Page 34 of Bride of Ice
“Colban!”
He and Hallie exchanged frowns.
“Colban!” the cry came again. It sounded like Ian. The lad must have gulped down his dinner. “Come quick!”
Hallie rounded on Colban with a chilling glare. “Did you put him up to something?”
“What?”
“Did you tell Ian to help you flee out the window?”
The idea was absurd. “Why would I—”
“Because if you endangered my brother in an attempt to flee…”
“I don’t intend to flee.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you intend to flee. Why wouldn’t you?”
“Colban!” Ian called insistently. “Come to the window!”
“If I wanted to flee,” he told her, “I certainly wouldn’t do it in the broad light o’ day. And not with a wee lad yellin’ loud enough to alert the whole keep.”
She bit the corner of her lip. Surely she could see he was right. But then her eyes narrowed to dubious slits. “Still, you don’t deny you’ll try to flee.”
“Idodeny it,” he said. “If I wanted to flee, I’d have done so by now.”
She scoffed at him. Clearly she didn’t believe him capable. And that chafed at his pride.
Nonetheless, he told her calmly, “Hear me well, m’lady. I want peace as much as ye do.” He had no wish to see how Morgan’s diminished forces would fare against the knights of Rivenloch.
“Why should I believe you?”
Bloody hell. There had been several times he could have seized the advantage. As secure as she thought this bedchamber was, he’d already glimpsed numerous avenues of escape.
He could have taken a hostage—Ian or that woman who’d seen to his hurts.
He could have tricked Rauve out of his weapon.
He could have convinced lovesick Isabel to help him flee.
It was only honor and reason that kept him prisoner here. Did she not know that?
“Ye still don’t trust me?” he asked.
“Give me one good reason to trust you.”
His mouth fell open. He’d saved the ungrateful lass from a pack of wolves. Yet she had the audacity to question him?
The cool, superior, irritating shimmer of doubt in her eyes pushed him over the edge. Trust him? He’d give her reason to trust him.
Without warning, he used his left hand to upend the platter, spilling its contents off the end of the bed with a crash.
While she gasped in surprise, he snatched the wine bottle from her with his right hand.
Wrapping the fingers of his left hand around her neck, he shoved her down onto the bed. Then he broke the bottle against the bedpost, holding the jagged edge against her throat.
“Now do ye trust me? Ye see, if I actually wished to escape, I could do it in the wink of an—” He strangled on the last word as he suddenly felt her fist clench like an iron vise around his ballocks.
