Forbidden Read online

  Grabbing a comb made of rowan wood set with orange amber, she hurried over to the stranger’s bed. A brief touch told her that he was still swimming like a trout beneath the surface of unnatural sleep. And like a trout, he was struggling to rise toward the gleaming lure of the sun.

  Amber shook him lightly. There was no response other than a muttering that had no meaning. She stood next to the bed and combed tangles from her long golden hair while she watched him anxiously.

  “You are closer to the sunlight with each heart-beat,” she said hopefully. “Please awaken and tell me your name.”

  His head turned restlessly and a hand twitched. Amber touched him but discovered nothing new.

  Amber felt as restless as the stranger’s sleep. Pacing, combing her hair, pacing again, she finally cracked the shutters just beyond the bed and looked out. No one was coming up the path from Stone Ring Keep to her secluded cottage.

  She pushed the shutters a bit apart and began braiding her hair, ignoring the bracing rush of air into the room. Her fingers were clumsy with impatience and anxiety. The comb slipped and fell onto the rush-covered floor next to the bed. She slammed the shutter closed.

  “What a bother my hair is,” Amber muttered.

  As she bent down to retrieve the comb, her hair fell across the stranger’s bound right hand. Long, powerful fingers clenched in her hair, holding her captive.

  Amber froze, then stared into piercing hazel eyes that were only a few inches from her own.

  Not gray. Thank God, not the gray of Dominic le Sabre’s! I haven’t lost my heart to a man who is already wed.

  “Who are you?” demanded a deep male voice.

  “You have your wits! You have slept for two days and I feared—”

  “Two?” he interrupted.

  “Don’t you remember?” Amber asked softly, stroking the hand whose fingers were wrapped in her hair. “There was a storm.”

  She waited hopefully.

  “I remember nothing,” he said.

  Amber didn’t doubt it. All that came to her from touching the stranger was the depth of his confusion.

  “I—remember—nothing!” the stranger said violently. “By God’s holy blood, what has happened to me?”

  There was fear as well as confusion in his voice. He tried to get up, only to realize that he was bound hand and foot. He could move his fingers and his head, but no more. He was so surprised that he released his grip on Amber’s hair and began straining at the cords binding his right arm.

  His sword arm.

  “’Tis all right,” Amber said, reaching for his hand.

  “I’m bound! Am I a prisoner?”

  “Nay, it’s just—”

  “What in the name of Jesus and Mary is going on!”

  She touched the stranger’s clenched hand. She sensed fury at being bound, turmoil at lack of memory, fear at his own helplessness; but nowhere did she sense any desire to hurt her.

  “I wish you no harm,” Amber said soothingly. “You’ve been ill and out of your senses.”

  She might as well have been talking to the wind. The man’s muscles bunched as he fought against his bonds. The wooden supports of the bed creaked and cords bit into his flesh, but none of the bonds gave way.

  A feral snarl rippled from his throat. His body bucked and covers flew off as he struggled to free himself. Cords cut into flesh until blood flowed. He kept fighting.

  “Nay,” Amber said urgently. “Stop!”

  She threw herself across the stranger’s body and hung on to him as though he were an unruly horse, trying to hold him still so that he wouldn’t hurt himself any more.

  The shock of being surrounded by a soft, fragrant woman and a wild fall of golden hair was so startling that the man stopped struggling for an instant.

  It was all Amber needed. She brushed a kiss across his naked chest, further shocking him into stillness. Then she touched his lips with her fingers as though to stop his cries.

  “Lie still, my dark warrior. I will free you.”

  A shudder went through him. He counted each heartbeat in the savage agony hammering inside his head. Slowly, with a visible act of will, he forced himself not to fight against his bonds.

  The feel of Amber’s hands on his bare skin sent another shudder through him, as did the silky fall of her hair across his groin. His heart raced with more than the brief fight to free himself.

  Then he saw the ancient silver dagger she had taken from her belt.

  “Nay!” he said hoarsely.

  Abruptly he realized that the dagger was to be used on the knots rather than on him. With a groan, he stopped struggling. When the force of his blood slowed, the pain in his head subsided.

  Amber looked up from her work and smiled encouragingly.

  “I’m sorry you were bound,” she said. “You were…not yourself.”

  Whomever that might be.

  “No one knew how it would go with you when you awoke,” she added.

  The man let out a long breath as his right hand was freed. The other bonds gave way quickly to the flashing dagger. Before the sweat of his brief battle had dried on his body, he was free.

  “I’m sorry,” Amber said again. “Erik insisted that you be tied for my safety. But I know you won’t hurt me.”

  A shake of the stranger’s head was his only answer. For the space of several breaths he lay and watched Amber, trying to understand what had happened to him.

  All he knew for certain was that the less he moved, the less his head hurt.

  “Ill?” he asked after a few moments. “I’ve been ill?”

  Amber nodded.

  “What kind of illness is it that leaves a man with no memory, nothing—not even his own name!”

  A chill lanced through Amber. She sheathed the dagger with trembling hands.

  This can’t be what Cassandra prophesied.

  I haven’t been reckless. I haven’t been foolish.

  He can’t be a man with no name.

  But he was.

  “You don’t remember your name?” she asked in an aching voice.

  “Nay, nor anything but…”

  “Yes?” Amber asked eagerly.

  “Darkness. A thousand shades of black.”

  “Is that all?”

  Thick lashes flickered for a moment as the stranger rubbed his raw wrists and looked at the ceiling, searching for something only he could see.

  “A golden light,” he said slowly, “a sweet voice calling to me, luring me from that fell night, breathing the scent of larch and pine over me.”

  Hazel eyes flecked with gray and green and blue focused intently on Amber. His hand moved so swiftly that she was captive before she knew what had happened. His fingers slid into her hair all the way to her scalp. He held her gently this time, but so securely there was no chance to get away.

  Nor did Amber want to. A curious pleasure was coursing through her. She had touched the stranger many times, but never had she been touched by him. The difference was quite thrilling, despite her clear understanding that his emotions were a seething, unpredictable storm that might slip his control at any moment.

  Slowly the man drew Amber down onto the bed next to him. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply, drinking her scent. Amber brushed her lips across his cheek and chest as had become her custom through the long hours that she had tended him.

  “It was you,” he said huskily.

  “Yes.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “You know only what is in your own mind,” she said. “Do you know me?” she countered.

  “I think I have never seen a girl more beautiful. Not even…”

  The man’s deep voice faded and he frowned heavily.

  “What is it?” Amber asked.

  “I can’t remember her name.”

  “Whose?”

  “The one who was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Until you.”

  As the stranger spoke, Amber deliberately flattened both palm
s against the naked skin of his shoulders. A vague image came to her of a girl with hair as red as flame and far-seeing eyes of jeweled green.

  The image faded, leaving him without a name to put to the delicate face. He shook his head and cursed roughly in frustration.

  “Give yourself time to heal,” Amber said. “Your memory will return.”

  Big hands clamped around her shoulders and strong fingers dug urgently into her flesh.

  “There is no time! I must—I must—God’s teeth, I can’t remember!”

  Tears came to Amber’s eyes as the stranger’s anguish swept through her. He was a man whose honor was his greatest possession. He had given vows that must be kept.

  But he could not remember who had accepted those vows.

  Nor could he remember what the vows had been.

  A cry was dragged from Amber’s throat, for the man’s pain and fear and rage were also hers while she touched him.

  Instantly the pressure on her shoulders was relieved. Battle-hardened hands began caressing rather than digging into soft flesh.

  “Forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Surprisingly gentle fingers brushed over Amber’s eyelashes, taking her tears. Startled, she opened her eyes.

  The man’s face was very close to hers. Despite his own agitation, he was concerned for her. It was as clear to her as the dark, thick lashes that framed his hazel eyes.

  “You d-didn’t hurt me,” Amber said. “Not in the way you mean.”

  “You’re crying.”

  “’Tis your anguish. I sense it so very clearly.”

  Dark eyebrows rose. The backs of the man’s fingers brushed very lightly over Amber’s cheek. Hot tears burned against his skin.

  “Don’t cry, gentle fairy.”

  Amber smiled despite her tears. “I’m not a fairy.”

  “I don’t believe you. Only a creature of magic could have pulled me from that savage darkness.”

  “I’m a student of Cassandra the Wise.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” he said. “You’re a witch.”

  “Not at all! I’m simply one of the Learned.”

  “I meant no insult. I have a fondness for witches who can heal.”

  “You do?” Amber asked, startled. “Have you known many?”

  “One.” The man frowned. “Or is it two?”

  His control threatened to break at the new evidence that he had none of the memories other people take for granted.

  “Try not to fight so,” Amber said. “It only makes things worse. Can’t you feel that?”

  “’Tis hard not to fight,” he said through his teeth. “Fighting is what I do best!”

  “How do you know?”

  The man went still.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally. “But I know it’s true just the same.”

  “It’s also true that a man who fights himself can’t win.”

  Silently the stranger absorbed that unhappy truth.

  “If you are meant to remember,” Amber said, “you will.”

  “And if I’m not?” he asked starkly. “Will I go through the rest of my life a man with no name?”

  His words were too close to the bleak prophecy that had haunted Amber’s life.

  “Nay!” she cried. “I will give you a name. I will call you—Duncan.”

  The echoes of the name beat at Amber, horrifying her. She hadn’t meant to say that name. She truly hadn’t.

  He can’t be Duncan of Maxwell. I refuse to believe it. Better that he remain forever a man with no name!

  But it was too late. She had given him a name.

  Duncan.

  Breath held, her hands clenched around one of his, Amber waited for Duncan’s response.

  There was a distant sense of straining, of shifting, of focusing, of…

  Then it was gone, fading like an echo heard for the third time.

  “Duncan?” he asked. “Is that my name?”

  “I don’t know,” Amber said unhappily. “But the name suits you. It means ‘dark warrior.’”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Your body bears the marks of battle,” Amber said, touching the scars on his chest, “and your hair is a most pleasing shade of darkness.”

  The light caress of her fingers lured and beguiled Duncan, encouraging him to accept his strange awakening into a world both familiar and forever changed.

  And whether it was strange or familiar, Duncan was too spent to fight anymore. The long climb up from darkness had sapped even his great strength.

  “Promise you won’t bind me if I sleep again,” he said huskily.

  “I promise.”

  Duncan looked at the intent, intense maid who was watching him with such concern. Questions crowded his thoughts, too many questions to sort out.

  Too many which had no answer.

  He might not remember the details of his life before he had awakened, but he hadn’t forgotten everything. At some time in the past he had learned that a frontal attack wasn’t always the best way to take a fortified position.

  And in any case, at the moment he hadn’t the strength to attack a butterfly. Every time he gathered himself to fight, the pain in his head all but blinded him.

  “Rest for a bit,” Amber said encouragingly. “I’ll make some tea to ease the pain in your head.”

  “How did you know?”

  Amber reached for the fallen covers without answering. Her unbound hair fell over Duncan and was drawn beneath the covers as she pulled them up. With an impatient sound, she swept the long mass back over her shoulders, only to have a handful escape once more.

  “You hair is like amber,” Duncan said, stroking a soft lock. “Smooth and precious.”

  “That is my name.”

  “Precious?” he asked, smiling slowly.

  Amber’s breath caught. Duncan had a smile to melt sleet and call meadowlarks from a midnight sky.

  “No,” she said with a soft laugh, shaking her head. “My name is Amber.”

  “Amber…”

  Duncan looked from her long hair to her luminous golden eyes.

  “Yes,” he said. “Precious Amber.”

  Duncan released the silky strand of hair, stroked her wrist, and let his hand settle onto the thick fur cover.

  The lack of Duncan’s touch was like having a fire go out. Amber had to swallow a sound of protest.

  “So I am Duncan and you are Amber,” he said after a few moments. “For now…”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Desperately Amber wished that she had called Duncan by any other name.

  Yet at the same time she knew she couldn’t have withheld what she feared could be his true name. She, called simply Amber, knew only too well the hole in the center of life that came from having no name, no real heritage.

  Perhaps it is simply my fears playing upon me, drawing shadow monsters upon an empty wall.

  Do I fear that he is Duncan of Maxwell simply because I want so much for him to be someone else?

  Anyone else.

  “Where am I?” Duncan asked.

  “In my cottage.”

  He glanced around, seeing beyond Amber to the large room. There was a central fire burning cheerfully as smoke was drawn to the hole at the peak of the thatched roof. Something savory cooked in the small cauldron suspended from a trivet over the fire. The walls had been limed to whiteness and the floor was covered with clean rushes. Shuttered windows were set in three walls. In the fourth was a door.

  Thoughtfully Duncan fingered the bedding. Linen and soft wool and luxurious fur, rich curtains of cloth pulled aside for the day. Nearby was a table with a chair, an oil lamp, and, astonishingly, a handful of what appeared to be ancient manuscripts.

  Duncan looked back to the girl who had attended his illness, a girl who was familiar and unknown at once.

  Amber’s clothes were like the bedding, wonderfully rich, soft, warm, and colorful. At her wrists and neck, amber gems gleamed i
n costly shades of warm yellow and gold.

  “You live far better than most cottagers,” Duncan said.

  “I have been fortunate. Erik, heir to Lord Robert of the North, watches over me.”

  Amber’s affection for Erik was clear in her voice and in her smile. Duncan’s expression darkened, making him look every bit the formidable warrior he was.

  For an instant, Amber wondered if she hadn’t been a bit too hasty in untying him.

  “Are you his leman?” Duncan asked.

  At first Amber didn’t understand the blunt question. When she did, she flushed.

  “Nay! Lord Robert is a—”

  “Not Robert,” Duncan interrupted curtly. “Erik, the mere mention of whose name makes you smile.”

  Amber smiled widely.

  “Erik’s leman?” she repeated. “He would laugh fit to choke at the thought. We’ve known one another since we were no bigger than goslings.”

  “Does he give costly gifts to all his childhood friends?” Duncan asked coolly.

  “We were both students of Cassandra the Wise.”

  “So?”

  “So Erik’s family befriended me.”

  “At some expense to themselves,” Duncan said pointedly.

  “Their gifts, though generous indeed, do not strain Lord Robert’s wealth,” Amber said in a dry tone.

  As Duncan opened his mouth to question Amber further, he realized that he was reacting with far too much jealousy over a maid he had just met.

  Or had he?

  He was quite naked in her bed. Her hands weren’t hesitant to touch him. She had neither blushed nor turned away when the bed covers went sliding in disarray, revealing his nakedness. Nor had she been in any great haste to cover him again.

  But how did one delicately ask a maid if she was his betrothed, his wife, or his leman?

  Or, God forbid, his sister?

  Duncan grimaced. The thought that he and Amber might be close in blood appalled him.

  “Duncan? Are you in pain?”

  “No.”

  “Are you certain?”

  He made a harsh sound. “Tell me…”

  His voice and his courage faded. The sensual heat in his blood did not.

  “Yes?” Amber said encouragingly.

  “Are we related by blood?”

  “Nay,” she said instantly.

  “Thank God.”

  Amber looked startled.