...The villagers, ever curious of their neighbors’ doings, soon talked of Alaric’s courtship of Elsbeth.

Theirs wasn’t an incorrect supposition. Talk soon turned to kissing in the concealing shadows of the village’s neighboring stand of trees. Tentative at first, she’d finally shed her reserve and returned Alaric’s kisses with a passion long hidden. Elsbeth, on the cusp of spinsterhood by Ney standards, had experienced her share of kisses, but none like these. Alaric kissed her with his body, not just his mouth. He was generous in his affections but not overwhelming, always taking what she gave him, only asking for more in small portions.

“You are too good to be true,” she teased him one evening. They sat together on a flat rock overlooking the stream that gave her village its name. Elsbeth savored the warmth within the circle of his arms. His chest was a solid wall against her back, his heartbeat a faint and soothing lullaby.

“You mean I didn’t live up to your first assumptions.” His voice was somber, no reciprocal teasing lightening his tones.

Elsbeth shifted so she could see his face. The play of moonlight brought his features into high relief, accentuating the cut of his cheekbones and line of his nose. He stared at her with eyes that drank the light.

“No,” she said, her face heating at the mild rebuke in his tone. “You don’t. And I was wrong to make such assumptions.” She stroked his neck, the hollow of his throat. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I judged you by the behavior and crimes of others before you.”

“And yet, I follow their path, Beth. I sit here with a village woman in my arms, one with no protector save an old man half-crippled with a bone sickness.” Alaric slid a finger under her chin and tilted her face to him. “I won’t lie, Beth. I want you. Want to make love to you, want to mount you here on this rock, feel your legs around me as I take you.” He smiled briefly at her wide-eyed surprise. “I’d tell you I loved you if I thought you’d believe me. But loving you won’t keep me here, no matter how much I wish it otherwise. I can only be what you first condemned me with in your eyes—a man wanting a woman so badly he can taste her, and no future to offer her. I will leave Ney-by-the-Water in two days.”

Elsbeth, caught in a tangle of emotion, closed her eyes. Desire, despair, anger, elation—all these things ran through her at once. His words, seductive in their graphic honesty, made her ache. She wanted those things, too, wanted more than to recline here in his arms. Her elation over his oblique reference to loving her fell before the knowledge she had only two more days with him.

The fates are laughing now, she thought. Elsbeth Weaver, so proud, so sure of her own heart and intelligence that she’d not be taken by the smooth charm of a handsome nomad, had fallen deeply in love with one. Knowingly, willingly. And she did not regret it for a moment.

Elsbeth turned fully in Alaric’s arms so that she faced him on her knees. “You’re not like them,” she said. “You’ve seduced me with your honesty, not your lies.” She smiled when his eyes flared. “You can’t give me a future. But are you willing to give me two days?”

He didn’t return her smile, but his hand rode her back, pulling her closer until she fell against him. The intensity in his voice made her shiver. “We can live a life in two days, Beth.” He stared at her. “Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”