4
DUNCAN spun toward the soft, unexpected sound. The movement drew the folds of his new under tunic tightly across his body, outlining its muscular lines in swaths of pale linen and shadow. As he turned, his right hand went to his left side, fingers grasping for the sword that wasn’t there.
When the cottage door opened to reveal only Amber, his hand relaxed.
“You make no more sound than a butterfly,” Duncan said.
“It’s a dreary day for butterflies. The rain is like buckets upended.”
Amber shook water from her hooded mantle, shrugged it off, and hung it on a peg to dry.
The other mantle, the one she had kept dry beneath her own, she kept folded over one arm.
When she turned back to Duncan, he was pulling an outer tunic into place.
The costly green wool was sewn with embroidered ribbons in gold and red and blue at the hem.
“You look like a thane,” Amber said admiringly.
“A thane would have a sword.”
She smiled despite the fear that had become her constant attendant since talking with Erik four days ago. Each day Duncan revealed his warrior heritage in many ways, but never more so than when he was taken by surprise.
And each day was another drop in the pool of fear that grew uneasily in Amber. She could not bear to think of what Erik would do if Duncan proved to be the Scots Hammer rather than a bold knight looking for a worthy lord to serve.
If he is my enemy…I will hang him where I find him.
“Is this clothing more comfortable than the last?” Amber asked in a strained voice.
Duncan stretched his arms and flexed his shoulders, testing the width of the fabric. It was tight, but better than the first tunic Amber had brought. That one barely had taken his head through the neck opening, much less the breadth of his chest and shoulders across the back.
“It’s much better,” Duncan said, “though I fear it would give way in a battle.”
“You’re among friends,” she said quickly. “There is no need to fight.”
For a moment Duncan said nothing. Then he frowned as though searching for a memory that was no longer there.
“I hope you’re right, lass. I just keep feeling…”
Heart in her throat, Amber waited.
With a throttled curse, Duncan abandoned the hunt among the shadow memories that mocked and teased him, retreating as soon as he approached.
“Something is not right,” he said flatly. “I am a man out of place. I know it as surely as I know that I breathe.”
“It has been only a handful of days since you awakened. Healing takes time.”
“Time. Time! God’s teeth, I have no time to stand around like a squire waiting for his lord to sleep off a night of folly. I must—”
Duncan’s words ended as though cut off by a sword. He didn’t know what he had to do.
It was worse than a fox gnawing at his vitals.
He struck his fist against his hand and turned away from Amber. Though he said nothing more, tension radiated from him like heat from a hearth fire.
When Amber approached and stood close, his nostrils flared at the evergreen freshness of her scent.
“Be at peace, Duncan.”
A warm, gentle hand caressed his fist. He flinched subtly, surprised. She had been very careful not to touch him since he had stolen that single, hungry kiss from her. Just as he had been careful not to touch her again.
Duncan told himself that he was wary because he had no way of knowing whom Amber had been to him in the past or would be in the future. They might very well be lovers separated by conflicting vows.
Yet the instant Duncan felt the sweetness of Amber’s brief caress, he knew the real reason he hadn’t touched her again. The torrent of passion and yearning she aroused in him was like nothing he had ever felt for a woman.
The passion Duncan understood, for he was a healthy man in the presence of a girl whose very scent made him harden in a wild rush of blood. But the hungry yearning to hold and be held was as new and unexpected as his lack of memory.
The surprise that came each time Duncan confronted the depth of his response to Amber was what finally had convinced him that he had never felt such passion for a woman before. Just as the fact that he kept reaching for a sword told him that he had worn one in his unremembered past.
“Duncan,” Amber whispered.
“Duncan,” he repeated sardonically. “A dark warrior, am I? But there is no sword at my side, no cold weight of metal to keep me company when danger calls.”
“Erik—”
“Aye,” Duncan interrupted. “The all-powerful Erik, who is your protector. The great thane who decreed I would go unarmed for a fortnight, yet still his squire lounges ever within reach of your shout.”
“Egbert the Lazy?” Amber asked. “Is he still about?”
“Dozing in the shed. The fowl are quite put out to share their roost.”
“Turn to face me,” she said, changing the subject. “Let me see to the fit.”
Slowly Duncan complied.
Amber tugged at a lace here and there, tucked in a stray fold of cloth, and handed over the beautiful indigo mantle that she had brought through the rain from Stone Ring Keep.
“For you,” she said.
Duncan looked down into the golden eyes that watched him with such transparent eagerness to bring him ease.
“You are very kind to a man with no name, no past, and no future,” he said broodingly.
“We have been over that many times to no avail. Unless…are you remembering more?”
“Not in the way you mean. No names. No faces. No deeds. No vows. Yet I feel…I feel that something both grand and dangerous is waiting for me, just beyond my grasp.”
Amber’s slender hand settled on Duncan’s fist again. She sensed no memories looming from his past, no condensing of the shadow memories that swirled and faded, only to be reborn, taunting and hinting. Everything was as it had been.
Especially the sensual hunger for her that pervaded Duncan’s being as deeply as the shadows of his lost memory.
Knowing of Duncan’s need made a curious kind of heat uncurl throughout Amber’s body. It was as though an invisible fire lived in the pit of her stomach, waiting only for the breath of Duncan’s desire to burst into flame.
Amber told herself that she must lift her hand and not approach Duncan again, but her hand remained where it was, touching him. Such contact was a sweet, subtle drug. The joy it gave her should have terrified her, yet it only lured her even more deeply.
“Life is both grand and dangerous,” Amber said in a low voice.
“Is it? I don’t remember.”
Duncan’s barely restrained emotions lashed through Amber, a seething mixture of frustration, anger, and impatience.
With an act of will that left Amber aching, she forced herself not to thread her fingers deeply into Duncan’s hair and hold him until pleasure at her caresses overcame all other emotions. Yet she couldn’t prevent herself from touching Duncan just a little.
So little.
Just her fingertip tracing the clenched power of his fist.
“Has it been so bad for you here, then?” Amber whispered unhappily.
Duncan looked down at the bent head of the girl who had done nothing to earn his anger and much to earn his gratitude. Slowly his fist uncurled. Just as slowly he caught Amber’s right hand in his own. Her body jerked subtly at his touch.
“Don’t be afraid, golden fairy. I won’t hurt you.”
“I know.”
The certainty in Amber’s voice was reflected in her eyes. Duncan was too pleased by her trust to ask why she was so confident. He lifted her hand to his lips for a kiss.
The sound of Amber’s breath rushing out made Duncan’s heartbeat speed. He had meant only to kiss her hand, but her response was an irresistible lure. He turned her hand over, cradling it in his palm while his lips found the pulse point of her wrist and brushed it repeatedly.
When his lips parted and the tip of his tongue traced the fragile blue vein, her heart’s blood visibly raced in response to the caress. Desire arced through Duncan like a bolt from an invisible storm.
Yet the gentleness of his caress never varied. He remembered too well Amber’s retreat when he had tried a bolder kind of love play.
“Duncan,” Amber whispered. “I…”
Her voice vanished as a sensuous shiver took her. Being touched by Duncan under any circumstances was a piercing pleasure. Knowing the full force of his passion for her while being kissed so very tenderly by him was like being wrapped in delicate, consuming fire.
Duncan lifted his head and looked down into the dazed golden eyes of the girl who was as much a mystery to him as his own past.
“You come to my lure like a falcon to its master’s call,” he said in a deep voice. “You burn for me and I for you. Were we lovers in the time I don’t remember?”
With a small cry Amber jerked her hand free and turned her back.
“I was never your lover,” she said in a strained voice.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“’Tis true just the same.”
“God’s teeth,” Duncan hissed. “I can’t believe that! We are too strongly drawn. You know something about my past that you aren’t telling me.”
Amber shook her head.
“I don’t believe you,” he repeated.
She spun back to Duncan with a speed that made her clothing flare.
“As you will,” she said angrily. “Before you came to the Disputed Lands, you were a prince.”
Duncan was too shocked to speak.
“You were a freeholder,” Amber continued.
“What are you—”
“You were a traitor,” she said ruthlessly.
Stunned, Duncan simply stared at Amber.
“You were a hero,” she said. “You were a knight. You were a squire. You were a priest. You were a lord. You were—”
“Enough,” Duncan interrupted in a savage voice.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Well what?”
“One of those things is the truth.”
“Is it?”
Amber shrugged. “What else could you have been?”
“A serf or a sailor,” he said sardonically.
“No. You haven’t the calluses for it. Nor the thick head, though lately I begin to wonder.”
Abruptly, Duncan laughed.
Against her will, Amber smiled. “You see? Whatever I tell you isn’t the same as knowing. That you must do for yourself. No one can do it for you.”
Duncan’s laughter stopped. For the space of several breaths he said nothing.