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could not know…”
    Shame suffused her face and voice. Head bowed, she addressed him in a voice rife with mortification.
    “Are you Templar or Hospitaller or parish priest come on pilgrimage?”
    Simon couldn’t lie, but the truth tasted like gall on his lips. “I am none of those. Yet.”
    Her head came up. “How say you?”
    “I am pledged to the Knights of the Temple, but there wasn’t time for my induction before I took ship.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “So you’re still an aspirant? Not bound by the rules of the order?”
    “I’ve chosen to live by those rules until such time as I wear the cross.”
    “But you’re not bound?” She gathered her skirts in both hands and pushed to her feet. “Say me no lie, Simon de Rhys. Are you bound or not?”
    “No.”
    Her head went back. Her nostrils flared. Determination and what looked like desperation darkened her cinnamon-colored eyes.
    “Then you need me now even more than before. To be accepted as a Knight of the Temple, you must supply your own armor, warhorse and riding mount along with a squire to see to your needs and mules to transport your equipment.”
    “I’m well aware of the requirements,” he replied, his jaw tight.
    He’d brought all that and more aboard the ship transporting him to Outremer. But his squire had been swept overboard during the fierce storm that had claimed more than a dozen other desperate pilgrims. Then, just days later, the accursed corsairs had attacked. Simon had battled ferociously until their sheer numbers had overwhelmed him and he’d gone down, struck from behind by a mace. When he’d awoken, he’d been in chains. His sword and the mail surcoat he’d had forged to fit him were gone, of course. And God alone knew who now rode the magnificent warhorse he’d won in the lists.
    The loss of his squire and mount had eaten at him almost as much as the loss of his freedom. Yet none of those disasters could presage the devil’s choice this slender, pale-haired siren now offered him.
    “The decision is yours,” she said stonily. “Lie with me this night and I will supply all you need to join the ranks of the Templars. Or you may serve me here at Fortemur until you’ve repaid the cost of your purchase.”
    As he had but hours ago at the swaying rope bridge, he faced a choice between two rocky, untried paths. He could take this woman, as he now wanted most fiercely to do so and leave on the morrow to fulfill his father’s vow. Or he could serve her for a year or more, let his father rot away and put his own soul at risk.
    His eyes cold and his heart like flint, Simon made his choice. “Remove your robes.”

Chapter Three
    J ocelyn’s throat went as dry as the deserts crossed by the endless caravans bringing silks and spices from Eastern lands. This cold edict had formed no part of her careful plan.
    She’d thought… Assumed…
    What? That he would drag open the heavy bed curtains, tumble her to the silken coverlet and lift her skirts? That it would be quickly done, and quickly put behind her?
    She had not reasoned this enforced mating through, she now realized. Obviously, it would require some effort on her part that she had not anticipated.
    Frowning, she cast back through her mind. She might be a virgin, but many of her ladies were wedded. She’d also overheard more than one giggling maid whispering to another. Such frank and often ribald talk of what one must sometimes do to bring a bedmate to hardness now burned in Jocelyn’s mind.
    Apparently this one needed to see her naked to stiffen his lance. So be it. Naked she would get. Yet as she unwound the linen band that framed her face, her nerves were all ajangle and she could scarce draw breath.
    One night, she reminded herself fiercely. One night with this man was a hundred times, nay, ten thousand times better than a lifetime walled up with bored, idle women. Women who, if the rumors were true, must needs pleasure themselves since they so rarely went to their