Free Temptress by Lisa Jackson

jolted as the pupil shrank and seemed to focus on her.
    Because of the light?
    Or because the bloody bastard was awake?
    “Can you see me—hear me?” she demanded and then let the eyelid close and felt a fool in this chamber where the embers of the fire glowed a deep scarlet. She braced herself and tried again. This time she touched his bare shoulder and whispered into his ear. “Carrick!”
    Was it her imagination or did the muscles beneath her fingertips tighten a bit?
    Her heart jolted.
    You conjured up his response.
    Ignoring her doubts, she cleared her throat. Felt her pulse leaping.
    “It’s Morwenna. Remember me?” I’m the woman you lied to. The woman you promised to love. The woman you turned your back on. “Carrick?”
    Again that tiny tension beneath her fingers.
    Could he hear her?
    Footsteps sounded outside the door. “What the devil?” a gruff voice muttered. “Bloody hell!” The door flew open to bang against the wall.
    Was it her imagination or did she again feel a reaction where her fingers touched the wounded man’s skin?
    “M’lady?” Sir Vernon the guard demanded. A big brute of a man, he’d already unsheathed his sword and was surveying the interior of the chamber as if he expected to be ambushed at any second. “What’re you doin’ here?”
    “I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted.
    “You shouldna come into this room alone, especially when I’m not at my post.” At his own admission some of the bristle seeped out of him. “I mean, I was just down the corridor, in the latrine takin’ a . . . Oh, m’lady, forgive me. I shouldna have left my station.”
    “ ’Tis all right,” she assured him, stepping away from the wounded man’s bed. “I let myself in and nothing is amiss.” She offered the guard her best smile. “Worry not, Sir Vernon.” Sliding one last glance at the man on the bed, she added, “I don’t think he will do anyone any harm for a long while.”
    “But if he’s Carrick of Wybren, he’s a murderin’ bastard and he canna be trusted.” Vernon pointed at the unmoving man with his sword and then, realizing the inanity of his actions, rammed his weapon into a sheath strapped to his thick waist.
    “I don’t think I have any concerns from him.”
    Vernon glowered, bushy eyebrows slamming over furious, dark eyes. “Even sleeping, Lucifer is dangerous.”
    “I suppose you’re right, Sir Vernon,” she said, though she wasn’t convinced the man was evil. Nor could she say for certain if he was Carrick. Only he, and perhaps his assailants, knew his true identity.
    So what if he is Carrick? What will you do then?
    “Good night, Sir Vernon,” she said.
    “And you, m’lady.” As if determined to prove his valor, Vernon stood with his feet apart, spine stiff as steel.
    Morwenna walked the few feet to her chamber, kicked the door closed, and flung herself onto her bed. What had she been thinking? What had she expected to learn by slipping into the man’s chamber? By touching him?
    Mort let out a soft woof, his tail pounding the covers for a second, and then he sighed loudly and slipped back into slumber.
    Absently Morwenna petted the dog’s thick ruff, but her thoughts were jumbled and far away. She owed Carrick nothing: no allegiance, no concern, and least of all love. Her lips compressed as she remembered the day he’d ridden away. Cowardly. Before dawn. Leaving her alone in the bed.
    She’d felt a breath of wind stir and had awoke to find him gone, the sheets where he’d lain still warm and rumpled, the small room where they’d taken shelter still smelling of the dying fire and the musk of the morning’s sex. She’d heard a cock crow as she’d walked to the window and imagined she’d seen him and his horse on the horizon, the fog shrouding his image, the pain in her heart so suddenly intense her knees buckled and she’d had to bite down on her lip not to cry out.
    She’d known then he wasn’t returning. Would never. And yet she’d gone after