Blanche Twyford will find it extremely hard. They will suffer every moment of forced civility in silence. That alone should be of immeasurable satisfaction to you. It will be to me!”
Isobel smiled a little tremulously. She took a shuddering breath. “All the way to Inverness?”
“There will be trains,” Vespasia responded. “The line goes that far now.”
Isobel looked away. “That will be the least part of it. I daresay it will take days, and be cold and uncomfortable, with infinite stops. But facing that woman, and giving her Gwendolen’s letter, which might say anything about me! And having to wait and watch her grief? It will be … unbearable!”
“It will be difficult, but not unbearable,” Vespasia corrected.
Isobel stared at her furiously. “Would you do it? And don’t you dare lie to me!”
Vespasia heard her own voice with amazement. “I will do. I’ll come with you.”
Isobel blinked. “Really? You promise?”
Vespasia breathed in and out slowly. What on earth had she committed herself to? She was not guilty of any offense toward Gwendolen Kilmuir. But had that really anything to do with it? Neither guilt nor innocence was really the issue. Friendship was—and need. “Yes,” she said aloud. “I’ll come with you. We shall set off tomorrow morning. We will have to go to London first, of course, and then take the next train to Scotland. We will deliver the letter to Mrs. Naylor, and we will accompany her back here if she will allow us to. Omegus said nothing about your journeying alone—merely that you had to go.”
“Thank you,” Isobel said, the tears running unchecked down her face. “Thank you very much.”
Vespasia stood up. “We shall tell them tomorrow morning at breakfast. Have your maid pack, and dress for traveling. Wear your warmest suit and your best boots. There will probably be snow farther north, and it will be bound to be colder.”
Vespasia’s mind whirled with the enormity of her decision. When she finally fell asleep, her dreams were of roaring trains and windy snow-swept landscapes, and a grief-stricken and unforgiving woman bereft of her child.
She woke with a headache, dressed for travel, and left her maid packing while she went down to breakfast.
Everyone was assembled, ready to begin the new day’s ostracism. The dining room was warm, the fire lit, and the sideboard laden with silver dishes from which delicious aromas emanated. Only Omegus looked distinctly unhappy. Almost immediately he caught Vespasia’s eye, and she smiled at him, giving an imperceptible nod, and she saw the answering flash of light in his eyes. His body eased, and his right hand unclenched where it lay on the fresh linen of the table.
Isobel came in almost on Vespasia’s heels, as if she had been waiting.
Everyone greeted Vespasia as effusively as they calculatedly ignored Isobel. This time she did not speak, but took her place at the table with a calm, pale face and began to eat after helping herself from the toast rack and the teapot.
Peter Hanning mentioned the weather and invited Bertie to a game of billiards in the afternoon. Lord Salchester announced that he was going for a walk. Lady Salchester said that she would accompany him, which took the smile from his face.
Isobel finished her toast and stood up, turning to Omegus.
“Mr. Jones, I have given your offer much serious thought. I was mistaken to refuse it. A chance to redeem oneself, and have past errors forgotten as if they had not existed, is something given far too rarely, and should not be declined. I shall leave Applecross this morning, taking the letter to Mrs. Naylor with me, and I shall catch the first available train to Scotland and deliver it to her. If she will accept my company on the return, then I shall do that also. When we reach London again, I shall inform you of the outcome, and trust that everyone here will keep their word according to our bond.”
Lady Warburton looked crestfallen, as if she had lifted a particularly delicate morsel to her lips, only to have it fall onto the floor.
The ghost of a smile touched Isobel’s face.
“How shall we know that you gave the letter to Mrs. Naylor, and did not merely say that you did?” Lady Warburton asked irritably.
“You will have Mrs. Alvie’s word for it!” Omegus answered coldly.
“You will also have Mrs. Naylor’s word, should you wish to ask her,” Isobel pointed out.
“Really!” Lady Warburton subsided into indignant silence.
“Bravo,” Lord Salchester said softly. “You have courage, my dear. It will not be a comfortable journey.”
“It will be abysmal!” Fenton Twyford added. “Inverness could be knee-deep in snow, and the shortest day of the year is only three weeks away. In the far north of Scotland that could mean hardly any daylight at all. You do realize Inverness is another hundred and fifty miles north of Edinburgh, I suppose. At least!”
“What if your train gets stuck in a snowdrift?” Blanche asked hopefully.
“It is the beginning of December, not mid-January,” Sir John Warburton pointed out. “It could be perfectly pleasant. Inverness-shire is a fine county.”
Lady Warburton looked surprised. “When were you ever there?”
He smiled. “Oh, once or twice. So was Fenton, you know.”
“Doing what?”
“Wonderful country for walking.”
“In December?” Hanning’s eyebrows shot up, and his voice was sharp with disbelief.
“It hardly matters,” Vespasia interrupted. “Now is when we are going. We shall leave as soon as our packing is completed—if the trap can be arranged to take us to the railway station.”
“You are leaving, as well?” Lord Salchester said with clear disappointment.
Omegus looked at Vespasia.
“Yes,” she replied.
Isobel smiled, pride in her face, and a shadow of uncertainty. “Lady Vespasia has offered to come with me.”
Omegus smiled, a sweet, shining look that lit his face, making him beautiful.
“To give the letter to Mrs. Naylor, if Mrs. Alvie should lose her nerve?” Blanche Twyford said bitingly. “That hardly makes of it the ordeal it is supposed to be!” She turned to Omegus. “Are we still bound by our oaths, in spite of this new turn of events?”
Omegus turned to her. “In the medieval trials of which I spoke, and upon which I have modeled my plan, the accused person was permitted friends to speak for them, and the friend risked facing the sure punishment along with them. If found guilty, the accused person promised to undertake the pilgrimage assigned, and if their friend were sure enough of their worth, had the courage and the selflessness to go with them, then that was the greatest mark of friendship that they could show. Neither the physical hardship nor the spiritual journey will be lessened, nor the threats that face them along the way. They will simply face them together, rather than alone. And the answer to your question, Mrs. Twyford, is, yes, you are just as bound.”
Lord Salchester looked at Vespasia. “Remarkable,” he said with very obvious admiration. “I admire your loyalty, my dear.”
“Stubbornness,” Lady Warburton said under her breath.
Bertie avoided eye contact with Isobel.
Vespasia looked at Omegus, who was regarding her with a happiness that she found suddenly and startlingly disconcerting. She wondered for a moment if she had made the rash promise for Isobel’s sake, or just so she could see that look in Omegus’s eyes. Then she dismissed it as absurd and finished her breakfast.
The ladies’ maids would follow later with their luggage and remain at their respective houses in London. The expiatory journey was to be made alone. It would be both unfair and compromising to the integrity of the oath were the maids to have gone, as well. They did not deserve the hardship; nor were they party to any agreement of silence.
Vespasia and Isobel departed just after ten o’clock, with ample time to catch the next train to London. Omegus saw them off at the front door, his hair whipped by the fresh, hard wind that blew off the sweeping parkland with the clean smell of rain.
