Adrienne stared in horrified fascination. Adam’s face was melting and redefining, and he looked more like her husband with every passing instant.

“Must I resort to such artifice? Is it the only way you’ll have me?”

Adrienne extended a shaking hand to touch his oddly morphing face. “A-adam, s-stop it!”

“Does this make you burn, Beauty? If I wear his face, his hands? For I will, if it does!”

You’re dreaming, she told herself. You’ve fallen asleep, and you’re having a really, really bad nightmare, but it will pass.

Adam’s hands were on her breasts and fingers of icy fire shivered a column of exquisite sensation through her spine … but it was not pleasure.

A dozen paces away the Hawk froze, mid-step, after barreling up the long bridge to the gardens. Line by line, muscle by muscle, his face became a mask of fury and pain.

How long had he been gone? A dozen hours? Half a day?

The wound he’d taken while saving her life burned angrily in his hand as his desire for her throbbed angrily beneath his kilt.

He forced himself to watch a long moment, to seal permanently upon his mind just what kind of fool he was to want this lass. To love her even as she betrayed him.

The smithy’s hard, bronzed body stretched the length of his wife’s sultry curves as they lounged on the fountain’s edge. His hands were twined in her silvery-blond mane and his mouth was locked on his wife’s yielding lips.

Hawk watched as she whimpered, hands frantic against the smithy in her need … as she pulled at his hair, frantically clawed at his shoulders.

Grass and flowers ripped from the fragrant earth beneath his boot as Hawk turned away.

Adrienne struggled for her sanity. “Go … back t-to whatever hell … from whence y-you c-c-came …” The words took every ounce of energy she still possessed and left her gasping limply for air.

The groping hands abruptly released her.

She fell off the ledge and landed in the fountain with a splash.

The cool water swept away the thick confusion instantly. She cringed in terror, waiting for the smithy’s hand to reach in for her, but nothing happened.

“A-Adam?”

A breath of puckish wind teased her chilled nipples through the thin material of her gown. “Oh!” she covered them hastily with her palms.

“A-Adam?” She called, a little stronger. No answer.

“Who are you, really?” she yelled furiously into the empty morning.

CHAPTER 24

IN HER DEPRESSION, ADRIENNE CONSIDERED NOT EATING. SHE wondered if they had cigarettes in 1513, reconsidered, and decided to eat instead.

Until she found the Scotch.

About time, she mused as she sat in his study and propped her feet on his desk. She poured a healthy dollop of the whisky into a cut-crystal tumbler and took a burning swallow. “Och,” she said to the desk thoughtfully, “but they do brew a fine blend, doona they?”

She spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in his sacred haven, hiding from the strange smithy’s advances, Lydia’s abiding concern, and her own heartache. She read his books as she watched the misty rain that started while she drained the tumbler of Scotch. He had fine taste in books, she thought. She could fall in love with a man who liked to read.

Later, when she rummaged through his desk, she told herself she had every right because she was his wife, after all. Letters to friends, from friends, to his mother while he’d been away sat neatly ribboned in a box.

Adrienne picked through the drawers, finding miniatures of the Hawk’s sister and brother. She discovered boyhood treasures that warmed her heart: a leather ball with often-repaired stitching, cunningly carved statues of animals, rocks and trinkets.

By her second glass of Scotch she was liking him entirely too much. Enough Scotch, Adrienne, and it’s long past time to eat something.

On unsteady legs she’d made her way to the Greathall.

“Wife.” The voice held no warmth.

Adrienne flinched and gasped. She spun around and found herself face-to-face with the Hawk. But he’d gone to Uster, hadn’t he? Apparently not. Her heart soared. She was ready to try, but something in his gaze unnerved her and she hadn’t the foggiest notion why. She narrowed her eyes and peered at him intently. “You look downright cantankerous,” she said. She emitted a squeak of fear when he lunged for her. “Wh-what are you doing, Hawk?”

His hands closed about her wrists with steely possession as he used his powerful body to force her back against the cool stone of the corridor.

“Hawk, what—”