Thanks ever so much for reading and reviewing. Thanks to SueBee0619 for teaching me a thing or two about capitalization & to Nicffwhisperer for helping assure me that I'm on the right path. And thanks to LayAtHomeMom for saying nice things to her readers about this little fairy tale. ~M
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Chapter 2
A breeze moved through the open barn door brushing the rough, wet linen of Isabella's nightgown against her bare skin, and she was suddenly, acutely aware of the impropriety of her dress. She backed away from the young noble and his horse, but her presence was borne on the wind, and the gentleman startled and looked up from his mare. Isabella shuddered as she watched blood rush to his cheeks and the quick rise and fall of his chest underneath his loose silken undershirt.
"Excuse me, sir. I was afraid a flame forgotten may have kindled embers from within," she murmured.
"Oh, maiden, I apologize if my lamp frightened you."
At the sound of the noble's voice a smile threatened to bloom across the young woman's face. "Isabella, please. You may use my given name."
"Isabella." Her name hung in the air as if it had never been uttered before. Isabella shivered.
"May I bring you something?" she inquired. "Water for yourself or for your steed?" Isabella took a tentative step in the young man's direction. His eyes widened as her whole form emerged from behind the wall of the pen. His warm and fleeting gaze left the maiden with the urge to cover herself, but she dismissed this impulse as ridiculous; she was covered in draped linen from her neck to her toes, and its ties were fastened tightly all along her arms and at her shoulders. Instead, she tried for a casual attitude and leaned against the edge of the stall. The horse, Rosalie, snorted and stirred, and Edward's attention was once again absorbed by the animal lying alongside him.
"Do you think of her as a friend?" Isabella asked, imagining that maybe the young man was lonely.
"No, she is my slave."
"I'm sorry?" Isabella asked.
Edward's eyes were bright when he glanced up at her again. "She is a slave. She does my bidding without choice."
"She is a workhorse, sir. That is what she was made for."
"If you presume to explain to me the import of my mare, we have certainly transcended the formality of titles. Please call me Edward as you teach me the proper role for my livestock."
She had called him Edward in the lane, before she knew of his position. Even then, it struck a harmonic chord within her that set her nerves to stirring. But now, given knowledge of the young man's station, and his flaring temper over the import of a horse, the prospect of murmuring his given name felt tantalizingly illicit.
"Edward," she whispered breathlessly, bracing herself against the doorframe. "She is a workhorse. She was born into her duty."
"And why is this accepted as certain fact, Isabella?"
"Well, what would become of proper society if horses did not heft and pull? What a curiously cumbersome world that would be. Would bulls or asses be commissioned to increase their daily toil? Or maybe we would pull our own loads using personal sleighs?" Isabella watched the lines on Edward's face soften as he contemplated her philosophy. "That idea is not entirely without merit. Perhaps there is another world like this one where horses roam free and men carry their own burdens."
"Another world?" he asked. "Like a fairy story?"
She shrugged, embarrassed that her ideas were likened to those of a child. "Perhaps… just a place like this, but beyond the skies, maybe?"
"Heaven?"
Isabella gazed out the barn door at the stars twinkling in the midnight blue sky beyond. "Not exactly. Sometimes I dream of worlds beyond what we can see when I watch the sky at night. It is perchance my birthright. My mother used to study the stars. At night when I cannot sleep I read her notes and then compare them to what my own eyes can detect. I believe it is her calculated speculation that lifts my thoughts to the skies above and worlds beyond."
"She found evidence of other realms in the heavens?" Edward asked.
Isabella sighed and glanced back at the man at her feet, severing her momentary connection with her mother. "No, that reasoning is my own. I suppose I found no evidence against it in her writing, so I let my mind roam."
"Your mother was Renee Swan, then?"
Isabella nodded, warmth spreading through her chest at the sound of her lost parent's name on the young man's lips.
"I studied her writing in seminary. Her thoughts inspire many to dream."
Isabella blinked, her eyes suddenly damp. "Thank you, si-, Edward."
His emerald eyes twinkled in the lamplight. "Your dreams are certainly more remarkable than those of the other boys I studied with, Isabella."
Rosalie's large body shuddered, and Edward and Isabella cast eyes on the near-forgotten steed.
"My father is a fine physician. Your… slave is in good hands."
Edward caressed the horse's head and it settled more soundly on his lap.
"Speaking of original thoughts, did your seminary companions also hold similar notions about horse's rights to free range?" Isabella asked, taking a tentative seat on the prickling dry straw at the mouth of the stall, tucking her bare feet underneath her.
Edward shook his head, but kept his attention trained on his steed. "Those thoughts I kept trapped within the cage of my mind, lest the Friars found reason to speak to my father and question my studies."
"My father says you are to enter the clergy."
"And so does mine." Edward snuck a glance at the girl before him.
"What do you say?"
"It is what I say that gets me into trouble."
"Yes, your ideas are certainly queer," Isabella agreed.
"I simply protest that a horse shouldn't automatically be born into lifelong servitude."
"And then I should protest and say that I was not born into this life you see before you."
Edward glanced up from the large, chestnut head in his lap, peering about the tidy barn, before settling his gaze on Isabella's heart-shaped face framed by her own chestnut waves. "Is that how you feel?" he asked.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you ever feel that you should not have been born into this?" Edward asked beseechingly.
Isabella blanched, afraid her witticism may have been taken as censure toward the life her father provided for her. "No, sir. I simply spoke in jest. This is my home. I can imagine no other."
Edward's face fell, and he concentrated once again on the slave's head in his lap. Brisk wind rustled dry leaves in the trees outside the barn, flirted with the lamplight, and tickled Isabella's wrists where they met the hem of her nightdress. When the breeze departed they were left in soft silence.
"Could those be your feelings, sir? I mean, Edward?"
The lad continued to pet his mare before steeling himself to answer. "My father hoped that a tour of our lands would satisfy my spirit and quench my desires. My brothers settled into their stations without quarrel, but my father supposed it was because their vocations carried with them the spirit of adventure."
"And you desire similar exploits?" Isabella inquired.
Edward shrugged. "I don't know what I seek."
"I don't believe it! You desire for your horse to roam free. That cannot be your only wish." Isabella thought the boy queer, but certainly not that queer.
Edward cast a tentative eye on Isabella. "I desire to explore the world beyond the walls of Center City. I desire to explore new lands and meet unfamiliar people and to acquaint myself with their traditions."
"Certainly you could do that as a member of the clergy."
The boy ducked his head. "I suppose I – I have other desires," he mumbled.
Isabella thought of the gallant tales she'd heard of Edward's brothers. Scarcely one year past, Emmett Cullen defeated the Westchester Army beyond the North Mountains and secured vast fields of rich earth for the kingdom. Jasper brought with him from his most recent adventures textiles and spices that had never been seen before in Line on the Main, not to mention an exotic courtesan who was intended as his wife. "Perhaps it is that you desire adventure, but your father took you on an extended horseback ride?" she asked.
Edward clenched his jaw and stilled his hands. "No. I simply seek a good life lived morally. I would like… a wife."
Isabella's eyes went wide, her lips parted in surprise. "Oh!"
"I shouldn't have said anything."
"It's okay!"
"Please, don't tell anyone!"
"I would never, my lord, my, I mean, Edward."
Edward concentrated on the horse's head in his lap, although Isabella was not certain that his eyes were open. He appeared deep in miserable thought. Isabella's own thoughts wandered to stories of unfathomable desire and forbidden unions. It was difficult to reconcile the gallant and desperate men in those tales with the mild-mannered nobleman on the floor of her father's barn.
"You are in love?" she asked.
Edward shook his head.
"Then who would you like to wed?" She sincerely hoped it wasn't poor Rosalie. Edward's silent petting of the horse's mane nearly confirmed her fears. "If not for love, perhaps a strategic union? Another noblewoman?" she ventured.
"I haven't met her yet," Edward rasped.
"A portrait of a maiden? A story from afar? A princess one of your brothers encountered, perhaps?"
Edward finally ventured a glance at Isabella. "A man unfettered, unmoored, is unbalanced. I believe a man needs a woman in order to root him to earth, and tap into the depths of his heart."
"No doubt friars know the earth and their hearts, sir."
"I saw firsthand the change in my father after my mother's passing; the hardness of his heart, the swiftness of his justice. I see what he seeks for solace, and it is a poor approximation to the succor provided by his wife."
"Perhaps he should speak to a friar."
"I do not believe a friar can relate, and he would likely counsel to wed. My father, though, he is incomplete without my mother. He wouldn't have been half as fair-minded if he had never met her – of that I am certain."
"We are the same, then. My mother is likewise passed, and my father's heart has not healed. I'm sorry for his pain, and for yours, my lord."
"Edward."
"Edward." His name hung in the chilly air, just beyond her lips, and they tingled where her breath remained.
"I do not want his hard, lonely life. I do not want a friar's theoretical knowledge. I seek to be the man I used to see when I looked to my father. I seek the comfort and completeness he found in my mother."
"Respectfully, sir, you speak of a woman almost as if she is balm for the nature of man, yet you haven't alluded to the effect marriage to a man might have on that woman. Has your mind ever strayed to such fancies, or have not you considered the humanity of my sex?
The plum coloring that glowed on Edward's cheeks bled to his neck and across his chest.
"I take your silence as an affirmation of my suspicions."
"I'm sorry, miss. I haven't considered that aspect of your… sex," Edward choked in a whisper that seemed to take all of his effort.
Isabella folded her arms across her chest. "As I expected," she pronounced with an affirmative nod of her head. Her chestnut curls bobbed.
"You think me mad?" Edward asked, chancing a glance at the maiden seated at his side.
"Simply a man, kind sir, imbued with whatever madness that confers."
"I believe you are madder than any woman I've met in my days. Strangely, it is more stimulating than I would have imagined."
"Two of a kind."
A smile ghosted over Edward's lips and his eyes glimmered in mirth. "Well, I am no heathen."
"Yet you are the one in danger of being tossed out of seminary."
"Perhaps I could change the seminary."
"And friars would marry and horses would run free."
"Soldiers would sail the galaxies looking for your imaginary worlds."
"And men would finally consider a woman's desires in proposition of marriage."
"You and I might turn the world on its head, Isabella."
She giggled. "Or we might share a cell in the asylum."
"I can't say I would suffer. I enjoy your company, maiden. I am grateful that you are brave enough to speak your mind. Many in my travels simply curtsied and showed me the crown of their head as they lowered their eyes."
Isabella peered at the floor and shook her curls. "How does the top of my head compare?"
"Your head is a mess of tumbling waves. It is the first time I've seen a woman with unfastened tresses. It is quite… lovely."
"Should we propose all women wear their hair as it grows?"
"I'm afraid industry might cease and all men lounge idle."
Isabella sighed in mock frustration. "And then who would carry the burdens, without the help of horses or man? Women? I do not like this world."
"I'm afraid those loads might get tangled in your unfettered locks."
"What a mess. I believe hairpins are a sad necessity."
Isabella shook her hair so that it tumbled over her shoulders. She watched the rise and fall of the young man's Adam's apple. She watched the rosy hue of his humors travel down his neck and over the top of his exposed chest. The fine hairs on his chest flickered in the lamplight.
"About that water…"
"Water?" Isabella answered absently, studying the contour of the man's pectoral muscles.
"You said there was water to drink? I've become quite parched."
"Oh! Yes! Water!" Isabella jumped to her feet. "Of course, sir, I mean, Edward. The water well is in the courtyard just beyond the barn. I'll be right back."
"No, you're not my slave. I can retrieve water."
"Not that matter of slavery again! You are my guest. I would be happy to provide you drink."
"Not if I get there first."
"Excuse me?" Isabella asked, but instead of answering, the man gingerly eased Rosalie's head from his lap, sprung to his feet, and rushed past her at a rapid clip. Giggling, Isabella raced to overtake him, but the man lengthened his strides. The two ran like children through the crisp autumn night, cold frost beneath their feet and a million stars glittering overhead.
Edward won the race by a mere moment, but he had run his hardest to outpace the young maiden. They both collapsed against the rough stone well, gasping for breath and laughing outright.
"You're not a cautious girl, are you?" Edward asked when he was finally able to speak.
"I don't know what I am," she demurred. "Are you a cautious boy?"
"I've been too cautious."
"Then kindly dispense with caution and allow me to ask you something, my lord."
"Anything," he assured her.
She could hardly ask anything, but Edward appeared sincere, and this was exciting and frightening all at once. "What did you think of my home? What of our food? How does it compare to the lands you have travelled? How do my father and neighbors compare? Where have you been? Where will your plans take you hence?"
"That is hardly one question," he admonished.
"I didn't specify just one question. I said 'something'."
"Something," he mused.
"So you are not going to tell me something after all, least of all anything."
Edward sighed with a smile. "Your home is humble, yet welcoming and clean. Your food is hearty and satisfying. As to comparison, each land I have visited is so unique; it defies a simple answer."
"I did not ask for a simple answer. I asked for something, sir" Isabella teased.
"Edward," he reminded her in a voice soft and low.
"Edward," she repeated dutifully, waiting.
Edward hesitated, fiddling with the bucket and rope. "I have a proposition, but it is not a cautious one. I fear it is entirely improper. I want to ensure you that my intentions are pure at heart, yet I know my desire is selfish."
"I could not possibly answer, sir… Edward, without more information."
"Perhaps, if we spoke each night I could tell you something of my travels," he suggested.
"And how is this idea selfish? You would be answering my request."
Edward took a step away from Isabella. The moonlight glowed through her nightgown, illuminating her slender silhouette. "There is nothing disagreeable about you, maiden."
"Isabella."
"Isabella, I would like to hear more of your queer ideas. We could match strange fancy for strange fancy. That would provide my mind respite from worries about my steed."
"Your slave," she corrected.
"Rosalie. I could tell you the story of Rosalie."
"And your travels, please, Edward?" Isabella didn't care much for the sick horse that had claimed so much of the man's heart.
"Is it your bond, then? Would you agree?" he asked, excitement animating his voice.
Isabella thought of her father and his caution, she thought of his station in their village, and she thought of her mother's legacy. But with a glance at the exotic and eager nobleman, her decision was made. "Yes, but please don't tell my father, sir."
Edward's eyes darkened. "Nor mine. No, let us not tell a soul."
"Save that of your slave," Isabella answered with a small laugh that seemed to brighten the starlight betwixt the two.
"Until tomorrow, then?" Edward asked.
"Tomorrow evening, Sir Edward," she answered with a smile and a curtsey. And she ran back home with a light in her chest and life to her limbs that she hadn't known existed. There was not a possibility in the skies, or in any of the alternate dream worlds she imagined into existence, that she might ever fall into slumber that night.
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The next chapter will magically appear in your inbox next Friday if you're following. I'll smile if you review. You can find me on facebook at belladonna . fanfiction or on Twitter BellaDCullen. Until next week... ~M