THE HEIRESS
EPISODE 40
From U.S Bah ❤ ✌?
“Good evening, Isabelle,” Leopold drawled, not
bothering to rise from where he sat, sprawled
across her favourite armchair. Isabelle’s eyes
darted among the five men gathered in her
room, her hand reaching behind her for the
doorknob.
Father Hammond was staring at his
feet, his folded hands concealed by his sleeves
as one of Leopold’s cronies hovered
menacingly behind him. The other two
advanced towards her at a gesture from
Leopold.
She managed to reach the door handle before
two pairs of strong arms lifted her off her feet
and away from escape. A scream rose in her
throat, only to be cut off as one of them
clapped a hand over her mouth and dragged
her backwards.
She scrabbled against his hold,
bi-ting and scratching as best she could, but
Leopold’s men had come prepared. The pair of
them wore heavy leather gloves against which
her teeth and nails were useless. Panic
bubbled up inside her as one of Leopold’s
men locked the door, tossing the key to the
foreign prince.
“Now now, love,” Leopold said, sli-pping the
key into his pocket as he tipped back the
dregs of a wine goblet. “There’s no need for
such a fuss. I offered you the easy way the
last time we spoke, but it seems you’ve
chosen poorly.”
As her eyes darted to Father Hammond,
his
skin pale against the dark vestments he’d worn
for the funeral, Isabelle’s panic threatened to
overtake her. There could only be one reason
Leo wanted a priest and three witnesses in her
room…
Think, Isabelle.
It was Graham’s voice in her head, the same
calm, chiding tone he’d used when they’d
walked together in the gardens all those weeks
ago.
Going slack, she sniffled, channelling all her
panic into tears.
As she cried, Leopold
gestured to the man holding her. As soon as
he released her, she crumpled to the floor in a
puddle of dark mourning skirts.
She fought down her panic once again as she
noticed the pile of discarded, bloody Winters
livery in the corner. That must have been how
they’d gained entry to the castle…
“Did you come to gloat about how you could
have saved him? About how Germanian
medicine is superior to ours?” she sobbed,
tearing her eyes away from the tartan stained
with innocent northerners’ blood.
Let him think that she wasn’t intelligent enough
to have figured out it was Leopold who had
poisoned her father. Let him think that she was
still that pathetic, mewling, lost little girl…
“Darling, I offered you salvation and you
attacked me,” Leopold said, standing.
Isabelle’s entire body tensed as he
approached.
She fished a handkerchief from
her pocket to cover her face, her mind racing
to formulate some sort of plan.
She needed the key. She needed to get out of
this room before Leopold succeeded at
whatever it was he’d come here to accomplish.
She needed to distract him. There would be no
overpowering the other men in this room, not
even with Father Hammond’s help. What she
didn’t have in brute strength, she would have to
make up for with wiles.
“Can you fault me? My father was dying and
you held the cure!” she sniffled. “An honest,
righteous man would’ve allowed me to heal my
father and then bother with negotiating a
marriage!”
“Your father was in my way,” Leopold said,
standing over her. “He of all people should
have known what happens to people who get
in my way.”
It was as good as an admission of guilt, which
meant that he no doubt realized she’d come to
that conclusion on her own. Her heart
hammered in her ears as she tipped her head
back to look up at him.
Leopold was smiling.
He was smiling down at her like the victor
surveying his prize.
But Isabelle was not a prize.
“Am I in your way?” she asked calmly, her
tears drying as she stared up at him, nothing
of the timid little girl left as she held his gaze.
“That all depends,” Leopold said. “Will you
come willingly this time?” he asked, folding his
arms to stare down at her. Her bones chilled at
the look of utter triumph on his face.
“Will you release Father Hammond?” Isabelle
asked. The priest made a noise behind her as
if he were about to speak, but steel rang and
he fell silent. Isabelle didn’t dare look around
to see what Leopold’s man had done to
silence the priest.
Leopold chuckled.
“No, I will not,” he said. “Not until he’s done
what he is here to do.”
Isabelle knew that the time to formulate a plan
was sli-pping away. The jaws of the trap were
snapping closed and she had nothing left to
bargain with. Leopold was going to for-ce
Father Hammond to marry them. It was the
only way he could leave this castle alive,
especially if any of the men downstairs
discovered him. She could scream, but
everyone was downstairs at the feast. The
castle was too large for anyone to hear her,
which was exactly what Leopold had bargained
on by cornering her here.
Despite her best efforts, Isabelle couldn’t think
of a single plan that allowed her to leave the
room alive and unmarried.
Swallowing, she lifted her hand to Leopold, her
skin crawling as he took it to help her rise.
She turned just quickly enough to see
Leopold’s henchman tuck away the knife he’d
been holding to the old priest’s throat. A
bloody line marred the priest’s ne-ck where the
blade had bitten into his flesh.
This couldn’t be happening, she thought,
looking at the man that had counselled her
father and presided over their Sunday worship
since she was a little girl. The look on Father
Hammond’s face said that he was thinking the
same, Isabelle’s desperation mirrored in his
eyes.
Think, Isabelle.
Leopold needed both of them alive. If Father
Hammond was killed, Isabelle could deny that
any marriage had taken place, especially since
Leopold’s three witnesses were highly biased
in his favour. With a dead priest, the Church of
Pretania would never recognize their marriage
as legal if Isabelle denied it. If she was killed
rather than Father Hammond, she knew beyond
the shadow of a doubt that the priest would
deny their marriage if only to protect Kentshire.
The priest loved his flock more than anything
else. If he was for-ced to martyr himself on
Leopold’s blade to protect the duchy from the
tyrannous Germanian prince, he would.
Isabelle hadn’t watched her father die only to
end up married to the bastard who killed him.
“Father Hammond, I do believe my bride is
ready for the ceremony,” Leopold said, his
hand closing like a vice on her arm. The
seconds were sli-pping away too quickly. There
was no escape, not if she wanted to leave her
bedchamber alive.
A cold wave of realization rippled across her
skin. Perhaps this was her fate. Perhaps she,
like her father, was meant to die here in
defense of Kentshire, rather than cede it to the
barbaric prince attempting to for-ce her into
marriage. The castle was flooded with Winters
men and Sam and his father would never let
Kentshire fall to Leopold, not if Isabelle died to
protect it.
Of her two choices, death was far preferable to
a lifetime of marriage to her father’s murderer.
Lifting the handkerchief to her face, Isabelle
used the movement to glance down towards
Leopold’s weaponry. She would never be able
to draw his sword quickly enough, but the
vicious little blade he kept tucked into his boot
would do…
“So help me Lord, but I will not condone this,”
Father Hammond said. Torn from her thoughts,
Isabelle looked up at him in shock, but the
priest’s fingers were curled around his cross,
nothing but defiance in his old eyes as he
stared down the foreign prince. Leopold
growled, steel ringing as he drew his sword.
“Then you’d best hope the Lord is on your
side, for I won’t hesitate to cut you down, old
man,” Leopold snarled.
“You can’t marry me without him!” Isabelle
screamed as Leopold raised his sword. But
Father Hammond seemed just as resolved to
give his life to defend his homeland as
Isabelle had been mere moments ago. He did
not flinch away from Leopold, his li-ps moving
in silent prayer as he watched the prince’s
advance.
There had been enough bloodshed today.
With a scream, Isabelle leaped for Leopold’s
turned back, her weight throwing him off
balance and sending him staggering away from
the priest. Heedless of his blade, she gouged
her fingernails into his face, aiming for his
eyes. He roared in pain before his men to-re
her off of him. She struggled to break free, but
they pinned her arms behind her back. The
third man had his knife to Father Hammond’s
throat once again as Leopold wiped the blood
from the scratches along his face and
forehead.
“I will remember this,” Leopold said darkly,
murder in his eyes.
Isabelle’s scream was cut off as the hilt of his
sword connected with her head.
~*~
Graham stayed only as long as necessary,
seeking out Kentshire’s estate agent to give his
condolences before abandoning his untou-ched
goblet of mulled wine. He never un-derstood
the northerners’ feasting tradition, as funerals
had never particularly roused his appetite. But
the feast was far preferable to what he faced
back at the inn.
His men awaited him in their rented rooms,
along with the surly captain of his father’s
for-ces. The palace men remained camped just
south of Inverloch, thanks solely to Graham’s
skillful manipulation. But time was running out
and the captain of the king’s for-ces was
growing impatient. He’d talked his way around
his father’s orders long enough to keep the
king’s men from marching in and interrupting
the duke’s funeral. How much longer he could
keep them out of Inverloch and away from
Isabelle remained to be determined.
They had been sent to arrest and imprison her
for her disobedience. Now that she was the
duchess of Kentshire, however, she could hole
herself up in her castle, surrounded by her
men-at-arms, and refuse to obey. That Lord
Winters’ men had arrived so quickly was
fortuitous indeed, especially since the
northerners would, without a doubt, side with
the new duchess rather than the king. With
both Umberwood and Kentshire united to
defend her, the king would never succeed in
taking her from her home.
What remained to be seen was whether his
father would risk inciting civil war to punish
Isabelle. If Graham didn’t succeed in turning
his father’s men around and sending them
back to Highcastle, Kentshire and Umberwood
would ally against the crown’s for-ces. Any
attempt by the king to march his men into
Inverloch would no doubt be the spark that
ignited the tinderbox. Graham was not foolish
enough to think that Kentshire and Umberwood
were the only territories with a tenuous loyalty
to crown. His father was merciless with his
nobles, which meant that there were bound to
be more that would seize upon any opportunity
to overthrow him.
And if the king was overthrown, Graham was
as good as dead as well.
With a sigh, he pulled up the hood of his cloak
as he crossed the entrance hall. He would sort
this mess out, he always did. But now that
he’d laid eyes on her again, tear-stained and
pale in her mourning dress, he couldn’t shake
Isabelle de Haviland from his thoughts.
He ought to go check on her.
The idea had been tumbling around his
thoughts from the moment he’d set foot in the
great hall, from the moment she’d disappeared
up the darkened stairs towards her
bedchamber. Something nagged in his gut at
the thought of her all alone in some cold,
silent room so soon after burying her father. It
was wrong, but clearly Isabelle had wanted to
be left alone, if her avoidance of the feast was
any indication.
Graham’s feet paused at the great castle doors
nonetheless, unwilling to cross the threshold.
He ought to go check on her.
He hadn’t the last time and he’d paid for it,
dearly. He hadn’t been brave enough to face
the aftermath of his silence in Highcastle. The
ice in her eyes upon seeing him in the
graveyard had confirmed that he’d broken
whatever had grown between them. But that
didn’t mean that he had stopped caring about
her, had stopped worrying about her. After all
he’d gone throu-ghto get her here safely, he
couldn’t leave her castle before he was certain
that she would be all right without him.
Well aware that Sam Winters was still tracking
his every move, he turned on his heel and took
the stairs two at a time. He had little doubt
that the northerner would follow him, ever
Isabelle’s loyal guard dog. But Graham
wouldn’t leave without checking on her.
The upstairs hallways were dark, save for a
few dim candles, and utterly silent. The entirety
of the castle staff was downstairs, celebrating
the duke’s life at the feast. Their chatter was
muted by the thick stone walls and a chill
raced across Graham’s spine. It was too quiet.
But then again, this was Kentshire castle, one
of the oldest in Pretania.
Footsteps echoed on the stairs behind him and
Graham figured he might as well have Sam
Winters at his side, if only so he could figure
out which of the many rooms was Isabelle’s.
“You have no right-” Sam started, his eyes
blazing as his hand went to the hilt of his
sword.
But the big redhead’s words died in his throat
as a stifled scream echoed from behind one of
the nearby doors.
To be continued…..