Forbidden

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “You could have spoken,” Duncan said, turning to Amber.

  “Weapons don’t speak,” Amber said. “They are simply used. Are you through wielding me for now?”

  Slowly Duncan’s hands closed into fists. Just as slowly they opened once more.

  “Return to your room,” he said.

  Amber set aside the wine goblet and left the solar without a look or a word.

  Nor did Duncan call her back.

  But when Cassandra would have followed, he gestured to another chair.

  “Be seated,” Duncan said. “You have no loyalty to me, but you will do what you can to help the amber witch, won’t you?”

  Cassandra’s lips thinned. “Amber is Learned, not a witch.”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Aye. Whatever I can do to help Amber, I will do.”

  “Then stay nearby and speak for the weapon that is too stubborn to speak for herself.”

  “Ah, then you value her.”

  “More than my dagger and less than my sword,” Duncan retorted.

  “Erik should see you now.”

  “Why?”

  “He thought your feeling for Amber would be stronger than your pride. I would like to show him how wrong he was,” Cassandra said bitingly. “’Tis a pity that he isn’t the one to bear the pain of his misjudgment.”

  Before Duncan could speak, Simon and Dominic came into the solar. They looked from Cassandra to Duncan to the untouched supper arrayed on a table near the hearth.

  “I have news that should whet your appetite,” Dominic said.

  “What is it?” Duncan asked, turning away from Cassandra.

  “Sven assures me that the people of the keep are quite willing to accept you as their lord.”

  Duncan smiled and turned to Cassandra.

  “Disappointed?” he taunted.

  “Only in your treatment of your wife.”

  “Then you need not worry for long,” Simon said. “The marriage will be set aside.”

  Duncan and Cassandra turned as one to face Simon.

  “’Tis a true marriage,” Cassandra said. “Ask Duncan if he hasn’t had carnal knowledge of his wife!”

  “Whether she is maiden or madam,” Dominic said, “it matters not. The marriage was conducted under false pretenses. No bishop would uphold it.”

  “Especially if a church or a monastery were offered as a gesture of respect,” Simon said sardonically.

  “You exchanged sacred vows,” Cassandra said to Duncan. “Will you go back on your word?”

  “Vows.” Duncan’s mouth flattened in pain or contempt or both together. “Nay, I won’t go back on my true word.”

  Cassandra closed her eyes in a relief she couldn’t hide.

  “I will keep the true vow I made when my mind was whole,” Duncan said. “I will marry Lady Ariane of Deguerre.”

  “What of Amber?” Cassandra asked.

  Duncan turned to Dominic without answering.

  “Send for my betrothed,” Duncan said flatly. “The wedding will take place as soon as the Church agrees.”

  “What of Amber?” Cassandra demanded.

  Duncan rose and walked out of the solar, looking at no one.

  “What of Amber!” Cassandra shouted.

  Cassandra’s cry echoed through the great hall, following Duncan. Even when the last echo had faded, he heard the words crying within the bleak silence of his mind.

  What of Amber?

  What of your sacred vow?

  Amber.

  Sacred.

  Amber. Amber. Amber…

  There was no peace for Duncan in any part of the keep. The cry was a part of him, as deeply embedded as the pain of his old memory and his new betrayal.

  The past turning, returning, tormenting him first with Amber’s voice and then with his own.

  Truly I am safe with you.

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

  The memory was too sad, too savage. Duncan pushed it away, buried it among the thousand shades of darkness where he could no longer hide.

  Cassandra’s voice pursued him, the Learned woman’s words raining down like drops of fire.

  To deny the truth of the past or the present will destroy you as surely as cleaving your head in two with a sword.

  Remember what I have said when the past returns and seems to make a lie of the present.

  Remember it.

  Long after others slept, Duncan paced the halls and winding stairways of his own keep. Voices spoke within his silence, words echoing through his seething mind, Amber’s voice describing passion, pride, and honor being used as tools of war.

  Erik knew that you didn’t love me. He knew that you wouldn’t marry me if you remembered.

  And he knew how much you desired me.

  Duncan desired her still. False or true, witch or woman, leman or wife, she made his body burn for her with all the fires of hell. The violence of his need overwhelmed everything.

  Even betrayal.

  Gradually Duncan realized he was standing in front of Amber’s door, his fists clenched at his sides. He didn’t know how long he had been standing there. He knew only that he must be inside with her.

  The door to the bedchamber made no sound when Duncan pushed it open. The candles had burned low. The hearth held little more than embers. Draperies around the bed gleamed darkly as he drew them aside.

  Amber lay in uneasy sleep, the covers twisted and her hair a tumbled golden cloud spread across the pillows. For an instant Duncan saw her as she had been in the bath, her breasts gilded with water and reflected fire. He had wanted then to be like the fire licking over her.

  He still wanted it.

  Duncan released the draperies and began stripping off the heavy battle clothes he had worn throughout the day. When he was as naked as a candle flame, he drew back the draperies again and lowered himself into Amber’s bed.

  Slowly he reached out to touch her. Just before his fingertips brushed her lips, he remembered what had happened in the solar—Amber white with pain, hardly able to stand, and Cassandra’s cool words describing what had happened.

  She feels your rage. Beating her with a whip would cause less pain.

  Yet Amber hadn’t flinched the second time Duncan had touched her, when his concern for her pain had been greater than his anger at her betrayal.

  For a long time Duncan lay motionless, torn between desire and anger. Instinctively he divided his mind as though Learned, yet without Learned understanding of the danger to himself of what he did. A divided mind would soon curl back upon itself like a leaf shriveled by fire. And like a leaf, the mind would wither and die.

  Duncan forced himself to concentrate not on his bleak rage at being betrayed, but rather on his desire. Then he focused on Amber’s passion for him, a passion she had never been able to conceal.

  Erik knew I wanted you…dawn after a lifetime of night.

  The thought of being wanted like that again swept through Duncan. All that held him in check was his fear of hurting rather than arousing Amber with his touch. He wanted her hungry, not beaten, as wild for the joining of their bodies as he was.

  A wave of heat burst through Duncan as he remembered what if was like to thrust into Amber, feeling her body close around him, holding him with tight, sultry perfection.

  Breathing a word that was prayer and curse at once, Duncan speared his hand into Amber’s hair until her scalp lay warm against his palm. The burning focus of his mind was desire. The corrosive shadows he held at bay served only to make the fire even hotter by contrast.

  Amber awoke into a torrent of passion. She needed no candlelight to tell her who was lying next to her, his body hot and hard, his need too great to be described in words.

  “Duncan. My God, your hunger…”

  She tried to breathe, to talk, but all she could do was shiver as her own body changed to meet his with the speed of a falcon leaping into the sky.

 
“You tremble,” Duncan said roughly. “Pain or desire?”

  She couldn’t speak for the waves of his desire breaking over her. Then his hand swept down her body, seeking answers in another, surer way.

  The sultry riches that greeted him nearly drove him over the edge.

  He moved over her with catlike swiftness, opening her legs and thrusting into her even as she arched up to him. The hot perfection of the joining undid him. With a raw cry of completion, he poured himself into her.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  He wanted to fuse their bodies together, wanted the fire to burn forever, wanted…

  Amber.

  Duncan lowered his mouth to hers and began to move again, driving into her, joining with her in the only way he would permit himself, burning with her in the heart of his fire.

  And when neither could burn any longer, they slept in the ashes of their shared passion.

  Their nightmares were also shared, a thousand cold shades of darkness and betrayal, vows that could not be kept without forswearing other vows, rage at what could not be undone, a primal hunger for all that could not be…

  Slowly Amber withdrew until she no longer touched her sleeping husband. Eyes open, staring at the darkness, Amber drank to the last bitter drop the knowledge of what she had done to him and to herself.

  The Glendruid Wolf had truly seen into Duncan’s soul. Beyond all doubt, beyond all temptation, Duncan was a man of his word.

  And his word had been given to Dominic le Sabre.

  Amber knew it now.

  Too late.

  If Duncan lets himself love me, he cannot permit our marriage to be set aside. He must turn his back on honor and on Dominic le Sabre.

  Duncan of Maxwell, the Forsworn.

  If he turns his back on honor, he will hate himself.

  And me.

  20

  TWELVE days later, Cassandra entered the luxurious room that served as Amber’s prison.

  Amber looked up from the manuscript she had been trying to decipher. Trying, and failing. Her mind was on one thing and one thing only.

  Duncan.

  “Ariane is here,” Cassandra said bluntly. “Duncan requires your presence in the solar.”

  For a moment Amber became as still as death. Then she let out a long, soundless breath and looked around the luxurious bedchamber with eyes that saw only a thousand shades of darkness.

  “Simon brought a Norman priest along with the Norman heiress,” Cassandra continued. “There is no doubt that your marriage will be set aside.”

  Amber said nothing.

  “What will you do?” Cassandra asked.

  “What I must.”

  “Do you still hope that Duncan will allow himself to love you?”

  “No.”

  But the flare of emotion in Amber’s eyes said yes.

  “Does he still come to you in the darkest part of the night, when he can bear his own hunger no longer?” Cassandra asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And when the hunger is spent?”

  “Then comes anger at himself and at me and at the lies and vows that have trapped both of us. Then he doesn’t touch me again. It hurts too much.”

  “At least he has that much tenderness for you.”

  Amber’s smile was worse than any cry of pain would have been.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Though he doesn’t know it, my pain hurts him, too.”

  “You still hope he will someday come to love you?”

  Long lashes swept down, concealing Amber’s eyes.

  “Each time we touch,” she whispered, “there is more torment beneath the passion, more darkness. Surely where so much emotion is, there is also a chance…”

  “You will stay as long as you have hope,” Cassandra said.

  Amber nodded.

  “And then?” Cassandra asked. “What will you do when hope is gone and only a thousand shades of darkness remain?”

  There was no answer.

  “May I see your pendant?” the Learned woman asked.

  Amber looked startled. After a moment of hesitation, she reached inside her robe to pull out the ancient pendant.

  Transparent, precious, golden, it hung from the glittering chain. Yet for all its beauty, the amber had changed in ways so subtle that only a Learned person would see…darkness drawing a veil over light.

  Cassandra touched the pendant with a fingertip that displayed a very fine trembling despite her best efforts at concealing the grief that raged beneath her Learned calm.

  “You know that Duncan is destroying you,” the older woman said.

  Silence was Amber’s only answer.

  “Drop by drop, bleeding in secret,” Cassandra whispered, “until there will be nothing left of light and life in you, only darkness.”

  Again Amber said nothing.

  “It is destroying Duncan as well,” Cassandra said flatly.

  Only then did Amber cry out, denial and pain and the same rage that Duncan knew. For she was trapped with him, and each day was another shade of darkness wrapped around them. Day after day, until there would be nothing left of light and life.

  Only darkness.

  “He must not set you aside,” Cassandra said fiercely. “I have never wished death on anyone, but I wish death to the Norman bitch who—”

  “Nay!” Amber said sharply. “Don’t drag your soul into darkness over something I have done. You taught me to make choices and to live with those choices.”

  “Or die.”

  “Or die,” Amber agreed. “In any case, if it were not this heiress, then it would be another. We can’t be slaughtering hapless maids, can we?”

  Cassandra’s laugh was as sad as her eyes.

  “No,” agreed the Learned woman. “There aren’t enough rich maids in the world to slay before your thick-skulled lord will awaken to the riches that lie within his grasp.”

  Not touching, yet close in every other way, the Learned woman and her chosen daughter went down to the lord’s solar. The sight that greeted them was illuminated by hearth, torches, and the misty light pouring through the solar’s high window.

  Duncan sat in the chair of riven oak. Simon was carving a cold joint of meat with his dagger and deftly piling the thin slices on a silver plate.

  At first Amber thought no one else was in the room. Only when Duncan spoke did she realize that Simon was slicing up food not for himself, but for another.

  “Lady Ariane,” Duncan said, rising from the lord’s chair, “I would like you to meet my weapon, a witch called Amber.”

  A woman dressed in a gown of black wool turned around. In her hands was a small harp.

  At first Amber thought Ariane was wearing a cowl of darkly shining black cloth embroidered with silver and violet threads. Then Amber realized that the cowl was Ariane’s hair, thickly plaited and coiled. Silver ornaments gleamed in the midnight blackness, and amethysts glittered almost secretly with Ariane’s smallest movement.

  “Go to her, Amber,” Duncan said.

  For a moment Amber couldn’t force herself to move. Then her feet obeyed the commands of her mind rather than her heart. She walked up to the Norman heiress.

  “Lady Ariane,” she said, nodding.

  For an instant, curiosity animated eyes that were as richly violet as the gems woven into Ariane’s hair. Then the woman’s thick black eyelashes swept down.

  When her eyes opened again it was as though a door had closed. Nothing of curiosity or any other emotion remained. The heiress’s eyes were as cold and remote as the amethysts she wore.

  “A pleasure,” Ariane said.

  Her voice was cool, her words accented by her birth in Normandy. She made no offer to touch Amber in any way, even the most trivial brush of fingers in greeting.

  Amber suspected it was Ariane’s nature, rather than any special warning on Duncan’s part about touching Amber, that kept the Norman aloof.

  “You have had a long journey,” Amber said.

  “A ch
attel goes where it is bidden.” Ariane shrugged gracefully and set the harp aside.

  Chill fingers caressed Amber’s spine. It was obvious that Ariane no more wanted the forthcoming marriage to Duncan than Amber did.

  “Now you see why I require you,” Duncan said sardonically. “My betrothed’s enthusiasm for the match reminds me that her father considers Saxons his enemy. God—or more likely the Devil—knows what Baron Deguerre thinks of Scots.”

  Ariane neither moved nor spoke in response to Duncan. Within the pale perfection of her face, her eyes were the only thing alive; and they were alive only as a gem is alive, reflecting light rather than having light of their own.

  “It reminded me of Dominic’s marriage,” Duncan added.

  Simon sliced through another bit of roast with a single swift stroke.

  “Aye,” Simon said. “John gave his daughter as an act of vengeance rather than as a true joining of clans.”

  “Exactly,” Duncan retorted. “I have no wish to wake up and find myself wed to a maid who can’t give me heirs.”

  Amber sensed the involuntary shrinking that went through the heiress who sat so still amid her splendor of rich black clothes and extraordinary jewelry.

  Cassandra also sensed the Norman woman’s inner flinching. She looked at Ariane with true interest for the first time.

  Simon put a plate of meats, cheeses, and spiced fruits in front of Ariane. When his hand brushed her sleeve, she started and looked at him with the wildness of a trapped animal in her amethyst eyes.

  “Ale?” he asked calmly.

  “No. Thank you.”

  Ignoring Ariane’s refusal, Simon put a mug of gently seething ale in front of her.

  “You’re too frail,” he said bluntly. “Eat.”

  Simon stepped back, no longer leaning over Ariane. She let out a ragged breath. When she reached for a sliver of meat, her hand trembled.

  Impassively, Simon watched until Ariane chewed, swallowed, and reached for a bit of cheese. When she began eating that as well, he looked at Duncan.

  “Lady Ariane needs rest,” Simon said. “We rode without pausing during the day. Nights were little better. After Carlysle, there was no shelter from the storms.”

  “I won’t keep her long,” Duncan said. He looked at Amber. “Take her hand, witch.”