Page 99 of The Lover's Eye
He laughed in soft disbelief, in wonder.He did not realize he had lowered himself to the ground until Smooch rapidly circled him with a whimper.“What is it, girl?”He showed her the note.“Everything is going to be perfectly all right.See?Can you believe that?”
She loves me.
Smooch did not settle, even as Giles dressed and went downstairs.He figured it had been hours since Isobel left that note, and she had likely already returned home.But after not finding her in her usual places, Giles decided to tend to the gardens and await her return.
Finch appeared as he reached the portico doors, his dark eyes serious when he rose from his bow.“My lord, I should like to discuss a matter of importance with you.”
“Not now, Finch.Business can wait.”Giles had taken his first step outside when the butler’s voice stilled him.
“It is about her ladyship, sir.I’m afraid she may have put herself in danger.”
Giles turned back, his jaw tightening.“If this is some attempt to cause trouble between us—” His sentence trailed when he met Finch’s gaze.His heart went with it, sinking like a stone to the pit of his stomach.“What?What is it?What’s happened?”
The butler stepped nearer, lowering his voice to confidential tones.“Forgive me, sir, for I know it is not my place to speculate, but I have reason to believe her ladyship is not at Shoremoss Hall as she said.”He paused, breathing noisily.“She went to the kitchens, sir, asking after tide times and gathering a parcel of spices.And when the coachman took her to Shoremoss, she requested he leave her at the gates, sir, and not return there until seven.”
Smooch was jumping on Giles’s legs, scratching and whimpering.The room seemed to lilt in his vision, the same disembodied feeling he got after drinking his father’s old whiskey.Surely she hadn’t gone to that blasted island.It didn’t make sense.Not unless …
She suspected the whole truth.
“Finch,” he blurted out, leaning on the open door for support.“Have my horse brought around.Now!”
♦
The old woman, who refused to give a name for herself, looked more commonplace within the shadow of the shack.She and Isobel sat across from one another with only a smoky fire for company.Drying herbs and necklaces of variegated beads dangled from the warped rafters, flexing when gusts of wind found purchase between cracks in the walls.
The green eyes fixed on Isobel’s bursting reticule, and she found the courage to speak.“Did Aurelia Gouldsmith come to you, wanting to rid herself of a child?”
“Yes.Twice.First time she come, she didn’t have no payment.I offered to make the tonic in exchange for ’er gold necklace—tonics don’t come so cheap as talk, y’see—but she refused.Said ’er lover would notice it gone an’ start askin’ questions.Wanted it real quiet, see.”
The old woman sighed when she met Isobel’s hungry gaze, and reluctantly continued.“When she come back, she were in a desperate way.She was ready to give me ’er necklace then, I say!”
Isobel’s brows pinched together.“What changed?”
“Said ’er lover had got wind of ’er plan to be rid o’ the babe.He was plannin’ to keep ’er under watch an’ guard to prevent ’er comin’ back to me.”
“So that second visit, you gave her the tonic?”Isobel’s pulse was thunderous, settling deep in her temples.The temperature of the shack seemed to be ever rising.
“No—I’m no’ God, now, am I?Tonics take time and preparin’.I told her as I needed two nights to make it up.She said she hadn’t the time.She were in a frightful way, couldn’t keep still for nothin’.I warned her o’ the risin’ tide, but she didn’t care to listen.”
Gooseflesh raced over Isobel’s skin, even as she burned up with heat.“Sh-She drowned.Did you know that?”
The old woman didn’t flinch, but stayed molded against her creaky, woven chair.“Aye.From the vicar.He come, book in hand, havin’ a fit for answers.But he don’t pay witches, and I don’t talk without payment.I run ’im off.”
“When you say … her lover,” Isobel said, her fingers twining around the reticule, “you mean the father of her child?”
“’Course.”
“And that man—that man was not Giles Trevelyan?”
“No.She said it weren’t her betrothed a’givin’ her trouble.She liked him well enough.Her lover t’were some other man of high birth.Married man, she said.”
A high-pitched whistle started somewhere deep in Isobel’s ears.She put a palm to her forehead and found it slick with sweat.“Do you know his name?”
The old woman’s jaw worked as she thought, the pointed chin moving idly.“Can’t call it up, as it were.Perhaps if I was to hear it … The missy was frightful nervy when she was here, a lookin’ over her shoulder all the time.I asked ’er who she expected to follow her as far, and she says her lover was a seaman—”
“Pemberton?”Isobel interrupted.Her voice was wispy, broken, her eyes burning ferociously as salty perspiration trailed through her lashes.“Lord Martin Pemberton, t-the Marquess of Whitburn?”
“That’s it.”The old woman’s cool, roving eyes sharpened.“Say, are you ’is wife?I don’t want no trouble!”
