The Devil's Mistress by David Barclay (reading well .txt) 📕

Those are so popular. A trifle to make, but oh, so many consequences.”

Isabella looked up with a jolt. Were the needs of her heart so obvious? “Can you…”

The woman waited, her eyebrows climbing devilishly. Isabella thought she must be enjoying this, having a guest in such need.

“Can you make a man not love me?”

“Can I make a man not love you?” The woman laughed. “Surely, you don’t mean Jacob?”

For the first time since descending into the cellar, Isabella felt a chill. She was almost certain she hadn’t spoken her servant boy’s name.

“Not him. My betrothed. He is a strong and decent young man, but—”

“But you do not love him.”

“I do not love him,” Isabella finished.

“Oh, to be young and foolish again. To believe marriage is only for love. Tell me, does your betrothed have a name?” Then the woman raised the knife as if to silence Isabella’s tongue. “Let me venture. I wager your betrothed is the son of your father’s partner, is he not? This Huxley person.”

“His name is Thomas. How did you know that?”

The woman held up the knife again. “It must be an arranged marriage. From your father, no doubt. Something to help solidify the partnership. Or perhaps this young man is simply the only one rich enough to provide for you. I remember when Blackfriar was nothing but a sawyers’ camp, and ’twas not so long ago. Not such a preponderance of wealth in so tiny a village.” The woman pointed to Isabella’s hand. “You have the mark of a ring, though you are not wearing it this night.” She laughed again. “Your father could look abroad for a suitor, but if he has been ill, and not wont to travel, then it must be this boy. This Thomas.”

Isabella stared at the woman, her hands clasped against her breast.

“You strike me as a dutiful young woman. I would think you would be inclined to do as your father says, no matter your personal feelings. There must be another reason. Surely you can tell me that?”

Unknowingly, Isabella had backed herself into the wall. The cold, uneven stonework pressed into her like an obscene hand. She looked up and was shocked to discover a new set of tapestries above her, these far different from the rest. There was an image of a wolf pack eviscerating a tall, thin man. The image of a human skull covered in insects. The image of a man lain upon an altar and pierced with a dozen knives.

“My reasons are my own. I should like to keep them, if you don’t mind.”

“Very well,” the woman said tiredly, “but you should at least be able to tell me what it is that you want. Come now, child. Can you not speak the words? Can you not tell me that which you desire?”

“I wish…” Isabella began. “I wish Thomas Huxley loved me no longer. I wish to be free of this arrangement. I wish to be my own woman again. That is all.”

Almost casually, the woman reached up and cut another thread, discarding it somewhere onto the floor. “Nothing simpler.”

“Is it something you can do, or not?”

“It is done, child.”

Isabella stared at her, wanting to speak but for the awe and fear and hope all tangled together in her throat. Was she to believe this strange creature? To doubt her? Fear her? Then the woman opened her mouth once more, and all the questions in Isabella’s mind quieted.

“Now,” the Lady said, “you know well this is different from before. For this, I do require a tithe. So let us speak of my payment, child, and then you shall be upon your way.”

Chapter 4

By the time Isabella returned to the road, she was covered in mud from ankle to thigh. There was a hidden path which allowed her to circumvent the cliff, but it was no less arduous in the rain. The January cold assaulted her at every step.

As she approached the puddle at the edge of the trail, there came a loud grunt and the whine of horses. The carriage had been turned in her absence, but its wheels were entrenched in mud. Jacob stood behind it, pushing and shouting.

“Move it, Lily! Go on, Beth! Move your feet!”

Isabella did not bother to walk round the puddle this time but ran straight through, hurrying to her servant’s side and adding her hands to the rear of the carriage.

Jacob looked at her but said nothing, instead gritting his teeth and straining forward. With their combined weight, the carriage began to move. There came a loud pop, and then the wheels were free, turning forward over solid road. Jacob ran and caught the horses, then held the door as Isabella rushed to meet him. There were a million questions in his eyes, and for the first time that evening, Isabella was glad of the storm. She slipped inside without a word.

The boy climbed up the carriage and took the reins, spurring the horses as never before. Their hooves thundered over the wet road, rattling the carriage as they clamped and clomped back toward civilization. Isabella was afraid one of them might slip and break a leg, but neither did. They ran until the road dipped down toward sea level, and the A-frame of The Huxley-Ashford Mill rose upon the horizon like a pointed fortress.

Much of Blackfriar lay dark and dormant, but a handful of lights were visible in the courtyard of the Ashford residence, protected beneath the awnings of the outer wall. Isabella’s house was a modest place by the standards of southern wealth: three servants, one manumitted slave, a handful of guardsmen, and one head of house.

The guardsmen pulled open the iron gates as they approached. The carriage rolled into the inner sanctum, and the horses began to slow. Isabella’s father was waiting when they finally came to a halt.

John Ashford was every inch the English-born aristocrat, with penetrating gray eyes, a molded nose, and a set of jowl lines which cut so