Secret Worlds (603 page)

“Just after I turned twelve.”

“So you never had the opportunity to study these books?”

She shook her head. “For the most part they were too advanced for me. All that I learned, my grandmother taught me herself. But she was teaching me to be a scrupulous record keeper. Grandmother always said keeping careful records was one of the most important skills a witch could learn.”

“And so she wrote her spells down,” he said, his tone making it clear that it wasn’t a question.

“She wrote everything down. As did her mother before her and her mother before that. There are a number of volumes.”

Matteo stopped pacing, his eyes bright for the first time. “We must go get them. This is too important an opportunity to disregard. Are they really so many books?”

Isobel gave a tiny nod. “They fill two large trunks at least, although they might not all be related to magic. There would be books on the natural world, herbology, and animal husbandry as well.”

He blinked. “Animal husbandry?”

“My grandmother raised swine.”

“Swine?”

“Yes.”

“For food?”

She flushed slightly. “Yes. And because she enjoyed their company.”

His cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “I see,” he said with a carefully composed expression.

“They’re very intelligent.” She sniffed.

“Pigs?”

“
Yes
.”

His features smoothed. “I’ve never noticed. I should pay more attention when visiting our livestock farm. I’m going to go find my father and tell him about the change in plans. I’m certain he’ll want to leave without delay.”

He hurried out of the room.

***

The
Conte
had reluctantly agreed to a detour to the Highlands.

Isobel had never traveled in a carriage so fine, but its well-sprung wheels and deeply cushioned benches were no match for the muddy and pitted roads that stood between them and their destination. Especially when it began to rain again.

When the roads became nearly impassable as the weather deteriorated, the old man’s temper went with it. Glaring at Isobel from his corner of the coach, he would shift restlessly and loudly. The volume of his sighs would increase if she was in any danger of nodding off.

Matteo did his best to keep his father’s spirits up in the beginning but eventually gave up the effort. Instead, he would ask Isobel detailed questions about her life.

He didn’t just want to know about her childhood, or the training she’d received at her grandmother’s knee. He also wanted to know about her life after that, about her parents and time in service.

Despite her suspicion of him, she couldn’t help but find his curiosity oddly sweet. Nevertheless, she kept her answers brief when in the presence of the count. Aldo didn’t need to know anything about her. But it was harder to maintain her distance when she and Matteo were alone.

She could feel her own confusion around him. Matteo was so earnest and eager. It wasn’t childlike in the least, but his manner struck her as that of an innocent, a youth with little experience of the world. Which was ridiculous. He was a wealthy lord in Italy, with all the privileges and freedoms money could buy. There was no way he hadn’t experienced at least some of the same excesses of life that occupied the ton in London.

But if he had, he didn’t seem touched by it.

Isobel could feel her determination to keep the young lord at bay waning every day. She tried to hold onto her resentment and distrust, but it was difficult when he was being so kind and solicitous.

At every stop, Matteo would do anything and everything to ensure her comfort. He made the coach stop in Edinburgh long enough to buy her a warmer cloak, despite the count’s vociferous complaints. When they would change horses on the road, he would make sure she ate and drank her fill before they continued and would order hot bricks wrapped in flannel for her feet and hands before they departed.

The first few times he forgot to ask for additional bricks for his father, an oversight the
Conte
let him know displeased him in blistering Italian as soon as they left the coaching inn.

Isobel had tried to hand over her second brick to the man, but Matteo grew agitated, claiming that she needed to be at her best when they arrived in Carrbridge to take possession of her library. His logic silenced the count’s complaints, but he still glared and sulked openly. At the next inn, Aldo ordered his own bricks.

She was going mad cooped up in the carriage all day, but it was the nights that filled her with tension.

Every night, the coach would stop at the best inn available. They would eat a relatively silent meal and then she and Matteo would be shown upstairs to the same chamber.

Once inside the room, Matteo would give her privacy to change by turning his back if there was no screen available. Then he would make a pallet on the floor and stretch out. She knew he had to be sore and uncomfortable after being in the coach all day, but he never complained. He seemed content to talk with her from his prone position on the floor, his hands behind his head.

Outside of the count’s oppressive company, Isobel answered more of Matteo’s questions in greater detail and in turn he would tell her stories, mostly about his childhood—especially the months spent on the shores of the Lago di Bolsena at one of their country estates.

He also described the famous sights of his homeland, interweaving what he knew of their history to entertain her. Though she was often tired when she heard them, his anecdotes blended in her mind until the image of the Tuscan countryside solidified and became real—a place of heated beauty and a noble, if somewhat frenzied, history.

In time she grew bold enough to make some inquiries of her own. Envious of the freedom his sex and wealth afforded him she asked him about his travels. Pleased to have found a subject of interest to her, he spoke of the crumbling Colosseum in Rome and the ancient sites of Greece, as if he would show them to her someday.

And every night he would promise to do whatever he could to ensure her safety and future happiness until she almost started to believe him.

Though it was impossible to bar the two of them inside their chamber without suspicion, Nino and Ottavio were always nearby. If the adjoining room wasn’t available, then they slept on the floor in the hallway. The
Conte
had made no effort to excuse such behavior to people he considered inferior, but Matteo always made it a point to chat with the innkeeper in his lyrically accented English.

He passed off the guards as a necessary circumstance due to a mysterious incident at a lower quality inn. The details of his story were purposely vague, but they would always sympathize, especially when he implied that
her
safety was the real issue—the safety of his bride.

Isobel was always given strange looks when Matteo introduced her as his wife. She knew he was just trying to protect her reputation, but her choice of disguise bothered the staff and other visitors. Her clothes were suited to deep mourning, and Matteo’s excuse that it was on his mother’s account didn’t seem to convince everyone when he wasn’t also in black.

Occasionally she heard whispers. Some gossiped about the oddities of the Italian people, while others questioned her and whether or not she might have remarried without observing the proper mourning period. No one had yet guessed that she wasn’t married at all, at least not out loud. A few might have suspected, however, given the way the count’s expression soured whenever Matteo introduced her as his bride.

Her strange surreal existence continued until they finally entered her home county. The sights became familiar despite the fact they were still several dozen miles from her home. Apprehension filled her as they stopped at a posting inn near Ellan Wood. Though the innkeepers and the locals who frequented the tavern wouldn’t know her face, they would have been familiar with her father’s name. And Matteo wasn’t keeping her identity a secret.

Soon they would be in Carrbridge, surrounded by the people who had shunned her and the other women in her family. And day-by-day, the darkness inside of Matteo grew just a tiny bit more.

Despite the dreadful weather, the majesty and sweeping vistas of the Highlands took Matteo’s breath away. It was an unforgiving landscape, most unlike the warm and welcoming peaks and valleys of his home. But there was a rugged and imposing beauty to this place that spoke volumes about the character and fortitude of its inhabitants. It made a great deal of sense that this was Isobel’s birthplace.

He had expected her to exhibit some growing excitement about seeing her home after such a long absence. Instead, she grew quiet and pale. Her hands were still on her lap, but she betrayed her tension with the way she gripped them together tightly.

Matteo felt guilty for a whole new reason. Isobel had probably never expected to see this place again. The dark and unpleasant memories of her and her grandmother’s treatment at the hands of the more ignorant locals coupled with the loss of both her parents surely made this homecoming difficult, to say the least.

And there was another problem. Isobel was still known here. A maid at the last inn had recognized her. Apparently, his witch possessed the distinctive features and coloring of the women in her family.

It would not have been a problem if the locals believed Isobel was his wife as they should have, but their whispers indicated otherwise. They painted Isobel with a dark brush. In their eyes, she was already corrupt, a fallen woman with no virtue. He was her lover, a paramour literally enthralled by her sorceress’ spell. It didn’t help that the innkeepers avoided him, making it impossible for him to charm them into believing the story that she was his wife.

He made his decision on the way to the next inn, the one in the village where Isobel had grown up. She would have to marry him—here, before their very eyes. It was the only solution. The doubting Thomases of the villages would be satisfied that Isobel’s reputation was intact if they were actually wed in Carrbridge.

If he didn’t and the worst happened to him her reputation would be in tatters, even if she somehow escaped his father. She could never be a governess again, not if a future employer looked into her background. Even a whiff of scandal was enough to destroy her character, and the sphere of high society was smaller than anyone realized. Because of him, Isobel would be defenseless and without resources, unable to earn a living.

But if they were married, her status as his widow would protect her forever. Isobel would bear his name, and he could leave her all or part of his fortune—the piece that was independent of his father and the estate. The count would be forced to deal with her fairly.

Especially if she bears you a child.

His heart picked up and his body grew warm as he stole a sidelong glance at his witch. She was looking out the window on the other side of the carriage, the fine line of her cheek and neck silhouetted against the light of afternoon. The deep longing he had been trying to bury surfaced, nearly overwhelming him.

He would speak to her tonight.

***

The streak of darkness in Matteo’s aura had become more pronounced. It wasn’t as dense as when she’d met him in the Montgomery home, but it was there, no longer hiding from her mind’s eye.

The corruption was slowly building inside him. To make matters worse, she was home.

The village of Carrbridge hadn’t changed much in the years since she’d left. The bakery had an addition built, and the Lawsons had knocked down one of the shacks they called tenant cottages and finally built a new one. Other than that, the place was startling in its sameness.

She doubted her former neighbor’s attitude to her and her family had changed much, either. If she’d been alone, her reception would be icy, to say the least. But with an Italian count and his son in tow, well, there was no saying how the village would react.

Distracted by her memories, she dragged herself from the carriage with little enthusiasm. She didn’t bother with her veil—there was no hiding from the past. Not here.

Once inside the inn, she could feel dozens of eyes on her. Exhausted and consumed with morbid thoughts she kept her eyes on Matteo’s back as he introduced himself and asked for rooms.

“One for myself and one for my fiancée, Isobel,” he finished.

“Fiancee?” the innkeeper asked, his wide eyes swinging to hers.

Isobel froze, her face impassive as Matteo continued. “Yes, my lovely betrothed is from these parts. We came here to be married. We meant to come in finer weather, but our plans were delayed by the unfortunate death of my mother,” he said, gesturing to Isobel’s black gown. “But the time of mourning is over, and I didn’t want to wait a minute longer to make this beautiful creature my bride. I trust the old magistrate Isobel mentioned is still alive? I’d like him to perform our wedding, just as soon as we find the perfect location...”

Her head filled with a formless buzzing as Matteo enthusiastically detailed their wedding plans. The innkeeper, whom she vaguely remembered as being friendly with her father, gave her a genuine smile and bent to kiss her hand in congratulations. Both Matteo and his father frowned upon the familiar gesture, but they were soon distracted by the flow of regulars that rose to offer them their felicitations.

Most of the people she recognized, although the majority looked like they had aged more than the four years she’d been absent. Almost all of them restricted their warm greetings to her fake fiancé. At best she got a distant nod. No one but the old innkeeper—Tom?—tried to touch her, which was probably for the best considering the flare up she’d seen in Matteo’s aura when his hands had made contact with hers.

When the noise and crowd became too much, Matteo led her to the private parlor the ladies of the village used for their Bible study, while the count went upstairs to inspect the available rooms.

Matteo shut the door behind them and led her to a weathered chaise lounge. She didn’t realize that she was trembling until he took both her hands in his.