Free A Knight's Vow by Gayle Callen

gasping and coughing.
    "Doesn't that feel better, my dear Angel? There's a cloth on the table beside you. Now scrub."
    James turned his back before he could watch the water drip down her breasts. Just holding her for a brief moment had made his blood thicken and his
    pulse pound. What was wrong with him? Maybe if he drank enough, he could forget this whole night. He drained the last of the ale and poured another. When he felt under control, he turned and sprawled in a chair before the hearth, facing her. She sat stiffly in the tub, the cloth in her hand.
    Not looking at him, she soaped the cloth and began to wash her arms. James 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 kept her gaze on the water, soaping her other arm even more slowly. She was flushed and perspiring from the heat of the water and the familiarity of a Bolton. 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 Isabel 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?"
    Isabel 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