The Virgin's Pursuit by Joanne Rock

Chapter 1
    The potion tasted bitter, but the result would be the sweetest blessing imaginable.
    Isolda drank it down in one gulp and shuddered, her eyes focused on the second half of the equation that would bring her heart’s desire. She imagined this one would taste far more pleasant.
    Peeping over a low-hanging branch from her hiding place just outside her woodland cabin, Isolda of Iness watched the hunter as he prowled through the forest. Tall and powerfully built, he moved with surprising silence over fallen tree limbs and dead leaves. He was young. He was virile.
    He was the perfect choice to be the father of her baby.
    She had watched him hunt in her woods for many moons, and had long admired his respect for the animals. He never took more than he needed, and he always treated the land and its creatures with care. In a world gone crazy—with wars and violence everywhere she turned—Isolda had come to value a strong but gentle hand in a male. Her hunter was a rarity among men, and she would have no other give her the one thing she could not provide for herself in the forest home she’d come to love since her self-imposed exile.
    The longing for a babe had started even before her retreat to the woods. Norman invaders had killed the neighboring lordling she should have wed. Even though she had not loved the man or the match, she had looked forward to becoming a mother before all of Northumbria was cast into turmoil.
    Nearby, the hunter paused. His thick muscles bunched. He turned.
    She had never ventured this close to him before, always keeping her distance and making herself disappear when anyone passed near her well-hidden hut. But today, she wanted to be seen. Noticed.
    She’d planned for this moment over and over again—how to win him to her bed to achieve her heart’s desire, yet send him on his way again without undue interest in her life. Her past. Her precarious position as an exiled noblewoman.
    What kind of life would it be for her child if her true identity was discovered? No. She had to be very, very careful. Discreet. That meant she couldn’t approach him like a highborn woman accustomed to sweet manners and courtly deference.
    She would throw off her mantle of decorum for the sake of the babe she wanted so desperately. A child that she would nurture to strength in the safety of the woods until her heir was strong enough to claim the Iness birthright.
    That meant she would approach the hunter with the earthy charms of a young kitchen maid or an experienced widow. If only she had observed such interactions more carefully instead of averting her eyes to the occasional lovers’ games that played out in darkened corners of the hall or shadowed nooks between the corridor tapestries.
    Now the hunter’s tawny eyes swept the tree line, penetrating the thick hedge of thorny brambles she’d trained all around her tiny thatched dwelling. Her heart pounded with a strange excitement that plagued her only when she laid eyes upon him. She told herself it was because she knew he was the key to her success if she wanted to have a baby.
    Yet she’d never experienced such a reaction when she’d been in the company of her betrothed, before her world fell apart.
    â€œWho’s there?” The hunter spoke, and his voice was a new sound to her. He’d always been silent in the past, except for the occasional whistle to his merlin if he brought a bird for hunting.
    The timbre of his smooth, deep bass hummed all around her, echoing through her veins. The welcoming reverberation calmed her and helped draw her feet forward.
    Her body accustomed to the thorny hedge, she ducked and drifted easily through the maze of sharp obstacles until she stepped clear of it. Into sight.
    â€œGreetings, sir,” she started, unsure of her words, but injecting a note of husky warmth into her voice. “Your journey must be a long one to venture so deep within the woods. Fare you