“Wander! But five steps did I take, from my room to yours, and was no thought of the sea that drove me.”

In the moment the words burst from her, her eyes slid away suddenly, embarrassed. He watched a flush spread up her throat. It brought his attention again to the delicate hollow there.

He smiled, a comfortable goading. He let the words hang in the air between them for a moment, to watch her flush deepen a little, before he adopted a knowing tone.

“Then what pretty thoughts brought you here, lady? Why come you to my chamber?”

With a lady at court, it would be easy banter, a knowing wink. But with her – so serious and grave, so uneasy in the clothes of a woman – it became gentle mockery, a sly challenge.

Instead of the awkward shrinking he expected, she turned her face to him. She looked at him unwavering.

“To lie with you.” Her voice was husky but firm. “To take you inside me.”

He stood immobile, feeling her words sink down in him. He became aware of the scent that came from her. It was a smell that he could suddenly taste in his mouth, a potion that called up the wilderness of Wales and the dark hut where he had first seen her. The smell of the brew she had used in healing him rose up from her now, and he realized that she must have folded the same herbs into her clothes.

He thought of that, of those few simple leaves which bound that moment to this one, and watched as she untied the robe from her shoulders and let it slip to the ground.

Her eyes were unfaltering on his, filled with a hunger he knew too, as she pulled the linen shift over her head. She stood before him naked, her skin gleaming white, waiting for him to reach for her.

He looked at her, at every part of her. He loved the litheness of her body, the strength of her limbs when she wrapped herself around him. He loved the curves that he had found hidden in her angular frame, the sweet swell of her belly, the dimples low on her back, the soft slope of her breasts.

When he did not move, she reached for him. She closed the distance between them, her scent rising around him like a drug. She took his hand and guided it to the join of her legs, moving her feet apart, pressing his fingers into the abundant moisture there, the slick heat.

The boldness of it stunned him, but only for a moment. Then he touched her with purpose, heard her gasp, and knew himself a fool to ever think her meek, or weak.

She laid her hand against his throat, her ripe mouth parting as her breath came heavy, and he knew himself an even greater fool to ever think she was not the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld.