“Aye,” came the equally loud reply from across the wide expanse of the hall.

“Come and meet your bride,” William proclaimed, “Lady Eyreka.”

At the king’s words, her heart skipped a beat. A hush immediately descended upon the crowded hall, servants and nobles alike falling silent, as they turned in unison to stare at her. The echo of booted footsteps filled the soundless void. The steps rang with confidence and determination, as they drew ever closer. Then they stopped.

Eyreka’s eyes grew wide with shock as she stared up at the warrior standing before her. By Odin, he was large. His shoulders were wide and thick with muscle. When he reached out a hand to grasp that of his overlord, those same muscles rippled, straining his tunic at the shoulders.

While the two men greeted one another, Eyreka took the opportunity to study the warrior, soon to be her husband by royal decree. His gray-streaked, chestnut hair was thick and wavy. Eyreka’s hands tingled, remembering another man and another time, when she had plunged her fingers into his sun-kissed hair. She shook herself free of Addison’s memory and let her gaze drift across Augustin’s high cheekbones, and the scar that arched across his chin, then on his eyes...his stormy gray eyes.

The room spun wildly, while the floor swayed and the walls closed in on her. He had Addison’s eyes.

Augustin watched the hint of color drain from the woman’s face and her eyes start to roll up in her head. He cursed roundly. As he swept her into his arms before she could slide to the floor in an unconscious heap, he knew why God made women so beautiful and enticing; they would have to be to balance out the havoc they wreaked wherever they went.

Her breath blew out soft puffs of air against his neck, breaking his concentration. When he looked down at her, a long-dead emotion tried to make itself known, but he clamped it back into the small tidy corner of his heart that belonged always to his wife.

Still unconscious, she stirred in his arms, pressing her rounded hip against his taut stomach. Awareness sliced through his middle like a heated knife. He caught his breath as unwanted desire for her coiled within him, ready to spring free. He ignored the feel of her and clamped down on his resolve to retain control.

Looking down at the woman, he guessed she was probably Saxon, given her coloring. He would not deny that he had been attracted to her cool beauty, though it was the complete opposite of his wife’s. Her white blonde hair was streaked with strands of silver. Her pale skin looked as soft as silk, and begged to be caressed. Though he may face the fires of eternity for it, he reached out hesitantly, and ran his fingertip across her cheekbone down around the curve of her jaw. Unable to resist, he traced the fullness of her bottom lip and breathed in her sweet scent, a haunting combination lavender and rain.

King William clapped a hand to Augustin’s shoulder, breaking the spell she had unknowingly woven about him, “She’s comely old friend.”

Shocked that he had let himself be attracted to the Saxon woman he held in his arms, Augustin ground out, “I do not need a wife.” His teeth ached from clenching his jaw to keep from shouting the words.

“I say you do. Lady Eyreka has a sound plan that would not affect the revenues Merewood currently produces, even with the change in leadership.” William’s hand pressed harder on the baron’s shoulder.

“I gave my word.” de Chauret swore under his breath thinking of Monique, feeling trapped, no longer in control of the situation. “I’ll not marry again.

“What if I command you?” William’s face began to mottle with rage.

Augustin recognized the look on his overlord’s face and felt the heat of his own blood surge up his neck all the way to his forehead. He hung onto his temper. Never before had he refused to honor a direct order from his liege. To do so now would not be wise. No doubt there would be another favored baron willing to wed the wealthy widow, in order to gain control of her vast holding.

But to have to forsake his vow to Monique was akin to taking a blade through the heart. He could feel the open wound. He shifted the woman in his arms until her weight rested fully on his sword arm; brushed a hand across his chest and looked down at it, checking for blood.

There was none.

“Mayhap--”

“Aye is the only response, my friend,” William interrupted.

Augustin’s grip tightened on Lady Eyreka, while he stared at the man before him. They were equal in strength and stature, but he had not the power of a country behind him. Their conversation the day before now made more sense. William was not looking for an estate to grant to him, he already had one picked out...and now a woman was part of the holding! Augustin’s entire body stiffened, physically trying to hold out against what he must do.

Eyreka stirred, and her eyes shot open. She appeared disoriented. “Addison?” she whispered.

“Nay, milady, ‘tis your betrothed, Augustin,” the king answered.

The overwhelming urge to find this Addison and plow his fist into the man’s face, whoever he was, caught Augustin by surprise, as did the unfamiliar jealously that snaked through him at the sound of another man’s name on her full lips. Though why he should care if another man’s name came to those soft, rose-tinted lips, he knew not.

“Please, release me,” she squirmed in his embrace.

Her sudden sharp intake of breath matched his own because when she shifted, she forced his left hand higher on her rib cage until it brushed the bottom of her breast. Her ice blue eyes deepened to sapphire, transporting him back to another time and another woman. Her face blurred before his eyes, until she transformed into the form of his beloved wife. He wondered if she knew that her eyes gave away her thoughts.

Passion that shimmered in their depths, calling to him, tempting him to taste, as he had so many times before. For a brief moment, he let himself imagine where he would begin that sensual foray, as his control started to slip away, the fog of memory cleared revealing the Saxon woman once more.

Momentarily confused, he wondered if it was the memory of his wife that aroused him, or the woman in his arms? He ruthlessly pushed the disturbing questions aside. She was but an armful of well-endowed woman. He had held others and not succumbed to the desire now raging through him. She meant no more to him than that.

“I do not need a wife,” he argued.

top