Page 5 of Lord of Loyalty

Chapter Three

Once upstairs, the noisome Flinders shoved Isobel into her room. Then Avice’s rough hands took over, tugging at her laces, wrenching off her shift, petticoat, and shoes. Shivering, miserable and confused, she was forced into her nightgown and made to lie down.

No sooner had Avice left the room, than Isobel threw off the covers and ran over to wrestle with the door. There was a reason she mustn’t be shut away, something she needed to tell someone. But whom? And why could she not remember what it was so imperative she say?

Relief came when the door opened, but it was Flinders who stood there, not Avice.

She quailed, and backed away. His blotchy face was twisted by an evil leer. He terrified her so, she should scream—but she’d tried that before, and no one ever came.

“I’ll brook no trouble from you tonight, girl.” His voice was a growl.

She couldn’t help herself. “But something terrible has happened. I must go… somewhere, do something.” The tears were back, but the fight within her was ebbing away.

“Get back into your bed, wench.” Flinders took an ominous step closer.

“Don’t you come any nearer. Don’t dare lay a finger on me.” She fought the drowsiness in her limbs and her head.

“Shut your noise.” Flinders dealt her an open-handed slap across the cheek. As she wilted, sobbing loudly now, he picked her up and threw her onto the mattress. Terrified, she readied herself for battle, but he didn’t touch her again, only tucked the covers so tightly around her that her arms were trapped by her sides.

Coffins. Her mind was filled with images of corpses bundled in their winding-sheets, trapped in coffins as she now was in her bed.

Fury lashed at her. She spat curses as Flinders left and locked the door behind him, wishing she could free her hands and throw something. But gradually—as it always did—the medicine took hold of her mind, soothed her pain and lulled her into peaceful oblivion.

Only—she wasn’t quite asleep. Or if she was, she had a wonderful dream.

Orpheus came. He brought a lamp and held it aloft, gazing at her. She wanted to tell him to go away, not to look at her when she was like this. Her tangled hair was spread across the pillow, as they hadn’t bothered to tie her coif over it. Her eyes stung from her tears and must be rimmed with red, and the pain in her cheek portended a bruise. He shouldn’t look at her so intently, so softly, when she was at such a disadvantage, but even though her lips moved to chastise him, no words emerged.

He leaned in close, the dream so real, she could feel his breath on her face. Was he going to kiss her? Had she somehow turned into Eurydice? Seldom did her soporific medicine give her so glorious a dream.

He eased away without touching her, and said, “I could almost believe myself bewitched. Or enchanted—I know not. I care not. I swear on my life, I will do what I can to ease your suffering.”

Her heart was full. This glimpse of happiness was no more than a cruel torment. She would awaken in the morning, and all would be as it was before—her room empty of all her things but her precious book of Greek and Roman myths, her blurry mirror, and her comb.

And her memory of the night Orpheus came to earth to visit her. If only there were some way to keep that memory alive. Because some oracular inner sense told her he was going to be incredibly important to her.