The guards at the gate wordlessly let them in. When they reached the stable, William helped her dismount. The feel of his hands on her slender waist as he set her down—closer to him than was proper—made his heart race and his head feel light.
Looking down at her, he felt a longing so intense it caught at his breath. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Only when she took a step back did he realize he had been about to kiss her. It was wrong for many reasons, but he wished with all his heart he had done it. With a sigh, he left her just inside the doorway and led the horses into the pitch-black of the stable.
When he returned, she whispered, “I am most grateful to you.”
“Lady, I would save you from this marriage if I knew how.”
He spoke in a rush, not expecting to say the foolish words that were in his heart. He was as good as any man with a sword, but he had no weapon to wield in this fight. Someday, he would be a man to be reckoned with, a man with lands and power. But as a landless knight, he could only put her at risk by interfering with the king’s plans.
“I will do my duty and follow the wishes of my father and my king,” she said in a strong voice. “But I thank you for wishing it could be otherwise.”
He wished he could see her better. Impulsively, he reached out to trace the outline of her cheek with his fingers. Before he knew what he was doing, he had her face cupped in his hands. He felt her lean toward him. This time, he did not stop himself.
Very softly, he brushed his lips against hers. At the first touch, a shot of lust ran through him, hitting him so hard he felt light-headed and weak in the knees. He pressed his mouth hard against hers. Dimly, through his raging desire, he was aware of the innocence of her kiss. He willed himself to keep his hands where they were and not give in to the overpowering urge to reach for her body. If she had shown the slightest sign she had been down this path before, he would have had her down on the straw at their feet.
He broke the kiss and pulled her into his arms. Closing his eyes, he held her to him and waited for the thundering of his heart to subside. God have mercy! What happened to him? This girl, who trusted him blindly, had no notion of the danger.
Swallowing hard, he released her from his embrace. He could think of no words, could not speak at all. With deliberate care, he pulled her hood up and tucked her long hair inside it. Then he let his arms fall to his sides like heavy weights.
“I did not want his to be my first kiss,” she said, as though she needed to explain why she had permitted it.
His gut twisted as he thought of the firsts the other man would have with her.
She took a quick step forward and, rising on her tiptoes, lightly touched her lips to his. In another moment, she was running across the yard, clutching her cloak about her.
For many years, William dreamed of that night. In his dreams, though, he held her in his arms by the river in the moonlight. In his dreams, he kissed the worry and fear from her face. In his dreams, he rescued her from her unhappy fate.
In his dreams, she was his.
Chapter One
Ross Castle
England, near the Welsh border
June 1405
Lady Mary Catherine Rayburn sat on the bench in her bedchamber and waited for news. If the prince received her latest message in time, the king’s army should have caught her husband with the rebels by now.
She pulled up the loose sleeve of her tunic and examined her arm in the shaft of sunlight that fell from the narrow window. The bruises were fading; Rayburn had been gone a fortnight. She let the sleeve fall and rested her head against the stone wall behind her.
Not once in all this time did her husband suspect she had betrayed him. But he would know it now. She had been the only one in the hall, save for the men who went with him, when he disclosed the time and place of his meeting with the Welsh rebels.
She buried her face in trembling hands and prayed she had not made a mistake. What else could she do? Nothing short of discovering Rayburn with the rebels would convince the king of his treachery.
If Rayburn escaped unseen, he would return and kill her. What then would happen to Jamie? It was unthinkable that her son would be left alone in the world with that man.
The cold of the stone wall penetrated the heavy tapestry at her back, causing her to shiver. Her raging fever had only broken the night before. She’d been the last to fall to the illness that had swept through the castle.
Exhausted, she closed her eyes. How had she come to this? She thought back to the beginning, before Rayburn’s betrayal of the king—and before her betrayal of Rayburn.
The king had been so certain of Rayburn’s loyalty when he chose him as her husband. At sixteen, she had been quite the marriage prize. She possessed that most rare and appealing quality in a noblewoman: She was her ailing father’s only heir. More, she was heir to one of the massive castles in the Welsh Marches, the strategic border area between England and Wales. That made her betrothal worthy of the king’s personal attention.
At the age of ten, she was betrothed to a young man whose family, like her own, was closely aligned with King Richard. The match lost its luster the moment Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne. Consequently, her father was pleased when, a short time later, the young man had the courtesy to fall from his horse and break his neck. When the new king “offered” to select a husband for her, her father was happy for the opportunity to demonstrate his new allegiance.
King Henry deliberated carefully, dangling her as a prize before powerful men he wanted in his debt. When her father fell gravely ill just as the Welsh revolted, however, the king acted swiftly. He could not afford to leave Ross Castle and the surrounding borderlands without a strong man to defend them. As her father lay on his deathbed, the king’s soldiers escorted her to his castle at nearby Monmouth for her wedding.
She crossed her arms over her chest and rocked herself as the memories came back to her. She had known Rayburn to be a cold man. She did not expect tenderness from him. Still, her wedding night had been a shock. He managed, just, to take her virginity.