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“She is?”

“Aye.”

“You will not slit my throat?”

He raised his hands. “I’ve no weapon to do so with.”

She rolled her eyes. “Break my neck, then.” For the first time since they’d met, the prisoner smiled. And at that very moment, Reina knew she would do it.

“You’ve a vivid imagination, lass.”

“One I’ve used to consider all manner of outcomes, very few of which leave me with anything but pain and regret.”

He considered that. “The intimacy with which you know regret is what brought you back down here, is it not?”

Holy hell, as the stablemaster liked to say. She was actually going to attempt this.

“Your name,” she said. “If I am to help you, I should at least know your name.”

His eyes narrowed. “That, I cannot give you.”

She shoved the lantern toward his cell. “You expect me to risk my very life to break you free but refuse to give me your name?”

“Doing so could endanger my family.”

She was feeling decidedly stubborn on this one. “Not doing so could see you killed when my father returns and delivers you to the king.”

The face he made at the truth of her words nearly had her reconsidering such a foolhardy plan. Do not get too close to him. He is an enemy to your father and to England. Do not forget that. Reina could hear her own heartbeat in her ears.

“I cannot give you my name.”

“Then I cannot give you your freedom.”

As they stared at one another, Reina attempted to see beyond the caked blood and dirt, beyond the bruises, to the man. Their silence was finally broken by a sound that Reina was sure might be a rat. She tried not to let the thought terrify her more than the idea of committing treason by releasing such a high-valued prisoner as this Scotsman.

But she really, really did detest rats.

He would not flinch, she realized. Either he was the most stubborn man she’d ever met, or the most foolish, but it seemed this was not a point they would agree on. She never should have made the statement, but she was not so mule-headed as to let it come between her and her goals.

“I cannot promise it will work, but we shall attempt it.”

His eyes widened.

“And the moment we are beyond Anbarth’s walls, you will tell me your name.”

Again, that smile. “I can agree to that.”

She nodded. “Good then. I will be back shortly. I must pack a bag and bid farewell to some people.” Relishing the expression on his face, Reina could not hold in her laughter. “’Tis a jest,” she admitted, unsure what had come over her. “Any moment I could be discovered here. ’Tis now or not at all.”

The prisoner—and her likely murderer—shook his head. “An odd time for a jest, my lady.”

Taking out the keys she’d pulled from the guard’s belt, Reina chose one of five keys and prepared to insert it, knowing this was a mad, foolish, foolhardy thing to do. “If ever there were a time to jest, it seems now is that time. ’Tis a most ridiculous action I’m taking.”

He laughed then, a deep, hearty, and more than a little bit appealing sound. It was the last thing she heard as Reina’s arm was wretched backward so forcefully she fell to the ground, knocking her head on the stone floor beneath her.

7

“Lady Reina, wake up.”