Ironheart Read online

  In that moment, he realized just how severely he had misjudged her. Isobel’s delicate beauty had hoodwinked him. Although she looked like a kitten, her claws were as sharp as any blade. “What I-I meant was—”

  “Oh, I know precisely what you meant,” she replied with heat. “Because my uncle is away, along with most of the other village maidens, you thought you might divert yourself with me for a few hours while your brother calls upon his lady friend. I think not. Good day to you!” She would have slammed the door on him had he not stuck his boot into the gap between the door and the frame.

  “Wait!”

  Isobel glared at him through the narrow opening in the door, her violet eyes flashing fire. “What?”

  Such hostility he had not expected. This was definitely not going as well as he had hoped. He sighed. “Perhaps we might begin again?” He sent her his most winning smile, but the coldness of Isobel’s expression did not waver.

  “Whatever for? Your previous manner has told me all I ever wish to learn of your character. Besides,” she said, casting a brief glance over her shoulder, “I have work to do.”

  Anselm’s heart lightened; at least she had not given him an outright no. “Then perhaps I might assist you?” He ventured another smile. “As you say, my brother is currently... occupied, and I have at least a couple of hours at my disposal.”

  “I am not sure that is a good—”

  “Please?” He swept back his hair and intensified the brilliance of his smile. “You would be doing me a great favor.”

  Isobel chewed her plump lower lip. She was wavering. He sensed it. “Well, I—”

  “Upon my honor, I promise to behave like a gentleman. Think of it this way—between us, we will accomplish your chores all the sooner.”

  Isobel sighed. “Oh, very well,” she said at last, opening the battered wooden door to admit him. “But I warn you, my lord, any improper behavior will earn you a prod from my pitchfork.”

  The hours that followed were some of the best he had ever spent in the company of a maiden. Together they stacked the mounds of dusty flour sacks into orderly piles then swept the machinery and dusty floors, restoring the scruffy mill to neatness.

  The thick clouds of flour made Anselm cough and splutter, despite the kerchief he used to cover his mouth and nose, but Isobel’s company rendered such toil almost pleasurable, for not only was she beautiful, she was also amusing. To his delight he discovered she possessed a keen sense of humor, and was an excellent mimic too—almost as good as he was! Brutal in their exactness, her impersonations of various villagers sent Anselm into paroxysms of mirth.

  “Allow me to assist you with that basket, my dear.” In an instant her lovely face had twisted into the very image of her cousin, Jack. With almost supernatural accuracy, she narrowed her eyes and flicked them slyly from side to side. “A lady so fair should not be burdened like a beast.”

  Men and women, the old and the young, no one was safe from Isobel’s gift. She even managed to execute a passably good impression of Vadim. Although she did not speak, Anselm instantly recognized his friend’s usual wide-legged stance, and the same dark, brooding gaze shining out from Isobel’s lovely eyes. As a finale, she even raked back her hair in the same careless one-handed manner Vadim habitually used.

  With a grin, she held her out her hands, palms upward, herself once more. “That is all I can manage of him, I am afraid. Your brother is much too difficult a subject.”

  Anselm set aside the broom he had been leaning on and applauded, the action sending puffs of flour clouds into the air where they hung as if suspended, shining motes sparkling in the sunshine. “Splendid!” he cried. “Now what about me?”

  Isobel looked uncertain. “Oh, I am not sure about—”

  “Nonsense! Come along. Allow me to see myself through your eyes.”

  “Very well, but do not blame me if you do not like what you see.”

  It was slightly disconcerting to witness Isobel’s face assuming the hard-jawed visage of a man. “Upon my honor,” she said in a deep, husky tone, “I promise to behave like a gentleman.”

  Anselm shivered as if a cloud had just covered the sun. Astounding! Truly, her gift was magical. She even stood in the same way he did, with her legs planted apart and her chest puffed out. Her chest... It was all he could do to wrench his stare from the tempting swell of her breasts, and the exposed milky skin that rose and fell with each breath.

  “You did not like it?” Isobel was herself again and seemed crestfallen. “Forgive me, but I did try to warn you—”

  “No, no,” he said quickly. “Quite the reverse, I assure you. I was merely taken aback by the ease with which you captured me.”

  “Really?” Her smile returned.

  “Really.” And captured him she had. At that precise moment, something changed within him, and a never-used mechanism suddenly came to life within his heart and slid smoothly and quietly into place, locking Isobel inside it. Immovable as the mountains and as permanent as time, she was part of him now.

  As she stood before him dressed in her drab and dreadful apron, covered from head to toe in flour and cobweb strands, he finally understood the urgent whisperings of his heart. He felt as if he had woken for the very first time. Now he knew what it was to love a woman.

  The boy who had walked into the mill that morning was gone, never to return. Come what may, he would never be the same again.

  Far beyond merely corporeal, this feeling was deeper than anything he had ever felt before, and eons more tender. Of course, his body ached for hers, but it was more than that. So much more. Although he had yet to kiss her—as kiss her he surely would—on some level he instinctively knew that the briefest touch of her lips would far surpass any of the fleeting pleasure he had experienced in the arms of his other lovers.

  But as much as he wanted her, he had promised to behave honorably, and that he would continue to do, for Isobel believed in him. Not for all the joy in the afterlife would he betray that precious trust.

  Wispy as gossamer, a thread of magic danced and spiraled about their motionless forms, winding about them and holding them in place. Frozen by the powerful spell that wove about them, they gazed at one another for endless moments, unable to look away. The sudden softening of Isobel’s expression—a mixture of surprise and tenderness—told him she felt it too.

  Eventually, from outside, the excited barking of the village dogs shattered the fragile magic that imprisoned them. Isobel blinked and looked about her, almost as if she had never seen the neat interior of the mill before.

  With a soft smile, she said, “I think we have earned our walk in the sunshine, m’lord. That is, if you still wish to take me.”

  Still in the grip of the dream spell, Anselm grabbed Isobel’s shawl from its hook on the back of the door and, still unable to speak, held it for her while she quickly discarded her dusty apron and headscarf.

  The spirits smiled down from their heavens, favoring them with the perfect weather for their stroll. The sun bathed them in its warm, golden embrace, and the wind sighed softly through the tall grasses.

  Even the river seemed in good humor today. Dressed in all its finery, the water rushed by like a glittering silver road. Bubbling and merry, it careered over the rocks and stones that stood in its path, such was its haste to hurry down the valley.

  Side by side, they ambled along the riverbank. Whatever awkwardness had first lain between them was now gone. Talking and laughing like friends of long standing, they took their time and savored the beauty of the day.

  But like all old friends, eventually—inevitably—their conversation turned to deeper matters. Slowly following the path as it wound alongside the gurgling river, Anselm listened without interruption as Isobel finally spoke of the home she had left behind and the people who were no more.

  Hers had been an exceptionally close and affectionate
family; of that Anselm had no doubt. But beneath the cheerful anecdotes he sensed an unspoken sorrow that gradually permeated her words and robbed her tales of brightness.

  As she recounted the amusing story of how her two young brothers had fallen into a fast-moving stream while being chased by an angry farmer after they had been caught scrumping apples from his orchard, Anselm saw the trail of silent tears slipping down her cheeks.

  His heart contracted with pity. Poor Isobel. Her grief was still too near—her wounds too great—for such happy memories to be of any comfort. If anything, such tales only rubbed salt into the rawness of her soul, further increasing her suffering. The plague had taken everyone she had ever loved. It was much too soon for laughter.

  “B-But wh-what I cannot understand is wh-why...” As words failed her, Isobel swiped viciously at the head of a grassy stalk that had the misfortune to be overhanging their path.

  “Why you lived while they did not?”

  She glanced at him with apparent surprise and nodded, her mouth compressed in a tight line. “I-I hear them sometimes... at night,” she said in a trembling voice. “I cover my head with a pillow, but I can still hear them, crying out in their final torment and pleading with me to help them. S-Sometimes... I think I see them, even during the day, accusing me with their wide, dead stares...” She shook her head. “Are ghosts real, do you think? Why do they haunt me so?”

  Anselm sighed. If he could only take away her pain; he would have gladly borne the burden himself. Without speaking, quite unable to help himself, he reached for her hand. After only the slightest hesitation, Isobel’s little fingers slowly relaxed and entwined with his.

  His heart soared. It felt so natural, so right, to hold her, to offer what scraps of comfort he could. “I have seen such symptoms before,” he said. “Usually in soldiers, newly home from the battlefield. At first they are loud, full of swagger and bluster, overflowing with the relief of simply being alive. But as the days become weeks, there comes a change.” He was conscious of Isobel’s eyes boring into him as he spoke. “And I have watched those very same men as they gradually fade into shadows, each day becoming ever more withdrawn and unreachable until they shy away even from those they love the most.” Concentrating on the jagged mountain horizon ahead, he tried to banish a sudden, unwelcome, vision from his mind. Father: red faced, drunk, and reeling, ranting to people that no one else could see while the rest of the family pretended not to hear him.

  “And then?” Isobel prompted when the pause went on too long.

  ’Twas an excellent question, one that he could not fully answer for he had never encountered the same demons that tormented Father at night. “And then... then they continue, I suppose.” Well, some of them did. The remainder chose to drown themselves in ale or wandered without hope into the next battle, never to return.

  What was he doing? He was supposed to be heartening Isobel, not making her feel even more desperate. Forcing brightness into his voice, he added, “But given time, many of the afflicted learn to master their guilt.”

  “Guilt? For what? For being soldiers? For carrying out the orders of their liege lord?”

  “No. For surviving, especially when so many did not.”

  “Oh.”

  Anselm fancied he could almost hear her considering his words.

  Hand in hand they walked on, silent without awkwardness. Tumbling along beside them, the river kept them company, filling the void their absent voices had left with its merry song.

  By common accord, they paused to sit upon the carcass of an old tree that had fallen beside the riverbank. To divert Isobel from the melancholy direction of her thoughts, Anselm began telling her of his former life, back in the days when he had been the son of Edgeway’s noble steward. ’Twas a strange feeling, for he so seldom spoke of the past anymore, not even with Vadim who seemed equally as keen to avoid the subject.

  Throughout the long tale, Isobel sat beside him, basking in the sunshine and listening without interruption. She even giggled from time to time as she heard some of his and Vadim’s most notable exploits, which encouraged Anselm to share even more tales, for he loved the sound of her laughter.

  “By the spirits,” she said when he at last paused to draw breath, “I knew you and Vadim were high born, but I never imagined anything like this.’Tis hard to digest: you, the son of a steward, no less! Little wonder you are so arrogant. Now I understand why you strut around Mullin like a cockerel. ”

  To accuse him of arrogance was one thing, but to compare him to a lowly farmyard fowl was an insult too far. “I do not strut—”

  “Oh yes, you do, and well you know it!” Her teasing smile drove the breath from his lungs, effectively silencing his half hearted protest. Eyes twinkling with merriment, she flicked back her hair until it fell about her shoulders and rippled down her back in a gold sheet. “Strut, strut, strut!” she said with a laugh.

  Erde! She was so lovely. He put a hand to his chest and gently massaged a sudden aching in the region of his heart, almost as if someone had punched him there.

  Still Isobel laughed, but he could not be cross with her.

  “Well?” she demanded at last, shielding her eyes form the sun. “Do you deny it?”

  Anselm shook himself; he had been staring at her like a slack-jawed fool again. Clearing his throat, he said, “Perhaps I do strut a little, but only very occasionally.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “A little? Occasionally? Hah!”

  Unable to hold back the joy that welled up inside his heart, Anselm threw back his head and laughed. “That is how you see me then, as an arrogant cockerel?” he asked when his mirth had subsided. “Please continue, my lady. Tell me more of my flaws, for I find I am quite in the mood to hear you speak of them.”

  “That I will, m’lord, and gladly,” she said with another of her wicked grins. “Did I say cockerel? I was wrong. You actually remind me more of one of the king’s preening peacocks.”

  “Oh?” Now this comparison suited him far better. He would much rather be a regal peacock than a lowly cockerel. Unfortunately, most of the peacocks he had seen had been served as a course at one of the old earl’s more lavish banquets. The magnificent iridescent tail feathers of the male birds were much sought after by the noble folk, particularly those of court, and were often to be seen adorning their hats or fashioned into brooches. “A peacock, hmm?” His smile faded. Was that how she really saw him, all show and tail feathers? No wonder she had been displeased to find him on her doorstep.

  To his amazement, Isobel rested her hand lightly upon his thigh and said, “But I fear I might have misjudged you, my lord.”

  He caught his breath. The touch of her hand seemed to burn through the fabric of his trews into his bunched thigh muscle, but he forced himself not to react. It would not do to scare her away now.

  “So I am not the peacock you imagined me, then?” If his voice was a little gruff, it could not be helped, not when her closeness was making him so dizzy.

  “Oh, but you are.” She leaned even closer, and her breath brushed light and sweet against his lips. “Perhaps the nicest peacock I have ever known.” Her rosebud mouth curved into a tiny smile. “But are you truly a gentleman, I wonder?”

  The intoxicating scent of warm lavender enveloped him and made his senses swim. What was this, some kind of test, perhaps? Something in her eyes told him he was right. Shuffling uncomfortably upon the log, he ignored the tightening within his trews and silently thanked the spirits that his tunic was long enough to conceal his arousal.

  “For certain, I am.” As much as he longed to kiss her, he resisted the urge to do so. Had she not just trusted him with the most precious remembrances of her heart? He had no intention of failing her now. Not for anything would he spoil their new found understanding. “You are quite safe with me, I assure you.” Her touch... her friendship was enough. For now.

 
“Yes,” Isobel said with a smile. “I believe I am.” When she moved away, shuffling farther along the log, Anselm could not decide whether he was relieved or aggrieved by her distance. Still, he had undoubtedly passed her test. Whatever it was.

  Poor Isobel. For one so young, she had lost so much. How alone in life, how adrift she must feel. True, she had her uncle and cousin, but they could never make up for those she had lost.

  Family.

  At that very moment, Anselm had an epiphany. Being so close to Isobel’s sorrows had, quite unexpectedly, illuminated his own personal woes in a fresh and dazzling light.

  Back when ‘the troubles’ had first come to Edgeway, on that terrible night during which they had lost their home, their status, and so many good friends, Anselm had believed that his life was over. Now—thanks to Isobel—he suddenly saw things differently. The truth was, he had been extremely fortunate. They all had.

  However much of a comedown it was, having to live in Darumvale and sharing its so-called great hall with a herd of animals, things could have been much worse. For all that it was a hovel, the core of home remained intact, as steadfast and constant as it had ever been. Throughout everything, through all the turmoil and the subsequent upheaval, Father and Mother had been at his side caring for him. Loving him. An unexpected wave of affection for his parents crashed over him.

  Had the fates been crueler, how different his life might now have been. If he had survived.

  Smiling tenderly at the watchful girl beside him, Anselm reached out to stroke back a strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes.

  Although his family now lived no better than the lowliest peasant, for the first time in a long time Anselm felt content with his lot in life. With Isobel by his side, he was actually happy. And when she smiled at him like that, he felt like a king.

  The misfortunes of the past were over, and the glory days still to come. Like a road paved with gold, full of wondrous opportunities, the future lay stretched out before him, beckoning him to chase the horizon.