Forbidden (6 page)

“I have touched you.”

“Besides, you grumbled so about having to wear bed covers, like a Saracen…” Amber said, changing the subject.

Duncan said a few profane words in the language he had learned in the Holy Land.

“What does that mean?” she asked curiously.

“You don't want to know.”

“Oh.” She sighed. “In any case, I wanted to make sure you were healed from all the effects of the storm before you went out.”

“All?” Duncan retorted.

“Almost all,” Amber said tartly. “If I waited for - your temper to mend, I would be wrapped in winding sheets and on my way to the grave.”

Duncan shot her a glittering hazel glance, but had the grace to realize she was right. He had been in a foul temper since morning, when he had awakened from dreams that seethed with shadows and sensual heat.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Bad enough that my memory of the past is gone. But having the past stand in the way of my present and future is more than I can bear with a smile.”

“There is a future for you here, if you want it,” Amber said.

“As a freeholder or squire?”

She nodded.

“That's generous of you,” Duncan said.

“Not I. Erik. He is lord of Stone Ring Keep.”

Duncan frowned. He had yet to meet the young lord, but doubted that they would do well together. Amber was too fond of Erik for Duncan's ease.

As always, the depth of his possessiveness toward Amber bothered Duncan, but he was helpless to change it. Just as he was helpless to know why he felt as he did.

We must have been lovers. Or wished to be.

Duncan waited, testing his response the way a tongue tests a sore tooth. Cautiously. Relentlessly.

Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

He felt neither a sense of right nor of wrong, as had been the case when he noted the absence of a sword, and the certainty that he had never felt so strongly about a woman before.

“Duncan?” Amber said softly.

He blinked and came back from his thoughts.

“I don't think I would be happy as a freeholder or a squire,” Duncan said slowly.

“Then what do you want?”

“Whatever I lost.”

“Dark warrior…” she whispered. “You must let go of the past.”

“That would be like dying.”

Unhappily, Amber turned aside and hooded the merlin. The bird tolerated it calmly, satisfied for the moment by the recent flight and taste of blood.

“Even the most fierce falcon accepts the hood without great complaint,” she said.

“It knows the hood will be removed,” Duncan retorted.

Amber turned and walked toward the mews that were nestled along one side of the cottage. Squire Egbert, more boy than man, came slowly to his feet, stretched, and opened the door for her to enter. When the merlin was safely inside. Amber shut the door behind her and waved the red-haired Egbert back to his idle counting of clouds. As soon as she and Duncan were beyond the reach of the squire's eyes. Amber turned to her companion. Delicately she put her hand on his.

“If you can't have the past,” she asked in a low voice, “what do you most want?”

The answer was immediate.

“You.”

A stillness came over Amber. Joy and fear warred within her, shaking her.

“But that won't be,” Duncan continued evenly. “I won't take one maid without knowing what I might have vowed to another.”

“I don't believe you are joined to another woman.”

“Nor do I. But I was born of an adulterous union,” he said distinctly. “I'll leave neither bastard son to beg his way through the world, nor bastard daughter to become a nobleman's whore.”

“Duncan” Amber whispered. “How do you know?”

“What?”

“That you were born a bastard. That one of your parents committed adultery.”

Duncan's mouth opened but no words came. He shook his head sharply, as though to banish a blow.

“I don't know,” he groaned. “I don't know!”

But he had known. Just for an instant. Amber had sensed it as clearly as she sensed the heat of his body.

For a moment the shadows had lost some of their power. A few bright stars had glimmered through the dense night that shrouded Duncan's past.

“Why can't I remember?” he asked savagely.

“Let it be,” Amber said softly. “You can't batter down shadows. You can only slide between them.”

She sensed the tension leaving Duncan before he did. Taking her hand from his, she gave him a bittersweet smile and opened the cottage door. Before she could cross the threshold, Duncan pulled her back.

Startled, Amber turned to him. His hard hand fitted beneath her chin with surprising delicacy. She closed her eyes for a moment to savor the sweetness pouring through her from Duncan's touch. His concern for her was like spring sunlight, warming without burning.

And the passion just beneath his concern was a wild torrent of fire.

“I didn't mean to make you unhappy,” Duncan said.

“I know,” she whispered, opening her eyes.

Duncan stood so close that Amber could see the shards of green and blue, gold and silver that made up the hazel of his eyes.

“Then why do tears cling to your eyelashes?” he asked.

“I am afraid for you, for me, for us.”

“Because I can't remember?”

“No. Because you might.”

His breath came in sharply. “Why? What could be wrong with that?”

“What if you are married?”

“I think not. Surely I would feel its absence as I do my missing sword.”

“What if you owed fealty to a Norman lord?” Amber asked desperately, trying to quench the passion in Duncan's eyes.

“What would it matter? Saxon and Norman are at peace.”

“That could change.”

“The sky could fall, too.”

“But what if you are Lord Robert's enemy? Or Sir Erik's?”

“Would Erik have brought an enemy to you?” Duncan countered.

When Amber started to speak, he talked over her.

“What if I'm merely a knight back from the Holy Land looking for a lord to serve?”

Duncan's words went through Amber like delicate lightning, making even darkness bright, if only for a moment.

Amber's smile trembled uncertainly. “Have you fought the Saracen?”

“I… yes!” Duncan's smile flashed against the silky darkness of his mustache as a memory gleamed briefly. “I fought them in a place called… God's blood, 'tis gone again!”

“It will return.”

“But I fought. I know it,” he said. “Just as surely as I know I want this.”

Duncan bent until his lips were all but brushing Amber's. When she would have withdrawn, his hand tightened on her chin and his arm slid around her body.

“Just a single kiss. ”Tis all I ask. One kiss for the man you brought out of darkness."

Amber stiffened, but couldn't fight against the lure of his passion and her own.

“We shouldn't,” she said.

“Aye,” he murmured, smiling.

“ 'Tis dangerous.”

“ 'Tis sweet beyond belief.”

Amber tried to argue, but could not. It was indeed sweet beyond belief to be held by her dark warrior.

“Open your lips for me,” Duncan whispered against her mouth. “Let me taste your nectar as delicately as a bee tastes a violet.”

“Duncan…”

“Yes. Like that.”             ;

This time Amber wasn't shocked to feel the living warmth of Duncan's tongue gliding into her mouth, but she was amazed by his restraint. She could feel the passion in him like a wild sea battering against the shores of his will. His whole body was taut, fierce. He quivered with hunger. Yet his kiss was barely a breath of warmth, a fragile pressure that came and went like a flame.

Without knowing it. Amber made a soft, tiny sound and opened her lips wider, seeking more than Duncan had offered. Hands hardened by war shifted gently on her body, coaxing her closer and then closer still, luring her nearer the fire that was burning in his loins.

“Duncan,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“You taste of sunlight and storm at once.”

His breath caught as his heartbeat quickened.

“You taste like spiced honey,” Duncan said. “I want to lick up every sweet drop.”

“And I want you to,” Amber admitted.

His breath came out in a groan. His mouth came down over hers less gently, seeking a deeper mating. His arms molded her supple warmth to his body until she could feel every bit of his strength. His strong hands rocked her hips in a rhythm as ancient as desire and as new to her as dawn.

After a long time Duncan lifted his head and took a deep, harsh breath.

“My body knows you,” he said in a gritty voice. “It responds to you as to none other.”

Amber trembled and fought against the twin torrents of passion—his own, hers, their hunger combining until it was like a river in flood, and she stood on crumbling banks, ripe to fall at any moment.

“How many times have we lain in darkness together, our bodies joined and slick with desire?” he asked.

Amber started to speak, but the feel of Duncan's hand over her breast stole her thoughts.

“How many times have I undressed you, kissed your breasts, your belly, the creamy smoothness of your thighs?” he asked. A broken sound of desire was her only answer.

“How many times have I opened your legs and sheathed myself within your eager heat?”

“Duncan,” she said raggedly. “We mustn't.”

“Nay, lass. Why not do again what we must have done so many times before?”

“We have—” Her breath fragmented. “Never.”

“Always,” Duncan countered.

“But—”

Gently he caught Amber's lower lip in his teeth, stopping her words. When his fingers slid beneath her mantle, finding and teasing nipples that hardened at his touch, her knees buckled.

“Desire is a road we've traveled many times together,” Duncan said, smiling, bending to her breast. “That's why our bodies respond to each other so quickly.”

“No, it's—”

Amber's voice splintered as she felt the heat and pressure of Duncan's mouth over her breast. When his teeth raked lightly, she could barely stand.

“Duncan,” Amber said brokenly, “you are a fire burning me.”

“It is you who burns me.”

“We must stop—touching.”

Duncan smiled rather darkly.

“In time,” he agreed. “But first I will quench the fire within your body. And you will quench mine.”

Trembling, Amber thought of being naked with Duncan, no clothing to dull the piercing joy of his touch, nothing between them but the sultry heat of their shared breath as she gave her body to her dark warrior.

A man with no name may you claim, heart and body and soul.

“Nay!” she cried suddenly. “It's too dangerous!”

Strong hands tightened, holding Amber when she would have wrenched herself away.

“Let me go,” she cried.

“I can't.”

“You must!”

Duncan looked down into Amber's wild, golden eyes. What he saw there so astonished him that he released her. Instantly she retreated beyond his reach.

“You're afraid,” he said, hardly able to believe it.

“Yes.”

“I wouldn't hurt you, precious Amber. You must know that. Don't you?”

Amber backed away from Duncan's outstretched hand. With a savage curse, Duncan turned on his heel and stalked back out into the yard.

“Young Egbert told me that you want to go to Sea Home with me and watch my men train for battle,” Erik said.

“Yes,” Amber and Duncan said as one.

The three of them stood just inside the cottage. A few steps outside, Egbert waited with outward patience in the drizzle, holding the horses Amber and Duncan were to ride. One of the spare horses stamped and snorted, irritated by a trickle of rainwater down its leg.

Erik shot a hooded glance at Duncan before he turned his attention to Amber.

“You were never keen to watch my men train before,” Erik said mildly.

“Like Duncan, I tire of the four walls of my cottage,” Amber said in a tight voice. “Autumn rains can be tedious.”

Erik turned toward the other man. Duncan offered a smile that lacked both humor and comfort.

“The witch and I—excuse me,” Duncan said sardonically, “the Learned female and I are weary of shadow games, unanswerable questions, and Squire Egbert's company.”

The squire in question gave a heartfelt sigh. He was heartily tired of tiptoeing around a witch of uncertain temper and a warrior whose temper was very certain—and quite vile.

“Then by all means,” Erik said, stepping away from the cottage door, “let's be off to Sea Home.”

Amber pulled the hood of her mantle over her hair and walked across grass that shone with thick drops of water. The smoke of wood and peat fires curled through the early morning, finding space between drops of moisture that were too fine to be rain and too thick to be mist.

When Amber approached, Egbert whisked a protective cloth from the saddle of a dainty little chestnut mare. The squire made no move to help Amber into the saddle. That would have required touching her, and Egbert knew that no man touched Amber without her specific invitation.

Duncan didn't know any such thing. He threw a disbelieving look at the stripling squire, stepped forward quickly, and lifted Amber into the saddle before the other men realized what he was doing.

Erik drew his sword half out of its sheath before he saw that Amber made no protest. With narrowed eyes he watched Duncan and Amber together.

Even in the act of releasing her, Duncan let his hands caress subtly, testing the resilience of Amber's waist and hips, brushing over her thigh.

“Thank you,” she said.

Amber's voice was breathless and her cheeks were flushed. The desire that Duncan had for her burned more brightly with each touch, each look, each day of enforced intimacy in the one-room cottage.

Once Duncan had gotten over his anger at Amber's fear of him as a lover, he had set about seducing her with a single-minded focus that was in itself seductive. Instead of banking the fires of mutual desire, Egbert's presence had acted to heighten the intimacy of the ordinary. Stolen caresses, a smile revealed and then hidden, strong fingers closing over a more delicate hand as a pot was lifted from the fire, all of these worked to increase passion until the very air quivered with it

Amber had felt nothing similar in her life. It was as though she were a harp being plucked by a master's fingers. Each of Duncan's touches vibrated through her setting off haunting harmonies in unexpected places. The racing of her heart combined with a curious melting deep inside her body. Her shortened breath was matched by the exquisite sensitivity of her skin.

Sometimes just watching Duncan was enough to make a sweet lassitude steal through Amber, turning her bones to honey. Now was one of those times. Duncan mounted the spare horse with the grace of a cat leaping onto a fence. His hand rubbed reassuringly down the length of the horse's neck.

With a deep, aching breath. Amber tried to still the clamor of her body for the one man she must not have. Yet she couldn't stop her memory of Duncan's eyes as he watched her, and his lips as he spoke the words that set her on fire.

How many times have I undressed you, kissed your breasts, your belly, the creamy smoothness of your thighs?

“Are you all right?” Erik asked,

“Yes,” Amber said faintly.

“You don't sound it.”

Turning, Erik gave Duncan a narrow look.

“No one touches Amber without her permission,” Erik said. “Is that quite clear?”

“Why?” Duncan asked.

“She is .”

Surprise showed in Duncan's expression, but he controlled it immediately.

“I don't understand,” he said carefully.

“You don't have to,” Erik retorted. “Just don't touch her. She doesn't wish it.”

Duncan smiled slightly. “Truly?”

“Aye.”

“In that case, I will do as the lady wishes.”

With a darkly sensual smile, Duncan turned his horse aside and waited for Erik to lead off into the liquid gray of the morning.

Erik turned to Amber.

“Haven't you warned him about touching you?” he asked.

“There was no need.”

“Why?”

“Even after Duncan awakened, his touch didn't distress me.”

“Odd.”

“Yes.”

“Does Cassandra know?” Erik asked.

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She is still consulting her runes.”

Erik grunted. “I've never known Cassandra to labor so long over a prophecy before.”

“No.”

“God's blood, no wonder Duncan is eager to be free of the cottage,” Erik muttered.

Amber gave him a sideways look from golden eyes, but said nothing.

“You're as talkative as a turnip,” Erik said.

She nodded.

And spoke not one word.

With an impatient oath, Erik reined his horse aside and spurred into the lead. Two knights and their squires trotted across the meadow to join the small party. The men were wearing chain-mail hauberks beneath their mantles. They also had metal helms on their heads and carried the long, teardrop-shaped shields that Saxons had adopted from their Norman conquerors. Both knights were mounted on war stallions.

Duncan looked from the fully armed knights to Erik.

“Despite the clothes Stone Ring Keep has provided, suddenly I feel as naked as when I was found,” Duncan said dryly.

“Do you think you once wore armor?” Erik asked.

“I know it.”

There was no doubting the certainty in Duncan's voice.

“It makes me wonder if perhaps the man who discovered me didn't take my armor to pay for his trouble,” Duncan added.

“He didn't.”

“You sound confident.”

“I am. I was the man who found you.”

Duncan's right eyebrow rose in a questioning arc.

“Amber told me only that you had brought me to her,” Duncan said.

At Erik's signal, the knights turned and rode from the cottage yard. After a time, Erik reined his horse alongside Duncan's.

“Is your memory returning?” Erik asked.

“Bits and fragments, no more.”

“Such as?”

Though asked politely, the question was a command. Both men knew it.

“I fought the Saracen,” Duncan said, “but I don't know when or where.”

Erik nodded, unsurprised.

“I feel naked without weapons or armor,” Duncan said. “I have some skill at hawking.”

“You ride well,” Erik added.

Duncan looked surprised, then thoughtful. “Odd. I assumed everyone did.”

“Knights, squires, and warriors, yes,” Erik said. “Serfs, villeins, merchants, and the like, no. Some priests ride well. Most don't, unless they came of highborn families.”

“I doubt I'm a priest.”

“Why not? Many a fine warrior-priest has ridden against the Saracen for Church and Christ.”

“But the Church desires—yea, of late it even demands!—celibacy.”

Without realizing it, Duncan looked over his shoulder, where Amber rode alone.

She saw his glance and smiled.

Duncan smiled in return, watching Amber with a longing he couldn't conceal. Even in the gray drizzle, she seemed to gather light into herself, becoming a golden presence that warmed everything within reach.

He wished he were free to ride next to Amber, his leg brushing hers occasionally. He loved to see the color flood her cheeks at his touch, to hear her breath shorten, and to sense the hidden stirring of her sensuality.

“No,” Duncan said, turning back to Erik, “celibacy is not for me. Now or ever.”

“Don't even think of it,” Erik said icily.

Duncan gave the younger man a wary look.

“Think of what, my lord?” Duncan asked.

“Seducing Amber.”

“No maid is seduced without her permission.”

“Amber is called the Untouched. She is totally innocent. She wouldn't have the least idea of what a man wanted until it was far too late.”

Duncan laughed, shocking Erik.

“No untouched maiden would be so vividly, sensually aware of a man,” Duncan said, amused.

Erik's shock gave way to cold fury.

“Understand this, Duncan the Nameless,” Erik said distinctly. “If you seduce Amber, you will face me in single combat. And you will die.”

For a moment Duncan said nothing. Then he looked at Erik with the coolly measuring glance of a man to whom battles were neither new nor feared.

“Don't force me to fight you,” Duncan said, “for I will win. Your death would grieve Amber, and I have no desire to bring her sadness.”

“Then keep your hands off her.”

“As the lady wills. If she is, as you say, untouched, there will be no difficulty. She won't respond to the sensual lure.”

“Don't offer it,” Erik said in a clipped tone.

“Why not? She is well beyond the age of marriage, yet she is neither betrothed nor under a lord's private seal.” Duncan paused, then added, “Is she?”

“Betrothed? Nay.”

“Is she some lord's leman?”

“I just told you. Amber is untouched!”

“Is she yours?” Duncan pressed.

“Mine? Haven't you been listening? She is—”

“Untouched,” Duncan interrupted. “Aye. So you say.”

Duncan frowned, wondering why Erik was so intent on believing that Amber was a virgin, when Duncan had no doubt that the opposite was the case.

“Do you fancy Amber for yourself?” Duncan asked after a moment.

“Nay.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“Amber is… extraordinary. No man could look at her without wanting her.”

“I can,” Erik said bluntly. “I no more desire Amber carnally than I would a sister.”

Duncan gave the other man a startled look.

“We were raised together,” Erik explained.

“Then why do you object to my touching her? Do you have a marriage in mind for her? Does she feel a calling to the nunnery?” Erik shook his head.

“Let me be certain I understand,” Duncan said carefully. “You have no desire for Amber yourself.”

“None.”

“You have no marriage planned for her.”

“None,” Erik said.

“Yet you forbid me to touch her.”

“Yes.”

“It is because I have no memory of who—or what—I was before I woke up in Amber's cottage?” Duncan asked.

“It is because Amber is what she is. .”

With that, Erik spurred his horse forward, joining his knights. He didn't speak to Duncan again until they had finally reached and passed through the hamlets and stubble fields that radiated outward from Sea Home.

When the group of riders was within the first ring of palisades that defended Sea Home, Erik turned his horse and waved for Amber and Duncan to join him on a hillock overlooking the lower earthworks. From that vantage point, it was obvious that the defenses of Sea Home Manor were being reshaped into those of a true keep. Many men labored in the wet day, dragging stones on sledges, hauling logs, ramming earth between stone walls.

A second log-and-earth palisade was being raised just beyond the base of a rocky knoll that overlooked the fen and the salty sweep of the firth. On top of the knoll, the manor itself was nearly invisible behind the newly erected stone walls of what would become the keep itself. Gatehouse and turrets, parapets and inner bailey, moat and drawbridge could all be seen either in outline or in finished form.

Beyond the defensive rings, little was visible but dense mist, darkly gleaming saltwater channels, and rain-beaten grass. Though hidden by cloud, the vast presence of the ocean could be tasted in the air. The bay that Sea Home defended was wide and shallow, ringed with mud flats at low tide and salt marsh at high tide. Fresh water welled up throughout the marsh and small streams trickled in from the green and rumpled countryside.

“How do you like it?” Erik asked Amber as she and Duncan came alongside.

“The work has gone so fast,” Amber said. “I can barely believe it. Last time I was at Sea Home, there was little more than a palisade to protect the manor house.”

The import of the frenzied building hadn't escaped Duncan. Sea Home was being fortified as quickly as men could drag log, stone, and baskets of earth into place.

“After the defenses are finished, I'm going to rebuild the house entirely of cut stone,” Erik said. “Then I will replace the outer palisades with stone walls and put yet another log-and-earth palisade beyond the inner and outer baileys.”

“It will be quite grand,” Amber said.

“Sea Home deserves no less. When I marry, this will be my primary residence.”

“Has Lord Robert chosen a suitable wife for you?” Amber asked.

Duncan's eyes narrowed as he searched for any hint of jealousy in Amber's voice. Erik might not be drawn to Amber as a man is to a desirable woman, but Duncan found it hard to believe that Amber wasn't attracted to the handsome lord.

Yet no matter how carefully Duncan searched, there was nothing in her voice and expression but simple affection.

“No,” Erik said. “It's difficult to find a girl who fulfills the needs of both Scots and English kings.”

The buried anger in Erik's voice was noted by Duncan. It was an anger that appeared whenever the proud young thane was brought up against the reality of the power of Henry, King of England.

“What will become of Stone Ring Keep after you marry?” Amber asked. “I can't imagine it without you.”

“You will be safe enough with Cassandra and my seneschal in residence,” Erik said.

“Ah, then you've finally chosen a seneschal?”

“No. I've found no one I can trust with a plum as rich as Stone Ring Keep. Until I do, or until I marry…” Erik shrugged.