Page 119 of Forbidden

It was too soon. He was too harsh, too much a warrior for Amber’s delicate flesh to take. If he took her again, and again saw her blood bright on his body, he didn’t know what he would do.

Duncan’s silence and grim expression dimmed Amber’s pleasure in the luxurious room.

“Do you dislike it?” she asked anxiously, waving her hand around.

“No.”

“You look so harsh. Is it…are you remembering?”

“Aye.”

A lance of fear impaled Amber.

It is too soon! If he remembers now, all will be lost.

And I will be lost with it.

“What are you remembering?” she asked in a low voice.

“The sight of your blood on my body.”

Her relief was so great that Amber felt dizzy.

“Oh, that,” she said. “It was nothing.”

“It was your maidenhead!”

“I’ve given more blood to a leech,” Amber said, smiling as she remembered Duncan’s dismissal of his own wound. “And so have you, dark warrior. You told me so yourself.”

Unwillingly, Duncan smiled in return. Saying nothing, he looked around the room, but his eyes kept returning to the marriage bed.

It was big enough for a man of Duncan’s size—or Erik’s. The bed was canopied and curtained with rich cloth in shades of gold, green, and indigo. A luxurious fur blanket lay over sheets of linen so fine that they were softer than the down that filled the mattress. The border of lace on the sheets was extraordinarily fine, as though countless snow-flakes had been woven into a pattern that no hearth fire could melt.

“Have you ever seen such finery?” Amber asked, noting that Duncan was looking at the bed.

The instant the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to call them back. The last thing she wished to discuss now was Duncan’s memory.

Or lack of it.

“’Tis very rich,” Duncan agreed. “Erik is a generous lord. This room is more suited to the lord’s quarters than to those of his seneschal.”

“Erik is pleased by our marriage.”

“Aye. ’Tis a good thing.”

“Why?” she asked, startled by the thread of steel in Duncan’s voice.

“Because I would have married you with or without his leave, with or without my vow concerning your maidenhead. And he knew it. He could fight me or he could give you into my care.”

Duncan turned away from the bed in time to see the stricken look on Amber’s face. The pallor of her skin was such that not even golden lamplight could disguise it.

“You must not even think of fighting Erik,” she said.

“Do you believe me such a poor warrior, then?”

“Nay!”

Eyes narrowed, Duncan waited.