Heart of Darkness by Jaide Fox Page A

cottage. She had at first thought them to have lost their
fortune, as it did happen.
     
    During the few balls and house parties her
mama had thrown, Isabeau had rebelled against an early bed time,
when so many fascinating people had arrived at her home and she had
hidden behind one of the antique Chinese Coromandel screens many a
night. She had heard the women gossip about rake hells who had lost
their fortune at the gambling halls.
     
    She could easily picture the shocked and
delighted expressions on the women's faces. There had been a
salacious ravenous look on their faces that told the young Isabeau
that people wished ill on others. It had been one of many lessons
that had led her on the sharp learning curve from childhood to
adulthood.
     
    As far as she had been aware at that time,
they had not lost their fortune and until her mother had eventually
handed the ring to her, around eighteen months later, she had never
understood why they had so strangely transferred their life up to
the north of the country yet had still retained the same spending
power as before.
     
    In the midst of Yorkshire, her parents
had still dressed in the haute
mode.
     
    Her father would dress as befit his station.
Luxurious materials, the best linens. Discreet yet opulent stones
and precious metals at his cuffs and in his neck cloth and she
could easily envisage the few jewels he wore in her mind's eye. He
had also worn a plain band wedding ring on his left hand. But on
the right, a huge cabochon sapphire had sat in state upon the
fourth finger of his right hand.
     
    Her mother had been the same. She had always
dined in full dress, jewels draped upon her neck and adorning her
wrists. While her mother had precious stones aplenty, always,
always had the onyx ring been perched on her hand. Regardless of
ill-matching colors, she had constantly worn the semi-precious
gem.
     
    Days before her sixteenth birthday, her
mother had placed the onyx ring in her palm and had curled her
fingers about it.
     
    “This is your birthright, Isabeau. I pass it
on to you as your grandmother did to me. It is a rite of passage,
your sixteenth birthday draws near and with it, your powers.”
     
    To this day, she could hear those words in
her mind.
     
    It was only then that Isabeau had learned
that she was different from the other people about her. That her
parents and herself were somehow not the same as the rest of the
world.
     
    “Wear this and it will become as one
with you. Wear it at all times, Isabeau. Would that I...I-I
cannot...” she had broken off and had looked visibly distraught. If
only Isabeau had realized then that her mother would die days
later. “...As you grow, the ring will grow with you and you will learn from it and it
from you. Trust in its power and its strength and know that with
it, you have a constant protector. Without faith in the stone, your
powers will never fully flourish. Trust in me and know that I speak
the truth, my beloved.”
     
    Now, as she looked back and studied a memory
that had been under constant perusal since her parents' death,
Isabeau realized that her mother's hesitation implied that she
would not be around to teach her daughter. Her overwrought behavior
had been out of character for her mama, who had always been clear
of mind and level-headed.
     
    Why had Isabeau not realized that before
now?
     
    What had she not seen that her mother's
bequest to her had also been a warning?
     
    Swallowing convulsively as tears washed the
back of her throat, she closed her eyes and almost from a different
plane, heard Wolfe say:
     
    “What would occur if I placed it on my
finger? Hmm?”
     
    Her eyes popped open and she watched horror
struck as he hovered the circlet over the tip of his finger.
     
    “No!”
     
    She sighed when he moved the ring away but
clenched it in his palm.
     
    “Why not?”
     
    “It's connected to me. I have already told
you that!” she retorted, her tone prim yet supercilious.
     
    “Surely