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Arianne never heard even a footfall behind her before she was roughly grabbed.

She gasped, but before the scream could form in her throat, Nicholas’s hand clamped over her mouth.

“Easy—keep quiet,” he warned and pulled her through the door of the duchess’s anteroom and out into the cold stone corridor, up a short flight of stairs, to a low narrow hall.

She wasn’t familiar with this part of the castle, but Nicholas yanked her through a door and into a darkened chamber without hesitation.

Only when he’d kicked the door shut did he release her.

Nearly everyone in the castle was at supper in the great hall, dining on eggs in jelly and quince pie. It was the first chance Nicholas had found to catch her alone.

“We need to talk, and I couldn’t take the chance of being interrupted in the solar,” he informed Arianne curtly, trying not to notice how beautiful she looked tonight, in that flowing sea-green gown, her face flushed, her eyes huge and brilliant in the dusk.

He longed to remove that damned wimple and cap and watch her lovely hair float free, cascading down her back like a river of fire.

Longed to twine his fingers through the silk of it…

He snapped his attention back to the business at hand, frowning. This was no time for distractions.

“What is it?” Arianne asked, her heart still hammering in her throat as he turned away from her and lit candles atop a low chest. The room shimmered with a warm, pale light that flickered eerily across his darkly somber face.

“Ill news. We must act quickly. There’s no time to wait for your troops to arrive—or mine.”

Swiftly he explained what he’d overheard in Julian’s chambers.

“He’s planning to hang Marcus at dawn ?” Arianne felt the color draining from her face. Suddenly she sprang forward and grasped his arm. “Let’s go. Right now, Nicholas. We must free him tonight, even if we have to kill all the guards—I’ll need a sword.”

“Arianne, calm yourself.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “You’ve no need of a sword, for you’re staying far from the fray. The situation is under control.”

“Under control?” she flashed, her chin flying up. “How can you say that?”

“Do you want to hear my plan or not?”

She took a deep breath, summoning calm, and then nodded.

Her violet eyes flashed thoughtfully as she listened to him outline how he had already arranged with Sir Castor’s knights—the ones who had entered the castle with them—that they and Nicholas would enter the dungeon shortly before dawn and demand that the prisoners be given over to them.

They would say that Julian had ordered them to bring Count Marcus and the gypsy before him for a private exchange before the public hanging.

“Yes, oh, yes, that’s good.” A smile bloomed across her face. “And once you get him out?”

“Sir Castor’s men will have horses ready. They’ll make for the drawbridge with him and stop for nothing. I’ll remain here, still in disguise.”

“No, you must go, too,” Arianne cried, fear bright in her eyes as she stared up at him. “Nicholas, they’ll be hunting for you…”

“I’m not leaving without you. Or without bringing Julian to his knees,” he replied quietly.

His eyes lit with ruthless anticipation.

“I’ll wait until Marcus and the others have marshaled our combined forces.

When the signal for the attack is given, I’ll be well positioned to draw my sword against Duke Julian. ”

She was silent. The immense danger looming before them lay like a rock upon her heart. Through the flickering candlelight, she studied Nicholas’s face, the fierce scar, the harsh readiness in his gray hawk’s eyes.

“What can I do?” she asked steadily, suddenly realizing that after this night she might never see him again. Anything might happen once their plan was set in motion. Anything at all…Death could come swiftly to him, to Marcus, even to herself.

“Keep close to Duchess Katerine. If fighting breaks out, lock yourselves in her rooms and stay there—“He broke off, frowning. “I recognize that look, Arianne. You don’t intend to follow a word of my instructions, do you?”

Her chin lifted higher. Violet eyes locked with his gray ones, reflecting back an implacability every bit as firm as his. “I promise to look after Katerine as best I can, but if fighting breaks out, I will not hide in a corner. If I have a chance to run Duke Julian through, I’ll seize it!”

“All hell you will!” Nicholas dragged her to him with a roughness born of alarm. “You stay away from Julian. He’s ruthless and he would cut you down, woman or no, without a second glance.”

“Not if I drove a blade through his evil heart first!”

Fury swept across his face and smoldered in his eyes.

His fingers tightened around her wrists painfully, but Nicholas didn’t notice how fierce his grip was until she winced.

He let her go and stepped back, studying her with a darkening expression that had been known to strike terror into the hearts of armed and helmeted men. But she met his gaze unflinchingly.

“Arianne, if you don’t give me your word, I’ll have to lock you in the tower room. There’s no way in hell I’ll leave you to get yourself killed while I’m busy breaking Marcus out of the dungeon—“

“Tower room? What tower room?”

“Don’t change the subject,” he told her impatiently.

“I’m not, but…the gypsy said something to me about the tower room today. I’d forgotten about it until just now.”

“What did she say?”

“She just whispered something about the tower room. Oh, and something about the blue panel.”

Nicholas’s mouth tightened. “Now how would she know that? There is a secret door, opened by pressing on the blue panel near the stairway. Few know of the tower room. It is a sort of royal dungeon. My great-grandfather kept his enemy, the Earl of Axwith, a prisoner there for nearly three years until a kingly ransom was paid. One hundred years ago, a royal prisoner went mad after being confined there and threw himself out of the tower window onto the stone courtyard below. I thought at first that perhaps Julian would have kept Marcus there instead of in the dungeon.”

“He is not so thoughtful.” Arianne paced up and down the length of the small chamber, her feet whispering over the rushes. Candlelight gilded her hair, and the shadows thrown by her delicate strides played across her daintily elegant features. “I wonder why the gypsy told me of it,” she mused.

“Perhaps she knew that it was your destiny to be shut away there for the duration of this siege, if you will not give me your solemn oath to keep away from the danger.”

He gripped her around the waist, and without thinking his other hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back. “This is not a game, Arianne, and I won’t be put off. Your word.”

“I’ll try,” she told him, her voice quavering despite herself.

Damn him, the very touch of his hand upon her waist, the sensation of his fingers in her hair, were sending her senses spinning.

She fought to regain her equilibrium, but his nearness, the size and power and dark, wild ferocity of him had a dizzying effect that slurred her tongue even as she tried to fire back a sharp retort.

I’ll try? What kind of a weak, blathering response was that?

“But I shan’t run from an opportunity to repay Julian for all the suffering he’s brought…”

Nicholas made a sound like a growl deep in his throat and hauled her closer, holding her so tightly that she thought her ribs would crack.

“What am I going to do with you, woman?” he snarled, and Arianne, to steady herself from the thunderous emotions whirling through her, grasped his massive shoulders and spoke the first silly words that sprang to her lips.

“Kiss me as you did Marta!”

Dead silence shook the chamber. The candles hissed and sputtered. Shadows danced.

“Do…what? Like I did… who ?”

Now a blush as fiery as a rose swept across her cheeks. “Marta…my mother’s c-cousin. I saw you kiss her at a banquet that last time in Galeron…in the alcove. I was hiding.”

His eyes darkened, turning the color of night. “And?”

Staring into those eyes, held in those arms, Arianne felt a compulsion to speak the yearning in her heart, a foolish, idiotic yearning that had been hidden there for ten long years.

“I always wondered what it would be like were you to kiss me in that way,” she whispered.

She saw the astonishment cross his face, then a flicker of laughter, immediately followed by an indefinable gleam in those keen eyes. She saw a muscle pulse in his jaw.

“It is a knight’s duty to oblige a lady.” He shifted her up against him so that her mouth was only a breath away from his.

She wanted to run. Couldn’t. Wanted to tell him she’d changed her mind. Didn’t dare to. She found herself held in an iron grip, pinned against his towering and hard-muscled body.

She wanted this kiss. Oh, dear Lord, she wanted this kiss. Yet she feared appearing foolish, young, far too innocent. She didn’t know how to kiss him back. Where to put her hands, how to form her lips.

No one like Nicholas had ever kissed her before.

Breathless, she watched his face lower toward hers, felt herself drowning in those cool, oddly intense eyes that seemed to read her very soul.

“One kiss, Lady Arianne. One.”

Then his mouth descended upon hers, claiming it as a knight would claim a battlefield.

A shock like lightning quivering through a birch tree ran through her. A shimmering fire caught and held.

The kiss was gentle. But not so gentle that she didn’t feel the ripple of power from him, the control he was exercising, the deliberation. She wanted suddenly to startle him out of that control, to make him want her as she wanted him.

Her lips clung to his, parted, heat flaring from her to him, her arms circling his neck and tightening.