For Love Of Rory. Barbara Leigh

      And, oh, to be allowed to do the same to him. To touch him with her lips and hands as he had touched her. To run her tongue over his hand or taste the quickened pulse in his throat. How wonderful it would be to know that she could make his body respond to her, as she did to him. To give and take in the deepest passion of love until they were both too sated to move.

      Tears filled her eyes and she stumbled, sloshing water over the side of the basin she carried. To her surprise, Rory was suddenly beside her, catching her before she could do more damage. He took the basin from her hands and placed it on the table.

      “There now, it’s overworked you are,” he told her. “The crone is right. You should go into the village and get some fresh air. You’ve scarce left this room since I came here. It’s myself that is supposed to be the prisoner, not you!” He had fallen into the pattern of speech used in his homeland and laughed at his own words, but his face held true concern.

      She was alternately flushed and pale and he had no way of knowing it was her thoughts, not her physical condition, that caused her such distress.

      Rory wanted her to leave. He could not bear the close proximity any longer. He needed a respite from her presence. He needed a few minutes’ peace in which to be alone with thoughts that had nothing to do with this woman; with the scent of her, the touch of her hands, the sound of her voice. If she did not leave him to himself for a few hours he would die of desire, of wanting what he dared not take.

      For he had already come to the realization that taking Serine once in the heat of passion would never be enough for him. It was not just sex he wanted from this woman. It was her love he hungered for above all else. And though there were moments when he believed to the very depths of his soul that her longings were the same as his, he dared not put them into words. For if she knew the same yearnings as did he, his heart would break to realize it could never come to pass.

      There was but one way he could prove his love and give his soul some surcease, and that was by taking Serine to her child.

      “In a few weeks I will be well enough to travel,” he said as he walked to the window and looked out over the countryside. “Are you prepared to go with me?”

      Serine finished mopping up the last traces of water. “I am,” she told him without hesitation. “I will make the arrangements, and we will leave as soon as you are strong enough.”