Medieval 02 - Forbidden

believe?” he asked.
    Amber nodded.
    The enigmatic, tawny eyes switched to Duncan.
    “I hear you fought well,” Erik said. “You have my gratitude.”
    “They were but ruffians,” Duncan said.
    “They were ten to your one,” Erik said. “With wooden staffs and daggers and the cunning of wolves. They have defiled and killed at least one gentlewoman, and overcome three lone knights. Again, I thank you.”
    “May I speak with you alone, lord?” Duncan asked.
    “The last man who made that request came to an unhappy end,” Erik said, smiling slightly. “But I hold you in much higher regard. Warriors of your skill are very rare.”
    Duncan turned and looked at Amber, plainly expecting her to leave. She looked back at him and moved not one step toward the door.
    “Amber?” Erik asked calmly. “Will you leave us?”
    “I think not. What will be said here concerns me as much as anyone.”
    Erik raised his eyebrows and looked at Duncan, who didn’t notice. He was watching Amber with unhappy hazel eyes.
    “I wanted to spare you this retelling,” Duncan said in a low voice.
    “Why? It was a thing done by two, not one.”
    “Nay,” he said bitterly. “It was done by one to another.”
    Before Amber could open her mouth to argue, Duncan turned to face Erik.
    “I ask for the hand of your vassal in marriage,” Duncan said grimly.
    The peregrine gave an odd, trilling cry. The joyous sound rippling from the raptor’s hooked beak was quite startling.
    “Granted,” Erik said immediately.
    “Am I not to be asked?” Amber said.
    An amused smile softened the line of Erik’s mouth. “You have already given your permission.”
    “When?” Amber challenged.
    “When you lay with Duncan,” Erik retorted.
    She went pale, then flushed.
    Duncan stepped forward, standing protectively between Amber and Erik.
    “It was none of her doing,” Duncan said.
    The smile vanished from Erik’s face as though it had never been.
    “Amber,” he said distinctly. “Did Duncan force you?”
    “Nay!”
    “She was innocent,” Duncan said. “I wasn’t. The blame for what happened lies with me.”
    Erik hid a smile behind his beard as he made an unnecessary production out of replacing a loose manuscript page.
    “I will hear no talk of blame,” Erik said after a moment, looking up once more. “I will make no recriminations.”
    “You are generous,” Duncan said.
    “You want Amber. Amber wants you.” Erik shrugged. “There is no reason against the match and a great deal to recommend it. You will be married immediately.”
    Shadows shifted and writhed within Duncan, half-remembered voices calling, telling him that he must not, he could not—he would be forsworn if he married Amber.
    And he would be forsworn if he did not. He had given his word to Erik.
    If I take Amber’s maidenhead, I will marry her .
    Duncan closed his eyes, fighting against the part of himself that insisted there was an urgent reason not to marry.
    A name formed like bright, moon-washed water in his mind, glittering in the darkness of his memory, shining among shades of darkness that flowed and shifted, concealing and then revealing…
    Ariane .
    Just that. No more. A name from his cursed, unremembered past.
    A name, an urgency, a reason not to marry.
    But it was a reason and an urgency and a name from the time before Duncan had taken Amber’s innocence and given her only pain in return.
    Fingers cold with more than the autumn chill fastened around his wrist. Amber’s hand. Duncan looked down into her shadowed eyes and felt a chill condense along his spine.
    She was frightened.
    Of him ?
    “Amber,” Duncan said in a low, ragged voice, “wed or not, I won’t touch you again unless you ask me plainly. I swear it!”
    Tears stood in her eyes, magnifying their sadness and beauty. When she shook her head slowly, the tears spilled in brilliant silence down her cool cheeks.
    Amber wanted to tell Duncan that she welcomed his touches, but she couldn’t. If she opened her mouth, she was afraid all that would come from her throat would be a keening sound of sorrow.
    She had heard a woman’s name whispered in the shadows of Duncan’s mind, an echo turning and returning from the unremembered past, tearing at her heart.
    Ariane .
    “Amber?” Erik said.
    He was watching her with an intensity that burned as clearly as the hearth fire.
    Amber closed her eyes and released Duncan’s wrist. Yet in the very act of letting go of him, her fingertips