Blindly Amber moved to lie even more closely against her husband’s body. His heat and power were a lure that grew greater every hour she spent with him. The thought of losing Duncan was a dagger turning in her soul.
“Duncan,” she whispered.
Amber’s ragged voice and the hot glide of her tears against Duncan’s shoulder sent a wave of tenderness through him. Gently he stroked her hair. She shifted and a moist heat traced the length of Duncan’s jaw.
For an instant he thought it was her tears. Then he understood that it was the tip of her tongue in a lover’s caress.
“You tempt me,” Duncan said huskily.
A ripple of pleasure went through Amber, a sweet echo of the sensual anticipation sweeping through Duncan. He no longer fought the wild surging of his desire when she touched him, for he no longer worried whose hunger rose first to the sensual lure and whose followed.
Duncan had learned that Amber’s passion was a fire that burned brightly whether alone or entwined with his.
Small teeth delicately tested the pad of muscle on Duncan’s shoulder. Hidden within the caress was a sensual tasting of his skin. Surrounding and enhancing the kiss was a shivering sigh.
“Do you want me, precious Amber?”
Another trembling sigh.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Yet when Duncan moved to hold her, she pulled away.
“No,” she whispered.
“It appears you are of two minds,” Duncan said, smiling. “Is there anything I can do to—”
His teasing words broke over a groan of pleasure as Amber’s leg moved to lie between his.
“The flower is already blooming,” Duncan said thickly. “I can feel its heat.”
“The flower knows that the sun will soon rise. It wants each petal already open to drink the first golden shaft of the sun.”
“The sun is already risen,” he said thickly.
“Is it?”
Beneath the bed covers, a small hand trailed down Duncan’s bare torso.
The rest of him was equally naked.
Delicate fingertips brushed over Duncan, measuring and caressing his aroused flesh. A soft palm fitted itself around him. He made a sound that was laughter and passion at once.
“You know fair well it is risen,” he said. “You are holding the proof in your palm.”
“Only part of the proof. I fear the full proof would overrun both of my hands together.”
“A waste.”
“Aye,” Amber murmured.
“There is a solution for that.”
“I’m considering it.”
“Lie on your back, precious Amber. You will consider things much more deeply from that perspective.”
“I think…not.”
The laughter and husky sensuality curling through Amber’s voice made Duncan smile. Passion and anticipation coiled more tightly within him.
“What are you thinking of, then?” he asked.
“I fear it would shock you into swooning,” she said.
“I’m lying down.”
“Not all of you is supine.”
“The greater part is.”
Amber smiled and drew her fingertips up the part of Duncan which was not at rest.
“Such a sweet, witchy little smile,” he said thickly. “What are you thinking of that makes you smile so?”
“Two hands…and a mouth. Will that suffice?”
For an instant Duncan didn’t comprehend. Then Amber’s hands circled him and the velvet heat of her tongue caressed him. His whole body tightened in a savage rush.
“Amber.”
She looked up at him.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked.
As she spoke, she stroked the length of his rigid flesh. Blood beat visibly beneath her caress, hardening him even more.
“Nay,” Duncan said.
“Shock you?”
“Yes. No.”
He forced breath into a body that was clamoring for another intimate kiss, for the sleek glide of her tongue tasting him.
“Can’t you decide?” Amber asked, knowing full well how deep Duncan’s pleasure had been. “Perhaps this will help.”
She repeated the wild caress, lingering over the part of him that was most intriguingly different.
And most sensitive.
“Have I told you,” Amber murmured between caresses, “how much your body pleases me?”
“If you please me any more, I will come unraveled.”
“Then I shall just have to knit you up again.”
“The heart, falters at the thought.”
“The heart, perhaps, but not the flesh. It tugs like a stallion too closely tied.”
Duncan laughed despite the heat flooding through him, driven by the wild rush of his blood and the feel of Amber caressing him with her words, her hands, her tongue.
Smiling, knowing how much she was exciting him, Amber shook her head until her hair fell like a veil over Duncan’s loins. But not all of him could be easily veiled. Passion stood forth proudly, demanding to be eased.
Or teased.
“I particularly like this,” Amber said. “Hard, yet so smooth to my fingertips, like polished silver warmed by the sun.”
A deep shudder went through Duncan as he watched and felt the pink flame of her tongue licking over him, setting him utterly ablaze. Strong hands buried themselves in her hair.
“Come here,” Duncan said hoarsely.
“Soon,” she whispered. “But first…”
Amber’s mouth circled him, tasted him, tested his hardness and resolve with loving caresses. The wildness that gathered in him also gathered in her. At any instant she expected Duncan to overturn her, draw up her knees, and bury himself within her.
Abruptly Duncan sat up and drew Amber’s leg across his thighs until she was astride him, open to him. He found her drenched with the same passion that made his body gleam as though polished with oil.
His hand moved between her thighs, testing and savoring her in the same caress. His fingers came away glistening with her desire. Watching her, he lifted his hand and breathed in deeply, infusing himself with her fragrance.
“Next time,” he said, “I shall know your taste as well. But not this time. This time I am already undone by your sweet mouth.”
“You look quite whole,” she whispered.
Her fingertip rested for an instant on him, just long enough to steal the single, hot drop that had eluded his control. When she brushed her fingertip over her lips, tasted, and smiled, Duncan made the sound of a man in torment. Another drop welled up, called by her pleasure in him.
“Come, witch. Ride the dragon you have summoned from mortal flesh.”
“How does a maid ride a dragon?”
“Like this.”
Duncan’s hands closed on Amber’s hips, pulling her closer even as he lifted her. A instant later his blunt, eager flesh parted her. With a cry of fulfillment, she slid down on him, claiming him as deeply as he was claiming her.
Amber tried to say Duncan’s name, but could not. His pleasure in her had stolen her voice. The sudden clenching of his hands on her hips scattered her thoughts and focused her desire. She began moving, riding him more surely with each slow motion of her hips, feeling his passion and her own with unusual clarity.
When he would have speeded the pace of the ride, Amber lifted one of his hands, kissed it, and put it on her breast.
“You’re enjoying tormenting me,” Duncan said through his teeth.
“Aye.”
His fingers closed on the taut peak of Amber’s breast. A delicate convulsion shivered through her, forerunner of the ecstasy to come. When his hands caressed both nipples into hardness, her back arched and her breath tore. The sweet heat of her passion flowed between their joined bodies.
“Yes,” Duncan whispered. “Let me feel your pleasure.”
Without warning, ecstasy ravished Amber, setting her to shivering and crying. He thrust into her, fusing their bodies
together with the searing pulses of his own release.
Feeling Duncan’s ecstasy increased Amber’s, driving her even higher. He rocked his hips against her until she called his name and came completely undone once more.
Then he held her against his chest until both of them could breathe evenly again. Only then did he move, reversing positions until he lay between her legs. He kissed her slowly, deeply.
“Each time you please me more,” Duncan said.
“And you please me more. ’Tis almost frightening.”
“Why?”
“If I enjoyed you any more,” Amber whispered, “I would die.”
“And I would bring you back to life.”
“’Tis impossible.”
“Nay. ’Tis inevitable.”
“We can’t,” she whispered, understanding what he intended. “Can we?”
“We must. We will. Watch me as I watched you. Learn how much I cherish you.”
Slowly Duncan slid down Amber’s body, turning his face from side to side, caressing her with his lips and his words.
“Take me to the place where there are no shadows, only fire,” he said. “Give me the flower that blooms more beautifully each time.”
Amber had no defenses against Duncan’s aching need. Nor did he. It was a passion more complex than any he had ever felt. It was an emotion whose name he did not know, for he had never guessed such a feeling existed.
It was thirst in the midst of sweet water, need in the midst of plenty, hunger in the midst of a feast.
He could not get close enough to her.
Tears filled Amber’s eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks. Never had she thought to be cherished so sweetly, tiny kisses and secret tastes, his breath warm against her breasts, her navel, her thighs.
Then Duncan’s mouth discovered her, tasted her, circled the bud that was the burning center of her passion. The unexpected caress was like lightning transfixing her, startling a cry from the back of her throat.
“Precious Amber,” Duncan said, shivering with a torrent of desire. “I swear I can feel your passion like lightning transfixing you.”
Delicately he caught her tender bud between his teeth. She cried out his name with each slow movement of his tongue. Then she could speak no more for she had no breath, she was splintering, crying, dying, consumed by an ecstasy that had no beginning and no end.
In the midst of fire he came to her, and they burned together in a place where there were no shades of darkness, only fire.
AMBER looked out upon the great hall. There were still many serfs, freeholders, and villeins standing about. Only a few of them had expressions that suggested they were still waiting for their seneschal’s attention.
“Are you finished, my lord?” Amber asked.
She had left Duncan long enough to translate a particularly difficult fragment of a manuscript so that Cassandra would have it when she returned from the north. But as soon as the translation was done, she had sought out Duncan.
When Amber wasn’t with him, she felt uneasy, as though he would somehow be taken from her without warning.
“Come sit beside me,” Duncan said, holding out his hand. “I’ll be finished soon.”
The instant Duncan touched Amber, she sensed some of the tension leave both of them. At the moment, his memories weren’t stirring. He was concentrating only on the present and his duties as Erik’s seneschal.
While Amber sat beside Duncan on the raised dais in the great hall, he listened to complaints, resolved them, and listened again. As he listened, he caressed her hand, recalling for both of them the pleasure and peace they had found in the hours before dawn, when their interlocked bodies had defeated the memories which stalked Duncan like a pack of wolves.
“Has it been a tedious morning?” Amber murmured.
“I have come to believe that all pigs should be hamstrung,” Duncan muttered as the next vassals stepped forward.
Amber saw who the petitioners were and hid her smile.
“Ethelrod must have let his pig root about in the Widow Mary’s garden again,” Amber said.
“Does it happen often?” Duncan asked.
“As often as Ethelrod and the widow lie with each other.”
Duncan gave Amber a sideways glance.
“The pig is quite fond of Ethelrod, you see,” Amber said in a voice that carried no farther than her husband.
“No, I don’t see,” Duncan muttered.
“The pig follows Ethelrod like a faithful hound.”
Duncan’s smile was a white flash beneath his mustache.
“I begin to comprehend,” he said. “Does Ethelrod have an enclosure stout enough to hold a pig?”
“No. Nor can he afford one. He is but a serf.”
“Do they wish to marry?”
“The widow is a freeholder. If they marry, any children they have would be serfs.”
Frowning, Duncan watched the couple who stood so uneasily in front of their new seneschal.
“Does Erik lack for serfs?” Duncan asked very softly.
“Nay. He is a strict lord, but not harsh,” Amber said. “No one flees his service.”
“Has Ethelrod been a faithful vassal?”
“Aye. He has never shirked.”
“How is he thought of by the people of the keep?” Duncan asked.
“They bring their problems to him sooner than they bring them to the priest or to the lord of the keep.”
Duncan kept Amber’s hand within his as he turned back to address the couple standing in front of him.
“Widow Mary,” Duncan said. “Other than Ethelrod’s status as serf, have you any objection to him as a husband?”
The woman was so startled by the question, it took her a moment to answer.
“Nay, lord. He be a hard worker and a kind man to those as is weaker. But…”
“But?” Duncan said encouragingly. “Speak, woman.”
“That pig of his will nae see the inside of my cottage save it enter on a roasting spit!”
The vassals who had remained to watch their new seneschal at work laughed. The running battle between the widow and the pig was a source of much amusement at the keep.
Smiling, Duncan switched his hazel glance to the serf who stood uneasily in the great hall, his cap in his gnarled hands and his ill-shod feet flat as a cart bottom.
“Ethelrod, have you any objection to the widow as a wife?” Duncan asked.
Red crept up the man’s bearded cheeks to his weathered forehead.
“Nay, s-sir,” he stuttered. “She be a f-fine lass.”
“Then the solution to the problem of the pig becomes clear,” Duncan said. “The day you wed Widow Mary, you will no longer be a serf.”
Ethelrod was too stunned to do more than open and close his mouth.
“Sir Erik’s present to you on your wedding day,” Duncan continued, “will be enough wood to build a stout swine pen.”
A shout compounded of laughter, approval, and celebration went up in the great hall. In less than a fortnight, the vassals had come to fully approve the keep’s seneschal.
Before the commotion had settled, Duncan stood up, drawing Amber with him.
“Come and ride with me,” he said. “I find I enjoy your knowledge of the keep and its vassals as much as I need it.”
“Where shall we ride this time?”
“Where we have ridden every day since we wed,” Duncan said, nodding to the vassals as they cleared a way for him through their ranks.
“The southern trail through Wild Rose hamlet and the fields to the forest,” Amber said, smiling. “’Tis my favorite ride. Wild Rose creek sounds like laughter.”
Only two horses waited out in the bailey. There were so few fighting men left at Stone Ring Keep that Duncan refused to put them to work as an unneeded escort when he and Amber rode out over the keep’s land. No outlaws had been seen or heard within half a day’s ride of the keep since one of their kind had been hanged by Erik.
Duncan l
ifted Amber onto her horse, then mounted his own. As always after settling into the saddle, he checked the position of his sword and that of the hammer. To Duncan, the gestures were as natural as breathing.
Side by side, the two horses clattered through the bailey and thumped over the stout wooden draw-bridge. As they rode, Amber answered questions concerning the history of the various fields, who tilled them and how well, who was freeholder and who was serf, who was well and who was ill.
“I don’t think you ride out along this path to hear the creek,” Amber said finally as they rode into the forest.
“I ride out to have you teach me about the keep.”
“And Hawk Hill, which lies close to our way, is a good viewpoint to look out upon the keep’s land,” she said.
Duncan nodded.
“You will make Erik a fine seneschal.”
“I would make him a better warrior.”
“He doesn’t doubt your mettle,” Amber said.
“Then why won’t he use me at Winterlance, where Norsemen are rumored to be thick as summer grass in the fields?” Duncan asked angrily.
“You are more valuable to him here. Only Saturday last, one of his cousins was sniffing about the vassals, testing their will.”
Duncan grunted.
“By now,” Amber said, “Erik’s cousins know that Stone Ring Keep has a new seneschal who is much respected by the vassals.”
When Duncan didn’t answer, Amber looked at him unhappily. He was glancing around with narrowed eyes, as though searching for something.
And his hand lay on his sword hilt.
“Duncan? Is something amiss?”
He started and looked toward Amber. Her heart stopped, then quickened fiercely.
For an instant he hadn’t known her.
Duncan looked down at his partially drawn sword and then over his shoulder. Behind them, fanning out from the point where cart path and forest merged, the keep’s fields lay darkly beneath a peaceful sky.
Beyond the fields, clouds lay against the fells like languid harem girls awaiting their lord’s pleasure. Over all poured the sun, its rich golden light a healing benediction.
Turning in the saddle, Duncan looked ahead. The lord’s forest still wore an autumnal blaze of yellow and red and orange. Frost-killed weeds clung in brittle disarray to rocks and fallen limbs. Leaves dried by three windy, rainless days swirled around the horses’ fetlocks as they walked side by side along the cart road.
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