Page 110 of Forbidden

“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 bemyvassal, not Dominic le Sabre’s!”

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