Mystic Mountains

won't look back. Now, I have to get 'er breakfast. Come with me an' I'll show you where everything is. You can 'elp yerself."
    Left alone in the small scullery off the parlor Isabella contemplated her options. Katie was right. Why give something you could be paid for. Nodding, she made up her mind. Perhaps she'd get a gentleman like Lieutenant Gareth Moreton, one of the nicest men she'd ever met. Then again she might get an arrogant gent like Tiger Carstairs. What a lark that would be if he turned up as one of her customers. He'd stew in his own juice if he had to pay her for what he considered his by right. The arrogant swine, may he rot in hell.
    Yes, she would stay. And in time she 'd become the highest paid courtesan in the colony, so sought after that when Tiger Carstairs begged for her favors she would send him packing. Just for a moment she allowed herself to recall the splendor of his lovemaking, then with a determination born of desperation she shrugged those thoughts aside and hardened her heart.
     
    * * *
     
    Tiger sprawled on a chair and rubbed his nape. "I don't know what else I can do, Thelma," he said wearily. "If you can think of something worthwhile, then tell me. She's apparently disappeared off the face of the earth. The Aborigines have been helping in the search. If her body is out there they would have found some trace of it by now." The thought of Bella's beautiful body lying crumpled and perhaps mutilated in some lonely spot had given him nightmares.
    "We can only assume someone is sheltering her or s he's being held prisoner." That thought, distasteful as it was, was infinitely more reassuring than the alternative. "But I'm sure if that was the case I would have heard a sniff of it by now." Tiredly he ran his hands over his face. There was a continual ache in his gut these days when he imagined the fate she could have met.
    "You can 't give up the search," Dougal insisted roughly.
    Tiger raised his brows as he looked over to where the lad sat broodingly staring at his hands resting on the table in front of him.
    At least Dougal was speaking to him now. After Isabe lla had been gone a week they'd come close to blows arguing over her welfare. Dougal accused him of forcing her out. Tiger couldn't argue with that. Dougal had been doing a bit of searching on his own time, coming home some nights well after midnight, exhausted and defeated.
    "You must face up to it, Dougal, she may be dead by now," Gillie said in a kindly voice.
    "She 's not." Dougal thumped a fist on the table. "I know she's out there somewhere. Like the time Malloy took her off. I swear to God I'll find her if he can't." He sent a sneer Tiger's way.
    Tiger stood , scraping the chair on the floor as he pushed it back roughly. "Come on, we'll go into town together this night. Mayhap we'll hear some new snippet. But it's been two months now." He spread his arms in a hopeless gesture. "I for one have begun to dread . . ."
    "No!" Dougal jumped to his feet, glowering. "We 'll find her."
    But after the pair of them visited most of the brothels, taverns, and bars on the waterfront, and questioned whalers, sealers, sailors, and other inhabitants of the town, it became clear this night's search was to be as fruitless as the others.
    Tiger wasn 't sure if Dougal had any clear idea of why Isabella fled. It was cowardly of him, but he wasn't about to let him know the real reason. Dougal hated him; truth was he didn't blame him. He wasn't particularly fond of himself.
    "Let 's go home," he suggested, when the sun was peeping over the horizon, heralding the start of a new day. "There are animals to be tended."
    Tight-lipped, Dougal nodded.

 
     
     
    Chapter Nineteen
    M arch 1819
     
    "Hey, yer look grand, Bella." Katie grinned as she inspected Isabella, who quaked in her new silk shoes. "Yer look like a princess from one of them fairy tales. Yer better looking by far than most of them fancy ladies who flaunt themselves around town." The chirpy maid giggled as she hoisted her chin and walked back and forth with a wiggle of her hips. "Now, just keep yer pretty chin in the air like the missus taught yer an' hold yer shoulders straight like this. Yer'd pass fer a lady in any company, an' that's no story I'm spinning yer."
    "Thanks for the assurance, Katie." Isabella 's voice shook, along with her body.
    Taking a last quick look in the long mirror she tugged on a curl artfully brought from the cluster Katie had secured on the crown of her head,