When an answering heat fired in his expression, a tense awareness apparent in his limbs, she glanced away again. She had not expected such immediate results from her admission.
“This is not the first time you have been in these woods.” It was no question. His voice, tinged with new understanding, stroked over her senses.
He stepped closer.
Her throat constricted.
She merely shook her head in response.
“You take a great risk,” he chided, lifting a hand toward her.
Everything within her stilled. His fingers skimmed the fabric of her sleeve without grazing the skin beneath. Her flesh tightened and tingled with his nearness. Heaven help her, she did take a great risk. What did she know about him, besides his gentle respect for the forest animals?
“I have seen you walk with care through these woods before,” she admitted, her gaze fixed upon the broad column of his throat, since she found it difficult to meet those tawny eyes directly. “Your demeanor did not suggest a need for fear.”
Her heart thudded strongly, the fertility potion she’d consumed adding to the dizzy sensation he inspired. She was not prepared for the brush of his fingertip beneath her chin or the gentle tilt of her jaw to face him.
“A woman can never be too careful alone with a man.” That heat she’d felt rolling off him before returned with new force, prickling her skin like too much time spent in the sun. “The lure of such sweetness can bring out the beast in any male.”
He warned her away, his voice turning as fierce as his gaze. But strangely, she had no wish to heed it. Something in that fiery expression of his made her more curious than fearful.
“I have learned experience is a far more memorable teacher.” She raised her palm to his chest, letting it hover over his heart for a long moment before she found the power within to drag her fingers lightly along the hard plane of muscle.
She had witnessed her cousin tease a young groom thus once, and that man had been noticeably affected. Would her touch prove as tempting to the hunter?
“What game is this?” His eyes narrowed, and he released her chin to grip her hand in his. “If these are the hands of a laundress, then I am the king of the realm.”
He smoothed his thumb along her palm, making wide circles that spiraled and narrowed until he reached the heart of her hand. Only then did she realize her error in the lie. For while her hands were no longer the smooth, unblemished mark of her rank, they also lacked the deep red, irritated flesh of a laundress.
Her cheeks flushed hot from the untruth, but she could not lose him now. She had been drinking her potion for a fortnight, preparing herself for this meeting when she was at the most fertile time of her moon cycle.
“You do not play enough games, sir, if you find this one objectionable.” Taking a deep breath, she willed her heartbeat to steady along with her nerves. “Does it matter how we come to be in one another’s path so long as we both enjoy the diversion?”
Cormac of Glenmore did not begin to find anything objectionable about the willful, independent woman doing her utmost to seduce him.
If anything, he had ventured into these woods for many moons in the hope of protecting her from afar. He’d heard tales about the daughter of a noble house who had escaped her home during a Norman attack. Her father had died defending his keep and her mother had remarried one of the invaders to save herself. But their sole heir had disappeared. Some claimed she’d been carried off like her mother. Others said she’d perished in these very woods during the harsh winter that had followed. Yet there’d been sightings of an ethereal, golden-haired beauty roaming the woods, rumors of the sole heir’s spirit lingering in the forest where she’d died.
The blue-eyed blonde pressing her palm to Cormac’s chest right now was no spirit, however. She was a living, breathing woman who tempted him beyond reason. He’d lured her out of hiding as surely as he’d coaxed the cagiest harts and boars from their lairs. But even though he would give his sword arm to take what she offered, the predator inside him remained wary of any prize that appeared too easily won.
A greater danger might lie ahead. He simply couldn’t see it yet.
“Perhaps it does not matter what brought us to these woods.” He kept her hand captive in his, certain he must have found the elusive Lady of Iness. “But I would know your name at least. I am Cormac.”
Would she remember the name? He had served the Scots king long enough to have met nobles from most of the ruling houses, including her father. He waited for any sign of recognition, but found none. It was a common enough name, especially with no identifying characteristic attached.
“Very well, Cormac.” She tossed her unbound hair behind one shoulder, her lack of veil marking her as a lowborn woman. Or a highborn one who wished to hide her status. “I am Isolda.”
The confirmation of her identity was bittersweet. Yes, he’d hoped to find the lawful heir to the Iness lands. But knowing it was she who stood before him meant he could not lift her skirts and tumble her to the ground the way he could have with an eager laundress.
Still, her surcoat was not the stiff, jeweled garb of a noblewoman. Perhaps the months living in the wild had softened a fabric she’d stripped of all baubles, or maybe she’d taken a maid’s clothing before departing the keep the day of the Norman raid. But the pale, sun-worn fabric conformed to her lean, womanly curves. The skirt hem was ragged from thorn bushes and time, the whole lower half of her garb darker from accumulated spatters of mud, even though presently it had been washed clean.
She wore part of the hem tucked into her girdle to better move through the forest, a trick employed often by field laborers. The raised skirt revealed an even paler kirtle beneath, and a hint of creamy ankle just above her boot.
Bending over her hand, he brushed his lips across the backs of her fingers.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Isolda.” With an effort, he raised his mouth from her sweetly scented skin, knowing he could not allow himself a taste.
He’d sought her too long to rush the meeting with undue haste. But why did she wish to tempt a stranger with such a bold overture? Never before had he been lured so thoroughly by a maid. Even now, his blood rushed through his veins like spring sap, his senses acutely heightened. Had the stretch of companionless seasons made her that lonely?
“You are determined to be noble, I see.” She frowned up at him as she withdrew her hand from his, her mouth forming a delectable pout. “Do you love another, I wonder?”
He had offended her. By the saints, she was a brazen lass to make her pursuit of him so apparent. What did a lord’s daughter see in a man dressed so plainly he could be a merchant or tradesman?
Sunlight shone through the scant canopy of leaves remaining on the trees overhead, bathing her in dappled shadows.
“No woman holds my heart,” he assured her, missing the feel of her already. “And since you hardly know me well enough to wish for such tender sentiment yourself, I wonder what made you seek me out.”
“Women do not grow lonely where you are from, sir?” She folded her arms about her waist and seemed to take his measure.
“If they do, they have not come to me about it.” Was that truly all there was behind her request?
The notion flattered him. Women of the Scots court only sought him out for his wealth. His standing with the king. Even the widows were more concerned with lucrative remarriage than pleasure.
How ironic that now he sought her out for political purposes, while she seemed to want him for something far more interesting.
“And