“There were certain traditions of our true faith that we practiced at home. Traditions the king wouldn’t have tolerated in his tailor.”
“I’ve noticed you wear the hand of Fatima.”
Isabel pulled the necklace from her bodice. “Muslims call it by that name. For the Jews, it is the hand of Miriam. It was Mama’s hamsa, and, yes, another remainder of our heritage.”
Percy had vowed to keep his emotional distance from Isabel—she was his enemy’s pawn—but he couldn’t, not with the unresolved pain he saw in her eyes. “How long before he was caught passing information to the English?”
“Three years.”
Three years was an eternity to have one’s neck bared to the blade of potential exposure. “And your father was imprisoned?”
Eyes brimming with unshed tears, she nodded.
“Then how did you and your sister come to be in England?” Before she could open her mouth, Percy answered the question. “Montfort.”
“Montfort transported us and offered us a place to stay,” she said, voice cleared of emotion as she recounted the facts. “Fortunately, Papa had planned for an emergency. Eva and I refused any more help from Montfort and used the monies to find a suitable shop and start our dressmaking trade. A few months later, Montfort arrived at our door to give us the chance to both serve our new country and free Papa. The debt that Eva and I had acquired by accepting his help to leave Spain obliged us. Eva volunteered to go with him without any idea of what he had planned for her.”
“Which was?”
“To use her beauty and body for his own ends.”
Anger surged hot through Percy. “He turned her into a prostitute.”
“He used the word courtesan, but, yes. When she finally came home, she was addicted to laudanum and several months gone with child. Ariel was born sickly.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it,” Percy stated. Isabel still hadn’t explained her involvement.
“A few months after Eva returned, Montfort came back and explained that our debt wasn’t paid. I needed to take my sister’s place at Number 9.”
Percy’s anger grew spikes and tapped into a vein of pure rage. This was how Montfort bent others to his will. “Now it wasn’t simply about freeing your father, but about you, Eva, and Ariel staying in England.”
“You know the story from there.”
“And you believed Montfort?”
“On each and every point.”
“Why?”
“Because he seems all powerful.” With a sudden surge of agitation, she pushed off the window ledge. “The lives of my family are at risk,” she said, a plea in her voice.
She wanted him to understand. And he did. All too well. “You have no choice.”
“He’s coming after you now.”
“And using you to do it.”
She nodded, abashed. “But why? Why is he coming after you?”
“I did treat his beloved niece, Olivia, rather poorly when we were married,” Percy said, trying for flippancy.
Grave eyes stared out at him, unconvinced by his forced lightness. “That isn’t why, though, is it? And it isn’t simply about this Savior of St. Giles business.”
A frisson of surprise traced through Percy. “You know about that?”
“I have my sources, too.”
He exhaled a humorless laugh. “Touché.”
Isabel remained dead serious. “Montfort wants to destroy you. Why?”
Chapter 26
Of a sudden, the pitched ceiling of the hayloft seemed to compress and squeeze in, making it difficult for Percy to draw breath.
For such a small word, Isabel’s why asked much of him, and in direct opposition to how he should be handling her.
He should treat her like an enemy agent, like all the words that flowed from her mouth were lies spun to wrap him in her web, leaving him vulnerable to Montfort’s strike.
But he couldn’t. For here was the thing:
She had bared her soul to him.
And he would do the same for her. Not because he wanted to, but because he needed to. He needed this woman to know him, thoroughly.
And once she did, no longer would she gaze upon him as she did now, with openness and a care resembling affection.
Once she saw him for who he truly was, she would find it easy to walk away from him.
And that was precisely what she needed to do: not walk, but run as fast and as far from Lord Percival Bretagne as she could.
“It has been fairly established,” he began, “that I was a vainglorious young man in search of valor on the battlefield.”
She nodded and moved toward the stack of hay, plucking out a stem of straw. She began to worry it between her fingers, her silence encouraging him to continue.
“I was seasick the entire voyage to Spain. Byron failed to mention that possibility in his poetry. But my enthusiasm and thirst for war wasn’t dampened one bit.”
Why did she continue to look upon him with those intent eyes of hers? Why wasn’t she put off already?
“Then came the Battle of Maya, my first battle. My only battle. It was a right slaughter from beginning to ignoble end. I believe Wellington calls it his lasting shame.”
“How did it end for you?” The sympathy contained within that you was almost too much.
“After I picked up this”—he indicated the slash running along his right cheekbone—“a cannon ball cratered the earth a few yards away, and the world went black. My countrymen took me for dead and retreated through the mountain pass without me.”
Isabel’s hand flew to her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “How did you survive?”
“Days later—or weeks. Those early memories are hazy—I awoke in a modest farmhouse, being cared for by a Spanish family that consisted of a very old woman and her very young great-granddaughter. The rest of the family were either dead or fighting, which was as good as dead. The cannon shot had wiped my memory clean. I couldn’t have told you my name, but my body was whole, if battered. As my strength returned, I began helping around the farm. They were in need of a man about the place. Picked up the language by bits and pieces, too. After a few months, an Englishman darkened the door.”