His words pushed her over the top. With a soft cry, she came undone. Her pulsing muscles beckoned him to follow. He groaned against her mouth, thrusting three more times. Then he stilled, his heart thudding hard against her breasts.

After a moment he took his weight on one elbow and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Then he traced the graceful arch of her eyebrow, the full sweep of her lower lip. “You make me forget,” he whispered on a note of wonder.

“Forget what, my lord?” She could barely think, let alone remember anything.

“Christian,” he said, reminding her to say his name.

She smiled, cherishing the intimacy. “Forget what, Christian?”

He looked down at her breasts, pressed to his chest. “Who I am,” he said at last. His lashes swept up again. He gave her his semi-smile and kissed her, lingering with such tenderness it made her eyes sting.

She didn’t know what to say to his confession. She savored the closeness of their bodies, of their mind and spirits. “What will we be when tomorrow is over?” In the unguarded moment the question slipped out of her.

He held her more firmly. “What do you mean?” he asked, sounding as worried as she felt.

She smiled ruefully and looked away. “Never mind.”

“Nay, tell me what you meant,” he insisted.

How to put it in words? “Will I ever be more to you than a mother for Simon?”

Her question visibly startled him. He took a deep breath and pressed himself deeper. She fancied she could feel him swelling inside of her again. “You are already more,” he growled.

The answer pleased her, as did the echoing tingle at her core. He caught her mouth in a kiss that was frankly ravenous. His sudden hunger sparked her own. She met his thrusts with a deep, answering need.

A long time later they lay among the twisted sheets, a sheen of sweat on their skin. She asked him another question that was nagging her. “How will you kill Ferguson tomorrow and make it look like an accident?”

She felt him tense against her. “I don’t want to talk about the morrow,” he replied, his tone suddenly dangerous.

The sound of his voice made her shrivel inside, but she was not so easily turned away. “Why won’t you tell me what you’ve planned?” she persisted. “All you’ve said is that you’ll kill him in a joust. How, without rousing the suspicions of his men, without causing a war?”

A full minute passed, and still he did not answer. Disappointed, she laid her head back on his shoulder, fearing she had angered him.

“There will be no war,” he whispered with certainty.

She wondered how he could be so sure. She listened to the even thud of his heart. Her fingers coiled gently around the soft whorls of his chest hair. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of repletion.

They would still have this when tomorrow was over. Perhaps their passion would deepen to abiding affection. It was a simple thing to imagine, a natural thing. She snuggled closer. She felt treasured and replete. She had a strong arm to protect her. A lover to warm her on winter nights. It was more than most women had in a husband.

A soft snore followed on the heels of her observation. Christian had fallen asleep. At least he had the peace of mind to do it. Her mouth quirked. For herself, she doubted she would sleep at all on the eve of Ferguson’s demise.

At the crack of dawn Christian garbed himself in chain mail and led his mount across the drawbridge. With the visor of his helm open, he absorbed the scene that awaited him. Ferguson’s warriors were up and stirring, their green plaid buried under thick, steel hauberks. They had traded their costume swords for sturdier weapons.

They milled about a campfire, their expressions grim. What had begun as an alliance would end in war if Ferguson failed to meet the challenge the Slayer had put to him last night.

Christian recalled the Scot’s expression when he’d charged him of his crimes before the wedding guests. He had sent Clarise to their bridal bower to shield her from any potential ugliness. He wished he could have done the same for her mother and sisters, who’d looked on, as pale as ghosts.

At his challenge, the Scot had spewed ale across the table. He’d blustered and protested. He’d turned an alarming shade of red. Kendal had lunged across the table with his costume sword in hand, only to be restrained by his own men. The Slayer’s men-at-arms displayed the points of their swords to discourage the Scots from reacting rashly.

Ferguson’s protests could not sway the warlord from standing in judgment of him. To prove your innocence, Ferguson, you must meet me tomorrow in a contest of arms, a battle to the death.

In declining, the Scot would have found himself and his men slaughtered in the Slayer’s hall. The gauntlet had been tossed, and Ferguson accepted it, with no other choice.

How quickly the night had sped by! The sun was already edging over the treetops. Peasants tromped across the meadow from their far-flung huts in order to satisfy their curiosity. Did they know the tourney had given way to a deadlier sport? Christian wondered.

He glanced over his shoulder at the sharply rising wall of the castle. He couldn’t see the solar from his present vantage, but he imagined that his bride still slept. She was rarely up before mid-morning. Had he done the right thing to keep the truth from her? It had been hard to think of little else when he joined her in the bridal bower. But later, as he drew her tender body close to him, he’d felt a peaceful certainty in his soul. And then he’d slept—by God, he’d slept the entire night without waking! It had been the best sleep of his adult life.

He wondered, now, if he should have told her everything. She’d assumed the Scot would come to some accidental end, that Christian would kill him by devious means. She did not fully realize the metamorphosis for which she was responsible. The only way to prove his worthiness was to slay Ferguson by honorable means: by Ordeal by Combat. That way Ferguson, at least, could defend himself, and neither Christian nor Clarise would be troubled by their conscience later. He knew too well the torment of a troubled conscience. His wife would never suffer such agonies, he vowed.

Still, he wished Clarise could watch him do it. How he longed to be worthy of her! But her peace of mind and her physical safety came first. He could not trust her to remain an impartial observer. Clarise was too loyal, too protective. She forgot at times that he had spent his adult years learning to fight. She thought she could do it better.

Nor did he trust the Scots not to target her in some way, thereby forcing his surrender. Nay, it was best she remained where she was, sleeping peacefully in bed, her body soft and warm beneath the coverlet.

Sir Roger scurried around the front of his horse, breaking into Christian’s thoughts. “My lord, I have a bad feeling about this,” he volunteered, catching his liege’s arm.

Christian shook him off. This was not the time for Roger’s sixth sense to kick into action. “ ’Tis too late to change my mind,” he snapped at his vassal. All he could do at this late point was to calm his roiling nerves.

“Look for trickery, then,” Sir Roger cautioned, his scars bulging with concern. “He knows he cannot defeat you. He will try something underhanded, mark my word!”

They led their horses off the drawbridge and onto the road. Christian’s armor made a chinking sound with every step. “We fight hand to hand,” he told his vassal. “Do you remark any trickery, then by all means strike the Scottish forces. But do so hard. I would not have any finding their way into the castle. Signal for the drawbridge to close.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Should something happen to me—”

The knight cursed, looking away.

Christian stopped and put a gauntleted hand on his vassal’s shoulder. It took effort to push the words past the constriction in his throat. “Do whatever it takes to keep my lady content in life and to assure Simon’s inheritance. Remember we suspect a traitor in our midst.”

Sir Roger’s mouth thinned. “It will not come to that,” he growled, as if to convince himself.

The fighting had been moved from the outer ward to the meadow outside the walls. The field afforded them more room for maneuvering. It would keep the Scots from spawning mischief in the castle to distract them. “They’re waiting,” Christian urged, nodding toward the area that was already roped off.

As they neared the meadow, the sun spilled over the hill in a bloodred stain. Christian’s gaze fell upon a blackbird as it swooped from the sky to steal a hot bun dropped by one of the spectators. When he next looked toward the tents, he was looking at Ferguson.

The Scot had emerged from his tent wearing English armor, his helm in his hands. Despite his indulgence the night before, he looked fit and fierce. His eyes were focused and clear above his burnished beard. At the sight of his double-edged ax, several onlookers backed away, giving him clear berth to approach the field.

Christian looked for Ethelred, standing alone with his cowl pulled over his head. A more reluctant participant could not have been found to shrive the two combatants. The good abbot gave him an imploring look as they came closer.

Unable to meet the abbot’s gaze, Christian focused on Ferguson instead. To bolster his enthusiasm, he recalled the nineteen peasants cut down at Glenmyre, the ravaging fire, Clarise’s mother begging to be let through the gate. He gave a thought to Clarise’s father, brought to an early demise by the Scot’s artifice. And lastly, he thought of the pink scars on Clarise’s beautiful back, put there by this barbarian.

By the time Christian’s soul was properly commended to God, he was fully ready to spill the Usurper’s blood.