The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1) (2 page)

Were Moira right, Isla mused, Tristan would have to be old indeed; her own father had nearly sixty winters and had only managed two wives. And one mistress, but no one ever counted her. Tristan, meanwhile, looked to be no older than his late twenties. If he’d reached thirty winters, she’d eat her garters.

A young start, for a serial murderer. She felt his eyes on her again, and looked away. No, a man like that did not have friends. She could picture him cutting someone’s heart out with his eating knife, but she couldn’t picture him laughing. And on that appetizing note, she looked down at her plate. Trout. Again. Served with potted frumenty, a revolting concoction made from parboiled wheat berries that had been strained and boiled in almond milk, honey and cinnamon. Except her father couldn’t afford cinnamon, so the cook had substituted chicory. Again.

Well, she thought sourly, no one will have trouble moving their bowels tonight.

A laugh rang out and she looked up, just in time to see Rowena beam with pride as her coterie of loving fellows cheered on her latest bon mot. Isla doubted very much that any of them had understood what she’d said or, indeed, cared to. Rowena could say
trout
over and over again and be hailed as a sparkling wit throughout Ewesdale.

While Isla remained invisible, the
other daughter
. She chewed absently on a piece of bread, letting the noise wash over her. She and her tablemates were eating off of wooden trenchers tonight, a display that assuredly fooled nobody. Least of all those who lived at the manor, and were used to supping from trenchers made of stale bread just like the peasants outside their walls. Who also ate plenty of trout, since Enzie was a watery place and there was plenty to be had.

But, stranger or no stranger, no one who saw the condition of his surroundings upon entering Enzie Hall would be so foolish as to imagine that this was the usual state of affairs. And Mountbatten, whatever else he was, was no fool. That dark, inscrutable gaze missed nothing. He, Isla supposed, must eat off pewter trenchers. Like the king. Kings ate off pewter trenchers, didn’t they?

She didn’t know; breeding or no breeding, she was a country girl and had never been to the capital. But she’d seen her neighbors’ houses and knew that
they
didn’t have wind whistling through the shadowed upper reaches of their great halls or birds nesting in the rafters. Their wine wasn’t thin swill, the poor quality of which over-spicing did little to disguise.

And they, of course, didn’t look at Apple and imagine that she loved the earl. The way the earl did. Isla felt sorry for her father but, at the same time, contemptuous of his weakness. Her mother had been strong. Her mother, now eleven years in her grave after a mysterious accident. No, Apple’s presence at the table represented the same sort of self-delusion that Peregrine Cavendish had been practicing since he’d been a young man. He looked at the harsh, uncompromising lines of his wife’s face and saw desire where others—including Isla—saw naked avarice. The earl wasn’t rich, true, but he had a title. And even though an earl wasn’t a duke, or even a marquis, Apple had been born with no title.

She was hoping, no doubt, that her husband would do them all a favor and die before either of his girls got married. Isla was nineteen and Rowena sixteen, both of more than marriageable age, but the earl was feeble and feeble-minded and might go at any minute. And even if he didn’t dispose of himself properly before a legitimate heir was procured by marriage—whoever Isla married or, barring that, Rowena, would of course inherit Enzie Hall and all of its attendant possessions—at least one of the girls was bound to marry someone with connections. A new and better husband could perhaps be procured for Apple, who was still young and beautiful. If one didn’t mind the hash lines around her eyes and the faint look of dissatisfaction that marred her otherwise kissable lips. Apple made sure that they
were
kissable; she spread them with boar grease and pigment.

She glanced briefly at her husband, her contempt barely hidden, before continuing a conversation with one of her…friends. A handsome young man, this time. One of the guard.

The earl was oblivious, all his attention focused on his honored guest and the man he fondly imagined to be his social and political equal. That such an illustrious person as the duke would visit him here had assuredly bolstered his already overblown image of himself. Peregrine Cavendish was nothing if not impressed with his own heritage.

Mountbatten smiled back pleasantly enough, although the expression didn’t touch his hooded eyes. He seemed, if anything, amused by the older man. And more than willing to accept his fawning, almost groveling appreciation.

Isla saw that and hated him. Where, before, she’d merely disliked him. And been afraid of him. Which she still was; but consciousness of her fear had been superseded by rage. Her father might be useless and old before his time, but as conscious as she was of these faults Isla was in no rush to have some stranger come in and make mock of them for no reason other than simple boredom. That the comings and goings of Enzie Hall and its inhabitants mattered nothing to this man, this—supposed—creature, was obvious.

And he cared not who saw his contempt, although Isla knew well enough that her father did
not
see it. Had never seen anything he didn’t want to see, his entire life, which went a long way toward explaining why he was so poor. His favorite refrain had ever been,
I don’t think that, my dear
. And now this, this—

She forced herself to calm. Causing trouble would serve no purpose and help no one. And besides, the duke was Rowena’s problem, now.

The next course was served, an overdone piglet grasping an apple between yellow fangs. Isla felt her stomach turn, and bit her lip. Her father cut into the thing, releasing something uncomfortably like a belch along with an odor that almost knocked her back off her bench.

Hart, her illegitimate half-brother, stifled a laugh. His eyes met hers over the rim of his cup. His were the same brilliant emerald as hers, a trait that they’d inherited from their father and that looked infinitely better on Hart. Hart’s blond hair had occasioned the first Madam Enzie to remark caustically that Peregrine’s mistress must have been stepping out on him. To which the earl, in a rare fit of backbone, had summed himself up to point out that Jasmine herself was fair. She’d kept her radiant straw-blonde tresses until the day she mysteriously fell down the stairs and died.

Hart had proved a little more impervious to such accidents, although he’d suffered enough as a child. His eyes were a constant reminder to Isla’s mother that the earl preferred others. And then Amanda herself had died and Apple had taken her place. Apple, little more than a child herself when she’d married the earl at fifteen, couldn’t be bothered with a brood of ill-tempered children that felt uncomfortably like peers. And so she’d settled from hating them into ignoring them, and in the end everyone had gotten on well enough.

Right now, Hart’s eyes glowed with amusement as he watched his father struggle with the piglet.

“Oh, my,” Apple murmured under her breath.

Hart concealed his smile behind a goblet. “It’s a noble beast,” he offered magnanimously. “A very noble beast.” And then, “are you sure she’s quite dead? Perhaps you should stab her again. Or is she a he?” He sipped his wine. “What do you say, father, shall we flip her over and look?”

The earl shot him a look. Hart was a crack bowman, a more than able horseman, the ladies loved him, and he knew these things about himself. He suffered from no lack of confidence, other than that inherent in carrying his father’s name only on sufferance. If he was perhaps compensating for something, then Isla was the last person who’d point it out. She loved her brother in a way that she’d never loved either of her parents. Or her sister. She loved Rowena, but also felt responsible for her. Rowena was more of a child than a sibling; Hart, however, was an equal.

“Two guineas says it’s a girl.”

“You don’t have two guineas,” Apple said.

“Well now, that’s a bit rough,” Hart replied jovially. “Do you?”

Apple colored.

I
sla was generally even-tempered. When she disliked people, it was usually only after long acquaintance and she tended to give them the benefit of the doubt long past the point where such magnanimity was deserved. As she well knew, not being a stupid person in the least. She even liked the fat, disagreeable cook, seeing in those beady little eyes a shrewd wit that most overlooked. The man couldn’t cook worth a damn and his foul mouth was legendary, but as Isla saw it everyone had faults. She certainly hoped that people would overlook hers, although none had so far. At least, not while still seeing her at all.

Dinner had passed pleasantly enough, she supposed, and she’d enjoyed her conversation with Hart. Even so, as hard as she tried she couldn’t ignore the man seated immediately to his right. He’d made an occasional comment to Hart, who was already showing the first uncomfortable signs of hero worship, even engaging her brother in a few minutes of quiet conversation between courses. Isla, he’d ignored entirely. And as chagrined as she was to once again be invisible, on this occasion she was also grateful.

The piglet was something her father had dreamed up in an attempt to impress the duke. Who’d commented blandly that a pig’s skin and circulatory system were identical to that of a man’s and indeed the two tasted identical. Although he preferred both a little less well done.

Isla saw her stepmother make a surreptitious sign against witchcraft. Not because he’d mentioned cannibalism, although that had probably figured in as well; but because the duke was speaking heresy. If Mountbatten noticed the fingers flashing up and down the table, he once again gave no sign.

It said something rather unfortunate, Isla thought, that her companions should be so much more distressed by the thought of this great personage rejecting the church than perhaps enjoying one of them later on as a light midnight snack. But at least their souls would be safe.

She exchanged a look with Hart. He, having been told his whole life that he was the product of sin and thus less entitled than other men, had little use for the Gods. And looked almost approving at the idea of roasting an errant guest. Isla felt a shiver dance up her spine. She didn’t want Hart adoring this man, who even now was studying her sister with casually predatory interest. Rowena, needless to say, hadn’t noticed.

Everyone knew, as Isla herself knew—or at least had been taught by the half-drunk old tutor her father had hired to give the girls their letters—that the body was regulated by humors: yellow bile, which was associated with the element of fire, black bile, which was associated with the element of earth, phlegm, which was associated with the element of water, and blood, which was associated with the element of air. Essentially, the theory of
humorism
, as it was known to scholars of medicine, held that the human body was composed of all these four basic elements and, consequently, all diseases were caused by their either excess or deficit.

Such deficits, in turn, could be caused by vapors that were inhaled or otherwise absorbed—such as, for example, by spending too much time outside in the summer, or breathing in night air. When Isla’s father became choleric, his personal physician bled him with leeches. Peregrine, despite being a man and therefore supposedly stronger of stomach, maintained a lifelong fear of knives and dreaded seeing the scalpel pressed to his veins.

“The men,” the earl said indulgently, “need to talk amongst themselves.” He gave his wife a fond pat. “Which, I’m sure, so do the women.” The dismissal was plain.

Isla stood, relieved, and bid her father goodnight.

Apple, her expression frozen into a mixture of horror and contempt, said nothing. She was, no doubt, astonished that her husband planned to closet himself with the duke. For all her faults she, at least, did not support the proposed match between the duke and Rowena. And Peregrine was…notoriously easily led.

The earl stood, his gesture a signal that while the feast would continue on until the last guest keeled over insensible on his bench, those who concerned themselves with such things were now free to depart without giving offense. Enzie Hall’s central dining area was a large one, and stood as mute homage to better times. The main table, at which Isla and her sister had been sitting, occupied a raised dais that connected to the hearth of the great fireplace. The earl and his favored guests sat with their backs to the warmth. At the other end of the great hall, a twin to the massive fireplace did its best to compete with the endless drafts. Drafts that, given their state of repairs, sometimes felt like gales.

Although in truth the far end of the hall was much more comfortable, proximity to the earl denoted the degree to which one basked in his favor. His preferred courtiers sat at nearby tables, shivering and dosing themselves with substandard wine. The summer had been a short one and fall was upon them too soon. Isla wondered how things fared in the North, where the duke lived. There were no rumors of hardship from
his
lands, she thought, surprised at her own poor temper.