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man who will rule you with an iron hand.”
    Brianna’s heart sank.
    “You are dismissed, Bedford.”
    Brianna’s heart lifted slightly.
    “Go straight to the chapel and confess your sins to Brother Bartholomew.”
    Brianna’s heart sank hopelessly. She would have to attend vespers and wait until he had finished the service before she could confess.
    All the light had gone from the day before Brianna could seek the refuge of her chambers. With every step she plotted her revenge. She would paint her dragon with Dame Marjorie’s features!
    Her mother’s sister, Adele, who had accompanied her from Bedford as her waiting-woman, opened her chamber door. She was Irish, but it had been Brianna’s mother who was the beauty of the family. Adele was covered with freckles and her hair was the color of straw. She had resigned herself to being an old maid though she was only twenty-nine. “Oh, my lamb, wherever have ye been? Someone’s been in here doing mischief while I was visiting the royal nursery to glimpse the new baby princess.”
    Brianna flew to her worktable beneath the leaded window. Her parchment lay in ruins. Spilled paint obliterated the exquisite sketch of her dragon and the carefully scripted legend of St. George. She gazed through the darkened window with unseeing eyes, angry at the injustice of life. She had taken the blame for her friend and been rewarded by having her artwork ruined. In a moment of self-pity her eyes flooded and a lone tear rolled down her cheek. A minute later she dashed it away with impatient hands, her Irish sense of humor coming to her rescue. “No good deed shall go unpunished.” Her laughter bubbled out irrepressibly. “Remember that, Adele.”
    Brianna often used laughter to mask her sensitivity and vulnerability. Laughter was a most alluring quality in awoman. Men were attracted to her because of her laugh, which gave them a delicious foretaste of her innate sensuality.
    As she drifted off to sleep, a smile curved her lips as a tall figure stepped into her dream and beckoned. Desire overwhelmed her. This knight who came to her dreams was utterly irresistible. She went to him willingly, wanting him to touch her, to kiss her, to carry her off to a secret place. As the distance between them closed, she realized they were on the parapet of a strange castle. He reached out a powerful hand and lifted a tear from her cheek with the tip of his finger. Brianna laughed up into his face, and as she had hoped, he could not resist the sensual curve of her smiling lips.
    His mouth on hers felt glorious. She had never experienced anything to equal the deep pleasure she received from the touch and the taste of him. When he enfolded her in his arms and pressed his hard body against hers, she thought she might die of joy. She sighed with longing as his image began to dissolve, then moved restlessly in her sleep. Her palm cupped her full breast where the hand of her phantom knight had touched her so possessively only a moment before. She sighed again. This time she had seen his eyes. They were a startling aquamarine!

A t the castle of St. Lô, Christian Hawksblood kept his mouth closed and his ears and eyes open. The talk was all of war with England. Though there was a truce, it would be broken the moment that the King of France had assembled a large enough fleet.
    He had been taught his fighting skills by Norman knights who had imparted history and hatred for the French in equal measure. Hawksblood was a mercenary at the moment, until now selling his sword to the highest bidder. Because he had ambivalent feelings toward France and England, two lands he’d never seen, he had decided to visitthem before he pledged his sword in the inevitable war that had been threatening for years.
    England had held all the western and southern provinces of France since Eleanor of Aquitaine wed Henry Secund, two centuries ago, and there had been fierce fighting along the borders ever since. Philip of France was