“‘He will love her in spite of all,’” Cassandra mimicked with icy sarcasm. “This from the sorcerer who believes only in lust between a man and a woman? I would laugh at you, but I fear my soul would break at the sound.”
“Duncan will love her. He must.”
“Could you love a woman who had betrayed you?”
“I am not Duncan.”
“You are a man. So is Duncan. When he understands how much Amber has cost him, he will hate her.”
“What would you have done in my place?” Erik demanded in a low voice.
“I would have surrendered Stone Ring Keep to Dominic le Sabre.”
“Never,” Erik said flatly.
“That is pride speaking.”
“What good is a man with no pride?”
“Ask Duncan,” Cassandra said scathingly, “for you seem to believe he has none.”
A chorus of shouts made Erik turn toward the revelers. Amber had one hand around Duncan’s neck and she was whispering in his ear. Whatever she was saying made Duncan smile with a sensual heat that blazed as brightly as the fire.
Then Duncan lifted Amber’s hand from his neck, kissed her fingers tenderly, and smiled at her once more. It was a different smile, for it promised safety as well as passion, caring as well as burning, peace as well as ecstasy.
“Look at them,” Erik demanded in a low voice. “Look at them and tell me how I could have kept them apart short of death.”
There was a savage silence followed by a sigh. Cassandra’s fingers touched Erik’s clenched fist.
“I know,” she said softly. “That is why we rage at each other. It gives us the illusion we were once in control of Amber’s destiny—and we chose wrongly—when in truth we never had that kind of control at all.”
Hand in hand, Duncan and Amber approached Erik.
“We ask your leave, lord,” Duncan said, “to seek our rest.”
A roar of laughter went up from the knights.
“Rest?” Erik asked, covering his smile by smoothing his beard with his hand. “By all means, Duncan. If you aren’t to bed soon, the cock will be up well after dawn.”
More laughter gusted through the knights.
Erik’s smile changed as he looked at Amber. He reached out to her, but stopped just short of touching her cheek.
“Be joyful in your marriage,” Erik said.
Amber’s smile was incandescent. It didn’t dim even when she deliberately turned her head so that her cheek brushed against Erik’s fingers.
The surprise that murmured through the gathered knights was reflected in Erik’s expression.
“Thank you, lord,” Amber said softly. “Your kindness to me has been that of amber itself, pieces of sunlight shining no matter how dark the day.”
Erik’s smile was both sad and so beautiful that Cassandra felt pain twist through her. The love Erik had for Amber was as clear as the tawny color of his eyes. Yet it was a love that held no sexual desire, despite Amber’s beauty and Erik’s forthright masculinity.
Abruptly, fear replaced pain in Cassandra.
He knows. By all that’s Learned, he knows!
Is that why he risked so much? Is he trying to repay her for what was taken from her at her birth?
No answer came from within the well of serenity that held Cassandra’s Learning.
“Will you give me your good wishes?” Amber asked, turning to Cassandra.
“You are my daughter in every way that matters,” Cassandra said. “I would give you Paradise if I could.”
Smiling, Amber glanced at her husband from beneath her long lashes. Though she said nothing, the fire reflected in Duncan’s eyes burned higher.
“Thank you,” Amber said, looking at Cassandra again. “Your good wishes mean a great deal to me. I love you as a daughter would.”
With her free hand, Amber touched the other woman’s cheek. The murmur of surprise was repeated throughout the gathered knights and ladies. Despite the clear affection between Amber, Erik, and Cassandra, never had the people of the keep seen Amber touch the lord or the Learned woman.
Tears glittered once more in Cassandra’s eyes. She turned to look long and hard at the dark warrior whose fingers were interlaced with Amber’s.
“You have been given a gift beyond price,” Cassandra said distinctly. “Few men are privileged to know its like.”
The splinters of darkness that lay deep within the clarity of Cassandra’s eyes made coolness ripple down Duncan’s spine. His instincts stirred, warning him that danger lay within this woman as surely as night lay within sunset’s vivid colors.
Then realization came. It wasn’t menace that lay darkly within Cassandra. It was knowledge.
And it was dangerous.
“May I embrace the husband of my daughter?” Cassandra asked.
If Duncan was surprised, the rest of the people were shocked, including Erik.
“Of course,” Duncan said.
Cassandra stepped forward. Full scarlet sleeves rippled and flared over the forest green of Duncan’s shirt as she placed her hands on his shoulders. Though Cassandra was a tall woman, she had to stretch on tiptoe in order to bring her face close to Duncan.
“This is the truth of the past,” Cassandra said, kissing his left cheek.
A moment later she kissed his right cheek.
“This is the truth of the present,” she said.
Then Cassandra’s palms rested on Duncan’s cheeks, holding him as surely as chains.
“Your life lies stretched between past and present,” she said in a low, distinct voice.
Intently Duncan watched the Learned woman, feeling her cool hands like brands on his face while her silver eyes compelled everything within him to listen to her. Even the shadows.
Especially the shadows.
“To deny the truth of the past or the present will destroy you as surely as cleaving your head in two with a sword,” Cassandra said.
A ripple of movement went through the knights as they crossed themselves.
“Remember what I have said when the past returns and seems to make a lie of the present,” Cassandra commanded. “Remember it.”
When she would have withdrawn, Duncan’s hand chained one of her wrists.
Instantly Erik stepped forward, only to be warned off by a glance from clear silver eyes.
“What do you know of my past?” Duncan asked in a low voice.
“Nothing that would bring you ease.”
Duncan glanced toward Amber. Though he said not one word, she put her hand on Cassandra’s captive arm.
“What do you know of my past?” Duncan demanded again, softly.
“Nothing that would bring you ease,” Cassandra repeated.
Duncan waited.
“She speaks the truth,” Amber said.
Duncan’s hand opened, freeing Cassandra.
The smile she gave him was both compassionate and coolly amused at his arrogance in questioning a wise woman’s honesty.
“You are canny to listen to your wife,” Cassandra said bitingly. “See that you remain so when past and present are both known.”
Cassandra looked at Erik.
“With your permission, lord,” she said, “I have a newly born babe who needs me more than a newly wed couple.”
“Of course, Learned one,” Erik said. “You need not ask my permission.”
“Ah, but I enjoy doing so.”
“Do you?”
“But of course,” Cassandra said dryly. “’Tis the only time you listen to me.”
Laughter rose like a shout, for it was well known among the knights that their young lord was as headstrong as an unbroken stallion. Erik laughed the loudest of them all, for he knew himself better than they did.
Under cover of the laughter, Duncan bent down and spoke for Amber alone.
“Do you know what Cassandra knows?” he asked.
“Of your past?”
“Yes.”
“I know that she is rarely wrong.
”
“Meaning?” Duncan asked.
“Meaning there is nothing in your past that will make you happy in the present.”
“Are you certain?”
“Ask yourself, not me,” she said.
“But I know nothing.”
“Nor do you wish to. Not now. Not when you are married.”
Duncan’s eyes narrowed. But before he could speak, Amber did.
“Do you want to spend your wedding night asking questions whose answers are sure to make you unhappy?” she asked.
“Are they?”
“Aye.”
The bleak certainty in Amber’s eyes sent another wave of coolness washing over Duncan’s spine.
“Amber?”
She put her fingertips over his lips, sealing in all the questions he hadn’t asked and she didn’t want to answer.
“Instead of asking questions neither of us wants to hear,” Amber whispered, “wouldn’t you rather take your bride to the privacy of the bedchamber and begin our future?”
14
WHEN Duncan led Amber into the room that had been hastily, yet thoroughly, arrayed for their wedding night, she made a sound of pleasure and surprise.
“It is quite wonderful,” she said.
The chamber had been built for the lady of the keep and never occupied, for Erik had yet to take a wife. The exotic fragrance of myrrh pervaded the room, rising from the oil lamps whose bright, unwavering flames turned darkness into golden light. The hearth along the far wall burned with wood so hard and dry that there was barely any smoke to curl upward into the clever, narrow vent behind the logs.
“And quite grand!” Amber added.
Laughing, she turned around swiftly, making her gold dress lift and ripple as though alive.
With an effort, Duncan didn’t reach out to the graceful amber girl who burned more brightly in his blood than any fire. He knew he shouldn’t look at her, much less gather her close and bury his hard flesh within her softness again.
It was too soon. He was too harsh, too much a warrior for Amber’s delicate flesh to take. If he took her again, and again saw her blood bright on his body, he didn’t know what he would do.
Duncan’s silence and grim expression dimmed Amber’s pleasure in the luxurious room.
“Do you dislike it?” she asked anxiously, waving her hand around.
“No.”
“You look so harsh. Is it…are you remembering?”
“Aye.”
A lance of fear impaled Amber.
It is too soon! If he remembers now, all will be lost.
And I will be lost with it.
“What are you remembering?” she asked in a low voice.
“The sight of your blood on my body.”
Her relief was so great that Amber felt dizzy.
“Oh, that,” she said. “It was nothing.”
“It was your maidenhead!”
“I’ve given more blood to a leech,” Amber said, smiling as she remembered Duncan’s dismissal of his own wound. “And so have you, dark warrior. You told me so yourself.”
Unwillingly, Duncan smiled in return. Saying nothing, he looked around the room, but his eyes kept returning to the marriage bed.
It was big enough for a man of Duncan’s size—or Erik’s. The bed was canopied and curtained with rich cloth in shades of gold, green, and indigo. A luxurious fur blanket lay over sheets of linen so fine that they were softer than the down that filled the mattress. The border of lace on the sheets was extraordinarily fine, as though countless snow-flakes had been woven into a pattern that no hearth fire could melt.
“Have you ever seen such finery?” Amber asked, noting that Duncan was looking at the bed.
The instant the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to call them back. The last thing she wished to discuss now was Duncan’s memory.
Or lack of it.
“’Tis very rich,” Duncan agreed. “Erik is a generous lord. This room is more suited to the lord’s quarters than to those of his seneschal.”
“Erik is pleased by our marriage.”
“Aye. ’Tis a good thing.”
“Why?” she asked, startled by the thread of steel in Duncan’s voice.
“Because I would have married you with or without his leave, with or without my vow concerning your maidenhead. And he knew it. He could fight me or he could give you into my care.”
Duncan turned away from the bed in time to see the stricken look on Amber’s face. The pallor of her skin was such that not even golden lamplight could disguise it.
“You must not even think of fighting Erik,” she said.
“Do you believe me such a poor warrior, then?”
“Nay!”
Eyes narrowed, Duncan waited.
“I love both of you,” Amber said. “If you fought one another—nay! It must never happen!”
Duncan closed the distance between himself and his bride with a swiftness that was startling. He stood so near that he could smell the unique fragrance of resin and roses that was hers alone.
“What did you say?” he asked in a deep voice.
“If you fought—”
“No,” Duncan interrupted. “Before that.”
“I love both of you.”
“Closer, but not quite.”
For an instant Amber was confused. Then she understood.
“I love Erik,” she said, hiding her smile.
Duncan grunted.
“And,” she whispered, “I love you, dark warrior. I love you so much I am full to overflowing with it.”
The smile Duncan gave Amber made her knees weaken. He lifted her up in his arms, hugging her close. The relief that swept through her was her own and his combined.
But the surprise her words had caused was Duncan’s alone.
Amber pulled back far enough to see his eyes. “Why are you surprised?”
“I didn’t think an innocent maid could love a man who was so clumsy with her body,” Duncan said.
“You aren’t clumsy.”
“I was a rut—”
Whatever he had meant to say was lost in the sudden pressure of Amber’s mouth over his.
The fierce, unschooled kiss sent a torrent of fire through Duncan. For a hungry instant he permitted the sweet taste of Amber to fill his senses. Then he gently, implacably, separated his mouth from hers.
“Duncan?” Amber asked. “Don’t you want me?”
He let out a harsh breath.
“You’re touching me,” Duncan said ironically. “You tell me. Do I want you?”
Amber closed her eyes as she felt the desire in him drench her senses.
“Aye,” she whispered. “It is a river of fire pouring through me.”
Duncan’s eyes closed as a shudder of response shot through his whole body.
“Yes,” he said roughly. “A river of fire.”
His eyes opened, but even before Amber saw their darkness, she felt his icy restraint freezing the hot flames of desire.
“And you,” Duncan said, “are a delicate amber fairy who hasn’t even healed from the first time I held you down and ripped through your maidenhead.”
“It wasn’t like that!” Amber protested. “You didn’t force me to—”
“I know what I did and didn’t do,” Duncan interrupted ruthlessly. “God’s blood, my palms can still feel the heat and softness of your thighs as I spread them and thrust into you as though you were an enemy to be killed.”
“Stop! I wanted you just as much as you wanted me. Why can’t you believe that?”
Duncan’s laugh was as rough as his eyes were bleak.
“Why? Because I’ve never wanted a woman like that. I didn’t even know such passion was in me! How could an innocent feel anything close to it?”
“Duncan,” Amber said, kissing his chin. “When I touch you, I feel what you feel.”
Her teeth closed delicately on his neck.
“Dear God, yes,” she whispered. “I feel your breath
break even as I hear it. I feel your heartbeat speed. I feel your blood rushing and quickening your flesh, making you ready to lie within me.”
With a groan, Duncan pushed away the fine cowl that framed Amber’s face. He fitted his hands against Amber’s cheeks, savoring the smooth, soft heat of her skin.
The leap of his hunger was like wine to Amber. While she shivered beneath the claiming of his hands, her soft words incited him, pouring fire over him even as the heat of his desire poured over her.
“I can feel your hunger gathering like a storm,” she whispered. “I can’t feel the sword emerging from its sheath, but I can sense you feeling your own maleness sweep through you.”
“Amber,” Duncan said hoarsely.
“And I can feel my own body crying out to know the sweet stabbing of the sword within the sheath.”
“No more, witch,” Duncan said heavily. “You have me full to bursting already.”
“I know.”
A look into the golden fire of Amber’s eyes told Duncan that she did indeed know what her words had done to him.
And she liked it.
“Can I undo you with only my words?” Amber asked.
The combination of curiosity and sensuality in her eyes almost pushed Duncan over the edge.
“Enough,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“Why?”
“’Tis unseemly for a man to lose control.”
“Even in the marriage bed?”
“We’re not in bed,” he retorted.
“Aye. And you have no intention of lying there with me, do you?”
“’Tis too soon.”
“’Tis a great pot of slops!” Amber retorted. “Well, sir, if you won’t take me, I shall just have to take you.”
Duncan gave Amber a shocked look. Then he laughed at the thought of such a slender girl physically besting a man of his size and strength.
“Are you going to hold me down and ravish me, little fairy?”
“I don’t think you would lie still for it.”
“Not tonight,” he agreed. “But the thought appeals.”
“’Tis deeds I want, not thoughts. As I am weaker than you, I must use the only weapon I have to ravish you.”
“And that is?”
“My tongue.”
The surge of fire that hardened Duncan’s whole body was transmitted to Amber so clearly that she stiffened as though a whip had been laid across her back. An image condensed in her mind, a beautiful girl whose golden hair seethed in a fragrant, burning cloud over Duncan’s loins as her tongue brushed fire over his rigid sword.
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