Page 47 of Bride of Ice
Against her orders, Ian might have returned to their parents’ bedchamber to play chess with the hostage.
She took the stairs two at a time.
Rauve pushed off the door when she arrived. “What is it?”
Her heart in her throat, she asked, “Ian. Did he go in?” She nodded at the door.
“Nay. No one’s come in or out since breakfast.”
She wasn’t convinced. After all, Ian had hidden in the room all day yesterday, unbeknownst to any of them. The lad had a knack for finding his way into all sorts of places he wasn’t supposed to be.
“Let me in,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Rauve asked. He clearly disapproved of any contact between the hostage and the laird he was assigned to protect.
“Aye.”
With a disgruntled scowl, he stepped aside.
When she pushed open the door, the Highlander was hunkered down before the fire with a chunk of coal, looking as guilty as hell. He glanced up, biting his lip, like a lad caught with his hand in the honey jar. When she saw what he’d done, she understood why.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded with cold accusation. “Defacing the laird’s bedchamber?”
Even as he flushed with guilt, he managed to shrug in defiance. “There’s naught else to do.”
Behind her, Rauve growled.“Icould find him something to—”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said, closing the door and shutting Rauve out of the conversation before she glided forward. “So what filth have you drawn there?”
She expected a lewd illustration of fornicators or a bawdy depiction of a cock and ballocks. It was the sort of scribbling her brothers loved to leave in the garderobes.
Instead, he’d written his name.
“Colban?” she read.
He blinked in surprise. “Ye can read that?”
“Of course.”
The Rivenloch children had all been taught to read. Reading empowered a person. And since Hallie was to inherit the lairdship, it was vital that she be able to understand contracts and documents.
But she realized it was a rare talent for a woman to possess. And the fact that he was staring at her with wonder and admiration secretly pleased her.
“I did it right then?” he asked.
“What?”
“I wrote the letters right?”
She realized his eyes were sparkling, not with amazement over her ability to read, but with pride over his ability to write. Indeed, he seemed so pleased, she decided she wouldn’t tell him the L was backwards. But before she could marvel at how a Highland warrior—an orphan and a bastard—could come by such knowledge, he gave her the answer.
“Ian was showin’ me a few words.”
She lowered her brows and scanned the room. “Ian is here?”
“Nay, just outside.”
She brushed past him and went to the window. Sure enough, the lad was in the courtyard, tossing rocks from the grass into the wheelbarrow. But she could clearly see the pattern of the remaining stones on the sod. They made an incriminating H.
