And so now she was certain, even though she only caught glimpses of the monster behind the mask.
The demon inside her husband coveted her in some strange way. It would look at her behind Matteo’s eyes, pleased when she was there. It was happiest when it was touching her—stroking her skin and tasting her body, always careful to give more pleasure than it took. And it delighted in calling her wife.
The reason why didn’t occur to her straightaway. Whatever the objective of the curse had been by the person who cast it, it was different now.
Matteo was no longer wracked with pain, a prelude to his acting with murderous intent. It had lost interest in other victims. The thing inside him was solely focused on her now because it desired something else.
It wanted to breed her.
Chapter 20
Isobel took refuge in the conservatory, carefully checking to make sure she was alone before filling her satchel with a particular mix of herbs.
They had arrived in London a few days ago. She’d avoided intimacy with her husband by lying about the early arrival of her monthly. But now she had a plan.
Her grandmother had helped a few of the women in the village, the ones with too many mouths to feed. Helen had prepared a mixture for them that they could brew like tea. As long as the woman followed the directions properly, unwanted pregnancies could be avoided. Isobel hadn’t known the exact recipe she had to follow, but it had been easy to find—the well-used volume in her grandmother’s hand had several bookmarks on pages she had consulted frequently. Although, Helen had probably known the recipe by heart.
Matteo had been disappointed, but not surprised, that she hadn’t fallen pregnant straightaway. He still yearned for a child, someone to live on after him in case she couldn’t find a cure for his affliction. The guilt she felt at deceiving him was intense, and she constantly reminded herself that it was necessary.
In truth, her belief that the creature’s intent was to breed was little more than conjecture. But nothing else could reasonably explain her present circumstances. Spirits like the one in her husband hungered for something in particular. Her reading confirmed that. Some thrived on creating chaos, others in taking the lives they could not have for themselves. But some sought a way to make their transient existence on this plane more permanent.
If she was correct and the shade inside her husband wanted to breed, then she would be endangering any child they might have. And she couldn’t tell Matteo the truth, not now that she couldn’t distinguish as easily between the man and the monster.
So she brewed the herbs and drank them every morning in place of tea. Then she would go downstairs and spent several hours in the library poring over her books, trying to find anything that might help them.
The small library had been sorted by subject. In addition to the books of magic and recipes for healing, there were texts on natural history, farming, and some valuable first editions of classic volumes.
The latter did not belong to Helen. They were her father’s. She suspected that he had put them in the trunk for her, which made her wonder if he’d suspected that when he was gone she might need money, resources no one else knew about. The value of the books was such that, if she’d checked the trunks after his death, she might not have needed to become a governess at all.
Isobel refused to dwell on that detail, focusing on her study of the library contents instead, as well as overseeing the work in the conservatory.
The Conte had thankfully taken up residence in a townhouse in Mayfair, but she and Matteo stayed outside of town. The property agent had rented them a large house a scant half hour drive from London, one with a large conservatory and another midsize greenhouse farther from the main house.
A gardener had been hired to help her and Matteo with the planting of various seeds and a few cuttings for herbs—anything she thought might be useful to help him, and now herself. After the planting had been done, the gardener was reassigned to the grounds while she did the work of tending to the plants herself. And when she couldn’t for whatever reason, Nino had insisted on helping.
Aside from sleeping too much, Matteo behaved very much like himself. Or at least the man she thought he was. She had to admit, there was a lot about him she didn’t know—or about how the spell might have altered his normal personality. He appeared to be a dear man, conscientious and kind. If his malady hadn’t succeeded in altering that, then she had to believe he was worth saving.