Not looking at him, she soaped the cloth and began to wash her arms. He swallowed and deliberately looked into the fire.
“All right, wife, let us play a game of ‘what if.’ Let us pretend you had killed me.”
She remained silent, but he sensed her tension.
“What if you had succeeded in your revenge, not against something I personally had done, but against sins that my ancestors supposedly had committed. What were you planning to do after that?”
Isabel was flushed and perspiring from the heat of the water and the familiarity of a Bolton. She kept her gaze on the water, soaping her other arm even more slowly. She’d been forced into marriage, ignored at the wedding supper, dragged upstairs, and dropped into a scalding tub. She couldn’t even pretend to herself that she hated it. She’d only ever bathed in a river, and had not known water could feel so luxurious and soothing. She leaned back against the padding and closed her eyes, trying to forget her humiliating day, desperately trying to forget the coming wedding night. A shiver of fear and something more shot through her again as she remembered Bolton advancing on her, putting his hand between her breasts and stripping her of the towel.
But something had stopped her from hitting him, or even running. His blue eyes had glowed as they looked down her body, with a dark heat she had only understood in some deep, buried part of her soul. She remembered his hot kiss. After all she had done to him, humiliated him, wounded him, and now married him, he desired her. Or would any woman do? After all, he had raped his betrothed.
His husky voice startled her. “Are you going to answer my question?”
She sank lower in the tub. “I have forgotten it.”
A white smile glowed in his dark face and he took another sip of ale. “You have not forgotten it. You merely don’t wish to answer. So tell me, Your Ladyship, after you impaled me on your sword, and the last bit of my blood drained to the ground, what would have been your next move?”
She looked up from beneath her hair. “How do you know I still do not plan it?”
“True,” he murmured.
She thought his voice sounded the slightest bit slurred. Her uneasiness crept higher. She sank lower, until her chin touched the water and her knees stuck straight up.
“Answer me.”
His whisper had a sudden power behind it and she gave his question consideration. After an endless moment, listening to water dripping and her husband’s breathing, she said, “I had nothing planned.”
Bolton lowered his tankard and rested it atop his knee. “Nothing?”
“Nothing. I assumed I would fight my way out of whatever situation I found myself in, and escape.”
“Escape to where?” he mused, his eyes narrowing as they studied her.
She felt the trail of his gaze across her wet skin almost as if he touched her.
When she didn’t answer, he continued to speak. “You must have realized you could not return home.”
“My people would welcome me with open arms for killing you.”
He lifted one eyebrow, a mocking smile tilting his lips. “Well, no, they could not have done that. They could not risk angering the king, who would be quite upset by my senseless death. In fact, your people would have been lucky if the king did not take his revenge out on them.”
“Why would he?” Isabel demanded, straightening. She tried not to tremble when his gaze dropped from her face to the tops of her breasts. “My people have done nothing to King Henry.”
“As I have done nothing to you.” His words dripped with triumphant sarcasm, but she saw the flaw.
“You think you have done nothing?” she said, feeling righteous anger surge to replace her fear. “Every one of your ancestors conspired against mine—your father savagely wounded mine! It is only a matter of time before you show your true Bolton heritage. After all, look what you did to your betrothed.”
“And what do you think I did?” he demanded, coming to his feet to tower over the tub.
Anger seemed to war on his face with bewilderment. He must be wondering how she discovered his dark secret.
“That is between you and your priest,” she said calmly, taking up the cloth to begin soaping her legs.
“According to you, ’tis between you and me.”
He leaned over the tub, resting his hands on either side of her. Isabel refused to look up. Though her hands shook, she continued to wash.
“Why is that, Angel? What made you judge and executioner?”
