so true of heart. She yearned for a measure of his charming insouciance, the self-assuredness that made him capable of exalting even a lowly mayapple. But, tainted by intrigue and secrecy, she knew she could never share his clear-eyed wonder. Stiffly she sat down beside him. A butterfly flitted between them.
“My sad girl,” he said softly. “Why do you look so sad?”
“I wish I could be like you, Rand. So...whimsical.”
“Whimsical! Dear maid, you unman me.”
“But it’s true. You’re so full of unexpected delights....” She let her voice trail off and frowned. “I am clumsy with words. I know not how to say what I feel.”
“Try, Lianna.”
“I have an emptiness deep inside me, a darkness. In studying weaponry I learned high-flown ideas of science, the timing of fuses, the use of priming irons, but no one ever taught me how to—” She swallowed hard. “You have said I am beautiful, but I cannot believe it because I don’t feel it in my heart. I’ve never thought the attribute of any value.”
She heard the rasp of his quick-drawn breath, saw the unsteadiness of his hand as he picked up the flowers in his lap. He plaited the blossoms into a circlet, put it on her head, let chains of lavender hepatica trail over her shoulders. Placing his arms around her, he lifted her up, out of her wooden sabots, so that she stood with her bare feet on the cool ground.
Her head and shoulders festooned with flowers, her heart pounding with a sense of new awareness, Lianna saw desire flare in his eyes. His admiration made her truly beautiful for the first time. The idea gave her a sudden, deep sense of her own worth, not as a political commodity, but as a woman.
As if he understood, Rand caressed her cheek. “Do you see now? You are lovely, sacred, worthy.”
Shaken, she closed her eyes, spread out her arms and opened her hands as if to grasp the very air around her. Filled with the scent of flowers and the enlightenment his words brought, she tasted the quiet exultation of a dream fulfilled. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
Her thoughts tumbled over one another. It was right. It had to be right. She wanted him now, not just for the child he could give her, but to satisfy the yearning in her newly awakened heart, to unleash the desire she recognized in his taut body and emerald-bright eyes. His hands were hard fists at his sides, as if he were clenching them against the urge to touch her.
How to tell him? she wondered wildly. She could not possibly blurt it out: Excuse me, but I cannot contain my passion for you and I need a child, so would you please make love to me?
Gripped by shyness, her tongue thick and clumsy with words she’d never thought to utter to any man, she snatched a yellow violet and rolled it between her fingers. “Rand...I have been thinking on...a matter. I think it is time we were honest about...certain things.”
His eyes dimmed almost imperceptibly. “What things?”
She inhaled a gulp of air. “Well...our feelings. I confess I am graceless with words. I know you have certain desires. I have felt this in the way you hold me, and kiss me.” A blush suffused her face with heat. “Doubtless you hold the favor of many women,” she rushed on, growing more embarrassed with each word, more entrapped in her own awkward speech.
“You presume a great deal,” he said.
She blinked, discomfited by his easy, bemused tolerance. “Of course, you might have been with a woman these weeks past.”
Suppressed laughter gave his voice a compelling richness. “Why don’t you ask me?”
She couldn’t bring herself to frame such a question. “You are free to do as you will. But I was wondering, if you could see your way, perhaps, to act on these feelings.” She lowered her head. “Do you not feel some...some measure of desire for me? That is—”
“Lianna,” he broke in, “I love you.”
Her head snapped up. “So you said,” she whispered. “At least, you said you thought you loved me.”
He stepped forward, brushed a wisp of silver-gilt hair from her temple. “I no longer think so. I know.”
Why did his declaration mean so much to her? She needed only his seed. Still, there was that deep agony within her that had nothing to do with procuring an heir and everything to do with the man standing before her.
Sudden doubts pricked at her. She was married; she could never share more than stolen trysts with Rand. Yet she wanted him so desperately....
He regarded her with a steady gaze. His lips curved into a tender smile. A smile she trusted.
The doubts vanished.
“Well,” she said, wondering if the raw inner tenderness she felt could truly be love. “Well. ’Tis settled, is it not?”
His smile widened. “What is settled?”
She forced herself to face him squarely. “Why, the matter I was trying to speak to you about. You’ll make love to me now, won’t you?”
The thrust of an enemy lance could not have pierced Rand more deeply. Her earnest request singed his every nerve with a longing so hot, he burned with it, a frustration so sharp that he could scarce draw breath.
His mouth was dry, his tongue thick, when at last he found his voice. “Lianna, sweet maid, you know not what you ask.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her breath warm as she leaned toward him. “I do.” A pucker—innocent, adorable—turned her lips to a sweet bud. “I suppose you think no worthy lady would ask such a thing, but I want you....” She stepped closer, brought her thighs brushing against his. “And I think you want me.”
Indeed, he thought wildly, how could she mistake the iron-wrought bulge in his braies that reared against her soft, yielding form? “I am a knight,” he said, less forcefully than he would have wished. “I took an oath....”
She fixed him with a steady silver stare. “Every true knight,” she said, her finger tapping lightly against her chin, “is a lover.” She smiled. “So say the troubadours’ lays.”
“The troubadours preferred the sweet torment of yearning to the passing joy of a conquest won.” He spoke quickly, for his resolve flagged with each wild beat of his heart.
Her gaze touched his face, his shoulders, his torso. “And you, Rand. What do you prefer?”
He kept his hands at his sides, for to touch her now would be to lose the last shreds of self-discipline he possessed. “You are far easier to reckon with in my dreams. There, you are only a shadow.” Aye, he thought, in his dreams he could control her...and himself.
She sent him a whisper-soft smile. Her eyes shone, her face glowed, the curves of her flower-strewn body were evident beneath the plain smock she wore. Disconcerted, he moved away.
She set her hands on her hips. “Professions of knightly devotion might be enough for ladies of legend, but such lofty
