“Aye, ye do.”
Katreine had to be the most stubborn lass I’d ever met. It should have irritated me, yet it didn’t. I admired her spirit even in the face of her pain.
She glowered at me. “I need ye to turn around.”
“I will,” I assured her. “Once ye are in the tub and I ken ye will nae fall on yer face getting there.”
Her eyes flashed. “I’m nae a bairn.”
“Nay,” I said, looking at her too long, “ye’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met, and that’s far worse.”
She looked as though she wanted to strike me. Then she tried to bend to reach her boot again, and the movement wrung another choked sound from her throat.
That sound snapped the last of my patience. I caught her ankle gently, and this time, when she tried to pull away, I held on. Not hard enough to hurt her, just enough to make it clearI was done letting her pride injure her further. “Hold still,” I commanded.
“I hate ye,” she whispered.
“Nay, ye do nae,” I assured her, slightly amused that I was arguing with how she felt about me. Why did I even care?
“I do hate ye,” she insisted, her lower lip trembling slightly, which made me want to run my thumb gently over it to reassure her. I didn’t, because I wasn’t a fool. Instead, I gave her a steady stare meant to show she’d not win this argument. “Then hate me while ye sit still.”
Her lips pressed together, but she obeyed, though it cost her. I could see the fight in every rigid line of her body, in the way her hands twisted in the folds of her skirt, and in the proud lift of her chin as she stared past me toward the wall.
Carefully, I loosened the laces of her boot. The leather was stiff from the road, damp near the sole, and smeared with mud from the day’s ride. I eased it from her foot slowly, pausing when she hissed between her teeth.
“Did I hurt ye?”
“Nay.”
She lied with the same stubborn certainty with which other people breathed, but instead of saying so and starting yet another argument, I set the boot aside and reached for the other. That was when I saw the blood. At first, it was only a dark stain near the back of her leg, hidden by the fall of her skirt and the dim light of the room. Then she shifted, and the fabric pulled away just enough for me to see dried blood streaked down the pale skin behind her knee and disappearing beneath her gown. Every part of me went cold. “What is that?”
She froze. “What is what?”
My jaw tightened. “Do nae play me for a fool, lass.”
“I’m nae,” she protested so earnestly that I believed her.
I pushed her skirt back, ignoring her protests. The sight before me sent a hot, vicious surge of anger through my blood. The backs of her thighs were chafed raw in places, the skin broken where the saddle and hard riding had punished her. Blood had dried in thin, rust-colored trails. Bruising had begun to bloom, dark and ugly against her skin. For a moment, I could not speak.
I had done this by my command. I had pushed the pace. I had heard her insist that she could keep riding, and I had let myself believe her because it suited my plan to reach Edinburgh and collect the king’s reward. I yearned for the castle, the name, the life I had spent too many years clawing toward, and Katreine had paid for my longings in blood. “God’s blood,” I muttered.
She snatched at her skirt. “Do nae look.”
“Katreine—”
“I said do nae look!”
Her shame struck me nearly as hard as the sight of the injuries. She was not angry that I had seen skin. She was angry that I had seen weakness, and I was beginning to understand that this lass guarded weakness like others guarded treasure.
I rose enough to sit beside her, though not too close. “Why did ye nae tell me?”
She laughed once, a brittle sound. “Because I made a bargain with ye, and ye would have used it against me.”
I stared at her. “Used it against ye?”
“Aye. Ye would have slowed us.”
“Because ye’re hurt.”
