker still, her captor stepped to the gate holding a small black chest with bright silver fittings. Just the right size for her head to fit in, but not so big as to hold all her hair. In Scotland, however, it was the men who were hung and quartered, decapitated. Not the women. Perhaps it was the same in Venice.
She looked from the chest to the handsome face, but would not give him the satisfaction of asking what was inside.
He peered closely, perhaps looking for proof of tears. Then he released a dramatic breath
and produced a small table from behind him, which he must have brought along, and upon which he set the chest.
She would not step closer. From a distance, it was easier to see the whole of him through the gate’s design.
The chest opened silently and the pungent smell of cedar filled the room.
If he withdrew a pair of sheers, he would need to kill her with them, for she refused to part with her hair. However, when he lifted his hand, it was clutching cloth. As the garment unfurled, it became a draping gown of white. It moved and fluttered as if a light breeze were toying with its soft folds. Though the cloth was as fine and costly as the trunk from which it sprung, she recognized the long narrow cuffs.
“I will not wear it,” she hissed and backed closer to the window.
He was taken aback for a moment. His brows lowered and he looked closely at the gown. He pondered the floor for a bit, peered closely at her face again, then his brow smoothed.
“Ah. Perhaps you imagine this is a gift, that I would ask for some favor in return. I assure you, this is nothing of the sort. Your own gown must be crusted with salt from your brief swim this morning. I only thought to give you something clean to wear. But I fear this is the only female garment on the island.”
She shook her head. “Ye doona suppose I have seen such a thing before? I assure ye, I have. I was given such a gown on the day I was entombed, though not nearly as fine. I shall never wear one again. Nay!”
Rage flickered back and forth across his features, alternating with horror. His eyes grew fierce and his nostrils flared, though she had the oddest notion he was not angry with her, but rather, for her.
“You are no ghost,” he whispered as if trying to convince himself of that fact.
She chuckled. “Nay. At least, nay yet. I was quite alive when me brother was forced to seal me inside me tomb. And still alive, happily, when I was rescued from it some twelve days later.”
“Twelve days.” His voice was hoarse as if he’d been inside that tomb with her, crying out for mercy, calling out in madness. He eyed the gown in his hands as if it were a serpent come to life. “I shall find you something else.”