The next day, true to his word, Tristan called, bright and early. Isoline had only finished her breakfast and was getting ready for her walk when Talbot announced his arrival.

“Dear Cousin!” Tristan said as he walked over and gripped her hands in his. He continued to hold them as he made his way to the couch, forcing her to sit next to him instead of across. “I am so glad you invited me to call.”

“Well, we are family, and friends. It’s an open invitation,” she said as she pried her fingers loose and motioned to Talbot for tea. She was certain his smile quivered at the word “friend,” but she ignored it.

“Did you enjoy the sermon yesterday?” he asked.

She couldn’t remember the details but nodded nonetheless. “Of course,” she said.

“All that talk about love and eternity,” he said. “It certainly makes you think, does it not?”

“God’s love and heavenly eternity are certainly deep thoughts for contemplation,” she said, determined not to let the conversation travel in the direction he so clearly wanted it to.

“Yes…yes, of course,” he said. “But certainly, it also makes you think about life here and now.”

“Not really,” Isoline said, exasperated. “I just take life day to day. I’m very happy here, caring for my aunt and spending time with myself. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Spending time with yourself?” he asked with a huff. “Or spending time with a certain vagrant who leeches off of our Aunt Bellamira.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said, crossing her arm. Had he been spying on her? Watching her? How did he know she had seen Auberon again?

“Don’t you?” he asked as he stood and went to the fireplace. He then turned back to her. “I’m only trying to protect you, Isoline.”

She stood and took a few steps away, glad of the distance between them. “And I don’t recall asking for your protection.”

“I suppose I should have left you in the rain, sobbing and drenched,” he said.

“If I had known it would lead to this I certainly wish you would have,” she snapped back.

“What?” he asked. “Led to me loving you? You ungrateful—”

“Loving me?” she guffawed. “You don’t know me. I don’t know a thing about you, except that you don’t listen. I told you that I was only interested in your friendship.”

“Come now, cousin,” he said. “We both know that our relationship has developed way beyond that.”

“What relationship?” she asked, exasperated. “I can count on one hand how many times we have spoken.”

“But if it is love at first sight—” he started, taking a brisk step toward her.

She stepped back, keeping her hands well out of reach. “It’s not love!” she exclaimed, startled by the volume of her own voice.

“What is the meaning of this?” Bellamira demanded as she entered the room. “I swear I can hear the two of you bickering all the way up in my rooms. Makes me glad I never had children of my own.”

“I am so sorry, aunt,” Isoline said rushing to her side. “I never wish to disturb you.”

“Nor I, aunt,” Tristan said as he smoothed his hair back. “Isoline and I were just having an…impassioned discussion.”

“If that is how you discuss things,” Bellamira said, “I should hate to know how you fight.”

“I would never fight with dear Isoline,” Tristan said with a cool grace that only made Isoline more angry. “I simply declared my feelings for her and I think she may have been overcome with emotion.”

“I am not emotional,” Isoline said, clenching her fists. It was taking all of her energy to keep from screaming once again. “Well, maybe I am upset, but only because you refuse to listen to me. I know what I am saying.”

“Declare your emotions?” Bellamira asked, her mouth curled in only what Isoline could describe as disgust. “What is going on here?”

“I’m in love with Isoline,” Tristan declared without hesitation. “She is all I think about and I wish to court her with a view to marriage.”

“But…but you’ve only just met,” Bellamira said in surprise.

“I have known from the moment I found her in the rain,” he said with a sigh. “I know it might not have happened as quickly for her. I accept that. I only ask that she allow me to court her so that in time she may too realize her love for me.”

“And you, Isoline?” Bellamira asked. “Are you open to this…this whirlwind courtship your cousin has proposed?”

“No,” Isoline said firmly. “I don’t want to be courted by anyone. I only ever offered Tristan my friendship and familial affection, nothing more. I came here to be with you auntie, not to find a husband. You will recall that the whole reason I am here is because I called off an engagement. I have no wish to be married.”

“So what is the problem?” Bellamira asked, turning back to Tristan. “You proposed a courtship and Isoline said no. What is all the fuss about?”

“B-because…” he stammered, as though shocked Bellamira did not see things his way. “She only needs to give me a chance to earn her love.”

“I don’t think Isoline would agree,” Bellamira said. “Perhaps in time, Isoline might change her mind, but not with you badgering her and stomping around like some sort of bull elephant.”

Isoline couldn’t help but chuckle at her aunt’s description, which was quite spot on, but it seemed to only irritate Tristan further.

“Grand-Auntie,” Tristan pleaded. “You must see that I only have Isoline’s best interest at heart. If you could only persuade her—”

“Tristan, dear nephew,” Bellamira cut in raising her hand to stop him from speaking further. “I will do no such thing. I am not her mother, and even if I were, she is not a child. She is a young woman with her own mind. And if she uses that mind to make a decision, neither you nor I should waste our energy trying to change it. I think you should go.”

Tristan’s face grew red and he pressed his lips to keep from railing at his aunt. Isoline held her breath, afraid he was not going to take their aunt’s words to heart. But finally, he did. He stormed out of the room, and both Isoline and Bellamira waited until they heard the front door close before they exhaled again.

“Oh, auntie,” Isoline whimpered as she sunk to the couch.

Bellamira waved her off as she asked Talbot for a fresh pot of tea to calm their nerves. “That boy has always been rather spoiled. Doted on by his mother. So demanding of his father. Both of his sisters married quite young—too young—largely I think to get away from him. He has calmed down in recent years, mostly since his parents died and he had to take care of himself. And he has been an amiable companion to me, he helps me keep the accounts, and he visits regularly, but I am not of courting age,” she said with a wry chuckle.

Isoline smiled but was unable to find the humor in the situation at the moment. She did wonder why Tristan had spent so much time over the years with Bellamira and not looking for a wife. Surely there were available young ladies in town, or he could have found one in London during the season.

She thought about what Royston, her brother, had said about Bellamira’s fortune. That she had never, in all her years, named an heir. Perhaps he was in a similar boat as Isoline, trying to ingratiate himself with the elderly relative in the hopes of securing a fortune. Maybe he saw Isoline as some sort of threat to plans he had been working toward for so long. She didn’t think he needed it, though. He had a modest estate of his own. Maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he did love her. She shook her head. She had no way of knowing his true motives and she didn’t want to find them out. She just wanted him to leave her alone.

“I am…proud of you, Isoline,” Bellamira said as though she knew she shouldn’t say it but couldn’t help herself.

“Proud?” Isoline asked. “Of what?”

Bellamira sat thoughtfully for a moment before she explained. “When I was a girl, we didn’t have a choice in these matters. It wasn’t, ‘darling, would you like to marry Lord Granville?’ It was, ‘next month, darling, you are to marry Lord Granville.’ I had never even met him before. And he was twice my age! But there was nothing I could do about it. It was expected of me. Of all the girls back then. Of course, we dreamed of love and romance, but we knew it didn’t really exist for us.”

Isoline nodded sorrowfully. Such marriages without choice were still common. That Isoline’s father had allowed her to call off her marriage to Cyril was in many ways a very modern attitude. One many fathers would not tolerate.

“You might think that I had a good life, an easy one when you look at this large house and beautiful pieces of art,” Bellamira went on. “But believe me, my girl, I paid for them in their own way. Every last one of them.”

Bellamira’s face had grown hard, defiant, angry, yet there was hurt behind her eyes. Isoline had no wish to ask what a young Bellamira had suffered at the hands of her husband, but she did not need to know. Bellamira’s face said enough. Lord Granville had been a cruel man. After enduring such a marriage, it was no surprise that Bellamira never remarried. She had probably had more than enough of men after that.

“I’m proud of you, my darling,” Bellamira said, “because you knew marrying that little lord was the wrong decision. You stood up for yourself and said damn to the consequences. You had no idea I would open my home to you. You could have ended up in a nunnery, or worse, but you didn’t give in. And just now, with Tristan, it would be a good match. If you father knew about the offer, he would be quite glad of it, I’m sure. But no. You stayed firm in your resolve. You were very brave.”

Bellamira’s gushing adoration nearly brought tears to Isoline’s eyes again, but not in sadness. She rushed to her aunt’s side and gave her a tight hug.

“Thank you, dear auntie,” Isoline said.

“Now, there, there,” Bellamira said, patting her back and then pushing her away gently. “Enough of that. How about a game of cards before luncheon?”

By mid-afternoon, Bellamira was exhausted, so she went to her apartments to lay down. Isoline never did get to take her daily walk because a summer storm rolled in with thunder and a gentle rain. Isoline decided she should resume her exploration of the house. She could not explain why the similar portraits of her and her grand-aunt had disturbed her so. It was quite common for people who were related to each other to look similar. If anything, she should be honored to look so like her dear auntie.

She went back to the second floor and entered a room she had not been in before. This one appeared to be an office, with a large desk sitting in front of a window and several shelves of books. There were still many pieces of art to be found, but not as many as she had seen in some of the other rooms.

As she examined the art, she actually found several pieces she quite admired. One appeared to be a quite simple rendering of a black horse on a white background in some sort of oriental style. But as she looked closer, she realized that she was not looking at a painting, but an exquisitely detailed piece of embroidery. She knew she had to have it. She also found a painting of a knight kissing his beloved lady as he slipped out a window. It was quite scandalous, but she could not ignore the beauty of the piece and decided to set it aside for herself as well. Another piece she adored was of an elegantly dressed man and woman who appeared to be in animated discussion. “Beatrice and Benedict,” the piece was called, and she laughed at the thought of an artist capturing the classic couple as they tossed verbal barbs at each other.

She quickly realized that she was already collecting too many pieces. If she found this many in one room, how many more would she find in the others? She needed to make a list of the ones she liked and where in the house they could be found. Then, when Auberon called, he could help her decide which pieces to move to her room.

She decided she needed some paper and a pencil, and she would make a list of all the rooms and the pieces she favored in each one. As she walked over to the desk, the rain, heavier now, patted on the window. She looked out and thought she saw someone, a man, standing in the rain looking up at her.

She started and looked more closely. Lightning lit up the sky and the thunder crashed, causing her to gasp and step back. When the rumbling cleared, she looked again, but the man was gone, if he had ever been there at all. She shook her head. She must have simply imagined it.

She turned to the desk and opened the top drawer. She pulled out some loose pieces of paper, but most of them already had writing on them. She gasped when one of them crumbled in her hands it was so old. She carefully laid the others down and looked them over to see what they were. The handwriting and words seemed ancient. She could just barely make them out, but they didn’t all make sense to her. She finally found a date on one of them. 1756.

1756? That was nearly a hundred years ago! She scanned the page again and realized it was some sort of rental agreement.

Isoline stood up straight and let the words sink in. A writ of agreement between a long-dead earl and Auberon from 1756? That…that simply couldn’t be possible.

A breeze blew, scattering some of the papers Isoline had been looking at. She quickly did her best to gather the pages before they were lost or damaged. She then looked for the source of the breeze. The window she had been looking out just moments ago was now slightly ajar. But she was certain that is had been closed when she last looked out it. She shook her head. It must have been closed but unlatched and the wind blew it free. She closed the window and made sure the latch was tight before she returned to the mysterious writ of deed.

She willed her breath to still and her mind to clear. Certainly, the deed could not have been written for her Auberon. Well, the Auberon she knew. He certainly wasn’t her Auberon. It must have been written for his father or grandfather. Perhaps the Dracoia family had been renting the land from the Granvilles for generations. That would certainly explain why Bellamira was loathed to dismiss him from the estate, as Tristan had suggested. She would not want to evict someone whose family had been renting on the land since before she had married into it.

Isoline shook her head at her own silliness and gingerly placed the papers back into the drawer. Of course, the renter had been one of Auberon’s ancestors. It made perfect sense.

She decided to look for a notebook in her own room so she wouldn’t risk disturbing such ancient records again.