James released her suddenly and stepped away. “Very well.”
He brought the priest over, found parchment and a sharpened quill, and dictated the brief proclamation that practically gave their first child to her family. He didn’t believe his own words. But perhaps the priest did, for he made no comment as he wrote. After James satisfied Isabel by having two different people read the agreement back, he signed his name and handed her the quill. His stomach clenched as she made a boldXas her mark.
The ceremony before the chapel doors was brief and quiet, although the inner ward was so silent every strained word could be heard. James tried not to look at anyone, because any chance sympathy and compassion would only humiliate him further.
When the ceremony was over, he felt a heavy weight restricting his breathing. It was done. He was shackled until his death to a woman who wanted him dead, whose goal would be to make him miserable. He tried to imagine how his life had come to this, what he had done wrong, but he couldn’t. The last few years of his life had been spiraling out of control, starting with his brother Edmund’s death, and finally ending at rock bottom with marriage to a woman who despised him. Could he even call her a woman?
After Mass, they returned to the great hall. James thought he might as well give the king’s priest something good to take back to court, besides the tale of Bolton’s knife-wielding, thieving bride. He made a great show of seating the priest on the dais for supper, and was about to join him, when he remembered he had a wife.
Isabel didn’t know what to do next. She stood in a great hall full of people, but she might as well have been totally alone. They went out of their way to avoid her, to turn their faces away. But she was their mistress, married to a husband she could barely look at without wanting to kill.
Liar, she thought again.
The marriage ceremony was only a vivid memory now. She had felt nothing but despondency as she stood in the cold autumn wind and gave away her life to a Bolton. She knew he, too, had not wanted this marriage, but she couldn’t help blaming him. He was the one who had written to the king.
How did he treat a reluctant wife, who’d so recently tried to kill him? She knew how he had behaved to his betrothed—he’d forced himself on her. Isabel’s stomach clenched tight with apprehension.
She stood in the center of the great hall, where servants and soldiers gave her wide berth. Food was carried in on immense platters and the smell alone made her dizzy with hunger. But what was she supposed to do, how was she to behave? Was she still a prisoner, or the free mistress of the household?
Everyone in the hall was seated and enjoying their meal, laughing and talking with their neighbors. Isabel felt humiliated to be standing in their midst, welcomed nowhere. Thoughts of revenge returned to her heart and her trepidation eased. Steeling herself against everyone’s hatred, she sauntered to the dais and approached her new husband. She leaned over the table deliberately, until his gaze lifted to hers. Even the priest stopped eating.
Without a word, Isabel ripped a leg off the pheasant displayed so prettily on a tray. She saw Bolton’s eyes widen, then narrow in anger he could barely keep hidden. She tore a piece of meat off with her teeth and chewed it, trying not to let the ecstasy of the taste show on her face. She had never imagined anyone could cook meat like this.
When her new husband didn’t invite her to sit, the priest anxiously said, “Lady Bolton, why have you not joined us?”
She barely spared him a look. She took James’s tankard of ale and her pheasant leg, and sauntered to the nearest hearth. She sat down on the ground and proceeded to eat.
The meal lasted too long, and some of Isabel’s purpose was taken away when one of the maids timidly began to bring her a sample of each dish. The girl had red hair and soft brown eyes that actually seemed to look on in sympathy.
Isabel turned away. She didn’t want to care what anyone thought of her. It would only make it harder in the end when she had to repeatedly go against their lord.
What seemed like hours later, the servants began to clear away the tables and dismantle them. Isabel kept her back turned, legs pulled up to her chest with her head resting on her knees. She drowsed in the fire’s warmth, trying not to think what the rest of the evening would bring. Was it actually fright she felt, this hard ache that made her meal sit like a rock in her stomach? She didn’t think she’d ever experienced true fear before and she didn’t like it now. But soon she would have Bolton’s hands on her, and she guessed he could easily take his revenge on her body.
His kiss flamed to life in her mind, and though she tried to will it away, the memory brought a flare of heat into her stomach, and lower. What wicked evil had he worked on her senses to make that kiss seem so darkly exciting? Why couldn’t she forget the hot feel of his open mouth on hers, the thrust of his tongue that had made her shiver? His body had not been gentle as he held her against the wall, but she hadn’t wanted him to be. She’d wanted to know what it was like to be as other women, to feel desired by a hard, powerful man.
And now she’d married him. She must slow her beating heart, must make him think his touch merely bored her. He was arrogant enough to feel humiliated when his prowess produced no response.
Isabel heard the strumming of a lute, and a sudden burst of merry laughter. Slowly she turned and looked about her. Most people were gathered about the hearth at the opposite end of the hall, listening and talking as her new husband played the instrument. Servants moved about in the smoky torchlight. No one was even looking her way.
Freedom called to her from beyond the large double doors. She had no illusions that she could escape the inner ward itself without anyone seeing her, not as she had before. But to smell the air, to see the stars once more, she would give anything for that.
She rose to her feet and began to walk softly along the tapestried wall. No eyes turned towards her. Bolton’s head was bent over his instrument, and he did not look up. She had almost reached the door.
“It appears my wife is ready for her wedding-night bath.” Bolton’s voice was raised in authority, laced with cold mocking arrogance.
Isabel stiffened and slowly turned to face him. He stood up, the lute forgotten at his side. He was an imposing man, expensively attired, and he seemed to know he drew people’s eyes to him. A few titters were heard scattered through the crowd, but most of his people seemed too tense to laugh. Over their heads, Bolton’s gaze burned into her, through her.
And then it all hit her in a painful rush—that she was his property now, that he could take everything that was hers, beat her, and no one would stop him. Although it was senseless, this new feeling of fear welled up inside her and she ran.
For James, the sight of his bride bolting from him seemed to tear loose everything civilized inside him. He didn’t even remember the lute falling from his fingers. He was suddenly vaulting over a wench who sat adoring at his feet, and crossed the great hall in a few seconds. Before the first guard at the door could halt Isabel’s progress, James caught her from behind. She flailed against him, kicking, but not screaming like a hysterical woman. He wrapped both arms around her and squeezed, pinning her hands at her sides.
“Be still,” he hissed into her ear.
He heard the ragged gasp of her breathing, felt her squirm. A shudder moved through her as she stilled. For a moment, he wondered what it must feel like to be her, with enemies all about and nowhere left to go. A reluctant sense of compassion moved through him.
“Angel, this will not help,” he said softly, keeping his back to the room to shield her. “You cannot escape.”
“I was not trying to escape,” she whispered hoarsely. “I just wanted?—”
