"That's fitting, isn't it?" Marcel asked as he speared a cabbage roll and began cutting it into smaller pieces. The intense stare that Isabell directed at him rolled off his pale skin like water off the back of a duck. At this point, he'd lost count of how many determined, focused people he'd sat across a table from, and the look she gave him was no different from the hostile looks he'd received from men who were old when she was still a child.
"Wasn't it always said that she kept to herself?" Marcel asked as though the answer was common knowledge. "It's been said that she rarely left the manor because of her poor health, hasn't it? Lady Jocelynn's words aren't too out of place then, are they?"
"Lady Jocelynn says what outsiders expect to hear," Isabell said bitterly, pushing the flakes of fish around on her plate, unable to find any joy in the careful preparation of the local trout while anxiety about Lady Ashlynn gnawed at her belly.
