Roderick gave each of them a censorious look. “You dinna think Isobel being so ill she canna leave her bed will distress Alan? This might do him a worse turn than your fickle tastes in men will.”
Isobel looked at Rose, alarmed.
Rose licked her lips uncertainly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Roderick raised his brows at her—as if perhaps she ought to think on it.
Isobel kicked the covers off her legs. “Forget it. It was a stupid idea anyway.”
“Wait, wait,” Roderick said, placating. “Just let me talk to Alan, aye? Your father wants to see ye happy, above all. As do I.” He put a hand on Isobel’s shoulder. “If it’s Sir Philip ye want, then I’ll help ye get him. Let’s just not frighten yer father to an early grave.”
Isobel nodded. She was glad they’d told their uncle. He would help them do this right. He knew their father far better than they did. He’d been at Lochlaire the past twelve years while they were all far away. He would make everything right.
Roderick looked at them all. He nodded, satisfied that he’d changed their minds, and they wouldn’t do anything foolish. “I’ll talk to him now.” He jerked his head at Rose, who stood, arms crossed over her chest and mouth set stubbornly, apparently not pleased her plan had been so thoroughly ruined. “Ye’d best come with me.”
Rose sighed and followed Roderick out of the chamber. When the door shut behind them, Gillian sat on the bed beside Isobel. She reached out and touched the ring that dangled from Isobel’s neck.
“Where’s Mother’s charm?”
Isobel pulled another ribbon from around her neck, letting the peridot fall beside Philip’s ring with a soft tink of metal.
“Have you touched it yet?” Gillian asked. “To find him?”
Isobel shook her head. “I’m afraid of what I’ll see.”
“What do you mean?”
Isobel swallowed. “He never said he loved me. He only wants to marry me because…because of what we did last night. He wants to protect me. He’s like that—he wants to take care of people, thinks it’s his responsibility. Besides, he doesn’t like the earl. He thinks if Kincreag discovers I’m a witch, it would go bad for me.”
Gillian smiled gently, knowingly. “It sounds as if he is very protective ofyou.”
“I don’t know. What if I look and see he doesn’t love me? Or worse, what if I see his future, and I’m not in it? That we failed and Father makes me marry Kincreag? And he is…he is wed to someone else?”
“Aye, that could be frightening. But don’t you want to know? I don’t think I could help myself. Besides—is the future set in stone? Maybe you ought to look. If you do see that you’re not together, perhaps there is still time to fix things, aye?”
Gillian was simply too sensible. Isobel wished she’d had her around the past twelve years.
Isobel was not wearing her gloves. She looked down at the ring. “Maybe I’ll just have a peek.”
Gillian scooted closer. “Oh, do.”
Isobel took a deep breath and rubbed her palms together. She tried to prepare herself for whatever she might see, but knew it was impossible. Her heart was too fragile when it came to him. Finally, she just wrapped her hand around it and closed her eyes.
She did not have to probe the ring for visions as she often did, this one unfolded before her so vividly she fancied she could smell the burning pitch and something else—overcooked meat and another unpleasant odor that was familiar, though she couldn’t place it. The smoke burned her eyes and she squinted, peering through the thick smoke rolling around her.
The air was hot. She willed herself to move and realized in this vision she had a body. Oddly, she didn’t know whose it was, though she assumed it was Philip’s, as she was holding his ring. A crowd surround the fire. They talked amongst themselves, and she heard the wordwitchspat out several times. She was at a witch burning, and the elusive scent was burning hair. Isobel’s stomach hitched involuntarily, but she forced herself to move closer, to identify the victim.
She was so close to the stake now that it felt like a furnace on her face. The figure tied to the stake was unidentifiable, black and twisted, its head hung at an odd angle. The Scots strangled witches before they burned them. Live burning was reserved for the most evil witches.
Perhaps this wasn’t the future she was seeing—or maybe it was some random snatch from Philip’s future that had nothing to do with anything. That happened sometimes, but usually she was able to locate a context within the vision, something to help her understand what she was seeing. The context to this one continued to elude her.
The hum of conversation around her changed tone, rose in anger and scorn. Isobel turned. A public building was nearby and something pricked her. Recognition. She knew this place, had been here before.
She peered around the crowd, looking at the faces. Some were vaguely familiar, though she could not place them, until her gaze lit on a man and woman standing together. Her blood froze and the air left her. Heather and Ewan Kennedy. Ewan was unrestrained, his face triumphant as he gazed at whatever spectacle everyone else currently jeered at. Heather, however, stared with a face carved of stone, dark circles beneath her eyes. Ewan slid his arm around his wife and leaned close, whispering something in her ear. She did not react, but for an odd moment her gaze seemed to lock on Isobel. She frowned, shaking her head slowly. She crossed herself and mouthed,Forgive me.
The crowd was becoming ugly. Isobel turned away from Heather. She was in Hawkirk, the village they’d passed through, where Isobel had found the body of Heather Kennedy’s daughter, Laurie. Why was Philip there? And who had burned?
Isobel swung around to stare at the charred corpse again. That’s when she noticed a second stake, near the first. Several men were crowded around it, securing someone to it. Isobel moved forward quickly. The men backed away and began piling bundles of pitch-drenched faggots around the stake.
