Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Elizabeth Rolls

  That he hadn’t made the part of her that felt like an open flame dance all the higher.

  “Yield,” came his voice from behind her, that low rumble she could not only hear, but feel deep inside her person. As if he was not only surrounding her, but within her. “Or you will hurt yourself.”

  Aelfwynn could scarcely imagine what he meant. Or why his words seemed to linger inside her.

  “Will you sit thus the whole of the ride?” he asked, sounding amused. “Rigid as one of these barren trees?”

  It took her a moment or two to comprehend his meaning. She was sitting as straight as she could, doing her best to avoid the unavoidable as he surrounded her. And still she felt...too much of him.

  But his amusement pricked at her and she made herself settle back against him. However slightly.

  And her reward, or curse, was the low thread of his laughter that moved like heat through her, making her feel connected from the inside out to this man who held her captive and bore her off through the darkening woods—to what end, she knew not.

  Surely it would have been far easier to do as he would with her where he’d found her.

  She could not understand this Northman at all.

  Her mind raced as the night grew darker, the snow heavier. It was a sad truth that Aelfwynn knew more than she wished to know of men. What woman could avoid such knowledge? Men roamed the earth as they pleased, sacking cities and claiming them in turn, issuing royal coin and commands as they went. And when they were finished cutting down their enemies and demanding songs sung in their honor while swinging their tankards high, they all of them wanted the same thing.

  All of them.

  Too many nights in these last six months had Aelfwynn been forced to wield the only weapon she held in the face of those men who imagined they could take what she did not offer. Her unassailable piety set against their lust.

  Let us pray, sir, she had said each time, enlisting the priests to aid her when she could—though priests, however dear to the divine, suffered from the same ailment as those who would have pressed Aelfwynn into their passions. They were, after all, still men.

  But this warrior who held her was no Christian. What would her prayers or her priests mean to him?

  Aelfwynn had stayed chaste at her mother’s command and had practiced that same purity after her mother’s death, keeping herself safe the only way she knew. Because any man she dallied with, much less married, would have a potential claim to Mercia through her. Her uncle had said it. This Northman had implied it. Her mother had long held that if a man alive deserved to wed the daughter of the Lady of Mercia, Aethelflaed would have found him.

  But she never had.

  Any man who thinks he ought to be a king will prove himself a weak one, Aethelflaed had always said. And Mercia requires strength, daughter.

  There had been so many men in the days after her mother’s death, all of them fancying themselves either the new king of Mercia or the loyal noble who would deliver Mercia, with its rumblings of possible uprisings now the Lady was dead, to her uncle in return for his favor. Aethelflaed’s death had come so suddenly. It had been such a shock that Aelfwynn had hardly known how she might get through the night—but that had not stopped the men.

  One after the next had they come. Some had been brutish, some charming. All of them cool-eyed and glib-mouthed as they told her lies and imagined themselves sitting pretty at Tamworth, rulers of a Mercia that was once again in contention for its independence from the mighty Wessex to the south.

  Edward can make all the claims he likes, one such man had said, not in a whisper, but for all of Tamworth to hear. But he finds himself preoccupied with fighting off the Danes from all sides and his sister is no longer here to link Mercia to Wessex, is she?

  Aelfwynn had known better than to indulge in the whispers. The insinuations. Long before that very man’s head had been taken from his body by Edward’s own sword, she had known it was in her interest to avoid any such talk lest she meet the same fate.

  Her mother had taught her to act at all times as if the tapestries could hear her words and carry them swiftly to her enemies. It was better by far to speak only words of praise and contrition, and then only to heaven. Those who sought to turn her to their plots and plans found that all they could do in her presence was pray.

  It had saved her.

  Do you conspire with these suitors of yours, niece? Edward had demanded when he’d first arrived in Tamworth, setting the whole of the burh to quaking in fear. Do you do their bidding even now? Is it their voices you hear whispering in your ears?

  She had employed the only defense she’d ever had.

  I hope I am far too deep in my prayers, Uncle, she had said, meek and humble and eyes downcast, to notice any voice but God’s.

  Too pious to notice any threat. Too holy to pay the slightest attention to all those men who had believed themselves worthy enough to take her mother’s place. Or betrayed themselves as foolhardy enough to challenge her uncle, indirectly or straight on.

  The Northman who held her so firmly against him was nothing like any of them.

  There had been an uncomfortable ring of truth in all his words. She had felt it inside her, winding around and around like a heat. A bright fire.

  She did even now, when the real truth was that Aelfwynn had no idea what was to become of her. He could do with her what he wished. She doubted not that he would.

  Too well did she know she needed only to accept it.

  Such was her lot in life and always had been. Aelfwynn did not fool herself into imagining that, had she lived, her mother would have taken her daughter’s feelings into account had she finally determined how best to use her. Aelfwynn would not have known Aethelflaed if she had.

  Daughters of great men and women were peace-weavers at best, hostages to warring families, called upon to create bonds between enemies in the form of children. Fathers married their daughters to their enemies. Daughters became wives and laid with those who might well have slain their brothers. A woman’s heart was made strong and true, for too many times would it break in the course of her life. Each remaining piece had to do its part. Well had Aelfwynn comprehended her duty.

  The arm around her yielded not at all. The strong chest at her back might as well have been a wall. She allowed herself a brief moment to think of the quiet life she might have led in Wilton, her days of songs and silence spent far from the demands of men. Then she let it go.

  The Northman could have simply taken her as he wished, yet had not.

  He alone had offered her a choice.

  Would that I had the pleasure of choices agreeable to me, her mother would have said, with one of her bold laughs. If you are presented with options, choose. Then act. That is too often the only pleasure afforded us in this life.

  He could have killed her immediately, but he had not. He could have killed her slowly where he’d found her. He had instead laid not a single finger upon her in any kind of violence.

  Aelfwynn chose to see this as a blessing. A great boon. A gift in truth, though as she knew well, there were few gifts in this world that did not come at a price.

  The old nag trudged on, carrying her toward yet another uncertain future.

  She did not know whether her uncle had sent his men to seize her around the next bend. Or at all. To seize her and execute her forthwith, or perhaps take their time and a dark pleasure in so foul an act. Aelfwynn had to force back a deep shudder. Could her uncle truly have condemned his sister’s only child to such a fate?

  She weighed the possibilities as the woods around them grew darker and more sinister on all sides. Until she was tempted to find the band of stone that held her in place as much a shield against the winter’s night as a weapon he might yet use against her. And the longer they rode, the more she was forced to think that the forbidding Northman likely had it right. />
  The two men her uncle had bestowed upon her, she had thought when she’d seen them, had simply been how he chose to show how little he cared what became of her—so long as she disappeared as promised and did not trouble him again. She was not precious to him and he wished her to know it well. That was a good thing.

  For if she held any meaning for him, he would never have sent her away. He could easily have married her off to one of the men loyal to him instead. And her mother might have planned to use Aelfwynn strategically when the time had come, as was her right, but she would never have permitted her daughter to be ill-used. Aelfwynn doubted very much that her uncle Edward would concern himself much with how any man he wed her to might treat her.

  But she knew his thinking—perhaps better than she might have liked. Even the most loyal man might, upon marrying a woman who could have claimed a kingdom, imagine himself a king. And Edward did not intend to fight battles within his own territory when there were so many without.

  It was entirely possible that he’d allowed her to ride off toward a new life as nothing more than a gesture, and not for her benefit. But rather for the people of Tamworth, and those in Mercia who’d had such hopes for her, who would see his willingness to install her in Wilton Abbey as an act of benevolence on Edward’s part.

  And then, to remove any possible threat, he need only order that she be killed out of sight and far away, where what became of her might never be known.

  Aelfwynn did not tremble at the notion. Well did she know that kings did what they would. Her uncle in particular.

  Edward had never made her feel anything but hollow. It was a wonder he had not taken the matter of her marriage upon himself even before her mother’s death. Aelfwynn knew she was not the only one in her mother’s court who had half expected it for years.

  But even if the Northman had lied and no men waited ahead, it was not as if she imagined she could ride alone all the way to Wilton now her men had abandoned her. It was not a question of whether or not she would be set upon. It was only a matter of when.

  Bandits, wolves, wild boar, the weather, hostile villagers. All of these could and likely would besiege her if she carried on alone. The poor old nag had barely made it this far as it was.

  She kept returning to the fact that this intimidating warrior who held her so securely could easily have slain her men. And her. Shield or weapon though his heavy arm and intimidatingly large body behind her might be, he could have hurt her, yet had not.

  He had not.

  That he had not done any of the terrible things he could have was not exactly a mark in his favor. She understood it made him more dangerous, in some ways. Unpredictable, certainly.

  But she had chosen him.

  She relaxed in his hold slightly more. Only slightly.

  “Everything is not a battle, Aelfwynn,” came that dark voice, edged with an amusement she did not wholly comprehend. Much less how it seemed to coil within her, flame and fever.

  “Spoken like a man well used to winning them,” she said, though she should not have.

  That was a provocation, not a prayer.

  It was something about the woods. The snow against her cheeks. The chill in the air and in her bones warring with the heat that blazed from him.

  All told, it made her foolhardy.

  She tensed, expecting retribution. She was entirely within his grasp. He could crush her with ease and there was nothing in any direction that might stop him, not even the wolves.

  “I am delighted you comprehend our stations, Lady,” the Northman rumbled at her ear. “May the knowledge of who will be the victor light your path forward.”

  And when she started shivering then, she could not stop. Not for far too long, earning herself another taste of that dark, hot laughter that seemed to linger low in her belly.

  Particularly as she let herself wonder what this man might consider a victory.

  Because her mother had raised her to fight with whatever weapons she had, and Aelfwynn had done so. But it was the old woman who had been her companion in her younger years, while Aethelflaed had tended to Aelfwynn’s elderly father and the demands of his court, who had taught her a different set of rules for a different kind of combat.

  Your mother is a queen, child, for all she may call herself Lady in its stead, Mildrithe had said, long ago. She concerns herself with wars that win or lose kingdoms. But most women battle on a different stage.

  I can’t help it that my stitches are so sorry, Aelfwynn had protested. She’d been little more than a girl then, awkward and cross while the older woman’s nimble fingers danced across fabric like light.

  I am not speaking of embroidery, Mildrithe had said, pausing in her work to catch Aelfwynn’s gaze. Then hold it. These wars have no end. Men fight and die every day. And you of royal blood. If your mother is as canny as we know she is, she will barter you to win a kingdom she might otherwise have to take by force.

  Aelfwynn had been but a girl, yet she had understood her place in the world by then. Her father had already been talking of marriage contracts and how best to use her for Mercia’s gain. It wasn’t a question of if she would be married off strategically. It was only when.

  Her father had always been sickly and her mother had often ruled in his stead, even while he lived. Then he had died, and Aethelflaed had turned her attention to fighting back wave after wave of these ruthless Northmen and the relentless Danes. Aelfwynn had been given a reprieve from a dutiful marriage in the form of one war after the next.

  But had her mother claimed York as she’d been poised to do this past summer, and had she then found a man for her daughter who would challenge neither her own position as Lady nor her brother’s rule—all of which had seemed a foregone conclusion all spring—Aelfwynn had expected her wedding would come not long thereafter.

  It would not have been forced, of course. What need had Aethelflaed of using force when she had instilled in her only daughter a sense of duty instead?

  And was duty used against her, its own kind of sword, so different from being claimed by the side of the road?

  We must all submit to one sword or another, Mildrithe had said, fixing young Aelfwynn with a steely glare. Yet heed me. It is within your power whether the sword cuts you in half or holds you aloft.

  If a sword cannot cut, what man would wield it? Aelfwynn had demanded, certain even then, so young and unformed, that she knew all there was to know of men and their swords. Had she not spent her childhood observing her mother’s men whether she wished to or not? Day after day they practiced their wars in every forecourt of every place Aelfwynn had ever lived.

  No man carries but one sword, child, Mildrithe had warned her. The one he holds in his hand might kill you, but that is a blessing compared to the damage he might do with the other.

  Aelfwynn had lived in her mother’s court her whole life. She had seen things she hadn’t fully understood in alcoves around great halls, and even out in the yards. She’d seen men and women coupling and had understood only that while her mother expected her to hold fast to her own chastity, to use it as barter, she would one day be expected to surrender to those dark, urgent embraces herself. It was only a matter of time.

  No matter how she might pray that it were otherwise.

  Does it hurt? she had dared to ask Mildrithe when she knew her mother would not allow such impertinence.

  Does it hurt when you prick your finger with a needle?

  Aelfwynn had scowled down at her much-abused finger. It does.

  The old woman’s gaze had been intent. Aelfwynn remembered it vividly, as if it had happened only today instead of years ago. The creases in her companion’s face. The set of her jaw. The compassion in her eyes.

  Yet you know that when you learn how to wield it, Mildrithe had told her, your fingers sing instead of sting. Never forget this.

  Mildrithe had
lived only three more winters, but Aelfwynn had done as bid. She had not forgotten. And now she could think of little else as they made their slow, steady way through the dark of the forest.

  She tried to imagine that same furtive writhing she’d witnessed with this man so much like a mountain behind her. Around her.

  She both could and couldn’t. And either way, the attempt left her breathless.

  “You know my name. Will I know yours?” she asked then.

  Because if she was riding to her death, as she must assume she was, she wanted to know who it was would dispatch her from the earth. As if that would make it...an act of valor, somehow, to submit to such a fate.

  “I am Thorbrand,” came the deep voice behind her.

  Thorbrand.

  It was only a name, she told herself. It should not have quaked within her.

  He rode on and on, though surely he could not see any better than she could. The snow thickened. The air grew colder. Aelfwynn knew that if she’d set off on her own, even unmolested, she could not have made it far in this weather. And what would have become of her? She feared she would have frozen to death by the side of the road.

  As they continued to ride through the pitiless wood, she still feared it.

  But just as she had begun to despair, she saw a hint of light, flickering through the trees. Aelfwynn held her breath. Yet Thorbrand galloped toward the light, his strong thighs gripping the nag and urging her forward.

  Aelfwynn’s half-formed thought that they’d overtaken her own men, or come across bandits, fell away. And, as frozen through as she felt, she found herself wishing that the ride had taken longer. That whatever awaited her could be put off a while yet.

  Just a while yet.

  But it was not to be.

  Thorbrand rode into a clearing, surrounded on three sides by trees and on the fourth, a rocky outcropping that rose like the side of a castle. He dismounted with powerful ease and it took all of Aelfwynn’s rapidly dwindling courage to stay seated on the horse without the great wall of him behind her. Without all of that heat and strength she should not have found comforting in the least.