Chapter 608: Tearing Away the Veil (Part Two)
Jocelynn wanted to tell Isabell that Owain would never harm her. She wanted to protest that she trusted Owain as much as she trusted her own father, but... She’d thought that he wouldn’t harm Ashlynn either. She’d thought that telling him about her mark would be enough for Owain to call things off. She’d never thought that he would confront her sister directly, much less that he would murder her sister for being a witch.
Ever since then, she’d carried a small doubt in her mind that, one day, he might do the same to her. That was part of why she’d worked so hard to please him, to help him gather the allies he needed and the accomplishments his father demanded so that he could keep his position as heir to the Lothian throne.
She’d worked hard to please him in other ways, capturing his eye and holding his attention, even teasing his body far more than a proper young noblewoman should. Her face heated in a combination of embarrassment and deep shame as she thought of all the times she’d sat in his lap, feeling his manhood rising under her skirts while she gave Owain the very best plans she’d been able to form in her constant efforts to secure their future.
Most of the time, she was able to believe that he cared for her. That he was coming to treasure her, maybe even more than he could have ever treasured Ashlynn. But Confessor Eleanor had often reminded her that the time she’d spent with Lord Owain was only now catching up to the amount of time that Ashlynn had spent with him over the course of two years of infrequent visits while the Lothian lord had formally courted the Blackwell heiress.
"You know," Isabell said softly, pulling Jocelynn out of her spiraling thoughts. "Before Owain arrived in Blackwell City, I received a letter from your sister."
"What?!?" Jocelynn said, startled enough that she jumped up from her chair, knocking it over and nearly tripping over her skirts in the process. "When? How?" she asked, gripping the edge of the table for balance like it was the only source of stability in a world that pitched beneath her feet like a ship at sea.
"She must have sent it shortly after she arrived in Lothian March," Isabell lied, bending the truth ever so slightly. She knew that the letter had been sent after she escaped from Owain Lothian but if she revealed that, she would have to reveal too much more, and she wasn’t certain how much Jocelynn knew about Owain’s attempt to murder her sister. "She told me, and these are her words exactly, ’my husband-to-be isn’t to be trusted around women, and neither are his knights.’"
"After that," Isabell added, choosing her words with great care. Confessor Eleanor asked her to share the truth, but some truths felt too dangerous to share carelessly, no matter how much she wanted to wrap the distraught young lady in her arms and give her the love that a caring mother should. "She said that she expected that I would encounter Lord Owain sooner or later, and when I did, she asked that I watch over you. Your sister loves you very much, you know."
"A letter?" Jocelynn said, her voice suddenly tight. She straightened her shoulders, a flash of defensiveness crossing her face. "Ash would have told me if she really had concerns. She, she shared everything with me."
Her fingers trembled as she smoothed her skirts, clinging to this image of her older sister like a lifeline. The older sister who taught her how to sneak out of Blackwell Manor, who showed her where the cooks stashed extra pastries and other treats that they could take for snacks on their adventures. The older sister who had shared everything with her, no matter how silly her younger sister’s questions were. That sister wouldn’t have held back fears about Owain... not when her wedding to the Lothian Lord was so important to their entire family. Would she?
"Perhaps you misunderstood her meaning, or..." Jocelynn started to say but the words died on her lips as the inescapable truth pressed down on her. Of course, Isabell hadn’t misunderstood. If her sister was the smartest person she’d ever known, then Master Isabell was surely the second. The two had shared so many moments discussing Ashlynn’s ever-growing collection of books or the things that Master Isabell had learned at the universities across the sea that it was impossible that the engineer would misunderstand her sister’s meaning.