Medieval 02 - Forbidden

stillness came over Amber. Joy and fear warred within her, shaking her.
    “But that won’t be,” Duncan continued evenly. “I won’t take one maid without knowing what I might have vowed to another.”
    “I don’t believe you are joined to another woman.”
    “Nor do I. But I was born of an adulterous union,” he said distinctly. “I’ll leave neither bastard son to beg his way through the world, nor bastard daughter to become a nobleman’s whore.”
    “Duncan,” Amber whispered. “How do you know?”
    “What?”
    “That you were born a bastard. That one of your parents committed adultery.”
    Duncan’s mouth opened but no words came. He shook his head sharply, as though to banish a blow.
    “I don’t know,” he groaned. “I don’t know!”
    But he had known. Just for an instant. Amber had sensed it as clearly as she sensed the heat of his body.
    For a moment the shadows had lost some of their power. A few bright stars had glimmered through the dense night that shrouded Duncan’s past.
    “ Why can’t I remember ?” he asked savagely.
    “Let it be,” Amber said softly. “You can’t batter down shadows. You can only slide between them.”
    She sensed the tension leaving Duncan before he did. Taking her hand from his, she gave him a bittersweet smile and opened the cottage door. Beforeshe could cross the threshold, Duncan pulled her back.
    Startled, Amber turned to him. His hard hand fitted beneath her chin with surprising delicacy. She closed her eyes for a moment to savor the sweetness pouring through her from Duncan’s touch. His concern for her was like spring sunlight, warming without burning.
    And the passion just beneath his concern was a wild torrent of fire.
    “I didn’t mean to make you unhappy,” Duncan said.
    “I know,” she whispered, opening her eyes.
    Duncan stood so close that Amber could see the shards of green and blue, gold and silver that made up the hazel of his eyes.
    “Then why do tears cling to your eyelashes?” he asked.
    “I am afraid for you, for me, for us.”
    “Because I can’t remember?”
    “No. Because you might.”
    His breath came in sharply. “Why? What could be wrong with that?”
    “What if you are married?”
    “I think not. Surely I would feel its absence as I do my missing sword.”
    “What if you owed fealty to a Norman lord?” Amber asked desperately, trying to quench the passion in Duncan’s eyes.
    “What would it matter? Saxon and Norman are at peace.”
    “That could change.”
    “The sky could fall, too.”
    “But what if you are Lord Robert’s enemy? Or Sir Erik’s?”
    “Would Erik have brought an enemy to you?” Duncan countered.
    When Amber started to speak, he talked over her.
    “What if I’m merely a knight back from the Holy Land looking for a lord to serve?”
    Duncan’s words went through Amber like delicate lightning, making even darkness bright, if only for a moment.
    Amber’s smile trembled uncertainly. “Have you fought the Saracen?”
    “I…yes!” Duncan’s smile flashed against the silky darkness of his mustache as a memory gleamed briefly. “I fought them in a place called…God’s blood, ’tis gone again!”
    “It will return.”
    “But I fought. I know it,” he said. “Just as surely as I know I want this.”
    Duncan bent until his lips were all but brushing Amber’s. When she would have withdrawn, his hand tightened on her chin and his arm slid around her body.
    “Just a single kiss. ’Tis all I ask. One kiss for the man you brought out of darkness.”
    Amber stiffened, but couldn’t fight against the lure of his passion and her own.
    “We shouldn’t,” she said.
    “Aye,” he murmured, smiling.
    “’Tis dangerous.”
    “’Tis sweet beyond belief.”
    Amber tried to argue, but could not. It was indeed sweet beyond belief to be held by her dark warrior.
    “Open your lips for me,” Duncan whispered against her mouth. “Let me taste your nectar as delicately as a bee tastes a violet.”
    “Duncan…”
    “Yes. Like that.”
    This time Amber wasn’t shocked to feel the living warmth of Duncan’s tongue gliding into her mouth, but she was amazed by his restraint. She could feel the passion in him like a wild sea battering against the shores of his will.
    His whole body was taut, fierce. He quivered with hunger. Yet his kiss was barely a breath of warmth, a fragile pressure that came and went like a flame.
    Without knowing it, Amber made a soft, tiny sound and opened her