THE HEIRESS
EPISODE 18
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For the first time since she’d arrived at the
palace, Isabelle went out of her way to start
avoiding the prince. Before, she’d considered
him a nuisance and a pest, but after their walk
in the gardens, she’d come to realize that he
was far too skilled a manipulator for her to
spend any more time in his company than was
necessary.
The fact that she’d begun to
question Leopold’s character after their
conversations had shaken her, especially since
she still hadn’t yet received any letters from
her betrothed.
Conflicted, she’d turned to the advice from the
one man she knew that she could always trust.
Her father had warned her from the beginning
about staying away from Prince Graham. Now
that the prince had dared to insinuate that her
father had lied to her to keep her content with
Leopold, she realized that the jaws of a trap
were slowly closing around her. Graham had
planted the seed of doubt in her mind and
she’d allowed it to take root.
But she was done with that now.
She wouldn’t spend any more time with him, if
she could help it. She’d rip those doubts from
her mind and stay far enough away that he
wouldn’t be able to plant any more. Her father
had confirmed that he had also not received
any word from Ardalone, which rea-ssured
Isabelle that perhaps Leopold’s letters had
been delayed by some shipping mishap.
Of more concern, however, was what Graham
had told her about Alicia. Now that she knew
what the lady-in-waiting was up to, Isabelle
had taken to writing double the letters, one for
the benefit of the queen and one that she truly
intended to send. When it came to her letters
to Leopold, she didn’t change very much as
she didn’t care if the queen knew exactly how
she felt about her farce of a court, but she
didn’t dare let her questions about Rhysalia fall
into Graham’s hands.
For him to know that
he’d shaken her sufficiently for her to gently
question her betrothed about his mother and
her court would please the prince, something
Isabelle vehemently refused to do.
Though even as she artfully arranged her
papers so Alicia could easily steal them as
soon as Isabelle left for the evening’s ball, she
couldn’t shake the nagging thought that she
was missing something. Graham had told her
about Alicia’s ruse with the stationery, but why?
Clearly he’d gained from the wicked little imp’s
espionage, so why eliminate the only access
he had to Isabelle’s letters?
Unless, of course, he had something else up
his sleeve.
She hated that he always seemed to be five
steps ahead of her.
No matter how ha-rd she
tried, she couldn’t puzzle out what he was up
to until it had already happened. Her best
guess was that Graham’s father had put him to
the task of ensuring that she never married
Leopold. He was doing an unnervingly good
job of attempting to change her mind, but now
that she’d caught on, she wasn’t going to allow
him to make any more headway.
Little did she know, however, that the prince
had only just begun.
Graham wasted no time upon entering the ball
that evening, bypa-ssing all the other
debutantes that had flocked towards the
thrones to haul Isabelle onto the dance floor.
She’d been loitering behind a column on the
other side of the buffet table, but he’d located
her with ruthless efficiency.
She refused to let
him think that she’d been hiding, accepting his
outstretched hand with a smile that probably
looked more like a grimace.
“Honouring me with your first dance, how
fascinating,” Isabelle mused, channelling her
inner manipulator as the prince lined her up for
a waltz. “Does this mean that you’re no longer
disappointed in me?”
“On the contrary. It seems that I’m now waging
even more of an uphill battle,” Graham replied,
his trademark arrogant grin in place.
“If you’re referring to your attempts to sabotage
my betrothal, you should know that there isn’t
a thing you can do to change my mind,”
Isabelle said, doing her best to appear
disinterested as they spun around the dance
floor.
“I beg to differ,” Graham muttered. When she
looked back at him, something wicked
glittered in his eyes. Isabelle bit back the
sharp insult that rose to her tongue, annoyed
that she couldn’t fight the blus-h rising into her
cheeks.
“Do you really think that any of your cra-ss
behaviour is tempting in the least?” Isabelle
asked, once again casting her gaze elsewhere.
Best to appear disinterested rather than allow
him to see that he was successfully prodding
at her temper.
“I have it on good authority that my ‘cra-ss’
behaviour isn’t merely tempting, it’s absolutely
ravishing,” Graham replied. “Would you care for
a demonstration?”
“Not in the least,” Isabelle snapped, a
frustrated sigh escaping her li-ps when she
realized that he’d gotten the best of her yet
again.
“Your blus-h would suggest otherwise,” Graham
grinned, running his eyes over her face in such
a way that it drove even more colour into her
cheeks.
Abandoning all pretence of poise,
Isabelle changed tack, bent on frustrating the
prince just as badly as he was frustrating her.
“I un-derstand that the Ardalonian wedding took
place today,” she said, keeping her gaze far
from the prince’s face. “Which means that
Leopold’s return is imminent.”
“You sweet, innocent little thing,” Graham
chuckled. “He hasn’t bothered to reply to any
of your many, many letters. How can you still
believe that he loves you, let alone that he’s
coming back for you?”
His words yanked her gaze back to his face,
that same stony look in his eyes from their
walk in the gardens despite the taunting smile
on his li-ps.
Taking another moment to gather
her thoughts, Isabelle shifted away from her
defensive instinct and lashed out.
“Are you really one to be preaching about
love?” she asked.
“You say that as if you have the faintest clue
what real love is,” Graham said, amused.
“Must
I shake you to wake you from this dreamland
you’ve invented? Leopold loves the idea of
Kentshire seceding from Britannia. He doesn’t
love you in the least.”
“He has always and will always love me!”
Isabelle shot back, her eyes blazing as she
met the prince’s glare with one of her own.
“In my opinion, when a man loves a woman,
he responds to her letters,” Graham said
coolly. “Especially when those letters waste far
too much ink complaining about another man’s
attentions.”
Isabelle gritted her teeth as she looked away,
hating the way Graham was so calmly twisting
the knife in her heart. Up until today, he’d read
all her letters. He knew how she’d kept
mentioning him, mostly to rea-ssure Leopold
that she still thought Graham was a cad.
But
she hadn’t stopped to consider how it would
have seemed for her to spend the majority of
each letter writing about another man.
The rest of the dance whirled by as the colours
blurred before Isabelle’s eyes. She blinked
furiously, refusing to cry in public, but as soon
as Graham released her, she curtseyed and
fled.
Seeking refuge in the ladies’ resting room, she
hadn’t anticipated what awaited her there
before rushing throu-ghthe door, nearly
slamming into the butler who hurried to open it
for her.
“…like a common trollop chasing two crowns,
it’s absolutely vulgar!”
Isabelle drew up short as Henrietta Barclay
whirled around to face her. Behind the
redhead, Cora Neasmith’s eyes had gone wide,
a satin-gloved hand pressed to her mouth in
shock. The pair of debutantes were surrounded
by their ladies-in-waiting, silence washing over
the room as eight pairs of eyes stared at
Isabelle.
“Would you care to say that to my face,
Henrietta?” Isabelle said finally, her heart
hammering in her che-st.
Henrietta blinked
furiously, opening her mouth to speak before
letting out an awkward little laugh.
“Oh, you vain thing, did you think I was talking
about you?” she asked archly, snapping open
her fan to give a few vigorous bats. Two of the
ladies-in-waiting tittered, cruel little sm-irks on
their faces. Isabelle surveyed them each in turn
as an icy calm settled over her.
She’d had quite enough.
She knew very well that they’d been gossiping
about her and the guilty look on Cora’s face
said that she’d been a particip@n-t, not a
bystander. Such vile words from Henrietta
didn’t surprise Isabelle in the least, but for
Cora to listen and giggle along with the rest of
them was unacceptable.
“After all our years of friendship,” Isabelle said,
rounding on Cora. “After all I’ve done for you,
both at school and here, you turn on me in
favour of this pathetic pig in a skirt?”
Henrietta gasped, her fan clattering to the floor
as scandalized whispers rose from the ladies-
in-waiting. But Isabelle only had eyes for Cora.
Her beautiful friend had at least had the grace
to look ashamed, unable to look Isabelle in the
eye. When she said nothing, Isabelle shook her
head in disgust.
“You are dead to me, Cora Neasmith,” she
said, gathering her skirts as the ladies-in-
waiting tittered once again at the oath.
Bursting from the ladies’ room, Isabelle didn’t
care who was watching as she stormed from
the ballroom. Curse them. Curse them all and
their infernal court. Leopold was coming to
save her from this nightmare of backstabbing
friends and devious princes. She hurried as
fast as her heeled sli-ppers could carry her
back towards her suite. Her corset was
digging painfully into her ribs as she gasped
for breath, the world swimming before her
eyes once again. Frustrated, she dashed the
tears from her eyes, leaving we-t tracks along
the wrists of her gloves.
She was halfway throu-ghher sitting room, her
fingers already curling around the call bell,
when Laura coughed. Or was it Marjorie?
Isabelle didn’t care, but when she turned to
face the twins, one of them helping sew a lost
bu-tton back onto the other’s dress, Isabelle’s
frustrated tears finally spilled over.
“Are you all right?” one of the twins asked,
blinking her big blue eyes before exchanging a
worried look with her sister.
“Am I not allowed any peace and privacy in
this infernal place?” was all that Isabelle
snarled before dashing back out of the room.
Out of desperation, her feet carried her to the
one place in the palace that had ever been a
sanctuary for her, treading the dark halls from
memory. Leaning back against the door to the
windowed solar she so often frequented, she
for-ced herself to calm down. She was gasping
for air, her head starting to spin from having
run halfway across the palace in a ti-ghtly laced
corset. Sinking to the floor in a rustle of silk
skirts, she tugged off her gloves with a
frustrated sob, chucking them away before
burying her face in her hands.
She needed to pull herself together. Yes, she
was at her wit’s end, but she was a de
Haviland. De Havilands did not come apart at
the seams un-der the merest hint of pressure. It
should have taken far more to break her, but
the combination of Graham’s harsh words, the
nagging feeling at the back of her mind that he
might be right, and Cora’s betrayal, it had all
been too much.
So she sat in a puddle of skirts on the floor,
hugging herself until the dark thoughts ebbed
and she felt strong enough to stand. She nearly
tripped over her petticoats and then a side
table as she fumbled around in the dark,
nothing but a faint beam of moonlight cutting
across the carpet to light her way. The dying
embers of a fire still glowed in the hearth, so
Isabelle set to work.
Her father had taught her how to start and
stoke a fire, as well as how to camp outdoors
un-der the stars, all skills he’d been taught as a
boy but had never had the good fortune to
pa-ss along to a son of his own. Within
minutes, she’d fed another log onto the fire,
careful not to get any soot on her skirts as she
sat and stared at the growing flames. Thinking
of home had ignited a powerful longing to feel
her father’s rea-ssuring arms around her, telling
her that it would all be all right. Isabelle didn’t
have the luxury of his comfort, so she slowly
started to piece her mental armour back
together on her own.
The heat from the fire was welcome as she
finally regained her composure and realized
how chilly it was in the deserted room. The
crackling of the dry log she’d added to the
stoked embers cleared her mind of all the
evening’s conversations, stilling her thoughts
until the panicked urge to flee abated.
If Laura and Marjorie hadn’t been in the suite,
she’d likely have summoned Lissa and
instructed her to pack her things and summon
a carriage. Such a move would have defeated
the entire purpose of her time in the palace
and, for the first time, Isabelle was grateful for
the twins. Their wardrobe adjustment had
likely saved a number of Kentshire peasants
from starving throu-ghthe winter…
The squeak of the door hinges echoed like a
scream in the quiet of the library. Isabelle
sprang to her feet, the fire poker brandished
towards the door.
She didn’t lower it as the prince co-ck ed his
head at her.
To be continued….