Page 131 of An Inconvenient Vow

Sabina came to an abrupt standstill. “Is that what you want?” she asked incredulously. “Would you not prefer open honesty between the two of you? Recollect Isemay, his father was present that fateful day as were many others of his acquaintance. What if they were to remind him of the role he played in ruining your wedding day to Bethencourt?”

“I have already thought of that,” Isemay assured her blithely. “I will simply tell him that he was madly in love with me by that point and did not want me to wed another.”

Sabina opened her mouth to denounce this plan when it occurred to her that Leland Ellis would probably find this version of events highly entertaining. “What a tangled web,” she said hollowly as Isemay tugged her down the last few steps of the staircase.

“Well, you need not lecture me, sister. Did not you and Jeffree play along with the wicked tales Alfred Hendry told of your midnight trysts?”

“That was quite different!” Sabina huffed. “By the way, what did you tell our parents when you turned up with him on their doorstep?”

“Why, that I saved his life and he fell madly in love with me, what else?”

By some miracle, Isemay managed to sneak Sabina down to the side entrance without them being discovered by their mother.

“Anyway, never mind about me,” Isemay hissed, catching hold of Sabina’s forearm before her sister could make good her escape. “Tell me quickly, how goes it with you, sister?”

“Oh, Isemay.” Sabina sniffed dolefully. “I have likely damaged Jeffree’s reputation beyond all repair.” She gave a brief account of her less than salubrious court debut. Her sister was almost awed that she had worn her awful brown dress in the royal palace.

“I don’t know how you can have done such a thing,” her sister admitted. “But as for ruining Jeffree’s reputation, no, no, you have that all wrong. Folk round these parts used to think him horribly cold and stuck up, whereas now…”

“What?” Sabina asked almost fearfully. “Now what are they saying about him?”

“Well, that he’s married a local lass, so he cannot be all bad. Then, too, there is that business of his paying off the blacksmith’s apprentice to marry that Selwyn girl and raise her child.”

That pulled Sabina up short. “Pardon?” Her heart beat faster. “What did you say?”

“Oh, had he not told you about that? He gave them the money to set up their own forge anywhere outside of Ganfordshire. The whole village is talking of it.” When Sabina could not find any words, Isemay continued breezily, “You are taking far too bleak a view of things, you know. It seems to me that Sir Jeffree is coming along nicely.”

Sabina gaped at her. “What on earth—what are you talking about Isemay?”

“So, his odiously superior manner slipped a few times, and he lost his temper at court. What of it?”

“Isemay!” Sabina drew herself up. “You do not seem to understand that Sir Jeffree is a knight of renown who has worked hard over the years to maintain his—”

“Stuffy reputation?” Isemay concluded.

“That remark is beneath you, sister.”

“Pffft!” Isemay responded.

“Isemay!”

“Pshaw! I daresay he has seemed more human in the month since he has married you than in the thirty years preceding it.”

“He is only twenty-eight!”

“Then he is not too old to make an exhibition of himself, is he now?” her sister responded serenely. “It is not like you to look on the bad side, and besides”—she shot Sabina a level look—“if you do not like people saying his wife looks like a dowd, then mayhap you should have some new dresses made up.”

Sabina glared at her. “You are as bad as Mother!”

Isemay folded her arms. “Sometimes Mother is right.”

As this was the one thing both knew was guaranteed to infuriate the other, there was a coolness to their leave-taking which was not altogether unsurprising.

Sabina felt shattered on the ride home, and when she led Blitha into the stables, she noticed Radax was not in his stall. She made her way back into the house with a heavy heart.

“Ah, there you are, milady,” Penny hailed her. “I just set out some of my freshly baked cheese pies on the table for you and the master’s supper.”

“Thank you, Penny. I do not think—” Hearing horses’ hooves, she broke off. “He is back!” she exclaimed with relief, for suddenly the only way forward seemed obvious to her. A full confession. It was the only way out of her current mess.