Medieval 02 - Forbidden

and came to Amber’s wrist.
    “Don’t sulk, little beauty,” Amber murmured as she smoothed the jesses so that they hung evenly over her gauntlet. “You did very well.”
    “Well enough to earn a true hunt?” Duncan asked.
    She smiled. “You sound as eager as a falcon.”
    “I am. I’m not used to being shut up in a cottage with only a wary maid and my own thoughts for company—or lack thereof,” he added ironically.
    Amber winced.
    Duncan had shown little interest in her prescribed course of rest, food, and more rest. When the cold rains came, it wasn’t difficult to keep Duncan indoors, for all that he paced like a caged wolf.
    But today, when the sun poured down until mist lifted in great silver flags from the land, keeping Duncan inside hadn’t been possible.
    “I was afraid,” she said.
    “Of what? I’m not ice to melt in sunshine or rain.”
    “I feared enemies.”
    “Who?” he asked swiftly.
    “The Disputed Lands are…disputed. Landlessknights, ambitious bastards, second and third sons, outlaws. All of them roam, seeking prey.”
    “Yet you went to Stone Ring Keep alone to bring clothes for me?”
    Amber shrugged. “I don’t fear for myself. No man will touch me.”
    Duncan looked skeptical.
    “’Tis true,” she said. “It is known throughout the Disputed Lands that Erik will hang the man who touches me.”
    “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