Forbidden (15 page)

Amber dismounted before Duncan could come around his horse to help. Her knees gave a bit, then took her weight without further protest.

Duncan's mouth flattened beneath his mustache at the evidence that Amber no longer sought his touch. Not that he blamed her. What should have been a sweet initiation into the mystery of sex had been accomplished with all the finesse of a bull mounting a cow.

'Thank you, Egbert,“ Amber said when the squire stepped forward to take the reins. ”Has Erik returned from Sea Home?"

“Aye. He is waiting for you in the lord's solar. Do hurry, maid. He is in a rare mood.”

Duncan turned and regarded the squire with speculative eyes.

“How so?” Duncan asked.

“He had a man hanged not an hour ago.”

Amber turned toward him so quickly that her cowl fell away, revealing her disheveled hair.

“Why?” she asked starkly.

“The fellow had an amber bracelet in his purse. Rumor says it is yours.”

A quick glance at her left wrist confirmed Amber's fear. Where three strands of amber had been, now there were only two. In the turmoil of the battle—and of what followed—she hadn't noticed the bracelet's loss.

“I see,” Amber said in a low voice.

She picked up her skirts and began walking quickly across Stone Ring Keep's small bailey to the forebuilding. The door stood open, as though someone inside were impatient to see her.

Duncan caught up with Amber before she reached the entrance to the great hall. They entered the solar together.

The sight that greeted them wasn't reassuring. Though only one wolfhound and the peregrine were permitted into the solar's warmth, their restlessness boded ill for Erik's temper.

“What is this I hear about an outlaw being hanged?” Amber said before Duncan could speak.

After a moment, Erik set aside the manuscript he had been reading. He looked first at Amber, then at Duncan.

“Hanging,” Erik said distinctly, “is the punishment for any man who dares to touch that which is .”

Amber's breath was drawn with a soft, ripping sound. Duncan had done a great deal more than touch her.

And somehow Erik knew it.

Erik reached beneath the manuscript and pulled out an amber bracelet. He held the gleaming jewelry out to her.

“Yours, I believe?” he asked.

Amber nodded.

The enigmatic, tawny eyes switched to Duncan.

“I hear you fought well,” Erik said. “You have my gratitude.”

“They were but ruffians,” Duncan said.

'They were ten to your one,“ Erik said. ”With wooden staffs and daggers and the cunning of wolves. They have defiled and killed at least one gentlewoman, and overcome three lone knights. Again, I thank you."

“May I speak with you alone, lord?” Duncan asked.

“The last man who made that request came to an unhappy end,” Erik said, smiling slightly. “But I hold you in much higher regard. Warriors of your skill are very rare.”

Duncan turned and looked at Amber, plainly expecting her to leave. She looked back at him and moved not one step toward the door.

“Amber?” Erik asked calmly. “Will you leave us?”

“I think not. What will be said here concerns me as much as anyone.”

Erik raised his eyebrows and looked at Duncan, who didn't notice. He was watching Amber with unhappy hazel eyes.

“I wanted to spare you this retelling,” Duncan said in a low voice.

“Why? It was a thing done by two, not one.”

“Nay,” he said bitterly. “It was done by one to another.”

Before Amber could open her mouth to argue, Duncan turned to face Erik.

“I ask for the hand of your vassal in marriage,” Duncan said grimly.

The peregrine gave an odd, trilling cry. The joyous sound rippling from the raptor's hooked beak was quite startling.

“Granted,” Erik said immediately.

“Am I not to be asked?” Amber said.

An amused smile softened the line of Erik's mouth. “You have already given your permission.”

“When?” Amber challenged.

“When you lay with Duncan,” Erik retorted.

She went pale, then flushed.

Duncan stepped forward, standing protectively between Amber and Erik.

“It was none of her doing,” Duncan said.

The smile vanished from Erik's face as though it had never been.

“Amber,” he said distinctly. “Did Duncan force you?”

“Nay!”

“She was innocent,” Duncan said. “I wasn't. The blame for what happened lies with me.”

Erik hid a smile behind his beard as he made an unnecessary production out of replacing a loose manuscript page.

“I will hear no talk of blame,” Erik said after a moment, looking up once more. “I will make no recriminations.”

“You are generous,” Duncan said.

“You want Amber. Amber wants you.” Erik shrugged. “There is no reason against the match and a great deal to recommend it. You will be married immediately.”

Shadows shifted and writhed within Duncan, half-remembered voices calling, telling him that he must not, he could not—he would be forsworn if he married Amber.

And he would be forsworn if he did not. He had given his word to Erik. . If I take Amber's maidenhead, I will marry her.

Duncan closed his eyes, fighting against the part of himself that insisted there was an urgent reason not to marry.

A name formed like bright, moon-washed water in his mind, glittering in the darkness of his memory, shining among shades of darkness that flowed and shifted, concealing and then revealing…

Ariane.

Just that. No more. A name from his cursed, unremembered past.

A name, an urgency, a reason not to marry.

But it was a reason and an urgency and a name from the time before Duncan had taken Amber's innocence and given her only pain in return. Fingers cold with more than the autumn chill fastened around his wrist. Amber's hand. Duncan looked down into her shadowed eyes and felt a chill condense along his spine.

She was frightened.

Of him?

“Amber,” Duncan said in a low, ragged voice, “wed or not, I won't touch you again unless you ask me plainly. I swear it!”

Tears stood in her eyes, magnifying their sadness and beauty. When she shook her head slowly, the tears spilled in brilliant silence down her cool cheeks.

Amber wanted to tell Duncan that she welcomed his touches, but she couldn't. If she opened her mouth, she was afraid all that would come from her throat would be a keening sound of sorrow.

She had heard a woman's name whispered in the shadows of Duncan's mind, an echo turning and returning from the unremembered past, tearing at her heart.

Ariane.

“Amber?” Erik said.

He was watching her with an intensity that burned as clearly as the hearth fire.

Amber closed her eyes and released Duncan's wrist. Yet in the very act of letting go of him, her fingertips caressed the veins where the force of his life surged just beneath his skin.

Erik sensed Amber's sorrow as clearly as he sensed her love for the dark warrior who watched her with haunted eyes.

“Duncan,” Erik said, “leave us.”

“Nay,” Duncan said savagely. “I'll not have you shame Amber for what wasn't her fault.”

Erik looked directly into Duncan's eyes and knew that the other man was walking on a knife-edge of control. Erik wondered what memories were returning, how quickly; and how much time he had before Duncan awakened and knew himself as the Scots Hammer.

Erik's enemy.

Amber's lover.

Betrothed to a Norman heiress whom he had never seen.

Vassal to Dominic le Sabre.

A savage impatience flattened Erik's mouth as he thought of how little time remained, how much could go wrong, and how great the stakes were.

They must wed.

Immediately!

“I would no more humiliate Amber than I would my own sister,” Erik said carefully. “She is much cherished by me. She is also well known to me.”

He turned to Amber. “Do you wish Duncan to stay while we talk about… wedding arrangements?”

Amber's smile was even sadder than her tears. Slowly she shook her head.

Without a word Duncan turned on his heel and left the lord's solar.

Erik waited until the last harsh echo of Duncan's footsteps had faded into the hiss of the fire. But even then Amber didn't speak. She simply stood unmoving, slow tears turning her pale cheeks to silver.

Uneasiness rippled through Erik. He had seen Amber many ways, in many moods, but never had he sensed such unremitting sorrow in her.

As though something cherished had died.

“If it wouldn't cause you pain,” Erik said, “I would take you onto my lap and rock you like a child.”

Amber's laugh was little different from a sob.

“There is only one person who can hold me thus without discomfort,” she whispered.

“Duncan.”

A look of profound loss shadowed Amber's face.

“Aye,” she whispered. “My dark warrior.”

“You will be wed to him before the chaplain chants morning mass,” Erik said. “Why, then, do you grieve?”

“I cannot marry Duncan.”

“God's blood, was he that great a swine with you?”

At first Amber didn't understand. When she did, a blush tinted her pale cheeks.

“Nay,” she said.

Her voice was so soft that Erik could barely hear it.

“Are you certain? Some men are vicious when lust takes them,” Erik said bluntly. “No matter how badly I need Duncan as my own, I'll not condemn you to spend your life lying beneath a rutting beast who is twice your size.”

Amber put her hands to her suddenly hot cheeks. “Stop!”

Erik cursed beneath his breath, stood abruptly, and came to stand as close to Amber as he could without touching her.

“Look at me. Amber.”

A combination of regret, tenderness, and concern was mixed together in Erik's voice and in the expression on his face.

“Did Cassandra never talk to you about the ways of men and maids?” Erik asked.

Amber shook her head.

Erik sighed. “It must be that she believed you would never be able to touch a man's hand without pain, much less hold part of his body within you in the marriage bed.”

A small sound escaped Amber as she looked away from the tall lord she had known all her life.

Yet never had they talked like this.

“Nay,” Erik said. “There is no need to be embarrassed about the way in which men and women unite. It is a gift of God. Did you find it… distasteful?”

Amber shook her head.

“Hurtful?” he asked.

She shook her head again.

“Then he didn't take you too quickly?” Erik pressed. “He's not unskilled?”

“Erik,” Amber said faintly. “We should not talk of such things!”

“Why not? You have neither mother nor sister, and Cassandra has never experienced a man. Or would you rather talk about such things with a priest who has never experienced a woman?”

“I'd rather not talk about it at all,” Amber muttered.

The returning life in her voice sent a surge of relief through Erik. He didn't know what would happen to Amber if she believed Duncan lost to her.

Nor did Erik want to know.

“You must talk about it” he said, “if only this once.”

A sideways look convinced Amber that Erik wasn't going to be turned aside. Reluctantly, she nodded.

“If Duncan is unskilled in the arts of love,” Erik said matter-of-factly, “it can be remedied. If he is a brute, there is no remedy.”

“He is neither unskilled nor a brute,” Amber said.

A long breath of relief was Erik's first response. Then he smiled.

“I begin to understand,” he said.

“I'm glad one of us does.”

Erik hid his smile.

“I'm told that a maid's first time is rarely her most, ah, memorable,” he said.

“Nay,” Amber said huskily. “I shall remember it until the day I die. Feeling ecstasy pulse through my dark warrior into me was… extraordinary.”

A hint of color that had nothing to do with the hearth fire showed on Erik's high cheekbones. Then he tilted back his head and laughed.

“You give as good as you get, lass,” Erik said.

At first Amber didn't understand. When she did, she laughed despite the color burning on her cheeks.

“I didn't mean to embarrass you,” she said.

“I'll survive,” he said dryly. “Now set your hair and clothes to rights before I call the priest to the solar. You will marry at a midnight mass.”

Amber's smile faded. 'That cannot be."

“Why?”

“Duncan has remembered a woman's name.”

“Ariane?” Erik asked casually.

For a moment. Amber was too shocked to say anything.

“You knew?” she asked, whispering.

Erik nodded.

“How?” she demanded.

“Because your dark warrior is Duncan of Maxwell, the Scots Hammer.”

Amber swayed as though she had been struck.

“You knew?” she whispered.

“I wondered. Then I hoped. Then I knew.”

“Then you also know why I can't marry Duncan,” she said.

“I know no such thing.”

“Duncan is married to this Ariane, despite his certainty that he has never married.”

“Nay. He is betrothed to a Norman heiress whose face he has never seen and whose name he has heard but once, when Dominic le Sabre informed Duncan of the arrangement.”

“Duncan is vassal to Dominic le Sabre,” Amber said in a shaking voice. She closed her eyes. “To marry me would be a betrayal of his vow of fealty.”

“God's wounds” Erik snarled, his voice like a whip. “How can you be so blind? Wipe the tragedy from your eyes and look at me!”

The cold authority in Erik's voice shocked Amber as nothing else could have.

“God has sent you the one man whom you may touch without pain,” Erik said. “God has sent me the one man whom I need to hold on to Lord Robert's besieged estates.”

“But—”

“And God has sent the means of transforming a foe into an ally,” Erik continued relentlessly. “Wed to you, Duncan will be my vassal, not Dominic le Sabre's!”

The silence stretched until it vibrated like the string of a bow too tightly drawn.

“It is wrong,” Amber said. “Duncan came to the Disputed Lands a knight with wealth of his own, a promise of an estate, and a noble wife to bear him heirs.”