Chapter 27

twenty-seven

Another dawn,another call from Mark. I step in from the balcony, not wanting the sound to carry through the neighboring balcony doors to Isolde, who is certainly awake again. She’s an early riser like me, although she doesn’t seem interested in the sunrise. Her curtains stay shut even after her light comes on, and even though I watch them as much as I watch the sun, they never so much as twitch.

“You should be to the Azores in five days,” Mark is saying. “After that the satellite connections aren’t great, so we won’t speak again until you get to Manhattan.”

Manhattan. Where he and Isolde will see each other for the first time in two years. “Have you spoken to Isolde since we boarded? Sir?”

A pause. Tonight I hear some voices behind his, and a breeze. I think he’s on the roof with some guests.

“I haven’t,” he replies.

“You should call her.”

“Every day you’re away from me, you grow bolder,” he says. But he sounds amused, not annoyed. “You let me worry about wooing my bride.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, although I don’t think he’s worrying about it enough.

As if he can read my mind, he says, “I’m already doing it, in fact. Right now. You’re there in my place to woo her for me.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Sir.”

“Bolder and bolder,” he says. Ice clinks. He’s holding a drink. “But it’s not stupid at all. Make her pliant. Make her smile. And by the time she arrives in Manhattan, she’ll be ready for her fairy-tale wedding to me.”

I frown. “I’m not good at things like that.”

There’s another pause, and I hear laughter, a playful shriek.

Mark’s voice is like silk when he speaks again. “I think you underestimate your ability to disarm people, Tristan.”

The heat crawls up from my chest to my cheeks. I can’t think of what to say back to him, but it doesn’t matter.

He says goodbye and hangs up anyway.

* * *

Breakfaston the yacht is served continental style: fresh pastries, yogurt, cut fruit. I treat myself to a lingering meal on the deck, the cool morning breeze toying with the light zip-up of Mark’s I’m wearing, the crew milling behind me as they eat as well, and then I take the wide steps down to the second level to the dojo, to see if Isolde’s there.

She is—this morning she’s whaling on a freestanding bag, her hair once again escaping her braid to stick to her neck. It’s the same combination that she’s doing over and over again, punch jab kick, punch jab kick, the punches landing with heavy smacks, the kicks rocking the bag back on its stand.

The rain is gone today, but the skies are still gray and the water is still choppy, meaning the yacht is still bobbing and rolling with the water. And every time she kicks the bag and it rolls backward, it doesn’t roll forward on its own and she has to grab it and resettle it back onto its base.

“Want some help?” I volunteer, walking inside. I kick off my shoes before I get on the mats, the smile spreading easily across my face when she looks at me. All she has to do is look at me and I smile, like her gaze is enough to lift weights from my shoulders.

I smiled at the sunrise in Carpathia too, at the sight of roses blooming along the side of the farmhouse.

Isolde pushes her braid off her shoulder, unsticks some hair from her neck. “I’m sure you have much more interesting things to do than hold a bag,” she says politely, but I’m already to the item in question now, shifting it forward so I can stand behind it and hold it in place.

“It’s either this or bother Captain Duval some more. I think I know which she’d prefer.”

Isolde studies me a minute, like she’s trying to sort out which would be better manners, to object or to relent. I don’t give her a choice, leaning in to brace my shoulder against the bag.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s see what those art history muscles are made of.”

This earns me a determined little huff—something I file away for later, that this quiet, mannerly heiress has a competitive streak—and then she’s back in position with her guards up. Punch jab kick, punch jab kick. Each strike solid enough for me to feel through the bag. She’s strong.

“How long have you been doing this?” I ask. “Martial arts?”

Her rhythm doesn’t break as she answers. Punch jab kick. “Karate since I was twelve. Jiujitsu and Krav Maga since I was eighteen.” Punch jab kick.

“Why?” I ask, even though that’s a stupid question to ask. Obviously the answer will be because I like it.

But she doesn’t act like it’s a stupid question at all. She stops striking for a minute and stands up straight, dropping her guard. She looks frozen by it. Like I’ve just asked her to solve a Diophantine equation without a calculator.

“I think,” she starts, and then stops. Tries again. “I was enrolled after my mother died. It was the only thing that made sense for a long time. Not school, and not home, because she wasn’t at our home anymore. But I’d go to the dojo and there was this thing that was as easy as moving your body left or right, up or down. It carried me through those years.”

Everything she’s saying about martial arts is in the past tense. “Is that still why you do it? Because it makes sense?”

She’s looking at her hands when she answers. “No. No, that’s not why anymore.”

But she doesn’t clarify, doesn’t say anything else, and I don’t press her.

Whatever’s on her mind, I don’t think she’d tell me anyway.

* * *

A faint guttural noise,like a wounded animal, ruptures the night.

I sit up in bed, having gone from fast asleep to heart-poundingly awake in an instant, already getting to my feet. I almost reach for the utility knife I’ve been keeping in my bedside table when I hear it again. Through the door connecting to Isolde’s room.

I lunge for the door, and to my surprise, it opens easily at my touch—it’s not locked from her side. Pushing that unnerving knowledge away, I’m already crossing the small sitting room to her bedroom, scanning for danger, my skin humming with awareness, my pulse kicking with adrenaline. I don’t know how someone could have gotten on the boat this far out from the Azores, which means that whoever’s hurting her is with the crew—

Except when I make it into her bedroom, she’s alone. She’s alone, in bed, her eyes shut and her hands flexing against the blanket. Her chest is rising and falling in short, rapid jerks. I hear the noise again, the miserable, helpless moan, and it all comes together.

A nightmare.

She’s having a nightmare.

It doesn’t occur to me to leave, to let her endure this on her own. I know all too well the torment crouching inside the shadows of night; I know how impossible it is to endure, to wake from. I stride over to her bed and crouch beside it, taking her hand.

“Isolde,” I say softly. “Isolde, it’s Tristan.”

She snaps awake with a gasp that doesn’t seem to work because her shoulders curl and her eyes are wide and panicked, and I also know this too well. Without thinking, I order her in the same hard voice Mark ordered me: “Breathe.”

Her eyes slide to mine, and I see her try, try to drag the air in, but nothing’s working right; she’s too disoriented, too shot full of adrenaline.

“Breathe,” I command again, this time splaying my hand over her chest. “Here. Breathe here.”

Her skin is clammy under mine, but soft, so soft, and her eyes are shining in the dark as I feel her chest lift a fraction, and then all the way, shuddering into a noisy inhale and rushed exhale.

“That’s right,” I praise. “That’s exactly right. Just feel my hand. Right there.”

Another breath, still rushed and shaky, and I move my hand over the blanket to her stomach as I sit on the edge of the bed.

“Can you breathe here for me?” I ask. “Can you lift my hand with your breath?”

She gives a small nod, and this time her breath goes deeper, all the way in. I see the minute her brain finally registers how to breathe on its own again, when her body accepts she’s not in danger. Her lips part and her shoulders uncurl. Her eyes close.

“I’m sorry,” she says, still sounding breathless. “I have?.?.?.?bad dreams. Sometimes.”

I don’t move my hand from her stomach, even though I’m suddenly very aware of every quiver and lift as she breathes. I’m a living seismograph for Isolde Laurence’s inhales and exhales.

“I have bad dreams too,” I say. My words are quiet in the dark. “Keep breathing.”

She does, and the only sound in the room is her and the ocean outside. The occasional creak of the boat. My eyes are adjusted to the dark now, and I can see that she’s wearing a thin white tank top—expensive looking but not delicate or decorative—and I can see the furled tips of her breasts pressing against the fabric.

Heat rises in my groin, and I fight it back, lifting my hand from her belly and turning away.

“Better?” I ask, managing to sound normal.

“Better,” she says. She hesitates, and then adds, “I’m sorry I woke you. This is embarrassing.”

The admission is enough to make me turn and face her, even though a smarter man would have fled the room already. Her eyes are already on me, and her hair is liquid silver on her pillow. She could be a fairy-tale princess if not for her mornings spent slicing imaginary people apart with a honeysuckle knife.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” I tell her firmly. “I once had to have Mark do the exact same thing to me on an airplane.”

I don’t mention that he’s also been able to drive away my nightmares by using me as a human body pillow.

And then I add, “Do you want to talk about them? The bad dreams?” I do wonder what nightmares could possibly haunt someone like Isolde Laurence. Her life seems easy and charmed, as graceful as she is.

Isolde shakes her head on the pillow. “I’d rather not,” she says tightly, and I nod.

“I never want to talk about mine either.”

She breathes out, her eyes flicking up to the ceiling. “I’ve had them for years. But every time is like the first time.”

“Yes,” I say quietly. “I know.”

She looks at me. “I’m sorry that you know.”

“You might have to come into my room one of these nights,” I tell her with a small smile. “And help wake me up.”

There’s something like a smile back and then her eyes drop to my chest—which is bare. I’m wearing only loose pajama pants, and she’s in just a tank top and then whatever’s underneath the blankets, and we both realize at the same time how inappropriate it is, because her cheeks go dark and I scramble to my feet.

“Anyway,” I say too casually. “I’m just through there if you need me. Or if I need you,” I joke weakly, but it comes out sounding like it’s not at all about nightmares and more about something else.

Something wrong.

“Okay, Tristan,” she says softly, and I retreat to my room like a general abandoning the field.