Forbidden

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “The sun,” Amber murmured. “What an unexpected glory.”

  She lifted her arms and pushed the wool cowl from her head. The indigo cloth fell in folds over her nape and shoulders, allowing the gentle golden warmth of the sun to bathe her.

  “Aye,” Duncan said. “It is indeed glorious.”

  But it was Amber rather than the sunlight that Duncan praised.

  “Your hair,” he murmured. “’Tis a thousand shades of golden light. I’ve seen nothing more beautiful.”

  Amber’s breath caught as a fine shiver went over her body. The hunger in Duncan summoned her. She wanted nothing more than to pull his strength around her like a living mantle, shutting out the world, giving herself to him in a secret silence that no other person could violate.

  Yet she must not give herself to him.

  Heart and body and soul.

  “Amber,” Duncan whispered.

  “Yes?” she said, stilling a shiver of response.

  “Nothing. I simply like whispering your name against your bright hair.”

  Pleasure expanded through Amber. Without thinking, she lifted her hand to touch Duncan’s cheek. The faintly rough texture of his skin where beard lay just beneath the surface pleased her. The strength of his arm around her waist pleased her. The heat and resilience of his chest pleased her.

  Duncan pleased her to the center of her soul.

  “There is no man like you.”

  Amber didn’t know she had spoken the thought aloud until she felt a tremor ripple through Duncan’s strength.

  “Nor is there a woman to equal you,” he whispered as he kissed the palm of her hand.

  When Duncan bent to put his cheek against Amber’s hair, the delicate scent of sunlight and evergreens swept through him. She smelled of summer and warmth, of Scots pine and a clean wind.

  The fragrance was uniquely Amber. He could not get enough of it.

  Amber heard the hesitation in Duncan’s breathing, sensed the piercing pleasure that he took from her simple presence, and longed to be free of prophecy.

  But she was not.

  “A pity the warmth won’t last,” Amber said raggedly.

  Duncan made a questioning sound as he nuzzled a wisp of hair that lay against her neck.

  “Erik was right,” she said, her voice quick, almost frightened. “A storm is coming. But it simply serves to make the sunlight more precious.”

  Reluctantly Duncan lifted his head and looked to the north. A thick line of clouds loomed there, held back by a southerly wind. Overhead, the sky was a sapphire bowl arching above fells whose rocky peaks wore a pearly cowl of cloud.

  “It won’t storm by sunset,” Duncan said.

  Amber said nothing.

  “Perhaps by moonrise,” he added, “but I think not.”

  Duncan looked over his shoulder once more. Behind them a narrow crease cut into the rugged highlands that rose between Sea Home and Stone Ring Keep. The crease was the beginning of Ghost Glen, named for the pale-barked trees clinging to its steep sides, and for the haunting wail of autumnal winds.

  No other rider was following Duncan and Amber down the ridge they had just descended. No other rider was visible ahead, where land and sea mingled to make Whispering Fen. The way they would take to the fen was unmarked, known only to the amber girl who fitted so perfectly in Duncan’s arms.

  There had been no sign of habitation at all on this side of the ridge. No cart road, no smoke lifting above a clearing, no plowed fields, no drystone fences, no deer parks, no mark of axe on trees. Small, steep-sided, stitched together by the fey conversations of a brook, Ghost Glen held neither hamlet nor farm nor walking paths. It was a place of ancient forest and primeval silence.

  The land was both savage and oddly innocent, removed from the strife of the Disputed Lands. Had Duncan not seen standing stones grouped in solitary glades, he would have sworn no other person had ever passed this way.

  Yet people had lived here once. Some named them Druids. Some named them sorcerers. Some named them not men at all, but devils or gods.

  And some—the few who might know—called those vanished people Learned.

  “Egbert won’t follow us,” Amber said as she felt Duncan twist to look behind once more.

  “How can you be sure? He is lazy, but not blind. We left a trail.”

  She hesitated, wondering how to explain to Duncan the combination of knowledge and instinct that made her so certain they were safe from intrusion here.

  “Egbert can’t follow us,” Amber said. “Even if he weren’t afraid, he wouldn’t be able to see where we went.”

  “Why not?”

  “He isn’t Learned,” she said simply.

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Egbert would see obstacles and turn aside, certain that no one could pass the way we did.”

  A cool breath blew down Duncan’s spine as he remembered how impassable parts of the trail had looked…at first.

  “That’s why I made you leave your horse,” Amber added.

  “It wasn’t Learned?” Duncan retorted dryly.

  She laughed and shook her head, making sunlight gleam and run like liquid amber through her hair.

  “Whitefoot is used to my ways,” Amber said. “She goes where I guide her.”

  “You see a path,” Duncan said.

  It wasn’t quite a question, but Amber answered anyway, shrugging.

  “I’m Learned.” Then she added with a sigh, “But, according to Cassandra, I’m not very Learned and never will be unless I settle to it and stop roaming the wild places.”

  “Like this one?”

  “Aye.”

  Duncan looked at the smooth curve of Amber’s cheek and wondered how he, who had never been taught, had managed to see both obstacle and trail. Before he could ask Amber, she was talking again.

  “Despite my failings as a student, I have absorbed enough Learning to walk a few of the ancient trails. Ghost Glen is my special place. I’ve never shared it with anyone. Until now.”

  Her quiet words went through Duncan like distant thunder, as much felt as heard, a tremor of the earth itself.

  “Amber?”

  Duncan’s voice was low, aching, nearly rough. She sensed the leap of sensual hunger in him. She also sensed a nameless yearning that pervaded him as surely as sun pervaded the day.

  “What is it?” she whispered, turning to Duncan.

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  “To count Cassandra’s geese.”

  Hazel eyes searched Amber’s face.

  “Geese?” he asked.

  “Aye. They come here from the north in the autumn, pulling winter behind them like a bleak banner.”

  “’Tis early for geese, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Amber said.

  “Then why are you looking for them?”

  “Cassandra asked me to. The rune stones foretold an early, harsh winter. If the geese are here, we’ll know Cassandra cast the stones correctly.”

  “What do your serfs say?” Duncan asked.

  “They say the signs are mixed.”

  “How so?”

  “The sheep are growing very thick coats, yet the birds still call from the trees. The sun is still warm, yet joints and old wounds ache. The good priests pray and dream their dreams, yet none agree as to God’s answer.”

  “Signs. Prophecies. Priests. Dreams.” Duncan grimaced. “It’s enough to make a warrior’s head ache. Give me a sword and a shield and I’ll make my own way, come what will—or what has.”

  The open wound of Duncan’s lost memory drew harsh brackets on either side of his mouth. Amber traced the lines with a fingertip, but she was unable to reach past Duncan’s pain and anger.

  Unhappily she turned away, facing the wild green glen once more. On both sides of the path, rowan trees clung to gray rock cliffs like fallen angels. The few berries that had been overlooked by birds glowed in ruby bursts at the ends of branches. Ghostly birches thronged in c
reases and crowded ridge lines. Their leafless branches lifted to the autumn sky in silent query about the lost summer and the winter to come.

  Ahead and to the right, a low circle of reclining stones marked an ancient place. A larger, more ragged circle of standing stones loomed on an oddly flattened ridge line.

  An eagle’s high, untamed cry pierced the silence. The call was repeated one, twice, thrice.

  Duncan tilted back his head and returned the wild whistle with uncanny accuracy.

  The bird of prey wheeled aside as though reassured of Duncan’s and Amber’s right to be within the fey glen. As they watched, the eagle rode a transparent torrent of air to the far side of the ridge and disappeared.

  “Who taught you to answer the eagle’s question?” Amber asked softly.

  “My mother’s mother.”

  “She was Learned.”

  “I doubt it,” Duncan said. “We had none we called Learned.”

  “Sometimes, in some places, it is safer to have no name.”

  Neither Duncan nor Amber spoke again until they had followed the hurtling silver creek into a small dale and down to the restless sea. The grasses of the marsh were equally alive, combed by a fairy wind.

  For the man and woman poised on a low rise above the fen, the sound of wind and marsh was that of score upon score of people whispering, murmuring, sighing, confiding…a thousand hushed breaths stirring the air.

  “I know now why it is called Whispering Fen,” Duncan said quietly.

  “Until the winter geese come, yes. Then the air resounds with their honking and whistling, and the fen whispers only in the smallest hours of the night.”

  “I’m glad to know it this way, with the sun turning the tips of marsh grass into candles. ’Tis like a church in the instants before the mass is chanted.”

  “Yes,” Amber whispered. “It is exactly that. Filled with imminence.”

  For a few moments Duncan and Amber sat in silence, absorbing the special peace of the fen. Then Whitefoot stretched her neck and tugged at the bit, wanting the freedom to graze.

  “Will she wander if we dismount?” Duncan asked.

  “Nay. Whitefoot is almost as lazy as Egbert.”

  “Then we will rest her for a time before we start back.”

  Duncan dismounted and lifted Amber from the horse’s back. When he set her on her feet, her fingers caressed his cheek and the thick, dark silk of his mustache. He turned his head and kissed her hand with a tender, lingering heat that shortened her breath.

  When Amber looked up into Duncan’s eyes, she knew she should draw away. She didn’t have to be touching him to be certain that he wanted her with a wildness that equaled the eagle’s cry.

  “We should start back very soon,” she said.

  “Aye. But first…”

  “First?”

  “First I will teach you not to fear my desire.”

  8

  “THAT—that wouldn’t be wise,” Amber said raggedly.

  “On the contrary, precious Amber. It would be the wisest thing I have ever done.”

  “But we shouldn’t—we can’t—”

  The slow drawing of Duncan’s fingertips over Amber’s lips scattered her words and her thoughts. She could sense his desire so clearly that it made her tremble.

  And even more clearly she sensed his restraint.

  “Duncan?” Amber asked, confused.

  “I won’t take you,” he said simply. “I don’t know what I did to you in the past that you fear my desire now, but I do know that you fear it.”

  “It is not—what you—dear God—you must not take me!”

  “Hush, precious Amber.” Duncan sealed her lips with a gentle pressure of his thumb. “I won’t take you. Do you believe me?”

  Amber felt the truth in Duncan, a certainty even stronger than the passion that burned within him.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I believe you.”

  A long, low breath that was almost a groan came from deep in his chest.

  “Thank you,” Duncan said. “In the past, no one would have questioned my oath. But here…here I must prove my worth and honor all over again.”

  “Not to me. I sensed your honor and your pride very clearly the first time I touched you.”

  Duncan gave Amber’s mouth a tender, brushing movement of his lips that was almost too light to be called a kiss.

  “Come,” he said softly, holding out his hand. “Walk with me.”

  Amber laced her fingers through Duncan’s and trembled at the banked fires of passion that burned so intensely in his body.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To find a place of shelter.”

  “The wind isn’t cold.”

  “Not while we wear our mantles,” he agreed.

  What Duncan left unsaid rippled through Amber in a wave of unease and anticipation combined.

  The murmuring of sea and grass and wind followed both of them to the base of a low rise. There man had once smoothed a circle to raise tall stones within. Though the builders had long since vanished, the grassy circle and stones remained.

  “This place is sheltered,” Amber said. “Unless you fear the stones?”

  For a moment Duncan closed his eyes. Senses that slept within him until times of danger quivered to alertness at his prodding, found nothing of concern, and sank into timeless sleep again.

  Amber, whose hand was still joined with Duncan’s, watched him with amazement. Because of Cassandra’s teaching, Amber knew that if ancient evil had ever lingered near the circle of stones, the evil had long since fled from the place.

  And so did Duncan, who had never been taught.

  He must be an unknown knight. I am silly to keep fearing he is the Scots Hammer, enemy of Erik.

  “There is nothing to fear in the stones,” he said after a moment.

  “You are Learned,” Amber said.

  Duncan laughed. “Nay, my golden witch. I’m simply a warrior who fights with everything available, including my head.”

  Amber started to quarrel about being named a witch before she realized that he had used the term with affection rather than with accusation. When she saw that Duncan was watching her with amusement and approval in his vivid hazel eyes, she decided that she liked being his “golden witch.”

  “That’s what Learning is,” Amber said absently. “Using your head.”

  “In that event,” Duncan said, looking around the circle of stones, “I learned during the holy crusade what every hound is born knowing—danger has a special scent and feel.”

  “I think there is more to it than that.”

  “And I think there is less.”

  Duncan glanced sideways at Amber. She was watching him with luminous golden eyes and an intensity that made him want to ravish her both tenderly and very thoroughly.

  “Come, my amber delight.”

  “Ah, so I’m a delight now rather than a witch. You must be Learned!”

  The smile Duncan gave Amber was like a caress.

  “Delightful witch,” he said in a low voice. “Sit against this stone with me and we’ll argue about what is Learned and what is simply common sense.”

  Smiling, Amber answered the tug on her hand by settling into the grass beside Duncan. The stone he had chosen to shelter them from the fitful wind was taller than a man. Its face was seamed by time and salt air. Within blade-thin crevices on the stone’s surface grew gardens so tiny that a man could scarce see the moss bloom.

  Yet bloom it certainly did. Growing things thrived on the surface of the stone, weaving a thick, vibrantly colored mantle over much of the ancient monolith.

  Amber tested the moss with her fingertips, then closed her eyes and settled back against it with a sigh.

  “How long do you think the stones have waited thus?” she murmured.

  “Not half so long as I’ve wanted to do this.”

  Amber’s eyes opened. Duncan was so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath and see the i
ndividual splinters of color in his hazel eyes. She drew back slightly, wanting to touch the clean line of his mouth beneath his mustache.

  “Nay, lass,” Duncan said. “There is nothing to fear.”

  “I know. I just wanted to touch you.”

  “Did you? How?”

  “Like this.”

  Amber’s fingertip traced the rim of Duncan’s upper lip. The keen thrill of pleasure that coursed through him at her touch was as much a reward to Amber as the intimate rush of his breath caressing her fingertips.

  “You like that,” she said, delighted at the discovery.

  Duncan’s breath caught as another caress skimmed his lip, sending a tongue of fire through him.

  “Aye,” he said huskily. “I like that. Do you?”

  “Like touching you? Yes. Too much, I fear.”

  “There is no place for fear between us.”

  The rush of Duncan’s breath was replaced by the smooth heat of his mouth against Amber’s. He felt the hesitation in her.

  Then he felt the subtle yielding as she allowed the kiss. His heartbeat speeded as fire searched through his body.

  Yet Duncan did no more than increase the pressure of his mouth on hers just a bit. It was barely enough to part Amber’s lips for a skimming caress from the tip of his tongue. But it was enough to make her sigh and yield more of her mouth to the gentle kiss. Again he delicately traced her lips.

  “Duncan,” Amber whispered. “You are…”

  His tongue moved again, this time more deeply.

  Breath and words caught in Amber’s throat. The gliding caress along the sensitive inner side of her lips was as delicate as a butterfly’s wing. If she hadn’t been touching Duncan, she would have thought that he was as gentle as a butterfly, too.

  But she was touching him. She felt the banked heat of his fiery hunger. The contrast between his actions and his intense need should have frightened her.

  Instead, it beguiled her as no caress could have.

  “Truly I am safe with you,” Amber whispered.

  “Always, my golden witch. I would sooner cut off my own sword hand than harm you.”

  When Duncan’s arms eased around her, Amber made no move to withdraw. He lifted and settled her across his thighs with a slow movement that was also a caress, telling her that he was frankly savoring her warm weight in his lap.