Page 165 of Forbidden

“May I enter?”

Though the bath was shielded by wooden screens both for privacy and to hold the hearth’s warmth close to the wooden tub, Amber had no desire for Egbert’s company.

“As I told you a few minutes ago, I’m bathing,” she said tartly.

There was an odd silence followed by the sound of feet shifting against the wooden floor.

“Lord Duncan requires your presence in the solar,” Egbert said.

“I will be down presently.”

Nothing in Amber’s voice suggested that she was excited to have her time of forced seclusion end.

Or that she was longing to see her husband.

“The lord was most, um, urgent in his requirement.”

“Ask him, then, if he would like to see me in the great hall, wearing only the liquid remains of my bath?”

The sound of rapidly retreating footsteps was Egbert’s answer.

Moments later, candle flames dipped and trembled as a draft moved through the room. Amber didn’t notice, for she was rinsing her face. But an instant later, she looked up and froze. A frisson of awareness shot through her.

Someone was in the room with her, standing just beyond the the wooden screens. Watching her.

Duncan.

She was certain of it.

“Yes, lord?” Amber asked.

Despite her best efforts at calm, her voice wasn’t steady. Her heart was beating far too rapidly with the knowledge that Duncan was so close.

For the space of several breaths, no answer came. Rage and desire fought for control of Duncan. Every breath he took was infused with the scent of evergreen and spice. The silence shivered with the tiny sounds of water gliding over skin. Each instant announced in a new way that Amber was nearby, fragrant, warm.

Naked.

The hammer blow of desire that went through Duncan made him sway.

“Cassandra has asked after you,” he said finally.

But Duncan’s voice said much more, husky and heavy, telling of blood racing hotly, flesh hardening, a body yearning to be completed. He could not have told Amber of his desire more clearly if he had touched her.

His mind might be closed like a fist against her, but his body wasn’t.

Amber made a soft sound as her own body softened in a heated rush. She prayed that Duncan hadn’t heard the telltale break and thickening of her breath.

And she prayed that he had.

The same instinct that had told Amber about Duncan in that first single touch had been whispering relentlessly to her since he had looked at her and seen his betrayer rather than his lover.

Instinct and gift combined told Amber that she must somehow get past Duncan’s rage before it destroyed both of them, and the people of Stone Ring Keep as well. If desire was the only way to reach him…

Then let it burn.

“Tell Cassandra I am bathing,” Amber said huskily.

Deliberately she shifted in the tub so that her profile rather than her back was to the screens. Slowly, gracefully, she trickled fragrant water over her shoulders and breasts. Crystal drops ran down the shadow cleft between her breasts and gathered in glittering crowns on nipples that had tightened simply at the sound of Duncan’s voice.