WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,99

because her father seemed intent to monopolize all of the conversation. He was quite drunk early on and, in truth, she didn’t blame him. The man had had a week of excessive upheaval, losing a son and now losing a daughter in marriage.

Gilbert’s emotions were at the extremes and the alcohol helped him vent those emotions, and even embrace them, because it was a week that had seen both grief and joy. Although Isalyn didn’t know her father as well as she probably should have, she knew him well enough to know that he was still reeling from the events of the week and trying to find his footing.

Tor seemed to know that, too. Her betrothed was a man a few words, but he was also a man who seemed quite intuitive. He let Gilbert carry on, cheering the coming wedding and telling stories of Isalyn when she was very young in an attempt to poke fun at her. Considering he and his wife had split when Isalyn had been young, those were the only stories of his daughter that he knew. Isalyn relived stories that she didn’t quite remember in some cases, like a little girl who had hoarded a litter of messy kittens in her chamber, or the child who liked to steal pickled onions.

As much as she wanted to stay up all night with Tor and enjoy the celebration, unfortunately, Isalyn grew quite weary early on and was forced to retire when she simply couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. Isabella, who was also at the feast, retired with her and the two of them retreated back to the chamber they now shared. Isalyn was so tired that she fell asleep somewhere in the middle of Isabella’s excited chatter about Fraser and how handsome the man was.

Poor Isabella was left talking to herself.

But this morning, she was feeling quite rested, and she had dressed carefully in a sapphire blue gown that reflected the color of her eyes. Her long blonde hair was carefully dressed as it always was, with braids and ribbons, and she knew that she must have done a good job because Tor kept looking at her. By the time they reached the merchant district of Carlisle, he could hardly wait to pull her off her horse.

While a few of the soldiers took the horses to the nearest livery, Gilbert took off down the avenue as he headed for his merchant’s stall. As he had explained to Tor, he had an army of servants who manned his stall because he was not there on a daily basis, so his large merchant business had a majordomo and a clerk who essentially ran the day-to-day operations. They were very good at business and had made Gilbert quite rich.

Gilbert’s stall was the largest one in the merchant district, directly south of Carlisle Castle. The building was a two-storied structure with every manner of goods that one could wish for, and there was a board over the entry that had the word “Featherstone” burned into it. Once they reached the wattle and daub building, Gilbert welcomed Tor into his stall in the grandest fashion.

As the de Wolfe escort took up positions outside, Tor entered the establishment with Isalyn on his arm. Fraser brought up the rear, as his usual position was to shadow Gilbert everywhere he went as the man’s personal protection.

The interior of the stall was very crowded. Tor had been to Carlisle, many times, but he’d never stopped at de Featherstone’s stall, so both the size and the content was of some surprise to him. Everything seemed to be in organized sections – items for women, fabric, combs, and things of that nature, and even items for men – but there was so much of it that it was overwhelming. It wasn’t so much a single merchant’s stall as it was a great bazaar.

But Tor knew what he wanted so it was simply a matter of having Gilbert point him in the right direction. At this hour of the morning, the stall was already full of women shopping. Most of what Gilbert had seemed to be for women and when Tor question him about it, he stated that women were the ones that usually controlled the purse strings in a family, so everything he carried was designed to catch their attention.

And that included the pre-made dresses.

One entire wall was full of such garments. There was a rope strung from one end of the wall to the