The Devil's Mistress by David Barclay (summer reads txt) 📗

Chapter 6

My Dearest Isabella,

I am vexed once more at having missed the pleasure of your company. It seems every occasion I visit your father’s estate, you are out on one adventure or another. With our nuptials imminent next week, I am sure you are feeling ill at ease at the thought of losing the freedom you enjoy beneath your father’s roof.

Rest assured, my little love bucket, we have an entire stable of horses. You are free to ride at your leisure, and I shall offer no restraints. My men-at-arms will accompany you wherever you go to keep you safe. Of course, whenever you are close, I will hug you tightly!

My mother is arranging dinner for us tomorrow at midday, and I will expect you in your full glory at half past eleven. If you are not here, I shall be very disappointed! I am looking forward to seeing you most imminently, honey-sop.

Don’t wear the blue dress, though. It makes you look rather corpulent.

Your dearest husband-to-be,

Thomas Benedict Worthington Huxley, The First

P.S.: My cook Rosila suggested I bring you a peach cobbler she had baked this morn, which I tried, and was quite delightful, but seeing as you were not present, I am afraid most of it went to waste. I beat her for the trouble.

P.P.S.: Tarry not! Half past eleven.

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to be very disappointed,” Isabella said to the empty room.

She was lying in her four-poster bed beneath the quilts, reading by the glow of candlelight. For a moment, she considered putting the letter to flame, then thought better of it. There was nowhere to dispose of it, and burning down her father’s house would not bode well for the nuptials, as Thomas so elegantly put it. Instead, the letter went into a drawer with a dozen of its predecessors. Perhaps Isabella would burn the whole lot one day. Perhaps even tomorrow, if the enchantment worked.

To think, earlier this same evening, she had been lost in the wood with head full of misery. Now the world seemed a brighter place. She had braved the forest and triumphed. She had navigated the treacherous cliffs and survived. She had met the Lady of the Hill, a boast no one would believe even if she were foolish enough to speak of it. Jacob hadn’t responded to the whole affair as she’d expected, but Jacob was…well, he was just a boy. A servant, no less, and not worthy of consideration.

“Just a no-good, cumber-world, dung-scooper,” she said.

With that, she turned and blew out the candle. The idea of sleep should have been laughable, but somehow, it wasn’t. Everything would be right soon, and all she had to do was—

There was a shout from somewhere below. Then a commotion, and a rustle of bodies. The voice of Sebastian Sands, the head of house: “Out of the way! Out of the way, you fools!”

Isabella jumped out of bed and rushed to the door. Every member of the house was crowded on the floor below. She raced down the stairs, coming in behind the group and pushing up the middle.

The chicken coop was just beyond the door. In front lay the bodies of a dozen hens, torn and dismembered in a bloody line along the grass. For a moment, it was unclear whether they had been killed by man or beast. Then, without warning, an enormous gray wolf emerged from the door of the coop, its fur matted with gore.

Jacob stood at the far end of the yard loading his flintlock. He jerked the long ramrod stick out of the barrel, withdrew his powder horn, and shook it into the open primer, near the trigger.

“Steady, lad,” Sands called. He had his whip out, ready to lash the beast if it decided to come toward the house.

“Everyone back,” someone yelled. “Stay behind them!”

“Be quiet,” Sands barked.

Jacob raised his weapon. The wolf took two steps toward him, then hunkered down and bared its teeth. Jacob squeezed the trigger. There was a blinding flash of light and smoke. When it cleared, the wolf was bolting into the darkness, and Jacob was on the ground rolling in pain.

The master of house gritted his teeth. “What the devil? Blasted misfire!”

“Jacob, are you all right?” Isabella could not see the extent of his injury, but the noise, at least, had driven the wolf away.

Another form was pushing through the crowd behind her, the click of a walking stick issuing off the kitchen tile. Her father, who looked surprised and dismayed in equal measure. “What has happened?”

“Wolf, sir,” Sands said.

“How the bloody hell did it get in?”

“Might’ve jumped the walls, sir. Might still be here somewhere.”

Isabella’s father cast a worried look about the grounds. Some of the torches around the perimeter had gone out, leaving splotches of inky darkness along the brick.

Isabella didn’t care one wit about the wolf. She ran into the yard, heading right through the mud. By the time she reached Jacob, he was rising to a sitting position. The right side of his face was bright pink with powder burn, but he looked otherwise unharmed.

She tried to take his hand, and he pulled away. “I’m all right, my lady.”

“Elly, get back here,” her father yelled.

Seeing the ungrateful look on the boy’s face, Isabella did as she was bid, crossing back through the chicken graveyard in another huff. The nerve of the boy! The hem of her night-rail was now filthy, and what had she gotten instead of gratitude? A gruff dismissal.

“Everyone, to bed,” her father said. “We’ll clean this up on the morrow. Mister Sands, take Jacob and see if you can discover the source of its entry. If there is a hole somewhere, patch it, and for God’s sake, make sure it’s gone.”

Sands nodded. “Aye, sir. We’ll take the guns from the stable.”

John looked at his daughter with a peculiar expression. There was a measure of concern in it, but a little fear