Rowena put her hands to her face. After a long silence, she raised her head. Her eyes were moist. “He married you,” she murmured, “even though you cannot Change. If anyone in the world can make him understand…”
If he loves me, Cassidy had told Isabelle, he won’t shut me out. He will listen. “Then it’s settled.” Cassidy rose and paced across the decorative carpet to Rowena’s bed. “I don’t know how Quentin planned to distract the servants—I’ve seen the ones watching you.”
“Braden has willed them to lose all respect for me,” Rowena said. “They will lay hands on me to prevent my escape, and I will not fight them.”
“Then… you’ll have to get out in the only way they’ll never suspect. As a wolf.”
Rowena tried to stand, lost her balance, and clutched at the chair for support. “No.”
“I know how much you hate it, but if it’s for the last time—you’ll have to, Rowena.”
Looking pale and ill, Rowena fell back into her chair. “What you ask… They will know me, even as a wolf—”
“Because of your color. But what if I darken your fur with ashes, so that you look like Braden? At night, no human will be able to tell the difference.”
“How will I leave the house?”
“Through the secret passageway in our room. I’ve seen Braden use it, and I know how it works. I’ll think of some good reason to get you to our suite. I don’t think the servants will say no to me.”
Rowena shuddered. “I cannot go to Liverpool, as… a beast.”
“You won’t have to. We’ll make a bundle of clothes and other things you’ll need, and…” Cassidy thought rapidly. “I’ll get a carriage to meet you away from the house. There must be a train—”
“And who will drive this carriage, if we can trust none of the servants?”
“I will. I can handle horses. I’ll drive you to the station, and—”
“I believe that I have a better alternative.”
Cassidy and Rowena turned as one toward the door. Isabelle stepped into the room and shut the door carefully behind her.
“I beg your pardon for coming to your room uninvited, Lady Rowena, but Telford said I might find Cassidy here.” She met Cassidy’s gaze. “It appears that my timing was impeccable.”
Rowena’s body stiffened as if she would stand, but her weakness got the better other. “Mrs. Smith—”
“I know what you have been discussing, Lady Rowena. I have been expecting something of the kind.” She made no attempt to come farther into the room, but stood very still near the door, palms pressed flat to her skirt as if to prevent it from touching anything that belonged to Rowena. “I believe that I can be of service to you”—she glanced at Cassidy—”if I may speak with Lady Rowena alone for a few moments.”
It was the first time in weeks that these two women had been in the same room together. Maybe there could be a kind of acceptance between them at last.
And maybe Isabelle, like Cassidy, was hungry to be needed.
“I’ll wait outside the door,” she said, “and make sure you aren’t interrupted.”
She left them alone, and tried to keep her thoughts too busy to dwell on the fear that what she was about to do could never be undone.
The first thing Isabelle had seen when she entered Rowena’s room was the portrait of Milena. She took it in with a single glance and instantly perceived why this dead woman was the center of so much turmoil.
But if Milena were part of the current problem, she was but a peripheral one. She would have to wait.
Isabelle leaned against the door and wished she could be anywhere but here, in this tasteful and expensively decorated room so well suited for the sister of a peer of the realm. She felt crushed by the weight of society’s judgment, contained in the arrogant, proper figure of the young woman seated by the window.
Proper still, perhaps, but no longer quite so arrogant. Lady Rowena had been forced to suffer, had watched her private dreams and wishes trampled by a man who had no concern for her happiness.