Page 85 of Isabelle’s Forbidden Love

“Did you patch up Orlando too?” Isabelle asked when they were nearly finished.

Maya lifted her head to meet her gaze. “He didn’t want my help.”

“That sounds like him.” Isabelle forced a smile. “Thanks, Maya, I think I’m good.”

“It’ll be a few hours until you’re as good as new. I’m glad that they were able to find you so quickly.”

Isabelle furrowed her forehead. “Yeah, I was kind of surprised, ‘cause Nelson tossed my handbag with my phone.”

“Cooper put a tracker in your handbag and on your boot.”

Isabelle lifted her foot and inspected her right boot, then her left, before she found what she was looking for: a thin, transparent sticker similar to a transponder that opened garage gates was stuck to the side of one boot.

“Sneaky,” she murmured, shaking her head with a smile. “Guess I owe Cooper.”

* * *

It was a couple of hours before sunrise, when Cooper finally returned. Isabelle waited impatiently in the H lounge, the lounge reserved for human employees, because at this time of night it was empty.

Ines Taylor entered the lounge, and Isabelle thanked Cooper and greeted Ines.

“I’m so sorry I had Cooper wake you, but this is urgent, and I have a feeling you’re the only person who can clear up a few things for me,” Isabelle said as she ushered Ines to a comfortable seating area.

“Cooper said that LaRuson is dead. Is that true?”

Isabelle nodded. “Yes, he’s finally dead. He can’t hurt anybody else anymore.”

“I’m relieved. And Orlando, is he all right?”

“For now, yes, but in a few hours, he’ll be transferred to the vampire council to stand trial for the murder of his wife, Margarite. They will execute him.”

Ines inhaled sharply. “Mon dieu! That can’t happen.”

“Then please help me save him from his fate. Tell me what really happened back then, because I tried getting it out of Orlando, but he won’t say anything.”

“He’s always been a stubborn man. I doubt he’s changed much in the last four decades,” Ines said with a wistful expression on her face.

“When LaRuson took me captive, he told me that Margarite was the one who’d killed her entire family, not Orlando. Yet Orlando was the suspect.”

Ines sighed. “To understand why, you have to understand Margarite first. She was a beautiful woman, refined, witty, educated. She turned many a man’s head wherever she went. But that was only the outside. Inside, she was troubled. When I was her nanny, at first, I thought she was just a spoiled child. And to some extent she was. After all, her family was rich, and she was the oldest of three. Her father doted on her. But soon, her mood swings were alienating her family, particularly her father, until they finally realized what was wrong with her. She was a schizophrenic.”

Isabelle gasped.

“Yes, but instead of her family helping her, getting her the right doctors, the right medications, they hid her illness. The Arnauds were one of the most prominent families in Montreal, and they couldn’t admit that their daughter was mentally ill.” Ines sniffled. “All they did was keep Margarite away from others, particularly men. They realized that if Margarite were to be in a serious relationship, and get married, their family secret would come out. They couldn’t face that kind of scandal.”

“Scandal? Why would that be a scandal? It’s an illness.”

“You have to consider the era. In the 70s when they discovered Margarite’s mental illness, things were very different. Today, people recognize that mental illness is just like any other illness: it needs to be treated. But back then, it was a stigma, a blight on a family. And the Arnauds didn’t know how to handle it. In hindsight, they made so many mistakes.”

“Yes, it seems so. And Orlando, did he know that Margarite was schizophrenic?” Isabelle asked.

“No. He had no idea. I think he was so madly in love with her that he was blind to all of it. And even though the Arnauds tried to warn him, he didn’t listen to them. You must know that Margarite had already poisoned Orlando’s relationship to her family before they even got married. She told him that her family was controlling her, and that they would invent anything to keep her away from men so that she wouldn’t get married. She even made up a story about a trust fund that she would receive when she was married, and that her parents had already drained the trust of most of its money, and it would come out if she got married.”

“So many lies,” Isabelle murmured to herself.

“Yes. Yet Orlando stood by her. But their relationship wasn’t a happy one. It was tumultuous. Margarite had violent tendencies. Her parents knew it and stayed out of her way as much as they could. But an illness that remained untreated for so long could only get worse. And it did.”

“What happened?” Isabelle asked eagerly, leaning forward on the sofa.