His choosing. Another shudder racked her. Why had she not listened to her parents?
None of this would have happened had she not been so determined to always have her own way.
When her parents had first given her the rare gift of choice they’d done so only because they’d known full well that it would be easier than trying to force her into a betrothal she would fight no matter how perfect the man was for her.
An odd arrangement to be sure, but one her father had chosen because of his own marriage. As one of old King Henry’s bastards, her father had been forced to wed the daughter of a keep he’d conquered. And while, yes, her parents had learned to deeply care for and love one another over time, he wanted his children to at least know of love before they pledged their future to another. Even though it went against everything considered normal, he wanted them to have the choice.
She knew that—his wishes for his children had never been a secret. Just as she knew that had she simply gone to him about Glenforde the betrothal would have been called off.
Instead, she’d let anger at Glenforde’s behaviour with the strumpet get the best of her and she had stormed from the keep.
And now...
Isabella clenched her jaw until it hurt, in an effort to keep a sob from escaping.
Now her father was dead and her mother alone.
Her chest and throat burned with the need to cry, but she’d not let the murdering lout next to her know the level of suffering and grief he’d caused her.
She’d sooner throw herself from this ship and drown in the depths of the black icy waters than give him the satisfaction of witnessing her pain.
If anyone was going to suffer it would be him. Richard of Dunstan thought he’d steal her away from her home, kill her father and get away with it?
No. Not while she had breath in her body.
Oh, yes, she would ensure he recovered from his wound—and then he would learn the meaning of pain.
The creaking of wood, the swaying beneath her and the sound of waves crashing nearby dragged Isabella from her fitful dreams. Where was she? Why was her bed moving? What was that sound...?
Consciousness swept over her like a racing storm, bringing her fully awake with a heart-pounding jolt. She was still aboard Dunstan’s ship, heading towards his island stronghold. A keep that would become her future prison.
They’d been at sea for nearly three days now. She struggled to draw in enough breath to fill her chest. Three days—three of the longest days of her entire life. She’d done penances that hadn’t seemed as arduous as this forced journey.
Sleep had been her only escape from the fears and worries chasing her, threatening to tear reason from her mind and send her screaming with misery and anger. She’d sought its comforting embrace as often as she could.
Isabella knew what caused her heart to race, her breathing to become laboured and her palms to perspire. She was well aware what brought about the darkness tormenting her.
It was more than just having been captured and witnessing her father’s death. And it was more than the over-warm body next to her on the bed. She stared into the pitch blackness of the cabin. Even without the benefit of sight, she felt the walls closing around her, suffocating her, stealing her ability to think, to employ any rational measure of common sense.
This airless cabin was far too small, too confining and more of a cell than a cabin. It was a constant reminder of what she had to look forward to on Dunstan.
And the unconscious man next to her on the narrow bed didn’t help lessen the feeling of being trapped in an ever-shrinking cage.
Isabella closed her eyes and conjured the image of her airy, open bedchamber at Warehaven. She concentrated, bringing the vision into sharper focus. When the memories of fresh-strewn herbs floated to her nose and the softness of her pillow cushioning her head, along with the warmth of her bedcovers surrounding her, she willed her pulse to slow.
She drew in a long, deep breath, filling her lungs near to bursting before letting it out ever so slowly, over and over until the trick her father had taught her so many years ago when she was a frightened child cleared her mind and calmed her spirit.
Once certain she could function with some semblance of reason, she sat up.
The door to the cabin opened, letting in a glimmer of evening light and air—icy-cold blasts of frigid air, along with Dunstan’s man... Matthew, Sir Matthew as she’d discovered yesterday when she’d overheard the other men aboard the ship talking just outside the cabin.
‘Are you hungry?’ Without waiting for her answer, he handed her a hunk of dry, coarse bread and a skin filled with what she knew was wine so sour that it rivalled any verjuice she’d ever encountered.
Shivering, she frowned. It had been so hot beneath the covers that she’d been unprepared for such a cold, bracing wind.
No. Her heart nearly leapt from her chest.
Setting the offered meal on the floor, she turned towards Dunstan and jerked the covers from his chest.
‘What is wrong?’ Sir Matthew was at her side in an instant, crowding her, hovering like a mother fretting over her sick child.
‘I’m not sure.’ She placed her palm against Dunstan’s forehead and then his cheek. Biting back an oath at the unnatural warmth of his skin, she ordered, ‘Bring the lamp over here.’
To her surprise he did as she’d requested and held the lamp over the pallet, allowing the light to fall on a flushed, sweat-soaked Dunstan.
Sir Matthew cursed, before asking, ‘How long has he been like this?’
‘He was fine when last I checked.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Tight concern tinged his question.
Isabella raised a hand. ‘Give me a moment to think.’
‘His wound is most likely infected.’
What she didn’t require were statements of the obvious. The need to get Sir Matthew out of the cabin prompted her to make him useful. ‘Get me a knife and have someone heat some water. Find something I can use for new bindings. And if no one aboard this ship has any healing herbs, then you must make port immediately.’
‘We will be at Dunstan in another two or three days.’
She turned her head to glare at him. ‘He could be dead by then.’
The man tossed her his dagger, placed the lamp on a stool near the pallet and then thankfully left without another word.
Isabella turned to the task at hand—making sure Dunstan lived so he could die by her hand at a time she deemed appropriate and in a manner that suited her. Kneeling over him, she slipped the dagger beneath the bandages, prepared to strip them from his body, then hesitated, fearful of what she might see. What if...?
‘Can you not decide?’
Startled by hearing him speak for the first time in three days, she jumped, nicking the tip of the dagger against his chest.
Fingers closed around her wrist. ‘I would prefer death by infection, thank you.’
Isabella lifted her gaze to Dunstan’s face. ‘You are awake.’
He stared at her with bloodshot eyes that never once wavered. And for a moment—the very briefest of moments—Isabella wished they might have met under different circumstances.
With his squared jawline, slightly crooked nose, even teeth and full lower