Page 2 of Forbidden

Erik shrugged out of his costly mantle. He covered the stranger with a swirl of thick, warm wool that was the indigo of twilight. There was very little of the mantle left over.

“He is a big one,” Erik said absently.

“Even bigger than you,” Amber said from the other side of the cottage. “The knight who felled this man must have been a mighty warrior.”

Erik watched through narrowed eyes as Amber hurried toward him, her arms overflowing with the thick fur cover that normally warmed her bed.

“If the evidence of the tracks is to be believed, he was felled by a bolt from the sky,” Erik said distinctly.

The swirling length of Amber’s nightclothes wrapped about her ankles, tripping her. She stumbled and would have fallen on the stranger if Erik hadn’t caught her. He set Amber aright and released her in the same swift motion.

“Forgive me,” he said quickly.

Though Erik had touched her for only the briefest moment, she couldn’t conceal the unease it had caused.

“There is nothing to forgive,” Amber said. “Better your flesh than the stranger’s.”

Despite her reassuring words, Erik watched Amber closely, wanting to be certain that whatever difficulty his touch had caused her was truly fleeting.

“I can’t say why your touch doesn’t pain me,” Amber added wryly. “God knows that your heart is no more pure than it must be.”

The smile that edged Erik’s mouth was as brief as Amber’s discomfort had been.

“For you, Amber the Untouched,” he said, “my heart is as pure as unfallen snow.”

She laughed softly. “Perhaps it is the legacy of our childhood sharing Cassandra’s lessons.”

“Yes. Perhaps.”

Erik smiled almost sadly. Then he bent and wrapped the unmoving stranger in the fur cover.

Amber hastily pulled a mantle around her own shoulders and stirred up the fire in the center of the room. Soon the friendly leap of flames warmed the room and ran like sunlight through Amber’s long golden braids. She suspended a pot from the trivet over the fire.

“What of the man’s companions?” she asked.

“They scattered to the winds, and so did their horses.” Erik smiled rather savagely. “The ancient Stone Ring must not have cared for Normans.”

“When did this happen?”

“I don’t know. Though the tracks were deeply cut, they were all but washed away by the rain. The lightning-struck oak was little more than a blackened stump and sullen embers.”

“Bring him closer to the fire,” Amber said. “He must be sore chilled.”

Erik moved the stranger with an ease that belied the man’s size. The dance of flames brought out the gold in Erik’s hair and beard.

The stranger’s hair remained a rich shade of darkness. He was clean-shaven but for a mustache that was also dark.

“Does he breathe?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“His heart—”

“Beats as strongly as a war stallion’s,” Erik interrupted.

Amber sighed with a relief that was too intense to be feeling for a stranger.

Yet she felt it just the same.