Page 49 of The Iron Earl
This had to be a trap of some wild machination. Wanting to see her scar. The suggestion of marriage.
And he held her foot hostage, no matter how lightly his hand on her ankle sat. His fingers only needed to slip down and he’d have her locked in place.
But a trap to what end?
She glanced over her shoulder, looking for help, looking for escape.
“Evalyn?”
Her head swiveled back to him.
His eyebrows lifted.
Trapped.
And there was only one way to get her foot back and flee.
She sighed, then brought her fingers up to her hair and lifted away the smoothed locks from her right temple. She set her stare on the gnarled, bared roots of the tree behind him as she tilted her head slightly toward him, letting him have full view of the scar that marred her face.
It was hideous.
She knew it.
She’d studied the scar for far too long. Too many hours to count. How the flesh had twisted as it healed, not put back together by neat stitches, but by white, tough flesh building upon white, tough flesh until she was whole again.
“There is much pain that exists there.” He moved, lifting a finger to reach out and touch the scar that curled around her temple into the spot where her hair no longer grew.
She snapped backward on the boulder, sending her heel scraping against his trousers. Instant pain she had to swallow. “Please, no.” Her hand dropped from her head, her hair falling back into place.
Scooting forward on the rock, she tried to ease his pull on her foot. Her bottom lip jutted up even as she attempted a smile, her eyes meeting his. “So now you know how ruined I am, in more ways than one. I thank you for your offer, Lachlan. It was very kind of you.”
“The offer still stands, Evalyn.”
“I—it does? But I…but my—” Her hand swept up to press against her temple through her hair.
He didn’t flinch. “You’re no less beautiful now than you were a moment ago.”
“But…but…” Her words trailed, her tongue tangling against the roof of her mouth.
This had to be a trick. It had to be. And Lachlan was not giving up his game.
His head slanted to the side as he stared at her. “Why are you truly refusing me?”
“I…I’m not refusing you.”
“You’re concocting reasons for me to change my mind, then. It is the same as a refusal from your lips.”
He knew the answer. She could see it. But he was going to make her say it. Make her speak it.
She exhaled, long and hard. “You’re trapping me and I don’t know why—what pain is ahead.”
His chin tilted downward in a single nod. Without lifting his head, his hazel eyes pinned her. “What if I swear to you that if you ever feel trapped—ever feel that you need to escape the life that I offer you—Domnall will take you to the Vinehill dower house on the Isle of Bute.”
“A dower house?”
“Yes. No one lives there except for a few staff that maintain it. It would be a simple life and no one would bother you. Me included.” His head tilted, his words pointed. “Far from everything. Hidden.”
Her mind racing, she flipped the thought over and over again in her head.