so startling a contrast to his dark complexion, they seemed to glow in the torchlight. His nose was particularly fine, and his lips were full and made her wonder what they would be like to kiss.
Bold, wanton thought!
Still, those others in the hall could not really compare, not now. The curly-haired young men could be cherubs, while this man was an archangel—Saint Michael, perhaps. God’s warrior.
He ambled closer and her heart began to pound, the throbbing loud in her ears. This was a situation entirely new to her, and entirely exciting. But this meeting was really most improper.
Yet her half brothers were back there in the hall, no doubt quarreling about something. Piers was in his room, sulking because Damon had made him stay behind as punishment for not polishing his armor well enough. She was, in the only sense she ever was, free, if only for a little while.
An unfamiliar excitement, potent and dangerous, skittered through her body as she envisioned a clandestine rendezvous with this man. Her mind reeled as pictures of what might happen in a secluded corridor flashed unbidden into her imagination.
An embrace. A passionate kiss. Moans. Sighs. Her leg bared as his strong, lean hand lifted her skirt…
She flushed, hot with shame at her own vivid imaginings, while he continued to regard her steadily, not with arrogance or lust, but as if he could not look away.
No one had ever looked at her like that, and no gaze had ever made her feel so warm and yet so full of dread at the same time. It was not fear that he might hurt her, though, a fear she already knew too well. She could not yet name the powerful new feeling surging through her.
“Who are you?” she demanded, trying to sound calmer than she felt.
“I want to ask you the same question. I beg you to tell me the name of the most beautiful woman at court,” the stranger said, his voice soft and deep and very different from her siblings’ harsh tones. Damon and Benedict sounded like bears. This man sounded as she imagined a majestic stag would, if stags could speak.
As his gaze seemed to intensify with attentive curiosity, Anne realized what she felt: desire. It spread over her like the rays of the sun when the clouds part.
Her mind urged caution. No matter how thrilling she found him, or how outrageously flattered she was by his attention, she was a lady, not some simple peasant girl, or even one of those flighty creatures in the king’s hall. This young man had no business following her or speaking to her, and he had to know that as well as she. If he thought she would not mind, or even welcomed his advances, what did that say of his opinion of her?
Maybe she should flee—except that would be the action of a coward, and she was not a coward. Instead Anne straightened her shoulders and haughtily said, “Who are you, to follow me in this insolent manner and ask who I am?”
Oh, God, Reece thought as he felt his face warm with a blush. He wished he had stayed in the hall and ignored his impetuous, uncharacteristic impulse to follow the blond beauty. He should leave, but to back away now would be fleeing like a coward. While he was certainly shy around women, he was no coward.
Nevertheless he knew full well he didn’t have the charm, the eloquence or the looks of his friends. He had always been content to wait patiently nearby, half-afraid to open his mouth in case he sounded like a fool.
Until tonight, when he had spotted the tranquil, golden-haired woman across the hall wearing a green gown of shining samite that fairly sparkled in the candlelight. She had to be unmarried, for her long, golden hair was uncovered and done in two braids, the ends encased in bronze. Her hair had glowed in the light like a halo, and she had seemed as serenely different from the rest of the young women at the court as an angel would. So he had foolishly decided to follow her from the hall.
The die was cast, he decided, and he must see it through.
But please, God, he silently and fervently prayed, do not let her see me blush like a lad!
“Forgive me, lady,” he said with a contrite bow. “I meant no insult.”
To his surprise, she didn’t immediately turn on her heel and march away. Instead, her full lips turned up in a little smile.
It was like thinking your lance was broken and discovering instead that it was whole.
“Although you seem an impertinent fellow,” she said, “I was not insulted.”
“Then will you tell me your name, despite my impertinence?”
Her shapely brow rose in query. “You wish to know my name and nothing more?”
In truth, he wanted to know everything about her, but he had achieved much already and did not dare to hope for more. “Perhaps that should be all, lest I discover you are wed or promised to another.”
Her brows lowered as she studied him, and he cringed inwardly. Obviously, that had not been a wise thing to say.
“I am not, but this is hardly the time or place to make introductions, sir.”
He moved closer, almost as if pulled to her by an invisible thread. Maybe there was such a thread, for that might explain the tightening sensation he felt in his chest.
As if by divine inspiration, he remembered something he had heard Blaidd Morgan say to a woman once. Blaidd attracted women like blossoms did a bee. “Please, won’t you take pity on me and tell me your name? Otherwise, I may risk injury in the tournament tomorrow, being overtired because I could not sleep for wondering.”
Her brows, a shade darker than her hair, rose yet farther, and her green eyes that already sparkled like emeralds in a rich man’s ring seemed to glitter even more, and—he was very pleased to believe-with merriment. “So if I do not tell you my name, and you happen to be injured on the morrow, it will be my fault?”
To his dismay, her glittering gaze faltered, and a frown clouded her visage. “I do not want such a responsibility. I assure you, sir knight, I already have enough burdens to bear.”
The note of sadness in her voice touched his heart. “Forgive me, my lady, if I add to your distress in any way. I do not seek to add to the troubles you may have.”
Her beautiful eyes widened, as if she was taken aback by his response. “It is a rare man who cares for a stranger’s woes.”
Reece flushed again, for her tone was full of both wonder and praise.
Then that gloriously merry glimmer seemed to light her from within again. “Besides, you have not told me your name, either.”
She straightened her shoulders and issued a charming challenge. “If you first tell me your name, humble petitioner, I shall tell you mine.”
His heart started to pound as it did before a lance charge and new hope thundered into life with it. She must not think him a complete fool after all. “My name is Sir—”
“Anne!”
The man’s bellowing voice echoed off the walls of the corridor and the unknown beauty tensed as if she had just been caught perpetrating a serious crime.
God save him, he had not considered how it would look
