THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

breath. He kicked the broadsword away and settled on his haunches before her as she dashed her tears away with the heels of her hands. He reached for her, but then pulled back.
    “Be ye alright?” His face was still flushed and dotted by sweat. “The cut, lass.” He pointed to the spot where his blade had pierced her chest. She looked not at her wound but to the sword. “Yes.”
    Heart still thudding, she reluctantly shifted her gaze from the gleaming harbinger of death now lying impotent on the floor to her bloodied bodice. The once white crewelwork was now a rusty burgundy and probably ruined beyond all hope. Rachael had told her it had taken a master tailor and his three apprentice six months to make the gown. “Did you spare me so Rachael could now take my head?”
    “Ack, lass.” To her surprise, he reached out tentatively, first to brush the hair from her cheek and then to trace the path of her tears to her jaw. He examined his fingers. “‘Tis soot. Did yer unholy light burn ye?”
    Soot? She’d only felt a bone-fracturing cold when she started to disappear and still felt chilled. She hadn’t felt any heat, no burning. She sniffed and hiccuped again as she examined his fingertips more closely. Suddenly she wanted to laugh, and would have, had she had the energy. Her homemade mascara had cascaded south with her tears. It was too much to hope that she only had raccoon eyes. More likely she resembled a chimney sweep. Could she do nothing right in this world?
    “Duncan, I wasn’t burned. It’s just lamp black—-lamp sable.”
    Obviously confused, he frowned but only said, “Ah.”
    She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I wanted to be pretty, so I used the soot...” She heaved a sigh. “Hell, you wouldn’t understand.”
    While she struggled to her feet, surprised she wasn’t nauseous from fright, he sheathed his short blade to his calf. Not looking at her but toward the window, he quietly asked, “Will ye be leaving?”
    She shrugged.
    Yes, she wanted to return to her old life where threatening steel meant only a racing taxi, where she could speak normally and be understood, where she had friends, coffee and real make-up. But then again, no. For home would also be bereft of hope, for love or for children. She’d have her ghost but not the real Duncan. She took a deep breath and confessed, “Not right now, unless you want me to go.”
    Not wanting to watch as he made his decision, she walked to the window. Her head and heart continued to ache as she studied the movement along the battlements in the light of oil torches whipping like horsetails in the errant wind.
    The burning in her throat defeated her effort to sound matter of fact as she confided, “I never expected to wear a wedding ring, much less be married to a man such as you. To discover the ring—-something I’d hoped would hold such promise—could terrify me so...”
    She heard him come to his feet. “I dinna suppose any woman should expect it.”
    “Three wives wore this ring before me. Have you ever been in love?” Why had she asked? What difference could his ability or willingness to love her matter now?
    She placed a hand on her stomach. Did a new life already hide in the deep recesses of her womb? That possibility—not whether he could love her—would have to be the deciding factor in her staying or leaving.
    He took a long time in answering. “I grieved for Mary.”
    Yes, he had written of his guilt, that he hadn’t loved her, but had he lied to himself about loving her? Why else would he be so obsessed with the chapel?
    And what, if anything, would he write of her, Beth, should she decide to slip the ring off for good? Would he grieve? And for what? The loss of a potential heir, a good meal, or just an efficiently run keep? One or all of the above? In any event, it certainly wouldn’t be for her. He’d never mentioned the word love. And knowing that certainly shouldn’t cause the burning at the back of her eyes and throat, much less the fissures now spreading across her heart. She was, after all, plain-as- pudding Pudding.
    When she’d sent her silent plea to God for an honest answer, Duncan had been so close to cleaving her head from her shoulders she’d seen her life pass before her. What staid his hand she might never know, but she thanked God all the same. At twenty-four, she tearfully acknowledged, she’d yet to earn the right to die.
    Duncan studied his wife’s straight back as she stared