Or to put any hope of love forever behind her.
She’d spoken to Cassidy of choices, believing her own made and settled long ago. It seemed that one was never too old to be a fool.
The dawn was wreathed in heavy mist that carried the hint of approaching autumn. The carriage horses stamped, blowing steam from their nostrils; Isabelle pulled her shawl about her shoulders and stared at the blurred silhouettes of a copse of trees just to the west. Toward Greyburn.
Matthew perched on the coachman’s seat, loosely holding the reins. He whistled softly.
“Someone’s coming,” he said. But there was no further warning before a wolf, mottled black and gray, emerged from the mist.
It stopped to crouch several feet before Isabelle and shook its coat vigorously. Black ash flew from its fur, leaving it dullish white.
A white wolf. She’d seen this wolf before, when she spied on the ceremony in the Great Hall, but it was something quite different to be so close to Rowena Forster in her alternate shape. In its way, the wolf was just as elegant and beautiful as the woman, but it was also unmistakably more. She was unmistakably dangerous.
Rowena met Isabelle’s gaze with eyes slightly more yellow than those she possessed as a human. Isabelle felt the challenge in that gaze, and shivered. But Rowena despised herself at this moment more than she could possibly resent the whore whose help she so badly needed.
Isabelle returned to the carriage and pulled out the folded blanket she’d brought along with Rowena’s smallest trunks. She shook it out and held it wide between herself and the wolf.
As if the surrounding mist obeyed Rowena’s commands, it gathered about her and wrapped her in a cocoon made of air. Within that cocoon, she Changed. Isabelle blinked, and a woman stood before her, pale and naked and distressingly thin.
Quickly Isabelle offered the blanket, and Rowena snatched it from her. The wolf’s boldness was gone; Rowena wrapped the blanket over her bowed head and hurried to the carriage.
As agreed, Matthew slipped away to grant his niece the privacy she required to don the simple traveling dress Isabelle had brought. But there was still no sign of Cassidy.
For a moment Isabelle dared hope that Cassidy had found the good sense to remain at the house.
But the muffled sound of hoofbeats quickly laid that hope to rest. A horse and rider, moving at a brisk trot, appeared where the narrow country lane vanished into the haze. Cassidy wore her calico and rode astride, hair damp and loose like a heavy mane at her back.
She dismounted with a soft word to the horse and glanced at the carriage. Her skin was unusually pale and there were dark hollows under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept. Isabelle doubted that any of them had.
“It worked,” Cassidy said. ” No one stopped me when I invited Rowena to my room last night. By the time the servants start wondering where she is this morning, it’ll be too late.” She grimaced. “The grooms and stable hands are still hunting down the horses I let loose. I didn’t like doing that, Isabelle. If it weren’t for Rowena—”
“It was necessary,” Isabelle said. The last thing Cassidy needed was more guilt on top of the consequences she had yet to face—even if she didn’t appreciate how great they might be. The truths that Rowena had revealed must remain hidden until Isabelle returned and had time to explain as gently as possible. “You’ve done your part, Cassidy. You can go back now—”
“Not yet.” She gazed at Isabelle, eyes moist, and rested her cheek on the horse’s neck. “I would have been here sooner, but I haven’t been feeling well. I had to wait a few minutes before I could ride.”
Instinctively Isabelle felt Cassidy’s forehead. She wasn’t the sort to complain about minor discomforts, and Isabelle had never seen her sick except after the footman’s attack. “How are you ill?”
“My stomach. Sometimes early in the morning, I have to—” She swallowed, paling further. “Excuse me.” She pushed the horse’s reins into Isabelle’s hand and ran to the nearest clump of shrubbery. Isabelle heard the sounds of dry heaving, and then Cassidy returned, moving slowly and stiffly.