WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,75

it very well. She had a mature outlook for one so young.

Isalyn liked that.

Feeling happy that she had come to Blackpool, Isalyn untied her satchel and began to unpack.

As she unrolled the garments that she had packed and went to hang them up on pegs inside the wardrobe, her thoughts begin to drift from Isabella to Tor. Isalyn had been as close to giddy as she had ever been in her life when they had first arrived at Blackpool and he had come out to greet them. The way he looked at her made her heart sing in a way she never realized it could. She had spent her entire life in London, around male friends of her aunt’s, and she had also spent time with her own friends, many of whom were actors. Never once had she had the same reaction to them as she had to Tor.

All Isalyn knew was that a look from him made her heart race. A word from him was like music to her ears. And when he smiled… that was when the moon and the stars and the heavens seemed to open up and all she was faced with was utter brilliance. What made it even better was that he seemed to be quite attentive to her also.

Was it possible that he was feeling the same giddy ardor that she was?

Isalyn was eager for the feast to begin that evening, but she also knew that feasts simply weren’t a meal. They were events. They would start in the evening and sometimes go all night, and if that was the case tonight, she wanted to enjoy every single minute of it. She wanted to stay up all night, talking to Tor and coming to know a remarkable man. Therefore, she knew that it would be wise for her to try and sleep this afternoon, just a little, so that she would have the ability to stay up all night and speak to the provincial knight who had quite ably captured her attention.

Therefore, she put away all of her belongings and stripped off the dark green traveling dress that she was wearing. Underneath it, she wore a very fine lamb’s wool shift that was both lightweight and warm. It was one of the finer garments that her father imported and she had a few of them. When he sold them in his stall in Carlisle, he could barely keep them in stock.

Stripped down to just the shift, Isalyn climbed into the big, fluffy bed only to realize that the mattress was not stuffed with feathers as she had hoped, but stuffed with straw. Stuffing a mattress with straw or dried grass or even rags was not unusual, but it was usually done in the poorer households. In a fortress like this, she had expected a little better, but she resigned herself to it and lay down, listening to the straw crackle and feeling it poke.

In fact, realizing that the mattress was stuffed with straw made her realize that the two chatelaines, Barbara and Lenore, might have done it deliberately to make her feel unwelcome. Perhaps they did that to all of the female visitors, or perhaps they only did it to women they had taken an instant dislike to. Whatever the case, the room with a view of the pigsty and the scratchy straw mattress belonged to her and it would be a great tale to tell her friends in London. She would regale them with the story of the two harpies of Blackpool Castle.

It sounded like a great play in the works.

Giggling to herself, Isalyn drifted off to sleep in the early afternoon. Contrary to what Barbara had suggested, the noise from the kitchen yard didn’t bother her in the least and she slept for a few hours before awakening in the late afternoon.

Yawning, Isalyn awoke to the sounds of goats bleating. Nonetheless, she felt rested and content, but it occurred to her that the room was a little chilly because of the stone walls and the lack of any direct sunlight into the chamber. With the covers up around her neck, it further occurred to her that no fuel for a fire had been brought as Barbara had promised.

Realizing this, she rose from the bed and quickly put her traveling dress back on. She wasn’t entirely sure that servants hadn’t come while she was sleeping, knocking on the door and not receiving an answer. She assumed that must have been what had happened,