And while he waited, he tried not to think of the amber witch who had set fire to him as no other woman ever had.
My body knows you. It responds to you as to none other.
How many times have we lain in darkness together, our bodies joined and slick with desire?
How many times have I undressed you, kissed your breasts, your belly, the creamy smoothness of your thighs?
How many times have I opened your legs and sheathed myself within your eager heat?
She had come to him so perfectly.
So falsely.
Come heaven, come hell, I will protect you with my life. We are…joined.
The echo of Amber’s vow twisted through Duncan’s memory, and with it came the pain of a betrayal so deep he would spend a lifetime measuring it.
I believed her. By all the saints, I am a fool!
Yet even as Duncan told himself he was a fool, he couldn’t help but remember his own burning need, a hunger greater than any he had ever imagined.
You’re a fire in my blood, in my flesh, in my soul. If I touch you again, I’ll take you.
Then touch me.
Amber—
Take me.
And he had, despite all.
I am afraid for you, for me, for us.
Because I can’t remember?
No. Because you might.
And he had done that, too.
Would to God I could forget her more thoroughly than I ever did the past!
But that Duncan could not do. The memory of Amber was a thousand torches afire in his mind, his body, his soul.
Touch me.
Take me.
With a throttled sound, Duncan fought his brightly burning memories as savagely as he had once fought a thousand shades of darkness.
Without success. He was a man torn by conflicting needs. The part of Duncan that was ruled by rage hoped that Amber would take the men-at-arms he had sent to her and run for Sea Home or Winterlance.
And part of Duncan feared she would do just that.
Then he would never again hear her laughter, never again turn and find her watching him with eyes of fire, never again feel the sultry yielding of her body as he sheathed himself in her.
“Sir?”
The whispered word came from behind Duncan. He spun with such fierce speed that Egbert backed up in alarm.
“What is it?” Duncan asked.
“Three knights and a lady are riding up to the keep. They have a small amount of baggage with them.”
“Just one lady?”
Duncan’s voice and eyes were a blunt warning of his temper. Egbert swallowed and backed up.
“Aye,” the squire said nervously.
“Amber?”
“I recognize neither the lady nor the knights.”
Rage and pain struggled for control of Duncan’s voice. Neither won. He was unable to speak.
Duncan turned his back on Egbert and looked out through the open gate to the road. There were indeed horses coming up the road. One of them was Shield, his own battle-trained stallion. Shield’s saddle was empty, but the broadsword was now at Duncan’s side rather than in its riding sheath.
“Sir?” Egbert prompted.
“Go back to your post.”
Egbert hesitated, then turned and sped away, wondering what had caused Duncan’s expression to be as bleak as a stone carving of hell.
Motionless, Duncan watched Dominic le Sabre canter up to Stone Ring Keep, his Glendruid wife at his side.
“Was there any difficulty?” Dominic asked.
Duncan shook his head.
“For a man who has just secured his own keep without bloodletting, you look quite grim,” Dominic said, dismounting.
“Not my keep, lord. Yours.”
“No longer. As of this moment I give you Stone Ring Keep outright, without let or hindrance. You are lord here, Duncan, not my tenant-in-chief.”
Smiling, Dominic watched understanding sink slowly into Duncan. Born a bastard with no name, no estate, no prospects other than his strong right arm and a burning need for land of his own…and now Duncan had that land.
Dominic understood the complex emotions exploding in Duncan, for Dominic, too, had been born a bastard with no prospects other than his skill with a sword.
And he, too, had won wealth and land because of that skill.
“My own keep,” Duncan said oddly.
He glanced around the keep as though it were new to him. In a sense, it was. He had never looked at it as his own before.
“It hardly seems real,” Duncan said softly. “To go from a man with no name to this, all in a day…”
A lifetime’s dream had come true. It was as solid as the cobbles beneath his feet, the weight of a sword by his side, and the smell of food from the kitchen in the bailey.
Stone Ring Keep was his and his alone, held in fief for no other man. The keep and all its lands and people were Duncan’s as long as he could hold them with his sword and his wisdom. He was no longer Duncan of Maxwell.
He was Duncan, Lord of Stone Ring.
“’Tis a great gift you have given me,” Duncan said, turning back to Dominic.
“’Tis a great gift you have given me,” Dominic countered softly, dismounting.
“I? What have I given you save a long ride and doubts of my worthiness?”
“You have given me what I crave above all else. Peace for Blackthorne.”
“Peace?”
“You returned alone to Stone Ring Keep. Had you wished it, you could have drawn up the bridge and told me to go forthwith to hell and take my knights with me.”
“I would never—” Duncan began.
“I know,” Dominic interrupted. “Beyond all doubt, beyond all temptation, you are a man of your word. And your word was given to me.”
Duncan let out a long breath, feeling as though a huge weight had slipped from his shoulders.
“With you on my north,” Dominic said, “I will never need to fear for the safety of my Carlysle estates.”
“You have my oath on it.”
“And you have mine, Duncan of Stone Ring. If you ever need help to defend what is yours, send word to Blackthorne. The Glendruid Wolf will come to fight by your side.”
Clasping sword hand to sword hand, the two men sealed their vows as equals.
“I fear that I won’t be long in claiming your aid,” Duncan said. “As soon as Amber gets to Winterlance, Erik will be on his way with more knights than I have men-at-arms.”
“Amber?”
“Aye,” Duncan said bleakly. “The witch will waste no time crying the word of your coming and my true name throughout the countryside.”
“Turn around, Duncan. Tell me what you see.”
Puzzled, Duncan turned—and saw Amber riding up to Stone Ring Keep, surrounded by the keep’s men-at-arms.
Relief and rage warred within Duncan. He waited until the small party was across the bridge and through the gate. Then his gauntleted hand clamped around Whitefoot’s reins, bringing the mare to a stop.
“Go about your tasks,” Duncan told the men curtly.
The men-at-arms left without a backward look. Their speedy departure said more clearly than words that they would be quite pleased not to be within sight or sound of Duncan when he looked so fierce.
Even Amber, braced for Duncan’s rage, knew a chill when he looked up at her with eyes as hard as agates.
“Why did you come here?” he demanded.
“Where else would a wife be but with her husband?”
Duncan became utterly still.
“Or had you forgotten we are wed?” Amber asked with a bittersweet smile.
“I have forgotten nothing, witch.”
The chill she had felt returned doubly, becoming fingernails of ice along her spine.
“Then, husband, release Whitefoot so that a groom may see to her comfort.”
Duncan turned his head just enough to see Dominic without taking his eyes off Amber.
“Dominic,” said Duncan distinctly, “I trust your months as Lord of Blackthorne Keep have not caused to you forget how to close gates and lift a drawbridge?”
The Glendruid Wolf laughed.
“Good,” Duncan said. “If you would be so kind as to see to those small tasks for me…”
Before Duncan had finished speaking, Dominic was working the mechanism that lifted the draw-bridge until it fit like a heavy barrier across the opening to the keep. Bolts thumped home one after another, mating the bridge to the thick stone walls. The inner gate soon followed, closing with thick sounds of timber on timber.
It seemed very dark in the bailey without sunlight slanting through the gate.
“You should have run while you could,” Duncan said silkily to Amber.
“To what purpose?”
“To bring Erik, of course.”
“Then death would surely come as well,” Amber said. “As long as I am within the keep, Erik won’t attack.”
“Let him come!” Duncan snarled.
Amber looked past Duncan to the man who wore the Glendruid Wolf.
“Is that what you want, lord?” she asked. “War?”
“What I want is of little moment,” Dominic said. “The keep and all that comes with it are Duncan’s, not mine. The decisions that pass here will also be his.”
Amber’s breath caught swiftly.
“You gave it to Duncan?” she asked, stunned.
“Aye,” Dominic said, walking forward to stand next to Duncan.
“And to his heirs, without let or hindrance?”
“Aye.”
“You are a man as generous as you are shrewd, Dominic le Sabre,” she said. “’Tis no wonder Duncan’s unremembered oath to you caused him such unease.”
“If you knew going back on his oath was causing him so much distress,” Dominic said coolly, “why didn’t you help him to remember?”
Shadowed golden eyes looked from one man to the other. Both men looked very much alike at the moment. Tall. Powerful. Fierce.
Proud.
Drawing a hidden, shaking breath, Amber forced herself to meet the savage, disapproving eyes of the Glendruid Wolf. As she did, she remembered the way those eyes changed when Dominic looked at Meg.
It gave Amber hope. Not much, but a spark seems brightest when all else is dark.
“If you knew a time was coming when your wife would look at you with loathing,” Amber said, “what would you do to delay that day?”
Dominic’s eyes widened fractionally, then narrowed into opaque slices of silver.
“Meg said as much on the ride in,” Dominic muttered, “but I find it hard to believe.”
“What is that?” Amber asked.
“That a woman can love a man, yet not love his honor, too.”
Amber’s skin became even more pale, until even her lips were bloodless.
“Then you believe as Duncan does,” she said, “that it would have been better to let him hang.”
“It would have been better not to force the marriage in the first place,” Dominic said bluntly.
“Yes,” she tonelessly. “But Erik forestalled that possibility, too.”
“What?” demanded Duncan and Dominic as one.
“I have had much time to think since you left me at the cottage,” Amber said.
Duncan grunted.
“Men call Erik a sorcerer, but I think often that he is simply shrewd in the way the Glendruid Wolf is shrewd,” Amber said.
“Meaning?” Dominic asked her softly.
“Meaning that he understands what moves people and what leaves them unmoved.”
Stillness came over Dominic. “My brother said as much.”
“Simon?”
Dominic nodded and asked, “What did Erik know that he used against Duncan?”
“He knew that Duncan didn’t love me.”
Duncan didn’t deny it.
Amber hadn’t expected him to, but his silence stung like salt in an oozing wound. She drew another hidden, shaking breath and was grateful Meg wasn’t there to measure her distress with Glendruid eyes that saw too deeply, too clearly.
When Amber spoke again, it was to Duncan rather than to the Glendruid Wolf.
“Erik knew you wouldn’t marry me if you remembered,” Amber said with aching calm. “And he knew how much you desired me. He knew I wanted you…dawn after a lifetime of night…”
Her voice thinned into splinters of silence.
“So he left us utterly alone but for his most foolish squire,” Duncan finished savagely, “and all the time you allowed me to believe you weren’t a maiden.”
“Nay,” Amber said fiercely. “That was your own doing, Duncan. Erik and I both swore otherwise, but you didn’t listen. You didn’t want to know the truth, because if you believed me a virgin you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to take me.”
“Aye,” he said in a cold tone.
“‘Aye,’” she mimicked. “Or maybe nay, Duncan of the broad shoulders and thick skull! Maybe you wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself even if you knew. Then you would have hated yourself for breaking your vow!”
Memories arced like summer lightning between Amber and Duncan, the wild instant when he had taken her beneath the sacred rowan with a single, unexpected thrust of his body.
“’Tis much easier to hate me than yourself, isn’t it?” Amber asked.
She yanked on the reins, freeing them from Duncan’s grasp before he could recover. Whitefoot backed up in a frantic clatter of metal shoes on cobblestones, taking her rider beyond Duncan’s reach.
“The bridge is drawn up,” Duncan said savagely. “It’s too late to run.”
“I know. I’ve known it since I first touched you. Now you know it, too.”
19
WORD of Cassandra’s appearance went through the keep almost as quickly as word of Duncan’s true name had two days before. Amber heard rumors of the Learned woman whispered by the serving men who brought steaming bathwater to the room where Amber and Duncan had once slept together.
But no more.
Amber hadn’t seen Duncan since he had requested that Simon escort her to the luxurious room. She had become a prisoner in all but name, her only company the servants who came and went without warning.
And without conversation. It was as though they were terrified of being caught speaking to the lady of the keep.
A shout from the bailey below drifted through the partially open shutters. Amber stood poised on the edge of entering the big wooden tub, where water gently steamed.
“She be here, I tell you! Saw her with me own two eyes. Blood-red robes and silver hair!”
Amber listened, but nothing more about Cassandra’s presence could be heard from the high room. With a sigh, Amber slid into the water.
Will Duncan come to me now? Will he finally admit that he needs me as much as I need him?
Only silence answered Amber’s half-fearful, half-yearning thoughts.
That same silence had once been her customary state, but she had never noticed it. She hadn’t known then what it was like to wake up feeling herself surrounded by Duncan’s arms. She hadn’t known then what it was like to feel his warmth, his laughter, his hunger, his peace, his strength, all that was Duncan enfolding her in a richness of emotion she had never imagined.
Having known that sharing, Amber now knew what true loneliness was. She measured its extent in the echoing emptiness that was inside her.
No, Duncan won’t come to me.
’Tis just as well. I dream of black wings beating at me, whispering unthinkable rage, unspeakable grief.
I fear what would happen if I touched him now.
For both of us.
I fear.
And yet I yearn…
The coolness of the bath told Amber that she had spent too long in useless regrets. Despite the hearth’s cheerful fire close by, she felt chilled.
Amber reached for a pot of soap and began washing quickly, barely noticing
the complex fragrance of evergreen and spices that rose from the soap. Soon the scent drifted through the room, as did the sound of soft splashes as she bathed.
“My lady,” Egbert called from the hallway beyond the room.
“Again?” muttered Amber under her breath. Then, “What is it?”
“May I enter?”
Though the bath was shielded by wooden screens both for privacy and to hold the hearth’s warmth close to the wooden tub, Amber had no desire for Egbert’s company.
“As I told you a few minutes ago, I’m bathing,” she said tartly.
There was an odd silence followed by the sound of feet shifting against the wooden floor.
“Lord Duncan requires your presence in the solar,” Egbert said.
“I will be down presently.”
Nothing in Amber’s voice suggested that she was excited to have her time of forced seclusion end.
Or that she was longing to see her husband.
“The lord was most, um, urgent in his requirement.”
“Ask him, then, if he would like to see me in the great hall, wearing only the liquid remains of my bath?”
The sound of rapidly retreating footsteps was Egbert’s answer.
Moments later, candle flames dipped and trembled as a draft moved through the room. Amber didn’t notice, for she was rinsing her face. But an instant later, she looked up and froze. A frisson of awareness shot through her.
Someone was in the room with her, standing just beyond the the wooden screens. Watching her.
Duncan.
She was certain of it.
“Yes, lord?” Amber asked.
Despite her best efforts at calm, her voice wasn’t steady. Her heart was beating far too rapidly with the knowledge that Duncan was so close.
For the space of several breaths, no answer came. Rage and desire fought for control of Duncan. Every breath he took was infused with the scent of evergreen and spice. The silence shivered with the tiny sounds of water gliding over skin. Each instant announced in a new way that Amber was nearby, fragrant, warm.
Naked.
The hammer blow of desire that went through Duncan made him sway.
“Cassandra has asked after you,” he said finally.
But Duncan’s voice said much more, husky and heavy, telling of blood racing hotly, flesh hardening, a body yearning to be completed. He could not have told Amber of his desire more clearly if he had touched her.
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