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This time it was Frida that exclaimed out loud when the blade sliced through the rope. Callum rotated his ankles but otherwise stayed still. She could feel his eyes fixed on her, burning the back of her neck.

“Thank you,” he said. “I should have said it before.”

“’Tis nothing.” Her reply was automatic.

She rose awkwardly to her feet and fetched her basket, bringing the candle closer and setting it on the floor by Callum’s feet.

“Wait while I check your ankle.” Carefully, she removed his boot, rolled his breeches up over his bulging calf and probed all around his ankle joint.

His flesh was hot to the touch. “I do not believe it is broken,” she declared.

“I shall pack it with dried comfrey to bring down the swelling.”

She half expected a protest, but his response was soft. “Thank you.”

She worked quickly, tying a clean bandage around his foot and ankle and replacing his boot. All the while, he stayed still and quiet, his eyes burning into her.

She could not avoid his gaze as she turned to face him, and her breath vanished from her lungs as their eyes met in the candlelight. Callum’s stance was passive, but his expression blazed with feeling.

Feelings that she shared—but that she dared not release from the barricades of her heart.

“Are you injured elsewhere?” she asked, forcing the words out. “Aside from your head?”

He shook his head slowly.

“I should have brought warm water,” she said almost to herself, leaning forward to examine the wound.

“Leave it,” he said throatily.

“I cannot.”

“The bleeding has stopped. ’Tis naught but a scratch.”

“A scratch that felled you, knocking you into unconsciousness.”

“Aye.” He caught hold of her hand, their fingers entwining as if they had minds of their own. “Your brother knows how to land a kick.”

His voice was light but the memory was still too sharp-edged and terrible for her to raise a smile. She looked down at their joined hands and tears filled her eyes.

The only way through this was as a healer.

“Infection may set in. The cut should be cleaned and covered in honey.”

“Nay, Frida.” Now his fingers travelled along the inside of her wrist, sending shivers of anticipation down her spine. “You would not send me out into the night with my head dripping with honey, would you?”

This time, she smiled. “Mayhap you are right.”

“I am right.” He drew her closer, so she was sitting within the circle of his embrace. It was the most natural thing in the world to rest her cheek against the sold warmth of his chest and close her eyes.

“Where will you go?”

“I cannot tell you.” His reply was instantaneous. When she pulled pack to gaze at him questioningly, his eyes were soft. “You don’t think this question will be asked of you, come the morn? You don’t think your brother will know if you are keeping this information from him?”

Tears leaked from her eyes. “Again, you are right.”

“I wish it were not so.”

“There is nothing to be gained in wishing for the impossible.” She knew this of old.

“You have given me back my life. I am forever in your debt.” He pulled her hands over his chest. “You will live forever in my heart.”

Before she could think of a response, he had risen to his feet.

He was about to leave and suddenly, she could not bear it.

“Wait,” she commanded, scrabbling upwards, ungainly and awkward after spending so long on the hard earth floor.

Again, she anticipated resistance, but Callum turned towards her almost eagerly.

“What is it?”

“One last kiss,” she dared to say, walking towards him across the empty room. “One last kiss to remember you by.”

He seized her like a drowning man offered a lifeline.

His hands were at once around her waist and in her hair, gathering her close.

Their lips joined together hungrily, melding as one in a kiss that increased in intensity with every heartbeat.

This would be the last time she stood in Callum’s arms, the last time she tasted him, the last time his hands caressed her body; Frida could not bear to step away.

Instead, she pulled him closer, gasping as his stubble rasped the tender flesh of her neck while kissing him back with an urgency she had never before experienced.

“Frida,” he said, simply.

And she understood what he meant.

“Yes,” she said, shaking with passion and her own daring. She tugged on his hand, trying to lead him towards the rug.

He stood unmoving. “We should not.”

She rested her palms at either side of his face, tilting her head back so she could gaze into his eyes. “I would have you, once, before you leave forever. I will be yours forever in my heart. Let me be yours just this once, in the flesh.”

Her words seemed to free him of doubt. Now it was Callum who led Frida over to the woollen rug, which he spread out on the earth floor before laying her gently upon it.

“I love you,” he said, his face hovering over hers.

“I love you, too.” The words were easy to say, because they were true.

He dipped his head and claimed her lips, softly now, as if they had all the time in the world.

His expert hands made light work of the fastenings of her dress while she pulled at his tunic until, at last, her palms encountered the hard plane of muscles over his stomach.

Her traitorous mind recalled Callum’s words the last time they had embraced with such passion.

When he said they would not come together without a comfortable bed and a roaring fire.

Without being husband and wife.

For a moment, grief lodged in her throat and threatened to overwhelm her. Callum immediately noticed that something was wrong.

“What is it?”

“Ignore me,” she half sobbed.

He stretched out beside her, washed golden by the candlelight. “I cannot ignore you, Frida.” His finger traced the line of her cheek. “Not at any time, but least of all now.”

She rose up on her elbow to look at him fully. “I only wish we had more time.”

But as she gazed down at the warrior beneath her, his tunic untied to reveal the scars and sinews of his powerful shoulders, another feeling overcame her.

This time, it was she who lowered her head to drop a kiss on his waiting lips, her hands that pushed aside fabric to explore warm and willing flesh.

His body was long and taut with muscle, so different from hers.

She pressed her lips to the hollows of his clavicle whilst her palms slid down until they encountered the part of him that was most swollen with need.

His breath came in a gasp and she tightened her fingers around him, revelling for a moment in the feeling of power this gave her.

By now she was clothed in only her shift, a thin cotton thing that did nothing to lessen the thrill of feeling the heat from Callum’s body.

He unfastened the laces to free her small breasts, kissing and caressing until she moaned with desire.

Then he rolled them both, until she laid back on the rough woollen rug with him positioned above her.

When his warm hand stroked her inner thigh and found her curls, she moaned again, knowing this was exactly what she’d been yearning for.

As he slid a finger inside her, she thought she might implode from the sharp, exquisite pleasure of it.

But that was nothing to when he entered her fully.

At first, she knew a stab of pain, but Callum stilled above her until her body relaxed around him.

Then came a feeling totally different to anything she had known before.

They were as one, and she felt complete as never before.

He rocked slowly, filling her up, introducing waves of sensation that robbed her of all notions of time and place.

There was only Callum. Only now. She clung to him as the tension built inside her, not understanding where it would lead her, only knowing that she wanted more.

When he took her over the edge, she wrapped her legs around his back and dug her fingernails into his shoulders, pulling him as deeply into her as he could possibly be.

He said her name, his lips pressed against her neck as his body tensed one final time. Then it was over and they clung to one another as their breathing and pulse rate slowed.

She rested her head against his chest, slotting against him as if she was home. But reality was already asserting itself and Frida’s face soon grew wet with tears.

Callum gently stroked them away with his thumbs. “Did I hurt you?” His voice was rough with concern.

“Nay.” She shook her head. “All that pains me is the knowledge that you must leave me.” She wanted to bury her face in his shoulders and hide from the truth, but they both knew that in a few hours, dawn would break and it would be too late for him to make his escape.

“I must leave,” he stated bleakly, echoing her thoughts. “I do not think I can do it.”

“You must,” she whispered, furious at the very notion of anything else. “Before the guard awakens.”

His face was drawn as he leaned in for one last kiss. “I will ne’er forget you, Frida de Neville.”

“Nor I you.” She pulled away before emotions could get the better of her again, knowing it would be selfish to sob and force words of comfort from him.

Any comfort there was, they had already taken.

He rose onto his knees as he fastened his tunic. “Will you go first, Frida?”

Still laying on the rug, she shook her head. “I will stay and watch you go.”

He dropped down, one hand on either side of her. “That I cannot do. I will not walk away from this place knowing you are here, on your own, in the dark. You must return safe to your bedchamber in the hall. Only then will I go.”

“’Tis misplaced chivalry, Callum. I am the mistress here. I am in no danger.”

She expected a speech about danger lurking around every corner. But he only traced a finger over her lips. “Do this one last thing for me, please.”

How could she refuse him? E’en though it would break her heart to be the one to walk away.

She pushed herself up onto her elbow, hating to leave the warmth of the rug.

“How will you get past the guards on the gate?” Fresh worry forced her voice to wobble.

She had thought that drugging the guard would be the greatest challenge, but now she saw that many obstacles lay in Callum’s path to freedom.

“Do not fret about that. Come the morn, you will rise from your bed and I will be gone.” His eyes were molten in the candlelight.

“That in itself is enough for me to fret over.” She forced herself to be brisk as she pulled back on her crumpled dress. Callum’s gentle hands soothed her trembling as he moved aside her hair to secure the fastenings.

“I cannot think of you worrying. Promise me that you will find a way to be happy.”

“I will try,” she lied, forcing a smile to her lips as she turned to face him. “Go well, Callum.”

It was woefully little to say, when her heart burst with so much more. But words of fondness and farewell had already been spoken between them. She could not bear to utter them again.

If she said goodbye, her heart might splinter entirely.

He pulled her to him for an embrace that was short and tight.

“God’s blessing be upon you, Frida, for the rest of your days.”

She blinked at his unanticipated spirituality, but Callum was already turning away from her. With a surge of sorrow, she understood that their time together had come to an end.

This was the moment she must leave.

And although every fibre of her being resisted, Frida forced her feet to carry her out of the bakehouse, past the sleeping guard and through the icy paths of the courtyard. Her breath plumed before her and the cold wrapped fingers of steel about her body, but Frida did not care.

It was her heart that was cold now—and it would remain so forevermore.