My Lord Viking

by Ferguson, Jo Ann

  His lips were on hers before she had a chance to protest. They tasted sweet, just as he had imagined. A tempting invitation to further pleasure that they could find when—

  The sound of her hand slapping his cheek resonated through Nils’s aching head. With a growl, he released her. She motioned her servant away as Olive rushed to her side with a hushed cry.

  “Mr. Bjornsson,” Linnea said in that cold tone she seemed delighted to assume whenever she found fault with him, “I realize you are distressed at the facts that must seem as outrageous and unbelievable to you as they are to me.”

  “Facts?” asked Olive. “What do you speak of, my lady?”

  Nils tensed, waiting for her answer. Among these English there was neither respect nor understanding of Norrfoolk beliefs. He had heard during his previous forays here mocking of Odin and Loki and Freya. Those who had dared to utter such words had no chance to repeat them, for his knife had put an end to their belittling of what he held dear.

  Linnea continued to meet his gaze without flinching, but she said, “Olive, I wish to speak to Mr. Bjornsson alone. Will you go and see what is keeping Jack from returning from the house with that soup for Mr. Bjornsson?”

  “And leave you with him and his beastly manners?”

  “Mr. Bjornsson will not forget himself again.” She gave Olive a tight grin. “Or you shall hear me slap him again.”

  “Yes, my lady.” She shot Nils a fearsome frown before going to the stairs. At the top, she paused, her mouth moving with whatever she was mumbling. He waited, not sure if she would obey and leave her lady with him. She did, her head vanishing below the bannister.

  “You may find,” Linnea said, her voice still rigid with rage, “that you would do better not to vex everyone you meet, Mr. Bjornsson.”

  “You may find that you would do better to call me Nils, for your English tongue cannot speak my name correctly.”

  “Only if you realize that such informality does not allow you carte blanche to—”

  “What?”

  “It is French.”

  “French? What is that?”

  “The French are the residents of the land on the other side of the Channel.” When he continued to frown in bafflement, she added, “Where the sea narrows between this island and the continent.”

  “You speak of the Franks.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Many of the Norrfoolk live in the land of the Franks.”

  “As a child, I learned that the Vikings gave their name to Normandy, the section of France that reaches out toward England. The Normans won the English throne in 1066, and their descendants have held it since.”

  He laughed as he threw open the shutters on the window. “So it would seem that the Norrfoolk claim to this island was eventually won and long held.”

  “Indirectly.” She faltered before a sigh sifted past her stiff lips. “Dash it! Can you stop playing a Viking lost in time?”

  “I am being honest, my lady. All I have spoken to you about King Ethelred and Britannia is true.” His brows lowered. “You think I am mad with an injury to my skull.”

  “You were struck viciously.”

  “True.”

  “You claim to have seen things that no one else has.”

  He cupped her chin as he had in the doorway below. “My blood-enemy exists.”

  “You cannot be sure.”

  “I am.” He reached under his tunic and tossed the knife to the floor at her feet. “I swear on the blood you saw on this that I drew it from my blood-enemy, not myself. You may not have seen him, but that does not change what I know is true.”

  “But...” She hesitated, then asked, “Do you realize what you are saying? That you have come forward in time from your millennium to mine?”

  “It is not easy to believe.” He touched the sill where Loki had laughed at him. “Yet I know it must be true.” Leaning against the sill, he pointed to the ocean that was visible as a silver line through the trees. “If we were in my time, you would be watching from here and shivering in fear at the very idea that a drakkar and its crew of warriors would sail toward this shore.”

  “My ancestors fought to hold here, and they did.”

  “Are you so sure of that?”

  “I know what I have been told.” Her chin rose in a pride as enticing as her splendidly feminine body.

  He laughed to conceal the longing that bounced through him. Kissing her had been foolish, for it had honed his craving for the delights he had denied himself in the months of his journeys on behalf of his chieftain. Months or centuries? He could not think of that now. He must learn more of this woman and this place and this time so he could defend himself—and her, for he owed her a life-debt—from Kortsson.

  “But your very name denies what you believe,” he said. “Sutherland is close to a Norrfoolk name. Suthrland.”

  “Close? They sound the same.”

  “To your English ears. Heed me. Sutherland is your name. Suthrland is the name I know.”

  She shook her head. “I cannot hear the difference.”

  “Because you are not listening closely enough.”

  “How can you say that? I tried to hear a difference, but I did not.”

  He caught her chin in his hand once more and tilted her face away from his. When she stiffened, he bent to put his lips near her ear. He repeated the two names as he took a deep breath of her glorious fragrance. His fingers glided along her soft cheek. “Do you hear the difference, my lady?”

  “Yes.” Her voice quivered.

  “Do you really?”

  She pulled away from him, leaving his empty fingers cupping only air. He clenched them again as he cursed silently. No warrior should be so weak that a woman could break his hold on her with such little effort.

  “I said I did,” she replied tautly. “Why must you question everything I say and act as if I am lying?”

  “You think I am lying when I speak of a time you tell me was a thousand years ago. You call me mad for being honest about seeing my blood-enemy.”

  “I do not know what to think.” She rubbed her forehead. “Everything you do, everything you say tries to persuade me that you are being honest.”

  “But you cannot believe what I am saying.”

  “Can you?”

  He did not hesitate. “I must, because I know what I speak is the truth. I am not of this time. I am of the days when Ethelred tried to keep my chieftain from claiming this part of this island.” His gaze edged along her, and a smile curved his lips. “No woman in my time dresses as you do, either among the Norrfoolk or among the English. Silks are rare, coming from the lands far beyond the Rus.”

  “Rus?” She laughed shakily. “Oh, you mean Russia.”

  “The name survives nearly a millennium? It appears that my people made many contributions to your time, Linnea.”

  “Your time, too.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Do you still think I am plying you with lies?”

  “Even if you are not originally from this time, you are here in this time now.” Linnea shook her head. Turning away, she kneaded her fingers together anxiously. “I cannot believe I am speaking so serenely of this. It is impossible that you and I can be having this conversation when you should be long dead.”

  “And forgotten.” His hand on her shoulder kept her from walking away. When she looked back at him, he said, “I believe I know why I have been brought forward in time to this place where I should have died.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “But you should know as well why I am here.”

  Shivering, she stepped away from his fingers that sent a heat through her that combated the iciness of her disbelief. “No, do not say that you should have died here.”

  “Everyone dies eventually. A warrior hopes for a courageous death, so that Valhalla might be his reward.” His hand tightened into a fist. “That might still be mine if I do as I vowed when I first came to this accursed island almost a thousand years ago.
I have to find the knife that belongs to my chieftain, the knife that was stolen from him by my brother. The shame is upon my family, and it is my duty and my honor to even this debt.”

  “A knife? You believe you survived for all these centuries simply to find a knife?”

  “It was a blood-oath I swore, a blood-oath that Kortsson has vowed that I will not complete.”

  Linnea went to the window and looked out it. The familiar shapes and scents of the water garden seemed somehow different. “You are speaking nonsense,” she whispered. “Even if you did swear such an oath, why would it bring you here? Why would it matter when the man you swore this oath to has been dead for so many centuries?”

  “A blood-oath is binding on me as long as I breathe.” His hand on her shoulder turned her to face him. She wished she had resisted when she saw the obsession in his eyes as he whispered, “And I will see it fulfilled, no matter what I must do to complete it.”

  Six

  “What are you looking for?”

  Linnea spun away from the shelf, closing the heavy book and pressing it to her chest. She told herself she had no reason to act so guilty at the sound of her eldest brother’s voice. She forced a smile for him.

  Martin Sutherland appeared every inch his father’s heir. In the past few years, the hair at his temples had taken on the silver shade of their mutual sire. He resembled Papa in other ways as well, for he was growing rounder with each passing year. A pair of eyeglasses were propped on his forehead, revealing dark eyes that often were focused on some financial report.

  “You startled me,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “I did not expect to see you hiding in here when your charming suitor just took his leave.”

  “Randolph was here?”

  He frowned, looking even more like Papa when he was perplexed. “Yes, I thought you knew.”

  “No.” She went to the door.

  “Linny, what are you studying now?”

  At the nickname he had given her when she was no more than a baby, her smile became more sincere, but it wavered at his question. Folding her arms over the book, she said, “You know how I love history.”

  “Yes, you always seem to be reading about some great past exploits with a dashing hero who is about to save England from destruction. What is it this time?” He reached toward the book.

  “Can we talk later?” she asked, turning slightly to keep him from seeing the title. “I should—”

  “Go and catch Tuthill before he leaves. I know he is as anxious to see you as he was to find out why Papa contacted the authorities about that cur you believe you saw attacking someone on the shore.”

  “I did see it.”

  “I hope you will not again.”

  “So do I.”

  “And I know you are eager to see Tuthill.”

  Linnea flashed him a grin before hurrying out of the book-room. She had not exactly lied to her brother, so she should not be suffering from these pangs of guilt. Silently she warned herself not to be so skittish. Even if Martin had seen the title of the book, he had no idea why she had developed a sudden interest in English history before the Norman Conquest. He would have simply shrugged off this new hobby, for he had no reason to suspect she had an actual Viking living in the pavilion’s upper room.

  Her steps faltered on the stairs. In the past three days while she had talked to Nils and tried to learn more about him, she had come to believe he truly was not of this time. Yet that was impossible. No one traveled in huge leaps from one century to another. Time took everyone along on a day-by-day journey into the future. No slower and certainly no faster.

  But she could not deny that Nils Bjornsson seemed to be so lost. He watched everyone with the wariness of a man among his enemies...and his blood-enemy who, if she believe all of this moonshine, had traveled through time with Nils. Nothing she had done had persuaded him that he should trust her assertion that they wished only to help him heal and continue on his way. And nothing had persuaded her to trust her unexpected reaction to his brazen kiss. She had slapped his face, but she wondered if the resonance of that blow had lingered on his cheek as long as the heat from his lips on hers.

  Linnea pushed those rebellious thoughts from her head when she stepped out of the house to see Randolph standing in the drive. His toe was tapping against the ground, and she knew he was impatient to be on his way.

  “Randolph?” she called.

  He looked over his shoulder. His vexed expression did not change as he said, “I thought you were out.”

  “Whoever told you that was mistaken.” She tapped the book she held. “I was reading in Papa’s book-room.”

  “You spend too much time reading such tomes.”

  “I enjoy it.”

  “How will any of that help you in your future duties?”

  She could not keep from bristling. “My father values education for all his children, and I do not see any reason for my education to end simply because I am out of the schoolroom.”

  “But your education should take a different route now.” He stepped closer to her. “An education in what you shall share with your husband.” When his arm slipped around her waist, he pulled her closer.

  The book bumped against his chest. He yanked it from her hands and dropped it onto the step. When she gasped as the binding creaked and the pages fluttered open, he growled something under his breath.

  “Randolph, enough of this,” she said, trying to pull away so she could be certain that the book was not damaged.

  “Enough? I think not.” His mouth pounced on hers.

  She stiffened, shocked at his outrageous behavior...and by her lack of reaction to it. She was exasperated at his assumption that she would let him kiss her like this, but she felt nothing else. None of the surge of anticipation that had whirled through her like a storm when Nils kissed her.

  He raised his mouth and frowned. If he had thought she would melt in his arms, he was mistaken, because she knew the limits of propriety, and he had overstepped them.

  But you were ready to welcome more of Nils’s kisses, until sanity returned.

  Linnea edged out of Randolph’s embrace as she silenced her rebellious thoughts. “I trust you are finished,” she said as she bent and picked up the book, smoothing the pages back into place as she closed it. Looking past him to where a stableboy was bringing Randolph’s horse, she added, “I bid you a good day, Randolph.”

  “Linnea, wait!”

  “I must...I was on my way to...” She scowled at her own hesitation. It could doom her attempt to keep Nils hidden more swiftly than anything else. “I am already late.” There! That was simple and almost the truth. Olive had work to do in the house, so they had arranged for Jack to stay with Nils. However, by this hour, Jack would be needed in the stables. If Nils was alone, he might—

  She gasped when Randolph caught her by the arm, tearing her from her scattered thoughts. Nils had been this rude, but she had never guessed Randolph would forget his good manners. “Randolph, please release me at once.”

  “When you explain why you are treating me so coolly after you welcomed my calls with glee only a fortnight ago.”

  “You are being coarse.”

  He relinquished her arm and made a show of straightening his coat. His red ears divulged his dismay at violating proper behavior. “Forgive me, Linnea,” he mumbled. “I am not myself today.”

  “Is something amiss?”

  “Nothing that you need concern yourself about.” He gave her one of his smiles that suggested she should be thinking of nothing more important than which dress to wear to tea. The smile that threatened to send her up to the boughs with her annoyance. “Only some food and supplies stolen.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know, but I suspect it may have been that vagabond you saw on the shore.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Do not be out alone again.”

  “I had Jack with me.”

  “Stay close to the house.”


  “I shall.”

  “Good.” Going to his horse, he took the reins from the stableboy.

  Linnea did not want to wait to see Randolph leave, but she stood by the steps until he was out of view along the drive leading away from the shore. The stableboy flashed her a smile. She was not sure why, and she pushed her disquiet from her mind as she walked toward the water garden. This was becoming more and more complicated with each passing day. How would she manage with Dinah’s wedding approaching with such speed?

  Opening the door to the water pavilion, she made certain it was closed tightly before she hurried up the stairs. She scanned the room. It was empty!

  “Nils?” she called, hoping her voice did not carry out one of the two windows that were open.

  She turned toward the shadows that had captured the back portion of the room. Blinking, she tried to make her eyes adjust to the dim light there.

  “Nils?”

  Again she got no answer. Mayhap he was asleep. She shook her head. Even if he had been, any sound woke him, because he did not trust them enough to sleep deeply.

  No one stood in the shadows. Baffled, she drew aside the shutters on the window on that side. Nils might have been able to get down the stairs, but how far could he go when he had to hop on one leg? She thought he understood that he was safer here than anywhere now.

  A finger tapped her shoulder.

  She shrieked.

  Laughter added to the fire climbing her cheeks as she turned to see Nils standing behind her. In astonishment, she stared at the long branch that served as a crutch for him.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked.

  “Young Jack obtained it for me.” He winced as he shifted his arm on the notch at its top. “I believe he tires of me hopping like a rabbit when I wish to move from one place to another.”

  “He does have a way of seeing the obvious solution.” Setting the book on the bench by the open window, she asked, “Why were you hiding from me?”