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saddle in front of him, her legs hanging over one side, the leather pouch handed off to one of his men. Then he called out to his men and the abbey yard churned into a sea of mud beneath the hooves of the warhorses.
    Vivian left the abbey, perhaps never to return again, for it was part of the future she could not yet see, and her eyes filled with tears for those she loved as plaintive cries sounded in the chill air above, and her gaze was drawn skyward. High overhead, the small falcon soared on the winds of the gathering storm, calling mournfully as it followed.

Three
    T he light rain that had begun to fall as they left Amesbury became a downpour and made everyone miserable. It stung at her skin and eyes. Riders became hardly more than dark, huddled shapes in the gathering gloom as water soaked through layers of heavy chain mail armor and thick leather under padding. The horses’ heads hung low in misery.  They were forced to slow their pace as the old Roman road became treacherous underfoot, the horses slipping dangerously in the mud.
    Rorke FitzWarren’s captive sat before him with hands clamped over the pommel of the saddle, chin lifted, spine rigid, holding herself as far away from him as possible. She was not what he had expected to find at the abbey. Healers were either wrinkled old crones or stout midwives who had acquired some knowledge of healing ways. The very notion that she lived in an abbey suggested a cloistered life of humility, obedience, and subservience. But the girl who sat before Rorke was neither old, wrinkled, nor stout. Nor was she humble or subservient.
    Beneath her threadbare garments, she was slender and fine-boned. In spite of the bruises of Vachel’s abuse, her skin was like the finest satin. Her hair beneath the shawl drawn against the driving rain was like a brilliant fire fall, and her eyes... They burned with a fierce, angry fire as she had defied Vachel, then darkened with sadness at leaving those she loved. Now, they were like a resting blue flame as she stared y ahead, revealing nothing of her true emotions, a combination of vulnerability and strength, innocence and beguiling beauty, like a fine, rare flame that drew the hand to its fiery heat, but so easily burned that hand.
    The thin wool of Vivian’s shawl and the gown beneath were soaked and lay plastered against her skin. The leather saddle had become slippery and added to her misery as she shivered violently from the cold and practically became unseated. She immediately felt that hand at her hip, steadying her. Unaccustomed to a man’s hand, she was stunned by that simple warm touch, felt through layers of cold, wet garments. She stiffened and would have pulled away, but his hand prevented it.
    “Be still!” he said gruffly, his arm angling across her breasts and anchoring her firmly against him.
    “You will unseat us both, and I have no desire to find myself in the mud.”
    She quit squirming, but she could not quit shivering.
    “You are cold.”
    “I have been cold before,” she informed him and attempted to move away from him. He settled her more firmly against him, the weight of his arm intimate possession that made her suddenly go completely still. She felt the sudden shift of his weight in the saddle behind her, the clenching of powerful legs at either side of her, and wide, powerful shoulders as he settled his heavy mantle about them, enclosing them in a fur-lined cocoon.
    A wild, new fear settled inside Vivian at this sudden closeness. It created a terrifying intimacy in the shared heat of their bodies, and made her feel trapped and vulnerable in ways she’d never experienced before.
    There were dangers far more hazardous than finding himself suddenly unseated from his horse, Rorke discovered, in the slender thighs that pressed against his and the soft curve of her bottom snugged against him.  Wrapped in the thick folds of his mantle, her fragrance washed over him. She smelled of wind, rain, and the sweet promise