He clawed at the rope, wrenching it in two with the sheer force of his desperation. Regan fell into his arms, cold and stiff where once she had been warm and pliant.

Cradling her to his breast, he sank to his knees and tipped back his head in a soundless howl of grief.

When Tabitha lowered her hands from her eyes, they were wet with tears. She rose to her feet, scrubbing roughly at her cheeks with her forearm. She was no Regan to manipulate a man with tears and accusations.

She stumbled to the window and pried away a rotted slat of shutter with her fingernails. Colin was nowhere in sight, but she could hear the rhythmic thunk of his axe biting into wood.

A stray sunbeam caressed the amulet, making it glisten in the murky light. Tabitha brushed the stone with her fingertips, understanding now why Colin had ordered Ewan to bind her wrists so loosely and leave her fingers free. If he returned to find the cottage empty and her returned to whatever mysterious place she had come from, he'd be spared the terrible burden of fulfilling his pledge to his people and his G.o.d. He'd be alone once more with only his regrets for company.

Consoled by an almost supernatural calm, Tabitha curled up in the windowsill, determined to do what Regan hadn't had the courage to do.

Be there when Colin came for her.

The moon floated over the clearing, chasing the shadows of twilight back to their mossy hollows. It was the first silvery flush of nightfall when the curtain between the seen and unseen worlds evaporated to nothing more than a gauzy veil, easily disturbed by a reckless mortal hand. Tabitha wouldn't have been surprised to see a band of fairy folk emerge from beneath their leafy stalks to caper around the stake in the middle of the clearing. It was a fine and st.u.r.dy stake, set deep in the ground, jutting boldly into the night. Its thick length had been hewn from the smooth trunk of an alder so as not to abrade the tender flesh of its victim. Moonlight laced the web of brush piled with painstaking care around its base. Tabitha had no doubt the brittle kindling had also been chosen with efficiency and comfort in mind. It would burn hot and fast, obliterating all trace of the woman condemned to writhe in its h.e.l.lish embrace.

Her executioner had been on his knees for a dark eternity. But instead of humbly bowing his head, he appeared to be locked in mortal combat with his creator. He'd thrown back his broad shoulders and tipped his face heavenward to search the black void of the sky. His tortured profile was both beautiful and terrible to behold, like a Renaissance fresco of a fallen angel battling to reclaim his rightful place in G.o.d's court.

When he finally bowed his head and climbed to his feet, Tabitha knew exactly who had lost the battle.

She stood in the center of the cottage, wanting to be on her feet when he came for her. She stood straight and tall, refusing to slump. Colin's G.o.d might be required to grant him mercy, but she wasn't.

He fumbled with the bolt, his hands robbed of their usual grace. His clumsiness betrayed just how much it would cost him to open that door.

When it finally swung open, Tabitha half expected to find a slender, dark-haired boy silhouetted against the moonlight. But it was a man's rugged shadow that fell across her, a man who held the power of life and death in his loosely coiled hands.

His resolute expression shielded the dismay he must have felt at discovering she hadn't accepted his invitation to vanish into thin air. He looped the trailing end of the rope around his fist, and gently led her across the dew-spangled gra.s.s to the stake that was to be her funeral pyre.

He refused to meet her eyes as he inclined his head and unknotted the ropes at her wrists.

"I have to admire you for sticking to your principles," she said lightly. "Where I come from, most men don't have any."

That earned her a smoldering scowl, the first he'd given her in that endless day. She didn't even struggle as he waltzed her backward to the stake, then went around to bind her hands behind her. His hot breath fanned her hair. It took him one, two, three tries to tighten the bonds to his satisfaction. By the time he was through, his hands were shaking harder than hers.

By not using the amulet to save herself, Tabitha knew she was taking a terrible chance. But for the first time in her life, she was compelled to put her faith in someone other than herself. If it turned out that she'd misjudged Colin, it would just be the ultimate screwup in a life devoted to s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up.

He came to stand in front of her, each of his movements labored, as if he'd aged a decade in the time it had taken to bind her to the stake.

"You are going to strangle me first, aren't you? I'd be very disappointed if you didn't. You've always impressed me as a stickler for protocol." Tabitha nursed an absurd flicker of hope. To strangle her he would have to touch her.

"You've left me no choice," he said hoa.r.s.ely. " 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' "

" 'Thou shalt not kill,' " she shot back at him, thankful she'd memorized at least that one commandment.

He paced a few steps away, as if refusing to look at her was becoming more and more of a challenge. "Have you any words to offer in your defense?"

It put a strain on her shoulders, but Tabitha still managed to shrug. "I always paid off my credit cards before the interest came due."

"Stop mocking me," he roared, spinning around to glare at her.

Her hope flared into triumph. "Or you'll what? Choke me to death, then burn my corpse to ashes?"

When Colin strode forward and seized her by the throat, she thought he was going to do exactly that. But his desperate grip was tempered by gentleness, his voice low and pleading. "Deny it, my lady! Deny the charge of witchcraft and I'll free you. Even if it should cost me my eternal soul. Deny it and I'll send you on your way. You will never lay eyes on my face again."

Her helpless gaze traced his stubborn chin, that deliciously soft lower lip. How could she tell him that was the one threat she feared more than death?

She longed to do as he said, if only for his sake, but she'd spent her entire life living a lie. If Arian were there at that moment, Tabitha hoped her mother would appreciate the fact that she was willing to die for something she'd always resented. She'd finally come to realize that her supernatural powers were as much a part of her as her size ten feet and the bland color of her hair.

"I can't deny it," she said softly. "Not even for you."

Despair darkened his eyes. His hands drifted upward, freeing the feathery strands of her hair from Magwyn's ribbon until they fell in a soft cloud around her face. Tabitha tipped her head back, unable to resist his tender seduction. He cupped her throat in his palms, pressing his powerful thumbs to the pulse that beat in its fragile hollow.

"Close your eyes," he rasped.

Tabitha couldn't have said why she obeyed a" to spare him the agony of watching the spark of life fade from her eyes or to blot out the sight of his beautiful, merciless face. His grip tightened. Her lashes fluttered downward as she waited to die at the hands of the man she loved.

It wasn't death that came out of the darkness, but Colin's kiss. His lips seized hers with a fierceness that made her gasp. He took advantage of her shock by driving his tongue even deeper into her mouth, kindling a fire of another kind a" dark, erotic, and all-consuming. She writhed in its flames, feeling as wild and wanton as the G.o.dless creature he thought her to be.

Wondering dreamily if he intended to kiss her to death, she surged against the bonds, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s straining against his chest, her nipples abraded to exquisite sensitivity by the rough linen of Magwyn's gown. He pressed her backward until she was pinioned between the stake and the unyielding length of male flesh throbbing beneath his hose. As the flames licked lower, Tabitha moaned in mingled terror and delight.

She had not forgotten that she was in the thirteenth century and wearing no underwear. A less honorable man in this century or any other would have shoved up her gown and dragged her astride him then and there. There were no witnesses and he had only to burn the evidence of his hypocrisy.

But Colin was, above all else, an honorable man.

Tabitha sagged against the stake as he stumbled away from her, his golden eyes reflecting the fierce war being waged within him. "Truly, my lady, you have bewitched me! d.a.m.n you!"

Tabitha might have laughed if his expression hadn't been so desperate. He hadn't even looked at the Big Macs with such unabashed yearning. "According to you, I'm already d.a.m.ned, aren't I? But that doesn't stop you from wanting me, does it?"

"And why should it? You've used your dark arts to enchant me from the first moment I laid eyes on you."

She had to laugh at this absurd accusation. "Which of my charms couldn't you resist, Colin? Was it the way my flannel pajamas bunched between my thighs when I walked or the fact that my breath smelled like spearmint toothpaste?"

"'Twas the way the sunlight shimmered in your hair, the way you smelled so fresh and clean a" like soap and woman mingled into some intoxicating perfume no mortal man could resist."

Tabitha thought the blush she felt crawling up her body might ignite the kindling and incinerate her. Colin stood like a sorcerer in the moonlight, weaving his own incantation. She was mesmerized nearly as much by the movement of his lips as his husky words.

"'Twas the way you smiled so boldly to hide your fear of me, the grace with which you shoved my sword away from your heart, though your hand trembled with terror. 'Twas your foolhardy courage when you defied Brisbane on my behalf without a care for your own life."

"I thought you hated me for that," she whispered.

"I did. Nearly as much as I wanted you."

Tabitha Lennox, who had always thought of herself as plain and clumsy and cowardly, was horrified to feel a tear tumble from her lashes. Colin's blunt confession had robbed her of her sarcasm a" the only weapon she had left in her pitiful a.r.s.enal. She began to struggle against the ropes in earnest, desperate to swipe away the tear before he saw it. But another followed it, then another, until they were trickling down her cheeks in a steady stream. She hung her head and sniffled in shame.

Colin tipped her chin up and peered into her face.

"What manner of trickery is this? Tis common knowledge witches cannot weep."

Tabitha gave him a watery glare, but her voice still broke on a strangled sob. "They can if you're breaking their heart."

Both bewildered and beguiled, he touched her cheek with shattering gentleness, smearing a salty teardrop with his thumb before bringing it to his lips. As he tasted her tears, an expression of helpless wonder surged across his face.

"Oh, Tabitha," he whispered. "My brave, sweet, beautiful witcha"

His kiss was different from any that had come before it. Losing none of its eloquence, his tongue swirled over her lips, begging her pardon, coaxing her to part them and let him taste the balm of her forgiveness. When she did, he deepened his kiss, drawing her lower lip into his mouth and tenderly suckling.

All the while he was kissing her, his hands were working at the knots of her bonds until all she had to do when they fell away was melt into his arms.

Chapter 18.

Colin scooped her up as if she weighed no more than Jenny and carried her toward the cottage. Tabitha buried her tear-streaked face against his throat, inhaling the leathery spice of his skin. He kicked the cottage door open and laid her down on the threadbare mattress as if it were a bed of roses. She supposed it should have bothered her that Colin and Regan had once shared that same mattress, but the present was too precious to allow it to be overshadowed by the past or the future.

As he stood over her, unbuckling his belt of braided silver, his eyes smoldered with a hunger that took her breath away. "There's no help for it, my lady. If you're to burn, then we shall burn together."

He drew his tunic over his head, rumpling his dark hair. The sight of his bare chest made Tabitha's mouth go dry with want. He'd been a stranger to her less than a week ago, but now she ached to know his body the same way she knew her own. Every crisp, curling hair, every pale scar, every delectable inch of it.

Embracing the role of wanton enchantress, she seized his hand and pulled him down on top of her. He succ.u.mbed to her bidding without a struggle, sinking into a wet, openmouthed kiss that should have qualified as a s.e.x act all by itself. Then, as if to atone for that bit of naughtiness, he tenderly sipped the last traces of tears from her cheeks. As his lips nuzzled her cheeks, her eyelids, the sensitive cleft above her upper lip, Tabitha sighed, adrift on a sea of bliss.

When her eyes fluttered open, Colin was gazing down at her, his face somber in the moonlight streaming through the open door. "Would you lay with me, my lady?"

She had expected a mandate, not an invitation. The humble entreaty of this powerful man touched a chord deep in her soul. Threading her fingers through his hair, she whispered, "I would be honored, sir."

She expected him to kiss her again, but he surprised her by drawing her up and gently wrestling Magwyn's gown over her head. Before Tabitha could prepare herself for the shock, she was in his arms wearing nothing but the amulet. Her palms darted from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the toffee-colored curls at the juncture of her thighs, then back again. Knowing she must look utterly ridiculous, she finally contented herself with fluffing up her hair.

Colin studied her with blatant fascination before offering her a crooked grin that made her heart thud dully in her ears. "I've never seen a woman blush all over. 'Tis a most enchanting trait."

"Why, thank you," she replied breathlessly.

He drew her close for a kiss, but she pushed at his muscled shoulders. "Not so fast. I'm afraid my advanced state of nudity puts me at a distinct disadvantage."

He arched one eyebrow at her. "And what would you suggest we do about that?"

She gave his hose a nervous nod, utterly captivated by this wickedly playful Colin. "You might dispose of those."

"Very well, my lady. Your wish is my com a" "

Tabitha clapped a hand over his mouth, shaking her head in warning. He simply kissed her palm and nodded, rea.s.suring her that the time to discuss that particular quandary would come later. Much later.

As Colin drew off his boots, then untied the points of his hose and peeled them off, Tabitha's facade of sophistication shattered. Her first instinct was to recoil and protest that he was crazy if he thought he was going to put that thing anywhere in her. But her bout of maidenly horror was overwhelmed by a compulsion to touch him, to run her trembling fingertips along the velvety shaft springing so boldly from its nest of dark curls. So she did. And although she would have sworn it was impossible, she felt him lengthen and thicken even more beneath her touch.

With a heartrending groan, he tore himself away from her. He sat on the edge of the mattress and buried his head in his hands, breathing as if he'd been wrestling a dragon.

Tabitha gazed helplessly at the moon-gilded curve of his back, fighting the urge to weep with frustration. Had she, in her ignorance, done something unacceptable? Had she feinted left when she should have dodged right?

Practically forgetting that she was naked, she crept up beside him and gently touched his shoulder. "Was it something I said?"

He lifted his head, his expression haunted enough to frighten her anew. " Tis not you, Tabitha. Tis me."

Without even thinking about it, Tabitha blurted out the worst fear of any single woman living alone in New York City. "Oh, G.o.d, you're not gay, are you?"

He slanted her a strange look. "No, I'm rather morose at the moment."

Tabitha might have laughed with relief if his expression hadn't been so glum. She waited for him to elaborate.

"If I had been able to resist Regan when she offered herself to me, she might not have died. 'Twas my own voracious carnal appet.i.tes that cost an innocent girl her life."

A shiver of mingled apprehension and delight danced down Tabitha's spine. Would she be woman enough to satisfy those appet.i.tes?

"Despite those appet.i.tes" a" he shook his head as if to clear it a" "no, because of them, I swore an oath of celibacy before I took up the cross. I vowed to keep myself chaste as long as I was marching beneath the banner of the Lord. So while others sought out wh.o.r.es to relieve their baser needs, I was on my knees. Praying for fort.i.tude," he added wryly.

She frowned, touched and confused by his confession. "I don't understand. If you've been celibate for the last six years, what were you doing in all those Egyptian brothels?"

He rolled his eyes heavenward. "Waiting for Arjon."

Tabitha didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She couldn't help but appreciate the irony of a virgin trying to seduce a celibate.

She patted his shoulder. "Don't be afraid. It's probably just like riding a" a" she rejected "bicycle" and "camel," then fumbled for a more appropriate reference a" "horse. It'll all come back to you once you begin."

His eyes sparkled with amus.e.m.e.nt as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "I haven't forgotten what to do, my lady. 'Tis simply that I want you so desperately I fear 'twill be over before it's begun."

Tabitha sighed, her heart melting along with various other nether regions of her body. "Oh, Colin. I don't mind a little urgency. There'll be plenty of time for the rest later."

But would there be? She tried to ignore a pang of doubt. If the amulet had taught her anything, it was just how capricious time could be.

Determined to set both her mind and his own at ease, she smiled brightly. "Let's just get on with it, shall we?"

She lay back on the mattress and squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the medieval version of "wham-bam-thank-you-wench."

"What in the holy name of St. Andrew are you doing?"

She opened one eye to find Colin scowling down at her. "Waiting for you to make love to me."

"You look more like you're waiting for the blacksmith to pull a tooth."

Sighing, she opened both eyes. Shouldn't he look more pleased that she'd decided to suffer his l.u.s.ty mauling with such good grace? "I haven't forgotten that you're a semibarbarian, you know. You've never had the chance to read Cosmo so it wouldn't be fair of me to expect you to label all my erogenous zones or know precisely which b.u.t.ton to push to drive me wild with desire."

She'd never seen that one expressive eyebrow of his shoot quite so high. "No, I don't suppose it would." He leaned over her, the thoughtful gleam in his eyes making her quiver with alarm. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps you should just close your eyes and suffer my brutish attentions without complaint."

Tabitha obeyed, if somewhat suspiciously.

"And don't open them," he whispered, brushing his warm lips down the side of her throat. "No matter what I do to you."

His husky voice ignited a dark shiver of antic.i.p.ation. As he nuzzled the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat, a dreamy languor melted through her limbs.