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

He went back inside, but Isabella didn’t think she’d be able to sleep until the thing was caught. She stayed by the door, watching as Sands organized the hunting party. In a few moments, each man was armed with a weapon and a torch, and they spread out over the grounds, their lights flickering this way and that like fireflies.

She expected them to corner the thing near the stable or at one of the outer walls, but there was to be no further sign of the creature. For an hour they searched and found neither the wolf, nor its method of entry. When they finally gave up, Isabella decided it best to return to bed, sleep or no sleep. Just before going inside, she looked beyond the walls to the labyrinth of trees on the other side. There was a cry from somewhere far off, and though it might have been the wind, it could have just as easily been the beast, howling in bloody triumph.

Chapter 7

She was up at sunrise, helping Delia remove the bodies. Her father would have disapproved of such fraternization, but still being abed himself, he had no reason to know, and Isabella saw no reason to tell him. They were finished within the hour. Once scrubbed, the coop could almost pass for new.

“You’re a good girl to help,” Delia said, taking Isabella’s hand on the way to breakfast. “Wish you could have met my girls when they were young. You would have gotten on just fine.”

“Do you miss them?” Isabella couldn’t imagine what it must be like to outlive your own children.

Delia said simply, “You’re my family now, aren’t you?”

John Ashford appeared just as they were walking into the dining room. He looked a shade healthier than he had the night before. “Told you I’d be better in the morn,” he said, kissing his daughter on the cheek.

Isabella smiled and said yes, he had told her, then informed him she was going to the market. She had decided the last thing she wanted to do was stay inside. Her mind was still spinning with thoughts of the previous night.

Her father offered a weak protest.

“I’m doing as you asked, Father. I just want to have a look at the Mortons’ new stock before midday.”

“Mm,” her father said. Once a month, a new shipment of clothing came in from Paris and ended up at Henry Morton’s stall. Most of the clothes in Isabella’s closet came from this very source, and while keeping such fashions was a sizable expense, John had come to accept it as part of the family image. He himself wouldn’t be caught dead outside the residence without a proper cravat upon his breast and a full-length peruke upon his head, fashioned from the finest hair in Europe. “Oh, very well. Just be careful.”

It was only a quarter mile from the front gates to the market, and after breakfast, Isabella chose to walk the path down to Saint Joseph’s Circle, Blackfriar’s singular road, which cut through the center of the township in a wide arc. Upon one side lay an inlet to the Chesapeake, which fed the machinations of the mill, and upon the other, a small line of wooden houses where the town sawyers—and a growing number of tradesmen—made their homes. It was not nearly as large a settlement as Annapolis or Williamsburg, but to Isabella’s eyes, it was growing every day. And with the increase, so too came the problems of larger towns.

As she stepped upon the apex of Saint Joseph’s, she passed a newly constructed wooden platform rising to the level of her head. A man with a shock of orange hair and enormous forearms was banging away with a hammer and nails at one end.

Then a shadow appeared behind her. “Lady Ashford, you’re far from home again, aren’t you?”

Isabella turned to find a tall gentleman of a grandfatherly age with eyes the color of old moss. Tiberius Sloop, the priest of the local parish, member of the town council, and quite possibly the nosiest man Isabella had ever met.

“Mister Sloop,” she said. “How nice to see you.”

“I did not see you in my service yesterday, young lady. You know ’tis a sin to skip morning mass?”

“I had an errand that could not wait.”

Sloop had a short, rat-like nose. It twitched once as if sniffing for a lie. “I’m quite certain Mister Huxley will have his hands full with you. You never seem to stay in the same place.”

“Thank you,” she said, choosing to ignore whatever Sloop was getting at.

“I trust I will see you at the Twelfth Night feast?”

The feast was something of a tradition in Blackfriar. Twelve days after Christmas, the town would gather at the mill to celebrate another year of prosperity, and to toast another year of the same. The food was prepared by the Huxleys’ staff, who spared no expense in feeding every mouth in town. It culminated with the cake lottery, a massive spread of sweet ginger cakes, several of which contained jewels or coins supplied by Isabella’s father. Devouring the cakes in search of wealth had become the climax of the feast.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Isabella said.

“Good, very good. I hope to be done with this unpleasantness by then.”

Isabella felt her eyes pulled toward the platform.

Sloop followed her gaze. “’Twill be a swift trial, and a swift end, if the carpenter delivers. Our gallows are built for the long drop.”

Built with a high enough fall to break a man’s neck, he meant. Isabella shuddered. “Are you quite certain the man is guilty?”

“Indeed. The magistrate of Her Royal Majesty is on the way from Baltimore. Mister Beauchamp is an old colleague of mine. I am sure he will do the job proper. The world will know Blackfriar is a civilized town, my dear. We do not tolerate godlessness and barbarism.”

Isabella looked past the platform to the other side, where rested the small