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hood fell away from her hair, but she cared not. The youth was drunk and it was very dark, and he would never dare to think it was really she who had touched him this night.
    Beneath an ancient spreading elm, he fell against the trunk and pulled Isobel to him, kissing her hard, making her limbs heavy and yearning. She cast off the cloak, letting him touch her breasts. That was what she liked, having hands and mouths upon her breasts. Impatiently, she unlaced her tunic and tugged it loose so it would be his flesh against her nakedness, and when he made a strangled sound of pleasure, she laughed low, knowing she pleased him, and that her laughing was as much a lure as her body.
    "That is all you may do to me, young stag," she whispered, "but I do not think you will mind overmuch."
    He groaned as she reached for his tunic, pulling it upward so he would be naked in the darkness, in the open air. She was hungry for the feel of male skin and sinews and angles. She shivered, unable to see anything but the faint sheen of his naked, well-formed body.
    But she did not need to see. With a soft sigh, she touched him shoulder to hip, then thighs and belly and the responsive flesh between.
    And he did not mind the limits she set, as she had known he would not.
    When she had finished, she let him kiss her breasts, and then with a final kiss to his lax mouth, ran away into the forest, laughing to herself.
    For weeks he would think of this night, and think it had been a fairy or the goddess who had come to him to bewitch his senses. When he glimpsed Isobel in the yard or on the road, a shiver would cross his skin and he would fleetingly wonder if it could be possible that so enchanting a creature had deigned to kiss him. And he would burn for her.
    It was what she liked best, next to touching men—she liked when they burned for her. When they took another woman, it was Isobel in their minds.
    The night had grown late, and Isobel returned to the castle on a well-worn path made by generations of peasant feet. Close to the curtain wall, she slowed to catch her breath and make it silent. The moon lit the path well now, and she clung to the shadows along the forest. As she walked, she eyed the arched embrasures circling the south tower and thought on the knight who slept there, remembering the great expanse of his chest as he'd stood in the yard this afternoon, virility coming off him in waves so intense Isobel nearly smelled him.
    What would such a man as that be like to touch? He had very fine lips, full but firm, in a mouth shaped for pleasure. Her blood warmed at the thought, and then, thinking of how he had stared at Elizabeth, she scowled. Her stepmother had been singularly unmoved by him, and he would learn soon enough her blood was cold as winter.
    A single moon-flooded space of field had to be crossed to reach the gate, and Isobel looked carefully about her before she darted into the illumination, dashing across to the safety of the gate. She slid through, relief coursing through her—
    "Now what could you be about so close to lauds, I wonder?"
    The voice, low and female, scared a thousand days from Isobel's life, and she whirled, her heart stopped in terror, her hands shaking. A woman emerged from the shadows—a woman Isobel had never seen. Her tunic was the rust-colored, rough home-woven cloth of a peasant, and she wore a simple wooden cross around her neck.
    But nothing else about her was ordinary, not in any way. She carried a veil in her hand, and black hair spilled around her, loose and wavy and shining in the moonlight. Her face was clear and unlined, her mouth as red and lush as cherries. Isobel knew the power of women's bodies and faces, and she saw immediately that this was a woman men would love. Deep-chested, sensual, her eyes long and alluring in the milky light.
    Backing away, her cloak held close to her throat, Isobel asked, "Who are you?"
    "I am Alice Bryony, my lady. And you are the lady Isobel, come late from the