QSFer Mere Rain has a new FF fantasy out: In the Dark Heart of Winter.
Isabeau is having history’s worst honeymoon. Heart-broken when her lover and best friend Margaret married and moved away, she accepted the proposal of a distant cousin, but she regrets this decision even before he insists on taking her to his cold and ruinous ancestral home. Horace does not seem to care about her, either, and soon she begins to wonder about his motives.
Her fears are compounded when strangers arrive seeking refuge from the snow, and her husband’s behavior becomes strangely hostile. Vairya and Ranat seem friendly, but why are they in this isolated region at all? It can’t be coincidence that they come from Persia, where her husband was until recently stationed as a diplomat.
Eventually one visitor confides in Isabeau, but her claims are so wild they cannot be true. Can they? Should she trust her heart, and perhaps her survival, to this stranger who seems to share her forbidden desires?
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Excerpt
Isabeau hurried into bed, snuggling into the delightfully warm blankets. She could wash her face and clean her teeth tomorrow.
Atté hung up the clothes to air and lay down against the door.
“Your servant–”
“Will defend us all night.”
Isabeau wished she could say with conviction that there was no need, but in truth she felt safer with someone wearing a knife between her and the rest of the house.
“I did not wish to ask when my brother was here, Lady Bourke–” Ranat murmured.
“Do call me Isabeau,” she interrupted. The thought of going through the years ahead of her being addressed as Lady Bourke made her stomach churn.
“Ah, Isabeau. This name is lovely. And you call me Ranat.”
“Thank you. What were you going to ask?”
“When you spoke of another room. Forgive my lack of words. You did not mean to go to your husband’s room?”
“Oh no! I could never be so forward.” Isabeau hesitated, torn between propriety and curiosity. “Is it different in Persia? When people here speak of the east, they make it sound as if all the women were locked up in harems.”
“I do not think most men can afford harems.” Ranat sounded amused. “But I do not know what happens between most husbands and wives. Our family is very… we do not care so much for the rules of society? How do you say this?”
Isabeau couldn’t think of a word that didn’t have a negative connotation. Finally, she ventured, “Free spirited?” although she didn’t think that was quite what Ranat meant.
“Hmm. Not quite, for we are also very dutiful, but it will do for now. Let us say, we have our own ways, which are not always the ways of those we live among.”
“I think I understand.” Isabeau weighed the admission, aware that she might regret it tomorrow. “My husband does not come to my room, either.”
“Ah.” Ranat squeezed her hand. “Never?”
“No. But we’ve been married less than a fortnight.”
“Forgive my impertinence. Do you wish that he should come to you?”
In the darkness, in bed where she had told all her most important secrets: here she could almost confess the truth. “I don’t. I’m glad. I just don’t understand why Horace wanted to be married. He doesn’t need a housekeeper.”
“Why did you marry him?”
“He was pleasant enough, before.” In a dull and dispassionate sort of way. “And my parents wanted me to. And I was… sad. My– my best friend had married in the autumn and gone away. Margaret.”
Her throat tightened around the name and she stopped.
“It was a mistake,” she whispered.
Ranat’s warm hand touched her cheek. “Do not despair, my friend,” she said. “It is the season of long nights. Things may look brighter in the new year.”
“Do you think so?” Isabeau put her hand over Ranat’s.
“Who knows what the future holds? We could all be eaten by wolves.”
“We haven’t had wolves since the reign of Henry the Seventh.” Isabeau told her.
“When was he?”
“Three centuries ago.”
Ranat chuckled. “Perhaps we’ll be eaten by weasels instead.”
Isabeau shuddered dramatically and huddled against her guest. “That would be worse than wolves.”
“Many things are worse than wolves, dear lady.” Ranat patted her. “But do not fear, I shall protect you.”
The promise warmed Isabeau’s heart, but she countered, “You’re unwell, and I am your host. I should protect you!”
Ranat chuckled. “But can you use a sword?”
“I’ve never so much as touched one,” Isabeau admitted. “Can you?”
“Would you believe that it is a common childhood skill in my country?”
Isabeau giggled. “I would if you’d said it was, but since you asked, I don’t.”
Ranat’s laugh was low and warm. “All right, it isn’t, not for girls, but I learned with Vairya. Believe I can defend you, Isabeau.”
Isabeau liked that assertion. She also liked the way Ranat drew out the syllables of her name. Ee-zah-bow. She swallowed and reminded herself that she was a respectable married woman.
“We should sleep,” she whispered. “Otherwise you won’t get well enough to stab people on my behalf.”
“How sensible you are. I am disappointed,” Ranat teased. “But I am tired, I do not lie. Let us sleep.” She snuggled gently into Isabeau’s shoulder, let out a long breath, and appeared to go immediately to sleep.
Isabeau also found sleep more easily tonight, warm and not alone and with Atté sleeping across the door like a guard dog.
This time she was fast asleep when the whispers began.
Isabeau bolted upright, startling and startled by Atté, who leapt up, knife in hand.
Atté said something that probably amounted to “What is it?”
“Did you hear something?” Isabeau pointed to her ear, hoping that got her question across the language barrier.
Ranat mumbled sleepily beside her, stirring.
Atté answered sharply, and Ranat pushed herself up onto one elbow, gasping.
“Your wound!” Isabeau exclaimed, concern banishing night fears.
“I am better,” Ranat insisted. “You heard something?”
“I… I don’t know. I thought so. Whispers. My name. I thought I heard the same last night as well, but it may have been a dream. Or nerves. Old houses make strange noises. It could be nothing. You heard nothing?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep, and some sound woke me. It may have been Atté, or you, or something else. I only remember I felt a sudden alarm. I hear nothing now, do you?”
“No.”
“Let us sleep again. If you hear something, Atté will look in the passage.” Ranat added an instruction to the servant in their own tongue and Atté nodded.
Isabeau lay down. It was easier to relax with Ranat beside her, but her day had been one of unaccustomed inactivity, and she found sleep eluding her.
The house did not creak. It was built of stone blocks; Isabeau thought they would be too heavy to creak. So that was not the explanation for the sounds. Wind whistling through cracks? That seemed more plausible. The house was old and ill-maintained. Perhaps the mortar had crumbled. That would explain the chill as well. She would mention it to Horace, like a good wife who cared about her husband’s hideous, remote ancestral manor and didn’t want it to fall into ruin.
She staunchly ignored the whispering when it started up again — until she heard her name.
Author Bio
Mere Rain is an international nonentity of mystery. Mere likes reading, travel, food, art, and you. Come talk to me on twitter or facebook!
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