Because You Love to Hate Me(69)

Tears were in her eyes; her teeth were bared in anger. Leaves were shifting in the glade. The children emptied baskets of them, carpeting the grass.

This could not be Marigold.

“He was using both of us, Isaac,” she spat. “He told me he would kill me, the first time, if I refused to do what you wanted . . . and after, he promised he would ruin me if I was not the perfect mistress. He would tell the Sinnetts we met, allow them to find us. He was the one who arranged our meetings, wasn’t he? He always knew where we were.” Marigold rose from the water. Rivulets streamed from her hair, soaking her sleeves. “He befriended you because he thought you were weak-willed. My brother has a silver tongue. If you married me—if you could be persuaded, in the end, to marry me—he believed the Beath family would be raised to its former glory. That he would no longer be in destitution.” She shook her head. “I was never yours. I do not love you. I never did. If you care for me at all, leave me.”

Isaac was close to choking. “I cannot leave you.” He could not understand—would not understand. “George told me. He told me you loved me, that you wanted to see me—”

“A scullery maid in a household you had never visited. When did I become besotted with you?”

“You saw me through the window!”

Now she looked pitying. “Do you really suppose that one can fall in love with a person through a window?”

He could not stand this. He couldn’t look at her, knowing she would flee from him if he tried to take her in his arms again.

“Marigold, come here.”

Isaac was jolted from his memories. George had come into the glade. The children fled from him, crying for their mother.

“George,” he said faintly.

“Marigold,” George said, ignoring him, “you will stop making a fool of yourself and step out of the water. Come with us at once.”

Marigold stumbled deeper into the pool, so the water came past her waist. “No, George,” she said, eyes flashing. “I have had enough of your threats—your scheming—”

George clicked his tongue. “You see, Isaac. Bewitched, just as I said.” He strode toward her. She looked half wild with fear. “Marigold, I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“Leave me be.”

Isaac cringed at her shrill tone. This was not her voice, not Marigold. George was right.

“You are becoming hysterical, sister.” George was always so calm, so unruffled. He fixed her with an unblinking stare, the sort one would use on a deer before shooting it. “Marigold, Isaac has given me his word that he will marry you when you return to England. You see? You will be Marigold Fairfax, a respectable lady of London, with a husband who adores you. Your reputation will not be ruined. And our family name will be restored. You’ll see.”

But Isaac had never promised to marry her. George must know that it was impossible. He must always have known that Isaac was meant to court Anne, surely, yet he spoke of the possibility so often . . .

“Reputation.” Marigold laughed. “Our father used my mother to slake his desire, stole her newborn child, and left her to rot—and she was not the only woman to suffer that fate.” Tears glossed her eyes for a fleeting instant before they turned to flint again. “You used me to get what you wanted. So did Isaac. Yet it is my reputation in peril. Do you truly wonder why I want to stay here?”

George’s pistol pointed at her heart. “George,” Isaac cried. “How dare you threaten her?”

“Don’t be a milksop. I will shoot her if it saves her life,” his friend snapped. “A decent surgeon will take out the bullet. She’ll only have a little scar.”

“Shoot me, then,” Marigold said before Isaac could protest. “Shoot me. Like an honorable man.” She held out her hands. “He’ll kill me either way, Isaac. The Erl-queen knows the future. If you let him take me back, he will strangle me before I turn seventeen. He will tell you that I ran away to find my mother, that I drowned at sea, anything to make you forget. No one will know the truth.”

His heart was breaking. He was a statue struck too hard by a chisel, splintering all over. His eyes grew hot and damp. George claimed he had done it all for her, so she might have a chance of love with a man above her station. Could his dear friend really have been little more than a procurer, a parasite with designs upon the Fairfax fortune? Had George truly believed Isaac would make Marigold his bride, even if it meant lowering his own reputation? It was more than he could bear. And he could not believe it of George, his friend . . .

Wind murmured around them, carrying leaves with it. The light vanished from overhead, turning the mist the stern grey of pewter. Isaac felt a chill on his neck.

A woman had appeared in the center of the glade. Earth cracked from her shoulders as she rose to her full height. Her skin was the darkest bark, her hair was a wreath of ivy, and she wore nothing but a veil of gossamer. Inside her face, just visible through it, were the same black eyes she shared with the prince—for this could be none other than the Erl-queen, the other queen of England, the creature who had stolen all these girls from those who loved them. The creature who had terrorized a country.

“Leave,” she said in a soughing voice.

Isaac unsheathed his sword again. It had been easy to kill the Erl-queen’s son. Now he was not so afraid.