‘Then go and tell her you’re divorcing her now. Go talk to her before you get yourself killed.’
Rolfe hated Aevir’s interference, but deep down he knew that his friend was right. He needed this resolved so that he could stop being consumed by Elswyth—if such a thing were even possible. He’d lost his focus and it would go badly for him and his men were they needed for battle while he was like this. Resentment fuelling his struggles, he twisted free enough to drive a powerful elbow into Aevir’s side which made his friend huff out a breath of air and loosened his grip so that Rolfe could escape. Coming to his feet, he shoved Aevir away and strode for the door, but not before Aevir’s mocking voice called out, ‘I hope you know that by “talk” I meant—’ The slamming door muffled the vulgarity and the roar of laughter from the men inside that followed it.
Blinded by his rage, Rolfe kept walking across the moonlit field, not caring that the cold turned his breath to frosty puffs, or that he’d forgotten his cloak inside. The cold couldn’t touch him. Nothing could touch him and that was the problem. Only one name pounded inside him, driving him forward until he approached the farmhouse door. He hadn’t even been aware of his destination until the warrior who was her sentry came to his feet, then stepped aside quickly when Rolfe showed no intention of stopping.
The door opened easily and Rolfe stepped over the threshold, slamming it behind him and setting the latch with a perverse satisfaction. She had come to her feet the moment she’d seen him and there was no mistaking the momentary flare of joy that had crossed her features. It made her cheeks flush with health and her emerald eyes brighten. He’d not seen her since he’d left her here and the rush of relief he felt at seeing her whole and thriving staggered him. It had the effect of cold water thrown on hot metal and cracked through the anger hardening around his heart.
‘You look well,’ he said rather lamely.
‘I am well...thanks to you.’ Her voice was like a balm to his ravaged heart and the way she looked at him...
That balm came with a warmth that threatened to further assuage his anger. Desperate to keep stoking the flames so that he wouldn’t have to face her without them, he said, ‘Why are you mending clothing?’ The pile had dropped to the floor when she’d stood, but she still held the needle with the thread attached, binding it to the clothing at her feet. ‘Where is your servant?’ The woman could have been standing right next to her and Rolfe wouldn’t have seen her. His entire awareness was consumed with Elswyth.
A flicker of unease marred her joyful features. ‘She spends her evenings elsewhere.’
‘What? Why?’ He’d thought Elswyth would have someone with her at night. He hadn’t meant for her to be confined alone.
‘We...argued.’ She dropped her gaze and he finally took in the state of the small house. Several stools had been overturned and their legs broken, a pitcher—nay, several pitchers—had been shattered, their pieces swept neatly into a pile in a corner. It seemed that only a few basic items had been spared her wrath.
‘You did this?’ he asked.
Her eyes met his and her chin raised a notch higher than was necessary. ‘I wanted to leave and your warriors wouldn’t let me. I tried to overpower them and she said I was deranged and she wouldn’t stay here at night alone with me.’ Drawing in a deep breath as he stared at her in shock, she asked, ‘Is there something you want?’
‘You asked for me.’
‘Days ago.’ Accusation burned in her eyes.
‘I’m here now.’ He shrugged and her eyes burned bright with fresh anger. Good. He wanted her anger.
‘I want to leave.’
‘You’re a prisoner.’
The words hurt her and though that hurt brought him a small measure of satisfaction, it brought him far more pain. And this was why he had avoided her, he realised. To hurt her was to hurt himself.
‘Then at least let me see Baldric, my brother.’
‘He’s not here. We suspect he’s already with the Scots to the north and awaiting your father.’
She took a moment to digest that and he would have sworn her surprise was genuine. Drawing herself together, she said, ‘The reason I left Alvey was so that I could come here. I wished to see Baldric and visit Osric’s mother. I’d like to see his grave, if that’s possible.’
He clenched his molars so hard he was surprised they didn’t crack under the strain. ‘You’re a prisoner,’ he repeated.
‘Then I would like the chance to answer for my crimes. Surely I deserve that?’
‘Aye, and you will have that. Jarl Vidar will hear your pleas and decide on a punishment.’ Silence descended between them, so Rolfe gave her a brief nod and turned towards the door, quietly cursing Aevir. Nothing had come of this talk with her. He’d been foolish to allow Aevir to goad him into it.
‘Rolfe, wait!’ Leaving her mending behind, she hurried across the distance, stopping just short of reaching him. ‘My crimes were against you, not Lord Vidar. Let me explain to you.’
He was already shaking his head before she’d finished. ‘You were a spy, so your crimes were against Alvey. Vidar will hear you, I don’t care to hear more of your lies.’
She drew back as if he had struck her and the pain reflected on her face hit him twofold, so that it was momentarily difficult to breathe. ‘Damn you and your stubbornness, Dane. I never spied.’ As she started to explain, he stepped towards her, but she only stepped back out of his reach. ‘Aye, my father sent me to spy, but I never gave them information. I told you all of that already. The only contact I had with anyone in my family aside from Ellan was the night after you returned and Galan came to me.’
‘Nay, I don’t want to hear more!’ He raised his voice to drown hers out and leaped for her, but she easily sidestepped him.
‘Why don’t you want to hear?’ she yelled back as she moved to the other side of the open hearth to avoid him. ‘Are you afraid that the truth will make you realise how cruel you’ve been keeping me locked up here?’
‘Because I cannot believe anything you say.’ He stepped around the hearth which was in the centre of the house, leaving her with half as much space to run from him.
‘Can’t you identify the truth when you hear it?’ She steadily backed away from him as she spoke.
‘Not when one is as skilled at lying as you.’ It seemed he was blind when it came to women.
Her mouth dropped open. ‘I stole the bloodstone because Galan told me the Scots had Baldric and were demanding it back in exchange for his life. I barely knew you then. It wasn’t personal when I took it from you.’ She had come to the back wall of the house when she finished. She made to dart around him, but he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against him. Her familiar scent washed over him, stealing his breath, so that they stayed a moment like that until he could speak.
‘Even if what you say is true, you made it personal when you married me without confessing. You took me as your husband, you drank the mead and took me into your body, all while knowing what you had done. Perhaps I could forgive your reasons had I known them earlier, but I cannot forgive your lying to me.’ Or her betrayal. He’d didn’t know if the pain of that would ever go away.
Her breath hitched, but when he thought she’d lost her fight, she stomped on his booted foot and pulled away. She slipped from his grasp, and he prepared to chase her, except she didn’t run. She stood with her back pressed to the wall and glared at him. ‘You know all about lying by omission, don’t you? You didn’t tell me of Osric, or the destruction you wrought in Banford. You never gave me the chance to choose to forgive you and yet you expect me to do what you couldn’t.’ Her voice might have been bitter, but the tears on her lashes ruined the effect.
‘Damn you, Saxon.’ Her tears were his undoing, just like the night she’d come to him in his chamber. The fight left him, leaving only pain, aching and bleeding, in its wake. He brough
t his hand to her cheek and his voice was raw when he spoke. ‘I knew you would hate me for what I had done, so I wanted to wait to tell you until after you loved me.’ It was perhaps the most honest thing he’d ever said in his entire life.
A sob stuck in her throat. With a groan he slid his hand around her nape and pulled her close. His mouth covered hers and she opened to him, eagerly, greedy even. The tip of her tongue touched his and he growled at the fierce need for her sweeping through him. It was like adding kindling to low burning fire. He went up in flames.
Chapter Twenty
The need to take her...own her...possess her tore through him with a savageness that left room for nothing else. He needed her once more. She was his mate and he’d not touched her for days and days. The want was primitive and tinged with a deep-seated urge to make her come apart in his arms. He wanted to feel her trembling beneath him with want and hunger, knowing that he was the only one who could assuage her desire.
The soft heat of her mouth pulled at him as he kissed her. She opened beneath him and invited him inside. He wanted her hard and fast and panting with desire. Pulling away from the touch of her eager tongue, he caught a glimpse of her heavy-lidded gaze as he tore at her nightdress. The linen came apart with a loud rending sound that seemed to echo in the small house. She gasped and that sound only spurred him onwards.
Turning her so that her breasts pressed to the wall, he tore the back to match the front until the linen fell from her shoulders. The smooth skin of her back called to him and he couldn’t resist touching it in a slow caress as he pushed the dress to a puddle at her feet. She arched into his touch and he couldn’t bring himself to stop until he reached her bottom and filled both of his palms with her. She moaned deep in her throat when he squeezed and kneaded, shifting and pushing back against him in a silent plea for more.
Possession was what he wanted. Simple and crude. He wanted to bury himself deep between her thighs and own her as she writhed, begging him. The image of that made him swell to aching.
Elswyth turned abruptly against the wall to face him. She was nude, her beautiful body flushed with pleasure and desire as she pulled him against her, her mouth seeking his as she fitted herself against him. Her leg came up to hook around his thigh and he couldn’t resist taking her mouth savagely and pressing her back to the wall. His arm went under her knee, opening her to him so that he could grind his hardness against her willing body. She gasped into his mouth and writhed. His fingers found her slick with arousal and he was surprised to find her as ready as he was.
Abruptly he pushed away from her, letting her settle against the wall as he backed away. ‘Get on the bed,’ he growled out in response to the question on her face, his hands going to his trousers.
Her gaze fastened on that movement as she hurried around him to comply, rushing to the straw-filled mattress near the fire. Almost immediately, his hands were on her waist, shifting her around so that her hips pressed back against him. The absolute need to dominate and reclaim her coursed through him. They belonged to each other no matter what might happen and always would. She complied so sweetly, as if she needed the reaffirmation, eager and ready to be his again.
His. The mere thought made blood surge into his groin, pounding through him as it urged him to take her.
He nudged her thigh and she opened to him, spreading herself so that he could settle on his knees between them. His trousers around his knees, he guided his manhood to her. There was something wild and primitive about having her nude before him, ready to receive him while he was clothed. It made him mad with excitement. As he pushed the swollen head of his manhood into her, she made a low sound of pleasure in the back of her throat and pressed back, seeking more of him. A rush of triumph burst through his chest.
Aye, beg me.
Gritting his teeth, he was determined to fight the surge of need that bid him to simply take her. So he played with her to draw out her pleasure, withdrawing, moving in a maddening rhythm along her crease, only giving her a taste of what she wanted. He paused at the drenched entrance to her body again, teasing her with his plump head, when she suddenly lurched back in an attempt to fill herself with him. A hoarse groan escaped him and he was helpless to do anything except jolt forward, joining their bodies in a hard thrust that rooted him deep within her. Spots of white light played behind his eyelids as he fell over her, keeping the bulk of his weight off of her on a straight arm while his other wrapped around her hips, holding her tight against him.
‘Please, Rolfe.’ Her voice was barely coherent, but the desperate rhythm of her hips was unmistakable as she moved beneath him, begging for more.
There was only her beloved softness beneath him, squeezing him in her tight grip as he moved. She sighed in a sound of unmistakable appreciation as he pulled out nearly all the way and slid hard back into her. She angled her body so that he could sink even deeper and he was lost. His hips began a hard tempo, pumping in and out of her in a desperate rhythm of possession. No longer able to keep himself away, he buried his face in the back of her neck so that her scent filled him. His name fell like a mantra from her lips as she clawed at him, her hand coming around to hold his thigh as if she was afraid he might leave her.
Soon she cried out in a hoarse sound as her sweet body clenched at him, convulsing around his shaft in delicious shock waves that drained him of his release. But even then he couldn’t stop. He kept pumping until every last bit of his seed had been wrung from him and his tremors had subsided. He fell against her heavily, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest as he struggled to catch his breath.
He couldn’t believe how consumed he’d been by her. For those few brief moments nothing else in the world had existed. Only her. Tenderness for her welled in his chest and his hands clenched at her, already wanting her again and afraid that something might take her from him. For a man who considered himself to be strong, she made him weak. He could never trust his judgement of her.
With a soft cry that he couldn’t contain, he pulled himself from her body and struggled back into his trousers. A contented smile curved her lips as she turned over on to her back to look at him, but alarm quickly set in when she saw that he was getting to his feet.
‘Don’t go.’
He shook his head and she made to rise, but he held out his hand to ward her off and said, ‘Nay!’
His voice was harsh to his own ears and it startled her, but it only made her pause briefly before getting to her knees to beseech him again. ‘Rolfe, let us talk. I don’t want you to go—’
The door closed behind him as he made his way out into the frigid night air. The woman consumed him without even trying. He had to get away from her before he did something foolish like forget his anger or even the reason he was angry. One entire night with her and he was certain he’d forget all about her treachery.
Damn it all—he loved her.
* * *
Elswyth passed a fitful night and finally gave up attempting to sleep when the grey light of dawn shone through the edges of the door. For the very first time she allowed herself the absolute despair that her marriage with Rolfe might be over. For a few moments last night she had made herself believe that a future was possible.
The truth was that he despised her. She’d throw another pot if she had any anger left within her, but there was nothing left. He’d wrung it all out of her last night. Instead of behaving like a child, she’d dressed in her winter clothes and doled out a bowl of pottage for herself with the first morning light. There was nothing to do but wait until Lord Vidar arrived and then she could finally tell her story. She didn’t know what would happen after that and she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Then something extraordinary happened. After she had finished her meagre meal, a man opened the door. He was the Dane who had been sent to guard her on a previous day. The man she had attacked with her blade when he’d refused to summon Rolfe, to be exact. H
e stood inside the door and gave her a wary stare.
‘What do you want?’ she asked with very little patience.
He bristled, looked out the open door as if he didn’t like what he’d been tasked with doing, and then glanced back at her. ‘I’m to take you to visit a grave,’ he mumbled.
The hope bursting through her heart brought her to her feet. Rolfe had sent him. He’d remembered her request from the night and sent this man to take her to see Osric. After everything else that had happened, she had assumed he’d forgotten the request. What did it mean? Did he still care? Was he merely attempting to assuage his conscience? Whatever it meant, he was thinking about her. Last night hadn’t been some final goodbye. He might have meant for it to be, but he was still thinking of her this morning.
Biting back her smile, she hurried to find her cloak and in moments had joined the Dane at the door. He held up a rope made of hemp and she glared at him. ‘I’ll not be restrained. If you must, then you can go find your master and tell him that I won’t be bound. Let him come do it himself if he insists.’
Shifting from one foot to the other, he sighed, clearly wishing to have any other duty than to deal with her. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling very much within her rights to insist that she be treated better than a common criminal.
Evidently deciding that he’d rather have the deed over with quickly than to return to Rolfe and explain his failure, he glared at her and stepped outside, indicating that she should come with him. He wound the rope back up into a coil and affixed it to his belt as he led her around the house and to the path that would take them to the village.
Despite the morbid reason for the outing, she was happy to be outside again. The day was clear, if not blue, and there was no new snow so the path was easy to navigate. She’d nearly worn holes in the plank floor of the house, pacing with unexpended energy over the past several days. In the distance a man—though if he were Saxon or Dane she couldn’t tell—put out hay for the sheep, their anxious baas making her feel more at home than she had since she’d arrived. How easy it would be to slip back into her old life, as if what had happened in Alvey had been a dream. But it hadn’t been a dream and she still had the telltale body aches from last night to prove it. Rolfe had been real and he’d been hers.
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