WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,25

seventeen years of loneliness he never knew he suffered from had suddenly been recognized with the event of the busty blonde lass. God, how he’d missed laughing with a pretty, witty woman.

He wondered if he was going to deeply regret killing Steffan de Featherstone in the days to come.

CHAPTER FOUR

For a provincial knight, he was handsome.

Quite handsome, really. If she was honest about it, he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

Pity he was a provincial knight.

On their ride south from Haltwhistle, she tried to pretend that she wasn’t looking at him even though she was. He was very big – perhaps even the biggest man she’d ever seen, tall as well as muscular. He had a square jaw and green eyes, and in the dim light of the tavern, she thought he had blond hair. But in the light of day, before he’d put his helm back on, she could see that his hair was red with a dusting of silver and gold. Blended together, it made him look like a blond.

No matter what his hair color was, it was beautiful.

So was he.

Truth be told, she had no idea that there were men of such magnificence this far north. Although she had been born at her family’s home in Carlisle, she had not spent an over amount of time in the north. Her mother, a worldly woman of some means, preferred the cities and her own family’s home in London, and that was where Isalyn had spent a large part of her life.

To her, the north of England was full of barbarians. On her infrequent trips home, she had mostly spent them at the family manse in Carlisle, as that was an acceptable abode for the most part. Carlisle was a fairly cosmopolitan city, but it was nothing like her beloved London.

She loved the city life.

Isalyn’s father and brother loved the country manse at Featherstone that had been in her family for over a century. It was a pretty place and when Isalyn had been young, she had spent a few happy summers playing in the elaborate garden or splashing in the brook that ran next to the property. She had been terribly young then, those carefree days of youth, and it had been before her parents decided to live separately and her mother had taken her to London.

But Isalyn did remember those younger years, like bits of a dream. She remembered her mother laughing, and her father laughing, and her brother pulling her hair. She remembered the days as seemingly bucolic and happy when they were a family.

But those days were long gone and now, she could hardly stand to return to Featherstone. She told herself it was because it was too rural. She was a lass who needed the excitement of a city, as she had told Tor. But perhaps the truth was that the memories there were just too painful because they had been so short lived. It was difficult to return to a home where there was no longer any love or laughter, and perhaps that’s why she wanted to stay away most of all.

It reminded her of things that had ended.

It reminded her of a mother who had died three years ago, right about the time Isalyn was becoming a young woman. Her mother had a cancer that ate away at her until she died a painful and lingering death. Isalyn had been devastated by the death of the woman who had been her very best friend and she had spent years mourning her mother as if her death had only happened the day before. Her aunt, who was her mother’s older sister, filled in as best she could, but she was devastated, too. There wasn’t a lot of room for Isalyn’s grief to a woman who was more concerned with her own sorrow.

And then, there was her brother.

Steffan was most definitely his father’s son. Arrogant, irresponsible, and largely immune to the sufferings of the world around him, Steffan had hardly seen his mother in the time his parents had been separated and he didn’t much seem to care. With their parents separated, Isalyn had gone with her mother and Steffan had remained with his father, and Steffan had lived as if he didn’t have a sister or a mother. She’d hardly seen the man growing up and the last time had been a few years ago.

There had been rumors, of course. Rumors of Steffan’s behavior that had trickled down to Isalyn’s mother.