It was the domain of The Vipers.
Isabella knew well what the pair were called. Everyone in the family did. She’d visited more frequently than most because the vast majority of the de Wolfe family didn’t want to see the pair, or deal with them, but Isabella and her mother, Rose, would come along with Tor’s parents on occasion. Everyone loved Tor but they didn’t love what The Vipers did to him.
Or, more correctly, what he allowed them to do.
Isabella knew.
Oh, but she knew.
Tor had raised the pair after their sister, Tor’s wife, had died. He’d brought them all the way from the Welsh Marches because they had nowhere else to go. But the trouble had started when Lady de Lohr had said something to Tor that he had taken literally – Jane asked that you take care of her sisters. Tor had, bringing them to Castle Questing almost seventeen years ago, where they had been raised as wards of William de Wolfe. They had been educated and taught the finest skills that all young maidens were expected to know.
But something strange had happened in the meantime.
Whey they had been young, they had been inordinately attached to Tor. It was understandable given the fact that he was their dead sister’s husband, but as they grew into young women, it wasn’t just attachment they felt for him.
It was possessiveness.
Tor belonged to them. It wasn’t that they lusted for him in a sexual sense. It was simply that he was their possession and they had a duty to protect their sister’s husband from other women. Jane had died so, in their mind, she had passed Tor down to them. Isabella had grown up alongside Barbara and Lenore, living in the same castle for several years, and they had always been friendly with each other. Barbara and Lenore could be very gracious and kind to women they didn’t view as competition for Tor. Since Isabella was a cousin, they did not view her as a threat.
But Isabella had seen what they could do to women who were.
That was when The Vipers’ fangs came out.
There had been a lass from the House of d’Umfraville of Prudhoe Castle. She and her family had simply come to visit on their way to Berwick. Lady Heather d’Umfraville, named for the vibrant heather that covered the northern moors, had been a very pretty girl who had struck up polite acquaintance with Tor. Her family was only at Castle Questing for the night, so it wasn’t as if they’d had a huge amount of time to get acquainted.
But that was enough for Barbara and Lenore.
Pretty, lively Heather d’Umfraville awoke the next morning, put her feet on the floor, and promptly fell into the corner of a table, mouth-first. Somehow during the night, an oil lamp had been tipped over and she had slipped on the oil. The fall had knocked out three of her teeth, an absolute mess and the end of a lovely smile. Everyone agreed that it had been a terrible accident at the time, but Isabella had seen Barbara and Lenore giggling about it. Coincidentally, they had been in the vicinity of Lady Heather’s chamber that evening.
That had been the start.
After that, any woman who looked twice at Tor ended up somehow disfigured or injured. There had been Lord Lanchester’s daughter who had come at the invitation of Sorcha du Rennic, Scott’s adopted daughter. Sorcha knew Lady Violet le Marr from the days when she had fostered at Alnwick Castle and she had been very excited to have her friend visit for a few weeks. Violet was tiny, dark, and quite lovely, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by some of the single males at Castle Questing.
Tor hadn’t paid any attention to the woman, but that hadn’t mattered to Barbara and Lenore. Perhaps he would and they had to prevent that at all costs. Violet had been pushed down a flight of stairs and she’d broken a leg, hitting her head so hard that she lost some hearing in her right ear. She couldn’t say who had pushed her because it had been at night, and the stairwell dark, but someone had. She’d known that for certain because she’d felt the shove.
Scott had turned Castle Questing inside-out looking for the culprit, but no one had been named and no one confessed. Barbara and Lenore had found Violet at the bottom of the stairs after her fall and they pointed fingers to a mute male servant who couldn’t defend himself. With no other choice, or suspects, Scott had banished the man from Castle Questing, but Isabella knew the truth. She had seen the way Barbara and Lenore had stalked Violet during her visit and although she didn’t see them push her, in her heart, she knew it had been them.
And that’s when she had told her father.
Given that Isabella hadn’t actually seen Barbara and Lenore do any of the heinous deeds, Blayth had to be delicate about approaching Scott with the situation. He wasn’t even sure it was the truth because Barbara and Lenore looked like innocent angels. Therefore, he held off saying anything until a particular incident at mass at Kelso Abbey when the de Wolfe family had attended for Martinmas.
A pretty Scots lass from Clan Scott, the clan of Jordan de Wolfe, had been speaking with Tor after the mass. She had been speaking with Ronan and a couple of others, too, but she seemed to bat her eyelashes mostly at Tor.
It had been her undoing.
When Emma Scott left her de Wolfe cousins and went back into the church to see what was delaying her mother, Barbara and Lenore were nowhere to be found. But they did show themselves, eventually, and the House of de Wolfe returned to Questing only to hear, on Christmas Day, that Emma Scott had met with an unfortunate accident the last time she’d been in Kelso’s abbey. In the hunt for her mother, an entire bank of candles from the nave fell on her and she had been badly burned when part of her clothing had caught fire.
That was when Blayth finally told Scott.
You have vipers in your bosom, Brother.
Given the evidence and circumstances, Scott had been forced to agree that all fingers pointed to the pair. It was made easier by the fact that they had all seen the way they acted towards Tor. Scott didn’t feel it was his place to punish them, but he told his son of their suspicions with the expectation that he would punish them.
That was when the real trouble started.
Tor couldn’t bring himself to punish Barbara and Lenore for one very good reason – no one had seen them commit the crimes and he couldn’t bring himself to punish Jane’s younger sisters based purely on rumor and speculation. It had to be a mistake, he said. Scott never told him where he got his information, so no one knew it had come through Blayth from Isabella.
Which was a good thing. As Isabella watched Barbara and Lenore make sure the dais was perfect in Tor’s great hall, she was glad they didn’t know it was her or she’d find herself shoved down a flight of stairs, too.
The Vipers wouldn’t hesitate.
“I come as often as I can,” she said belatedly, lost to her reflections about the pair. “You must come and visit me at Castle Questing sometime. You have not returned since Tor took command of Blackpool.”
Barbara, who was making her way down the table with the crystal pitchers in-hand, answered. “We are quite busy, Isabella,” she said. “As you can see, there are a thousand things to do. You do not have the responsibilities that we do so you are freer to travel.”
Isabella nodded. “That is true,” she said. “Can I help you with the wine, Barbara?”
Barbara smiled at her, shaking her head. “No, dear Bella,” she said. “This is my task and you are a guest. In fact, I have not had the chance to tell you how sorry I am about your broken betrothal. How heartbroken you must be.”