Desired by Virginia Henley Page B

his side. Though she tried, Brianna found she could not take her eyes from him. He wore a crimson silk jupon with the spread wings of a black hawk rising in full flight. His dark face was exceedingly masculine, his compelling eyes were brilliant splinters of aquamarine.
    All Brianna’s senses were heightened. She smelled her own freesia perfume mixing with the man’s body scent of sandalwood. Her own colors of jade, turquoise, and emerald were suddenly brilliant, as if she were bathed in sunlight.
    Christian was stunned. It was
she
!
    His eyes widened at the breath-stopping beauty of her. His nostrils flared at her provocative woman’s scent. His body quickened at the memory of her naked flesh cloaked in her golden, ankle-length hair. The impact upon all his senses was staggering and it slowly dawned upon him that this was all predestined.
    The man and the woman stood transfixed, gazing at each other as if they were the only two people in the gallery. The pupils of his eyes dilated until they turned black.
    Brianna felt strange. Her heartbeat slowed, her very blood seemed to thicken. She forgot to breathe. Her hand went to her throat in a fluttering gesture of supplication.
    Robert de Beauchamp’s voice broke the spell. “This is my brother, Christian Hawksblood … Lady Brianna Bedford.”
    “
My
lady,” the dark warrior said, his look so intense and possessive, she shrank back against De Beauchamp. He had clearly placed the emphasis on the word “my” rather than “lady.”
    Now that she had broken her glance from his, Brianna did not dare look at him again. She glanced about nervously. Everyone seemed to be acting normally, in a perfectly ordinary manner. Yet she knew what had happened between herself and the dark stranger was
extraordinary
.
    Prince Edward introduced Christian to his cousin, Joan of Kent, and only then did he take his fierce gaze from her.
    Brianna breathed again.
    Joan, never at a loss for words, said, “So, you are the Arabian Knight who has set Windsor all agog. I had no idea the Earl of Warrick had another son.”
    “Neither did he, my lady,” came the amused rejoinder. Everyone laughed. His voice was rich, deep, faintly accented. Yet Brianna noticed he did not place the emphasis on “my” when he called Joan “my lady.”
    Christian Hawksblood glanced down at the parchments on the reading stand. “These are very beautiful. They remind me of the treasured manuscripts I have seen in Baghdad.”
    “Baghdad!” Robert scoffed.
    Prince Edward said, “Baghdad was a great center of culture and learning when Europeans couldn’t even write their own names! Are these yours, Lady Bedford?”
    “Yes, Your Highness,” Brianna said, her cheeks flushed. Jesu, why did the subject of writing have to come up when Robert held it in such contempt?
    Joan couldn’t leave it there. She simply could not resist.“Do you share your brother’s views that writing is unmanly?”
    Hawksblood looked amused. “Hardly. I have translated Persian and Sanskrit to Arabic.”
    “Perhaps you would have made a good priest,” Robert said in jest.
    “I venture he would excel at anything he undertook,” Prince Edward stated with undisguised admiration for his newfound friend.
    “Then let us see if you excel at dancing, my lord,” Joan said prettily, taking Christian’s arm.
    Inside, Robert de Beauchamp was seething. He vented his ill-humor the moment his foreign bastard of a brother left the group. “Your friend, Joan of Kent, is a little slut,” he muttered.
    Prince Edward’s eyes blazed. Always quick-tempered, his hand shot out and struck Robert in the face. “You are as foul-mouthed as my brother Lionel.” Edward took Brianna’s hand. “Come, Lady Bedford.”
    Brianna was mortified! She was caught in a cleft stick, damned whichever side she took. She had no choice but to obey the Prince of Wales, yet loyalty to her future betrothed was a duty. Why did men have to act so … male? In truth she did