THE HEIRESS
EPISODE 42
From U.S Bah ❤ ✌?
Isabelle awoke with a splitting headache,
worsened by the throbbing of her hands and
the stinging wound on her ne-ck. It took her a
few moments to realize she’d been put to
sleep in one of the many guest suites in the
castle,
this one decorated in shades of plum
to compliment the rosewood furniture. The
colours swam before her as she sque-ezed her
eyes closed, the memories of last night
flooding her thoughts.
She clung to one, seizing onto it if only to keep
from drowning in the swirling abyss of loss
and pain that threatened to swallow her whole.
Graham.
He’d come back. He loved her. He’d barged in
with Sam Winters and helped free her from
whatever hell Leopold had planned for her.
He’d bandaged her bleeding, injured hands.
He’d come back for her.
He loved her.
Truth be told, his admission hadn’t come as a
surprise. She’d had her suspicions since the
day he’d pinned her into a shadowy corner of
the ballroom terrace and told her that he
couldn’t stand to see Leopold’s ring around her
finger…
Just the thought of Leopold’s name sent her
stomach plummeting and had the blood
roaring in her ears.
Reaching for the call bell, she winced at both
the movement and the twin bandages winding
around her palms. Her fingers were just ba-rely
able to close around the rope,
compressed
and held rigidly in place by the bandages.
Brown, crusted blood darkened both palms
and the sharp dart of pain she’d felt at using
her hand told Isabelle that she probably
shouldn’t have sque-ezed her palm so soon
after her injury. She gingerly felt the place
where Leopold’s sword had bitten into her
ne-ck, another bandage tied there too.
Before she was overwhelmed by thoughts of
her wounds and how hideous they must be
beneath her bandages, she focused on the fact
that she was alive and that she was free. If she
bore the scars of her fight to free herself for
the rest of her life, at least she would bear
them as the Duchess of Kentshire and not as
Leopold’s subordinate queen.
If Leopold had even planned to keep her alive
that long…
“You’re awake!”
So caught up in inspecting her injuries and
fighting back her dread, she hadn’t heard the
service door open. Lissa nearly dropped the
tea tray she’d been carrying in her rush to
throw her arms around Isabelle.
“You’re safe!” Isabelle exclaimed, squeezing her
maid just as ti-ghtly in return.
“We arrived with Lord Winters,” she said.
“Cedric stayed with me the entire way.”
“It’s nice to have a familiar face,” Isabelle said,
fighting her pooling tears as Lissa tried not to
look at the bandages winding around her
mistress.
“I nearly jumped out of my skin when you rang,
it’s still hours before dawn,” Lissa said, turning
her attention to the tea tray. “Though the
palace healers have told me that you’re not to
leave your bed today.”
Isabelle didn’t miss the fact that her maid’s
hands were shaking as she poured.
“I’d like to know what became of Leopold,”
Isabelle said, his name like ash on her tongue.
Lissa stilled.
“Perhaps you ought to focus on you recovery
before-” Lissa started gently.
“Lissa,” Isabelle said firmly.
Her maid pursed
her li-ps.
“The last I’d heard, he was being kept in the
dungeons. Rightfully so, I say,” Lissa said, her
li-ps curling into a vicious little sneer as she
shook away thoughts of the foreign prince.
“Vile monster of a man.”
Isabelle obliged Lissa by taking a fortifying
gulp of the heavily sugared tea before pushing
the covers off as best she could with her
injured hands.
“Help me get dressed,” Isabelle said, waving
away her maid’s protests and fighting down her
dread at the prospect of facing her father’s
murderer.
~*~
“If you think I’ll do a damned thing to help you,
you’re wrong,” Leopold spat, his eyes little
more than slits after Sam’s beating.
Graham sat on a wooden stool, facing the
foreign prince who was chained to the cold
stone wall. The wound that Sam had opened
on the prince’s face had been closed by one of
the healers, but Graham couldn’t help but hope
it would scar.
A glistening scar across his face
would serve as a nice little reminder of what
Leopold had attempted and failed.
Except he hadn’t failed, not completely. The
foreign prince knew far more than he’d let on
before about the state of Pretania’s finances
and the unrest simmering among the nobility.
Leopold had banked on that, knowing that
starting a war would push Pretania to the
breaking point, both financially and politically.
It was the only reason he’d been brazen enough
to return to Inverloch for Isabelle after the
duke’s death.
The fact remained,
however, that Leopold was
suspected of having poisoned Duke Francis.
As such, un-der Pretanian law, Leopold was to
be tried in the Pretanian High Court, whose jury
comprised members of the king’s council.
Duke Francis had been a dear friend and ally
of many men on that council.
And that council was the very same one where
Isabelle now held a seat as the Duchess of
Kentshire.
“As I’ve very patiently pointed out more times
than I can count, I don’t see that you have
much of a choice,” Graham repeated. He was
exhausted. He was hungry. He wanted a warm
bed and a hot meal and a reprieve from this
nightmare so he could sort his thoughts out.
But he was not yet ready to surrender to the
day, not until he accomplished what he’d come
for.
“Either you release me, or we’re at war. It’s in
your hands, Graham,” Leopold spat. “Unless
you’re too scared to decide, like your pitiful
excuse of a father.”
“I decided weeks ago that I’d very much enjoy
seeing your head on a pike above my palace
gates,” Graham replied evenly, his patience
fraying. “Though thankfully for you, I have an
alternative offer.”
“I’m on pins and needles,” Leopold said,
glaring as best he could throu-ghhis bruises.
“You sign a peace treaty on behalf of your
father, agreeing to cease all hostilities against
Pretania-”
Leopold laughed, the sound grating against
every last nerve in Graham’s body.
“I never thought I’d say this, but Isabelle was
right. You really are an imbecile,” Leopold
chuckled.
It took every ounce of Graham’s willpower not
to leap to his feet and deliver a fresh beating.
That Leopold had the gall to so much as
speak Isabelle’s name…
“Oh yes,” Leopold continued, misinterpreting
his silence. “Don’t forget that I’ve known her far
longer than you have. Well done on
brainwashing her, I must say. Though hopefully
you’ll help her improve on those kis-ses.
Terrible, truly terrib-”
This time the stool did topple over, Graham’s
fists already curling into balls.
“Stop.”
The voice had Leopold laughing once again.
“Why hello, love,” he drawled. “What a fetching
ne-cklace. Bloody, but it suits you.”
Gritting his teeth against the venom he longed
to spit at the cad of a man before him,
Graham for-ced himself to turn towards the
voice he knew so well. He hadn’t wanted to
believe that she’d venture all the way down
here in the frigid pre-dawn, but here she was.
Standing in the doorway to the cell, her maid
holding a candle beside her, was Isabelle De
Havilland, the bandages on her ne-ck and hands
the only evidence of last night’s events. She’d
washed and dressed in fresh black mourning
attire, her hair tucked back into a knot at the
nape of her ne-ck.
But there was something wrong with her eyes.
He’d never seen them so cold, nor so full of
hatred as they landed on the foreign prince.
Folding his arms, the tension loosed itself
from his body as Graham waited for what he
knew was coming.
Leopold’s words hung in the silence between
them before Isabelle crossed the room with
remarkable speed, using her fingernails to tear
out two of the stitches holding the flesh of
Leopold’s cheek together. He thrashed against
his chains, screaming out as she backed away,
a fresh trickle of blood leaking down to drip
off his chin.
“Now we’ll match, darling,” she said, her voice
as frosty as the northern wastes.
“I will kill you, you little-” Leopold began, the
hysteria mounting in his voice once again.
“And she can have your head as a centerpiece,
if she so desires,” Graham thun-dered over him.
“Mind your manners.”
Leopold’s eyes narrowed as they slid between
them both.
“Your terms,” he said finally. Isabelle looked
over at Graham in surprise as he reached into
his pocket to remove a sheaf of papers.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Signing a peace treaty,” Graham said. Isabelle
nearly to-re the stack of papers from his hands.
“He killed my father!” she snarled. “He
deserves death and nothing more!”
Leopold watched them spar in silence.
“He is a crown prince of Germania,” Graham
said patiently, hating that it had come to this.
“If we kill him, we go to war, with Kentshire as
the battleground. Do you think they’ll stop
fighting so your farmers can sow their fields in
the spring? Do you think they’ll limit their
battles to your uninhabited lands rather than
raze whatever villages and towns are in their
way? Are you prepared to feed, shelter, and
clothe the sheer number of people who will
come flocking to Inverloch for protection?”
The questions hit her like arrows, deflating the
rage and bloodlust that had driven her down to
the dungeons in the first place. She’d taken a
sick satisfaction from ripping open Leopold’s
wound, but she hadn’t intended on stopping
there. She wanted him dead so she could send
his head home to his father in a box, with a
warning about crossing her ever again.
But now that Graham had punched so many
holes in her plan, she was able to see it for
what it was: nothing more than petty revenge.
Killing her father’s murderer only to plunge
Kentshire into war was not how Duke Francis
would have wanted her to avenge him.
Kentshire needed a good harvest next year.
They had enough men-at-arms to defend
Inverloch, but none of the other towns and
hamlets un-der her protection. They had enough
food to see the castle and the town throu-gh
the winter, but not if the surrounding farmers
and villagers flocked to her for protection.
As much as it to-re her already broken heart to
pieces, Graham was right.
“Tell me about the treaty,” she said, turning her
eyes down the papers she’d torn from
Graham’s hands.
“On behalf of the Germanian crown, Leopold
hereby agrees to cease all hostilities against
Pretania and recognize Kentshire as Pretorian
territory, in exchange for his pardon for the
murder of Duke Francis De Havilland,” Graham
said.
Leopold remained silent, too silent.
“It’s a piece of paper,” Isabelle said, handing it
back to Graham. “What’s to stop him from
turning around and marching back in once he’s
safely behind his own lines?”
Graham couldn’t help but smile that she’d
found the very same loophole Leopold had
clearly seized upon.
“That is why I am having him sign multiple
copies, so that Germania’s neighbours in
Ardalone, Rittenland, Vareinne, and Bazera, as
well as the colonies in the New World will
know exactly what transpired here. If Germania
invades, the rest of the world will know that
his word is worthless. As a future king,
Leopold’s goodwill to broker deals with any
other nation in the region will be
compromised.”
“Schwein ,” Leopold swore un-der his breath.
Isabelle remained staring at the papers that
now sat safely in Graham’s hands.
“Of course, if you’d rather he be punished
according to Kentshire law, I defer to your
authority, your Grace,” Graham said quietly.
The silence blanketed the room so heavily that
it was almost too ha-rd for Isabelle to breathe.
Kentshire law permitted her to mete out justice
for any crimes committed on her lands.
Murder was punishable by death, which meant
that Leopold’s life was hers to take, if she
wanted it. She most certainly did want it, but
Graham’s counter-argument had given her
pause.
Killing Leopold would avenge her father, but
plunge Kentshire into turmoil. A failed harvest
next season would ruin the duchy and Isabelle
would not be able to protect her people from
the warfare Leopold’s father would rain down
upon her for taking his son’s life.
“If he signs them, I will not interfere,” she said
finally, bile rising to the back of her throat.
Graham regarded her calmly for a few
moments, as if giving her the chance to
change her mind.
But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t doom her
people for the sake of revenge. She would get
her revenge on Leopold by living a life free
from his shackles, protected by Graham’s
treaty.
When she looked to Leopold for his answer,
Graham dragged over the battered wooden
table from the corner.
“You are going to rue the day you crossed me,”
Leopold spat, seizing Graham’s proffered quill.
He grumbled in Germanian as he signed each
copy with his jagged, spiky signature, sliding
them over to Graham.
Isabelle for-ced herself to watch. She for-ced
herself to bear witness as her future king
signed the paper pardoning her father’s
murderer to protect her people and the rest of
Pretania from the ravages of war. She had no
doubt that these two men would meet in the
future, with both of them destined to be kings.
She also did not doubt that the bad blood
between the two would never be forgotten.
As far as she was concerned, forgiveness was
also out of the question, a sentiment she very
much hoped Graham shared.
“Excellent,” Graham said, inspecting each copy.
“I’ll send some men to escort you out.”
Leopold spat, bitterly staring at the wall as
Graham ushered Isabelle out.
To be continued…..