Page 89 of Bride of Ice
Perhaps this wouldn’t be so hard, after all. If she just imagined the Highlander was one of her own knights or her brother…
She moved the sponge along the square edge of his jaw. His face was swarthy, weathered by the elements and shadowed by dark stubble. She remembered the sensation of his beard-roughened skin against her cheek.
Shivering at the memory, she pressed the sponge carefully against his split lip. His mouth opened at her touch, and she could see the white tips of his teeth. Teeth that gleamed when he laughed. Flashed when he snarled. Teeth that might nibble a path of delight along her neck.
Frowning at that wayward thought, she wet the sponge again and gently tucked his hair behind his left ear. There was a healed nick at the top of his ear.
“What happened here?” she asked, tracing the place with a fingertip.
“Fell and hit a rock, reivin’ a coo,” he said, smiling at the memory. Before she could ask him if he was in the habit of stealing cattle, he added, “I was a wee lad, provin’ my mettle to the clan.”
His other ear was flawless. But as she squeezed the sponge to drizzle water down his neck, she found another scar just above his collar bone. This one was clean, angled, and oddly familiar.
“Sword?” she guessed.
“Aye.”
With a warrior’s camaraderie, she pulled aside her leine to show him a similar scar on the side of her neck. “I was twelve. Fighting Jenefer. Didn’t raise my shield fast enough.”
He lifted his brows, impressed. “Twelve? Well,Iwas old enough to know better,” he admitted, his eyes dancing with humor beneath languorous lids. “I was showin’ off for the lasses.”
She smirked. This was not so bad. They were conversing now. Everything would be fine. As long as she could forget he was her enemy. And a hostage. And the most handsome warrior she’d ever…
Distracted, she dropped the sponge. Her gaze followed its path. It sank betwixt his knees.
Though he quickly intercepted it, retrieving the sponge for her, it wasn’t before she glimpsed what lay beneath the surface of the water, below his hands.
Blood rushed to her cheeks.
Why? She didn’t know. Such a thing shouldn’t disturb her. She’d seen plenty of men with their blades unsheathed. Some of them hung like lifeless eels. Others resembled stiff daggers about to strike. That Colban fell into the second group made her blush with pleasure. At least she knew she wasn’t the only one afflicted by lust.
Clearing her throat, she resumed her task, cupping water over his shoulders and circling the sponge across his chest, trying to be as economical as possible in her movements. He tipped his head back to give her access, and she could feel his gaze burning through the narrow slits of his eyes.
To her consternation, she kept letting her glance slip to his hands, half hoping he’d accidentally reveal himself again. He did not.
Thwarted, she moved behind him. He dutifully leaned forward so she could scrub his back.
“I should warn ye…” he began.
She gasped. A bundle of scars crossed his back diagonally from his right shoulder blade to his left hip. They were long, shallow, and raggedly healed. Only one thing made those kinds of slashes.
He’d been whipped.
Ice flooded her veins as she asked, “Who did this? Morgan?”
“Morgan? Nay!” he was quick to answer. “Indeed, Morgan was the one whosavedme.”
“Saved you from whom? His father? A foe?” She clenched the sponge with killing force.
“Neither,” he said with a shrug. “A pair o’ mac Giric men who didn’t want a harlot’s son in the clan. They were hopin’ to whip me to the Devil’s door, I’m certain.” He added, “If it troubles ye to look upon—”
“Nay.” Astonished by her own volatile reaction and how quickly she’d rushed to his defense, she took a calming breath. “Not at all. Our scars are part of who we are, after all.”
Still, she had to wonder what kind of monsters took a whip to a person because of the circumstances of his birth, circumstances over which he had no control?
As she began to bathe his back with care, she asked, “How old were you when this happened?”
“Ten.”
