‘Why would I do that?’
She ticked the points off on her fingers. ‘You knew my father wanted me married. You knew my half-brother was dead. You knew that I will inherit a fortune on my father’s death and that an alliance would safeguard your people.’
His mouth took on a bitter twist. ‘One would have to be a simpleton not to know that. I considered your father would never see me as a potential son-in-law. As far as I knew, he loathed my guts and everything I stood for. Equally, I’d no reason to acquire a pagan bride. Fortunes have a way of turning to dust if one strives too hard for them.’
‘You will now have one of the most powerful Northmen on your side in any dispute. You and your people will no longer suffer.’
His eyes blazed. ‘To keep my country free is why I agreed to this! Kolbeinn has the habit of using the slightest insult as an excuse to invade. And refusing to marry his only daughter ranks above slight insult to my mind.’
‘I would never have allowed that to happen.’
‘Just like Olafr would never resort to treachery.’
‘You should have trusted me. You trusted me back on our travels.’
‘That was different. I only had my life to consider, not the fate of my people.’
‘Did you seduce me to ensure it would happen? To give yourself that added edge if it came to trials? Everyone else in that hall appeared to be expecting trials of strength. Get Kolbeinn’s ugly daughter all inflamed for you and she’d choose you no matter what her father did? The stupid cow.’
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. They seemed to hang in mid-air.
His harsh laugh rang out. ‘I appear to remember that night somewhat differently.’
Dagmar’s cheeks grew warm as she remembered how she had begged him to sleep with her. But he had been the one to keep her goblet full, hadn’t he? He had been the one to hold her the night before. It was only because the gang appeared that he had let her go. He would have seduced her then. ‘My memory remains hazy. Too much mead,’ she bit out.
‘What do you take me for? Why call yourself ugly or stupid when you are blatantly neither!’
‘Men have mocked me for years for my lack of looks,’ Dagmar answered truthfully.
‘When was the last time any man saw you without the paint and plaits in your hair?’
‘When I was fifteen, but even before that they used to jeer at me.’
‘Jealous fools. Why do you trust their opinion and not mine?’
Dagmar hated that a tiny hope built in her breast and that she wanted to believe him. Maybe Aedan had not completely lied to her. He had made her feel beautiful and it was her feelings which mattered. ‘Maybe for the same reason you do not trust me.’
‘Any hope of trust between us has ended.’ Aedan made a cutting motion with his hand. ‘You could have asked me about the possibility of marriage last night. You didn’t. You blundered in and assumed. You never thought about my duty. You only considered your dream of being a sell-sword and wreaking vengeance against Olafr. Now it is going to be just that—a dream. You are going to be a king’s lady and I hope you make a better job of it than your mother did.’
Dagmar’s throat closed. She examined the ground, hating that Aedan was right. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I reacted to my father’s smugness. He planned to marry me to someone who would despise me. I could feel it in my bones. But if you had let me, I would have made it right.’
‘Do you plan on leaving? Or are you staying to see out what you started?’
Indignation filled her, blocking out the other emotions. ‘I gave my solemn oath. I will do as you command and renounce my former life totally and completely, but...’
His lips turned up into a humourless smile. ‘There is always a but with you. Where my people are concerned there are no buts. You must pledge your heart and soul to protect them and that will be your overriding concern, not how many warriors you want to kill or vows of vengeance you may have taken.’
Dagmar hugged her arms about her waist. Each of Aedan’s words felt a hammer blow to her heart. Her mother’s warnings resonated—she was fundamentally unsuited to marriage. A small piece of her heart screamed that she was wrong, but Dagmar ignored it. ‘Until you forced me to swear it, I could have found a way out of it.’
‘Both our options appeared limited to me, once you declared that you would marry only me. It is why I had to make the offer. My people need this alliance. We need to be able to fish in these waters without fear of attack. We need to know that our women will be safe from being stolen. Our marriage will give me this. Will you deny my people their right to live in peace?’
Dagmar concentrated on the ground. No words of love or caring in his speech, instead it was only about duty to his people. Always. If there had been anything between them, she had killed it. ‘Once on Ile, my father would have had no control over me or you. I could have pledged my sword to you...there were other ways besides marriage.’
‘Try thinking about someone other than yourself for a change. I couldn’t take the risk.’
She ground her teeth. That he was right did not make it any easier. She had singularly failed to understand what precisely his duty entailed. She was the one who had blundered and now they were left with this mess—a marriage neither wanted, a marriage doomed to failure like her parents’ had been.
‘My father insisted on a gown,’ she wailed. ‘I had sworn that I would not willingly wear a gown in front of my father. And now this.’
‘I did warn you that if you tried anything, you would end up the loser.’
Dagmar gave an unhappy nod. He had warned her and she had not listened. ‘I thought we were a team. We worked well as a team.’
‘That team finished before we arrived here. You wanted nothing to do with me. You were not even going to tell me if you bore my child!’
Her heart quietly broke. She had wounded him with her words when all she’d wanted to do was protect that child and his future wife. ‘Look on the bright side, there is no need for us to couple until we know if I carry our child.’
He caught her arm and his face contorted. ‘No. It will be a real marriage, Dagmar. I want sons. My people need to feel secure.’
‘Men always want sons,’ Dagmar said bleakly. ‘Sometimes they get daughters.’
‘I would welcome any child of yours.’
His eyes slightly softened and for a fleeting heartbeat she glimpsed the man who had held her in his arms, the man who had listened to her dreams. Aedan was wrong. Her heart leapt. She had not killed everything. Damaged, yes, but there could be a way back to the friendship they had shared on the road. However, she refused to be fooled again.
‘My lady, you have returned!’ An elderly woman rushed up and interrupted them.
Dagmar’s heart expanded. Maybe not all was dreadful. Her nurse was here. She’d recognise her anywhere. ‘Mor? Are you truly here?’
‘It is Sif Gilbreathdottar now,’ her nurse informed her. ‘I’ve not been Mor for many years.’
‘Sif, then.’ Dagmar held out her arms and was enfolded in her nurse’s warm embrace. ‘Whatever they call you, you remain mine.’
Her nurse was shorter than she remembered and a fair bit wider. But there was something pleasingly familiar about her as she enfolded Dagmar in her arms and hugged her tightly. As though everything would be all right if she simply held her nerve, as though everything would be fine because her nurse loved her. Dagmar took a deep breath.
She had to do as Old Alf suggested when he discovered her sobbing her eyes out after the berserker attack, wishing for her nurse—she had to examine the situation for the positives, including that she lived, breathed and was able to fight another day. Aedan remained and he was marrying her. He continued to say that he thought her beautiful even if she wasn’t sure she believed him any more. She had a chance to put down roo
ts the way she had always dreamt of doing. Surely that had to be better than being forced to marry one of her father’s warriors or ending with a blade in her back from Olafr?
‘What happened to you?’ she asked her nurse.
‘Ingebord did not want to have me looking after her son. She called me a dirty Gael and boxed my ears. But your father insisted. If I was good enough for his daughter, I was good enough for his son. She then had me change my name. Your father chose it because I had red-gold hair when I was young.’
‘It is just as well my stepmother is dead. I would have cut her heart out if I had heard her unkind words to you.’
‘You were always a fierce child when someone threatened your loved ones,’ Sif said complacently. ‘But in the end, it worked out. Ingebord might have treated me like dirt under her nails, but others came to my aid.’
Her nurse then gave a brief account of her life—how she’d married a warrior, but they had never had any children and he had died the winter before. She’d returned to the household after Ingebord died at Kolbeinn’s specific command. There was a note of expectation in her voice and two bright spots appeared on her cheeks. Dagmar had a horrible inkling that her nurse and her father might be... Her mind skittered away from just the thought of it.
‘This is your old nurse? The one who taught you Gaelic?’ Aedan asked, breaking into the recital before Dagmar could ask if her suspicion was correct.
‘This is Mor as she was. She has taken the name of Sif,’ Dagmar replied, linking her arm with Sif. ‘I’d like to take her with me when I go to Kintra. I shall make a comfortable home for you and you can live out your life in peace, Sif.’
Aedan inclined his head. ‘I am sure that can be arranged.’
Dagmar quietly added that to her list of positives. Her nurse would be living with her. She would not be completely on her own. She could lean on her and learn how to run a Gaelic estate properly.
Sif went red and then white. ‘It is very kind of you, Dagmar, but...’
‘But?’ Dagmar looked at her in dismay.
The bright spots on Sif’s cheeks deepened. ‘I’m happy here with your father.’
‘You and my father?’ Dagmar winced. Her suspicions were correct!
‘We have grown close in the last few months.’ Sif gave a shrug. ‘I’ve adored your father since he rescued me from the slavers, Dagmar, even when he only had eyes for your mother. I understand his moods better than your mother or Ingebord did. What I have, I hold.’
Dagmar sighed. The reason for her needing to marry so rapidly and give him grandchildren made sense now, as did her father’s cryptic remark about producing no more children from his loins. His love for her old nurse dictated his actions. ‘I suspect he means to keep you as well.’
Sif’s face became wreathed in smiles. ‘In any case, I will be seeing you a great deal in the future when you visit your father. He has missed you, whatever your mother told you. We’ll only be a short boat trip away.’
Dagmar grabbed Sif’s hand. ‘Know the offer is there. You are a slave no longer. You can leave whenever you wish...should you change your mind.’
‘I’ve not been a slave for years, my dear. I’m a free woman and far freer than I ever was with my pig of a drunken father who beat me,’ Sif answered. ‘Now I had best see about the food and drink before I make sure you are suitably arrayed. These warriors have prodigious appetites.’
She bustled off with her hips swaying as she issued orders.
‘I’ll never understand women. She was offered freedom and she chose to stay,’ Aedan murmured.
Dagmar’s heart squeezed. She never thought to hear that sort of tone from him again. ‘There is no discerning the ways of the heart.’
‘Stop stalling. Go and change.’ Aedan shaded his eyes and stared off into the far horizon where a mist rose from the sea. ‘I want to go before the tide turns. If the ceremony is short, we might make it.’
‘But the wedding feast M—Sif is having prepared?’
‘Your father must yield. I agreed to a marriage, not dining with him.’
‘But did you know what my father had planned for me?’ Dagmar caught his sleeve before he turned to go. ‘I deserve the truth.’
His eyes turned cold. ‘I thought it might be a possibility, but a slim one, one I completely discounted. It has happened now and there is nothing either one of us can do except make the best of it. My people’s safety will always come first, Dagmar. Remember that and we will get on.’
* * *
‘Here you are, Gael. You’re a hard man to track down. I thought you might still be bathing,’ Kolbeinn said, coming up to him with a huge smile after Aedan had finished bathing in the lake.
Aedan had washed the dirt from his body, but he had refused the offer of fresh robes. He refused to become one of those men who was beholden to his wife’s family.
Kolbeinn dug his elbow into Aedan’s side. ‘You’re a sly one. I do not know how you did it, but you did.’
‘Did what?’
‘Got Dagmar to agree to wear a gown. What else? I know what her mother tried to twist her into. It shows despite everything Dagmar remains my daughter who used to beg for pretty clothes instead of for the swords her mother thought she should desire.’ The man gave a huge smile. ‘I want grandchildren, Gael. I am not getting any younger. Give me some. Between you and Dagmar, you should be able to create sons to rule the seas.’
‘If you want grandchildren, you will need to do something about Olafr Rolfson. Your daughter has sworn to destroy him.’
Kolbeinn’s gaze darted everywhere but on Aedan’s face. ‘He is aligned with Thorsten. Beyond my control. I’d like to help, but...’
‘You control the passage back to Dubh Linn,’ Aedan bit out. ‘Do it. He insulted you by trying to have your daughter killed. If you want her to settle down instead of plotting how to achieve it, find a way to dispose of him. You owe it to your old friend who perished.’
Kolbeinn gave a huge sigh. ‘You speak the truth. I cannot afford to allow the insult to go unpunished. I will dispatch my best crew on the next tide. I give you my word.’
Aedan closed his eyes. Dagmar would be safe and have one less reason to be a shield maiden. ‘Are you willing to accept me even though I am a Gael and intend to keep my lands free from Northern interference?’
‘Needs must.’ Kolbeinn shrugged. ‘You remind me of me when I was your age. You took the challenge and you returned with her in the allotted time. None of my warriors has been able to do that. Why wouldn’t I want you as a son-in-law? It is why I gave you my fourth-best sword. Where is it?’
‘It broke and I took another one from the battlefield. Old Alf did recognise it, though. Said you would not have sent it unless your wife was dead.’
‘That was Sif’s doing. She recalled the code Alf and I had agreed if ever Ingebord died. She begged me as she had a soft spot for the way you demanded a chance. For me, I won either way.’
Aedan ground his teeth. He had been played by a master. He’d sworn to Dagmar that he’d had nothing to do with it, but Kolbeinn’s crowing showed he or rather Dagmar’s nurse had hoped he’d develop feelings for her. ‘You think you have won.’
‘I know I have.’ Kolbeinn gave a hearty laugh. ‘By the gods, Dagmar reminds me of Helga in her prime. She was the most beautiful woman to sail the seas. I was mad for her. Her blasted temper drove us apart. Always had to have her own way. She had no interest in having more children after Dagmar and refused my bed. I needed sons. I offered to have Ingebord as a second wife, but Helga made me choose. I had to go with the woman who promised me sons.’
The pleading note was clear in Kolbeinn’s voice. As if he knew he’d wronged Dagmar and sought to justify it. Aedan struggled to keep his temper. The man had ducked his responsibilities. And it was not up to him to give him absolution; that was a matter for Dagmar.
> ‘Whatever happened between you and Helga is in the past,’ he murmured. ‘Dagmar and I will create our own marriage.’
Kolbeinn tapped his fingers together. ‘Just as long as I have grandsons.’
‘You will have whatever Dagmar gives you and nothing else.’
* * *
Dagmar hesitated at the hall’s door. She’d taken as long as she dared changing. Sif had found some autumn berries to twist in her hair after Dagmar refused to wear the golden bridal crown her stepmother had worn. Much to her surprise, her mended blue gown brought her some comfort. Aedan had considered her beautiful in it. His eyes had shone the first time she put it on. More than anything she wanted to see the shining of his eyes again. She wanted to feel that he wanted her as a woman.
The Christian priest stood next to Aedan. The priest appeared absolutely terrified as her father loomed over the proceedings with an axe. Aedan gave a small grunt of approval when he saw her.
‘You took your time, Daughter,’ her father said pointedly.
‘The purification ceremony took a little time to complete.’ Dagmar bobbed a perfunctory curtsy. ‘Sif insisted on it being done properly.’
‘I’ve discovered that Sif speaks much sense,’ her father said. ‘Our rites as well as yours.’
‘Quite,’ Aedan answered, glaring at her father. ‘I would hardly like for anyone to say that I failed to marry your daughter thoroughly and completely.’
Her father gave a deep chuckle. ‘A man after my own heart. You will do, Gael, you will do.’
The Warrior's Viking Bride (Harlequin Historical) Page 17