Page 107 of Forbidden

“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 reasonnotto 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.