Isabelle hurried into her clothes, determined never to call Sebastian Dushayne “master.” It was a demeaning, demoralizing title. It reminded her of everything awful about the way a man treated women and servants, as if he was superior by his very masculinity. It was an antiquated, outdated concept, everywhere but here in Sebastian Dushayne’s corner of the world.
She pushed open the palm door and fell into step beside Cortez. No matter what Sebastian Dushayne was called, she had promised Father Joubay that she would sing for him.
By the time she reached the street, her annoyance at the demands of Sebastian Dushayne had died. By the time she reached the door to the castillo, nerves made her legs shaky. By the time she reached the center of the castle courtyard, she prayed for help and inspiration.
Both came in the song she began to sing. The courtyard amplified her words, making her sound like a diva on a stage, and she relaxed enough to enjoy herself and think about the words as she sang them. “Be not afraid, I go before you always. Come follow me and I will give you life.”
As the words of the familiar hymn floated upward, Isabelle turned around and around, singing to the empty doors and windows that overlooked the courtyard, and then looked up to the heavens. The thin slice of a new moon lit its corner of the western sky and some planet sent a bold light out into the universe.
Isabelle loved the night sky and smiled as she came to the last of the hymn. That was when she saw Sebastian Dushayne, shadowed in one of the upper windows, lit from behind so that she could not read his expression. She tilted her head slightly, waiting for a comment. He did not move, but once again his body spoke for him. He looked wounded, as though her presence was more than he could bear.
Her heart sped to double time as the truth struck her.
Sebastian Dushayne is why I am here.
The realization came to her so suddenly and with such certainty, Isabelle had no doubt that this was a cosmic truth and not her ego.
It was this man who needed her, not the villagers. His dark presence was as powerful as the storm that had changed her life.
The curse. The dark shadow around him reminded Isabelle that she had completely forgotten to ask about it. Ask who, a boy or a healer who did not like her? Or Sebastian Dushayne.
As she thought his name, he left the window and disappeared into the darkness behind him.
Yes, he would just as soon keep the curse, whatever it was, a secret. Who knew how long she would have stared at the closed window if a voice had not distracted her?
“Dinner is ready. Mistress Esmé says you must eat.”
Isabelle’s stomach rumbled and she knew Esmé was right. She raised her eyes to the empty window, gave a deep bow and left, wondering if Father Joubay had known why Sebastian Dushayne needed her and had died before he could tell her.
Sebastian stepped back into the room, and slumped against the wall. The pain in his heart would have made him fear an apoplexy if it was possible for him to suffer from something so human. He closed his eyes and a kaleidoscope of pictures tumbled out of his mind as if his memory had been unlocked for the first time in two hundred years.
Sebastian saw his wife, his anger, her stubbornness, his insistence and the storm that took her life as she did her best to obey him and come home.
Those dreams, even daydreams, were nothing new. But the pain that came with them was as tortured as anything a sadistic man could devise. Rage, guilt, heartache drove him to his knees even as he remembered how much he had loved Angelique, how much he could not stand for them to be apart, how he wanted her sleeping beside him every night.
How could the inane words of that hymn have done this to him? He was no more afraid of God or of life, whichever it was, than he was afraid of the waif of a woman singing from the courtyard as if her life depended on it.
Sebastian had thought it would be entertaining to have someone new to sing. That a year would be just long enough to enjoy a new voice before boredom set in. He was already bored. He would send for the singer from the hotel even though her voice was failing and her songs were too modern for his taste. Then he would tell this amateur that he never wanted to see her again.
Five
Isabelle was not surprised when Esmé missed work for the next three days without explanation. Whether the healer’s absence was another test or the result of too much liquor hardly mattered.
What did surprise Isabelle was the message Cortez brought telling her that she was not expected to sing anymore. She was brushing her teeth on the second evening when she realized that her voice must have disappointed Dushayne and that was why he had no desire to hear her again. She cringed with embarrassment even though she was alone.
The third day was the busiest of all, and then Isabelle realized it was curiosity that brought so many with hard-to-diagnose headaches and upset stomachs.
It was almost dusk when Cortez came running to her. “You must come. You must come. One of the master’s servants is hurt and needs help. It is Riono and he is bleeding badly. You must come now, Mistress Nurse.”
Isabelle grabbed her bag and ran.
Riono lay on the kitchen floor, a bloody gash on his arm, a kitchen knife still in his hand. The radial artery, Isabelle decided instantly. She pulled a cord from her bag and made a tourniquet.
“Will he live?”
She sat back on her knees and looked up at the cluster of people, trying to find the one who had asked the question. Sebastian Dushayne stood among them, the servants having left a space between them and him.
He watched with a detached interest that reminded her of the doctor who had supervised her clinical work. Isabelle hated the man until she realized that after years of seeing students come and go his disinterest was the only way to protect his emotions. It was too hard to say good-bye over and over again. Did Sebastian Dushayne’s servants come and go with as much regularity?
“Riono will be all right in time.” She nodded to Dushayne but spoke to everyone gathered around them. “I will have to clean and stitch the wound. The healer is not well today, but there is no time to waste.”
“Not well?” Sebastian folded his arms and did not hide his cynicism. “That did not take long.”
Without answering Dushayne, Isabelle asked for help moving the man. Finally they settled Riono on a table moved near the sink.
She explained the procedure to the patient and to Dushayne, who had insisted on observing even though she had asked everyone to leave. “I will have to wash the wound for at least twenty minutes and it will hurt, but it is essential to remove any dirt from the knife blade. After that I have some medicine, a spray, that will block the pain, but you will still feel the stitches going through your skin.”
Riono’s eyes were wide with shock but he nodded. “I heard you sing the other night and cannot forget how beautiful it was. Can you sing while you wash my arm, Mistress Nurse? It will help me think of other things.”
“Yes, if you wish,” Isabelle answered without looking to Dushayne for approval. If the man did not want to hear her, he could go away.
Isabelle started the pump and let the water rinse the wound. Riono gasped and Dushayne took his hand. “Think of your woman in childbirth.” Riono’s grimace might have been a smile.
Isabelle did not look up, but was struck by the contradictions in the man. As she supervised the cleaning she let her mind wander.
Sebastian Dushayne’s ill humor kept company with an essential kindness that left her off-kilter, uncertain whether to allow herself to like him or keep him at a distance, and then she realized that uncertainty was exactly what he wanted.
When the wound was clean, she sprayed the area with li docaine and, as she took the first stitch, began to sing. “I live to serve, I live to love, I live to care as Christ once showed.”