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In a surge of fury, he rose to his feet. “I am Hugh de Florisoun. I am the living embodiment of chivalry!”

“Sure you are.” It gave her great satisfaction to layer her words with derision. At the same time, she hustled toward him and wrapped her arm around his. “Now lie down before you start bleeding.”

“You doubt me?”

His knees began to shake, and she answered hastily, “I don’t doubt your honor, Hugh. Now let me help you to lie down.”

“I offered you marriage in all seriousness and in solemn belief in the justice of my suit”—he sank to the floor, dragging her with him—“and you mock me?”

She eased him around until his rump touched the mat. “’Twas my mistake. I have seen men who live by the code of chivalry.” She guided him back toward that hated pillow. “But not for a long, long time.”

She had her arms around his shoulders, one hand supporting his head, just as if he were a baby—or a lover. She should have grasped the simple truth—that he hadn’t lived so long or prospered so well by not seizing opportunity when it manifested itself.

In a tone heavy with sensuality, he whispered her name. “Edlyn.”

When she looked down and caught the expression on his face, she knew she was in trouble. She had presented herself on a platter.

Should she drop him and run? Or should she tend to his well-being? She’d worked too long and hard to drop him, but that confident expression he wore irked her. She got him within a finger’s width of the pillow and let go. Her action was not enough to hurt but enough to give warning she wouldn’t be easy.

She tried to jump back. He already had his arms around her, and he used that off-balance position to tip her forward and onto him. She collapsed on his chest and he groaned.

“Serves you right,” she said, struggling to elbow her way up. “I don’t want this.”

“Be ruthless.” He just kept blocking her, expending as little of his precious energy as possible while she exhausted herself. “Hit my wound.”

She couldn’t do it. She wanted to so badly, but she just couldn’t take him back to the edge of death. Instead she balled her fist and tried to hit his face. He caught her by the fingers and gripped. She struggled, and when she flagged, he grasped the back of her head and held her still for his kiss.

He tried to use his tongue, and that infuriated her all over again. Who did he think he was? Her long-lost love?

Well, he should have stayed lost.

And who did he think she was? A lady of easy virtue?

Her tight-lipped resistance must have given him the message, for he let her pull back her head. She tried to scramble away again, but he handled her with great care, rolled onto his good side, and tucked her half under him.

He was so calm, so deliberate! How could a man who’d been so near death just a few days ago restrain her, a healthy woman? A little alarm worked into her voice as she struggled. “This…is…not…right.”

“I’m just going to kiss you, and that is right between couples who have pledged to wed.”

“I’ve made no such pledge.”

“You’ll see the good sense of it soon.”

He said it as if it were the truth. As if her objections meant nothing. As if she were nothing but a silly lady who needed a man to tell her how to live her life! Worse, he probably believed it, the dunce.

With one thigh anchoring her down, he controlled her. He got rid of her wimple first. The covering slipped easily off her head, and his fingers caught in the fine, straight strands that had escaped her braid. Holding the braid aloft, he stared at it.

“Stop that!” She grasped his wrist.

He looked at her, pressed between the floor and his body. “I remember seeing this, all unbound, in the light of a fire, and seeing you, too, wearing nothing.”

“I wore something! I wore a—” She stopped talking.

Too late. Satisfaction curved his mouth, and she snapped, “What else do you remember?”

He didn’t answer. He just leaned forward and brushed her lips with his. She kept her eyes open, and when he lifted his head, she said, “First you try to sweep me away. Then you try gentleness. What’s your next tactic?”

She must have betrayed an emotion better concealed, for he replied, “Gentleness will do what I wish.”