Page 48 of No Place in Time

There was a knock at the door. A maid entered, eyes downcast. “Lady Cecily, Master Benedict says Lord Julian is indisposed.”

Cecily squeezed Isabel’s hands once and whispered, “Do not give him the satisfaction of fear.”

Isabel nodded.

Cecily left. When she turned into a quieter passage, Benedict stood in front of her.

“How is Lady Isabel?” he asked, his voice syrupy with sympathy. “She did seem out of sorts when Julian spoke with her this morning.”

“Lady Isabel is well enough. Considering.”

Benedict’s smile thinned. “Change is often frightening. And your concern does you credit,” he said smoothly. “But this is Veyron business.”

“Precisely,” Cecily said, looking at him sharply. “Veyron business.”

Benedict’s gaze moved over her as if measuring how hard he could push back.

“Lady Isabel knows her obligations and will fulfill them,” he said quietly. “As women have always done.”

The words hit Cecily like a slap. Lord Alard Veyron had spoken the same words to her when he tried to force her into marriage.

She turned and walked away without another word, moving through the passage lined with portraits.

Benedict’s ambition, Julian’s weakness. The Veyron men were a tangle in her mind. Her gaze drifted over the painted faces lining the corridor, searching for a hint of their character. She had passed them before, but now she truly saw them. One, smaller than the rest, caught her eye. A young man with a restrained expression, his hand on a hound’s head.

She stepped closer, her breath catching. The dark, watchful eyes. Dark hair. The line of the jaw.

Finn.

She felt as if her lungs had collapsed as she read the plaque beneath the frame.

Griffin de Veyron.

Born 1221. Died 1239.

Her hands went cold. Disappeared in 1239 would have been more accurate.

Not a commoner.

Not simply a young man who’d helped Anton. Not a man without a name.

A Veyron.

The truth settled slowly, like something heavy laid across her chest. She remembered his refusal to speak of his family. His certainty whenever Alard’s name was spoken. The way he had carried himself with confidence, even in rags.

And then something clenched in her chest, hard and hot, and she realized it was not sorrow anymore.

She had begun to love him.

Then the anger came, sudden and scalding.

Outside, the cold air struck her face. She mounted her horse and whipped it into a gallop, the hoofbeats a frantic rhythm against the ground. She had run from a Veyron to save her life.

Now she was running from another to save what was left of her heart.

28

FINN