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same. Because Anna was a woman, and Morvan had been aware for some time that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman before in his life.
    “Tell me about Josce,” he said, in a futile attempt to distract his thoughts from that. But his blood told him how this night should end. He needed to touch her. He wanted to take the silver band from her head and stroke out her curls with his fingers until her hair swept wild and free again.
    “He is a kinsman. Distant. He came as a page, to be fostered. He was my father's squire, and at his side when he died.”
    He wanted to kiss her. Taste her mouth and her neck.Smell her. He wanted to bend that rigid back over his arm and have her look up at him as he caressed her, as his hand found the lacing to her tunic….
    “He is like a brother to me. But his relationship with Catherine has been something more for several years.”
    He would undress her and discover the body beneath those loose garments. He imagined her hidden breasts as he held them in his hands and took them in his mouth. Her moans of desire filled his head. In his mind's eye, a veil of yielding passion softened her penetrating gaze. He would lay her down, and cover her with his hands and mouth and finally his body….
    “My father's will assumed my brother would inherit and that I would take vows. Now, with my brother Drago gone, when Catherine and Josce marry, Josce will be the next lord of La Roche de Roald.”
    He had seen her ecstasy when she galloped her horse. He wanted to watch her as he took her and that sensual oblivion claimed her for him alone. He would control her and bring her with him, their union finishing what he felt here tonight. Completing it …
    “Sir Morvan,” her voice intruded and brought him back.
    Was he mad? He had confessed and was clean. Yet here he sat, contemplating the seduction of a virgin touched by angels and dedicated to God. But it felt as though heaven itself was part of this temptation.
    “Sir Morvan,” she repeated, tapping the board. “It is your move.”
    He shifted a piece and then watched her again with that unsettling gaze. Anna had been trained in restraint and serenity at the abbey, but her studied reserve hid dismay.
    She had lied to him. She had suggested that she had felt this before, but she had not. The connection was always a possibility when she cared for the dying, but this had been more immediate than ever before. Even with Ascanio, when they had both reached out in their fear of the abyss awaiting them, even then it had built more slowly.
    Later, during the plague, she had feared this unnatural intimacy and the love and pain that it brought. It made the death harder on her. She had been grateful that with most of the sick she could just be mistress and nurse and nothing more.
    And now this. Different. Stronger. Somehow even dangerous.
    He wanted something more. She could feel his spirit stretching toward her.
    She kept the conversation going, because the pauses became filled with an acute expectation that unnerved her. She told of her attempts to settle the estate's future so it would be secured for Brittany. She told him about her many letters to the duke in England, asking for a warden's appointment, and for permission for Catherine to marry.
    She described her problems keeping the estate protected. How, when her brother took sick, some men-at-arms fled and how, with the death, more died. In the end Ascanio had recruited and trained some sons of free-holders on the estate. The plague had given them a respite of sorts, but already problems were starting again and a band of thieves had been harassing the area.
    And then, in the middle of her description of the castle's history, Morvan asked, “Why won't you marry?”
    “If you marry,” he went on, “the estate would be yours.”
    “If I marry, the estate would be my husband's.”
    “Still, you would have a place.”
    She did not want to talk about this. She could never expect anyone, let alone