“Dragon shit!” Thork’s rude expletive echoed loudly through the hall, where the crowd had been following the skald’s saga with silent appreciation.
Sigtrygg turned to Thork and asked, “Do you scoff at the skald’s saga?”
“Yea, that I do. The end results wax true, but think you, who know my father’s cunning, that the whim of a mere maid steered him ever?”
Sigtrygg thought a moment, then agreed. “’Tis right you are, Thork, but it makes for a good telling.” Then he turned to the embarrassed skald and asked, “Know you more?”
“Yea, but naught do I know of the sagas’ truth,” he whined. “I only relate what has been passed on to me.” The skald looked at Thork, wondering if he would find fault with this story, too. When Thork ignored him, staring disinterestedly into his cup, he went on.
In fine poetic detail, the man told of Ruby’s ancestor Hrolf, whom Harald had declared an outlaw in Norway, despite his friendship with Hrolf’s father, Rognvald, the Earl of More. The skald traced Hrolf’s descent for eleven generations from a king called Fornjot in Finland. He droned on with his story, finally concluding, “…and the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, gave him the province of Normandy.”
Ruby found the tale absorbing, but wished it hadn’t been told. It called Sigtrygg’s attention to her.
“Where’s the wench that claims kinship to Hrolf?” the king demanded to know, scanning the crowd for her. “Has she been beheaded yet?”
Geez! This guy had a decapitation fixation.
Ruby tried to slide over on the platform so she’d be hidden by Olaf’s massive frame. No such luck! Olaf turned and lifted her down, telling her to go forward.
Oh, great! Here we go again!
Ruby walked forward with chin high, trying to keep her knees from knocking.
“Your attire improves since last we met,” the king commented snidely, seeming to forget that the last he’d seen her she hadn’t been wearing much at all. Ruby wasn’t about to remind him.
“Why have we not seen you at court?”
He’d apparently forgotten that he’d ordered Thork to take her away.
“I stay with Olaf’s family.”
Sigtrygg nodded his shaggy head, remembering now, and looked shrewdly at Thork. “How fast did you rid yourself of the troublesome wench?” He didn’t wait for an answer before turning back to Ruby. “What name do you answer to?”
“Ruby. Ruby Jordan.”
“Like the gem?”
“Actually, my mother was a country music buff. She thought Ruby and Lucille…that’s my sister…sounded like good country-sounding names. Of course, she was proven right when songs with those two titles later became country music legends.”
The king’s good eye lit up with interest. He probably didn’t understand most of what she’s said, except for the music part.
“You will sing for us,” he declared imperiously.
“I don’t sing that well.”
Thork choked on the wine he’d been drinking, and a friend pounded him on the back to stop the fit of laughing that followed. Ruby shot him a look of disgust.
“’Tis of no importance,” Sigtrygg said. “Sing.”
Embarrassment flushed Ruby’s face. At home she could accompany herself with chords on her son’s guitar to cover her mistakes. She picked up the lute sitting on a table near the king, wondering if it would work. She strummed it a few times. Definitely not the same, but better than nothing.
“I’ll try,” Ruby told the king, “but don’t expect much.”
He said nothing but looked as if he did, in fact, expect much. What could he do? Chop off her head? Ruby quipped morbidly to herself.
“Before I start, I have to explain a few things about words you might not understand in this song. There was a famous war in my country that’s referred to in this song as the Asian War. It’s about a man, a brave warrior, who was injured in that war so severely that his legs are paralyzed and he’s lost his”—Ruby sought for the right word—“manhood.”
She saw several men in the audience nod knowingly and went on, “His injuries are so severe that he expects to die soon, but still he’s hurt by a young wife who wants more out of life than marriage to a handicapped man.”
The room was deathly quiet. She had the Vikings’ full attention.
Ruby strummed on the lute, singing hesitantly and softly at first of this poor man seeing his wife leaving him to be with another man. Whenever she sang the refrain, in a lower husky octave, where the ex-soldier begs his wife Ruby not to take her love to town, she saw smiles of appeciation dimple some of the fierce Vikings’ faces and tears mist the eyes of others. Inadvertently, Ruby had chosen a song that struck a chord in the hearts of these sensitive warlords. They understood too well the price of battle, knowing it could happen to any one of them and already had to some of their comrades.
The room was totally silent when Ruby finished.
Uh oh! Did this mean head chopping time?
Ruby looked at Thork who had set his drink down and watched her intently, clearly mesmerized by her musical story. Ruby smiled at him, and a spot deep inside her moved when he smiled back. His steady, riveting gaze carried a warmth through that thin thread of magnetism that connected them, setting her blood asimmer and her heart racing. With each tension-coiled second their eyes held fast, the bond between them expanded and grew stronger.
Then the whole room burst into excited sounds of approval, and Ruby and Thork were rudely jolted from their seductive trances. King Sigtrygg stood and clapped Ruby on the back so enthusiastically she almost dropped the lute.
“Well met! Well met!” he declared. “Tomorrow you will teach that saga to my skald.” The storyteller didn’t look too happy at that prospect. “Now tell us the other song-story about your sister. What is her name?”
“Lucille.”
The Vikings loved this song, as well, about an adulterous wife whose husband confronts her in a barroom over her leaving him and their four hungry children. By the time she ended the song, the Vikings sang the refrain along with her in deep, deep voices, chastising the flighty Lucille for picking a fine time to leave her husband.
Ruby was a hit. The feet-stomping, beer-drinking Vikings were country music lovers. They demanded she sing both songs again, then asked if she knew any others.
Only Thork didn’t seem to appreciate her songs. His mood had changed from the warm exchange of only a few minutes ago. He grumbled coldly, “’Tis fair odd to me that you sing such songs. I see naught to amuse in a tale which eulogizes the ever-constant lack of loyalty in women.”
The king and a number of men howled gleefully at Thork’s words. They knew of Thork’s bitter attitude encompassing all women. In fact, they probably shared that view.
“No, you miss the point, Thork,” Ruby corrected. “The songs speak scornfully of those few women who don’t appreciate a good man of honor.”
What was the use of trying to defend herself with Thork? Ruby began to think she could use a beer herself but knew her fate might depend on keeping to the king’s good side. She racked her brain for another song and came up with nothing.
But then she remembered two catchy songs she’d heard playing over and over on her car radio. The Vikings might like them because of the funny words and the deep, deep notes required in parts. When she was done singing Garth Brooks’s “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places” and Hank Williams, Jr.’s “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight,” the roof practically lifted off the high ceiling with the raucous laughter and shouts for more. She concluded with the old Mac Davis song “Lord, It’s Hard to Be Humble” and watched the burly Viking men roar with laughter, even knowing she aimed the song at them.
Thork riveted her with a strange, questioning expression. She intrigued him, as she did the other Vikings, no question of that, but there was something more on his devastatingly handsome face that Ruby couldn’t quite identify. His piercing blue eyes held hers, and Ruby tried to understand w
hat it was he was trying to tell her, to no avail. Somewhere deep inside she knew the answer, but it eluded her now. Ruby put a hand to her forehead in weary confusion.
“The wench is fair dropping with fatique,” Thork told the king, having understood her gesture immediately. “Let her go for now.” Thork called the lutist and his sister back to entertain again, not waiting for Sigtrygg’s answer.
Taking Ruby’s arm, Thork pulled her to the side, away from the crowd, where he handed her his glass of wine. She put her lips on the rim where his had been, and drank deeply, watching him all the while, wondering at the searching look in his fathomless blue eyes.
She felt dizzy with the wave of sudden wanting that washed over her, realizing what the strange look had been on Thork’s face earlier, as it was now. Jack wore that same look when he was aroused and wanted to make love. What had she said or done to touch that nerve in Thork?
“Who are you?” he whispered thickly. His eyes raked her hungrily.
“Your wife.”
He shook his head negatively but asked in a hoarse, desire-ridden voice, “Would you bed with me?”
Ruby smiled at his blunt words. Always to the point!
“Would you wed with me?”
He smiled at her quick rejoinder and shook his head, probably thinking she wasn’t serious. “I want you.” He put emphasis on each of the three words, trying to make himself clear. As if his ragged breathing and glazed eyes didn’t bring the point home—loud and clear!
“I know,” she whispered, laying an understanding hand on his arm. She jumped back at the jolt of sexual heat that hit her square in her womanly center with just that light touch.
A sensual smile spread on Thork’s parted lips. He sensed what had happened to her, had probably felt it himself.
“You have been teasing me for days, since you first landed at the harbor, sweetling,” Thork rasped out huskily. “’Tis strange this attraction I have for you. I could almost believe we have known each other afore, as you claim. Truly, you seem to know which spots to prick my desire.”
A vast, inordinate pleasure swept over Ruby at his words.
“Are you a sorceress, Ruby? Have you put a spell on me?” Thork asked softly as he took her cup from her and laid it on a nearby window well. With his thumb he wiped a drop of wine from her chin. When he started to withdraw his hand to wipe it on his tunic, Ruby took hold of his thumb. The tip of her tongue peeked out, deliberately enticing him, then licked the wine off the sensitive pad, then licked again.
Thork’s eyes turned dark blue as he shuddered before grabbing her by the waist, turning her back to the wall with toes barely touching the floor. He pinioned her there with his clearly aroused lower body. Expertly he moved his hips from side to side until their bodies fit together—breast to chest, womanhood to manhood.
“O-o-o-h!” Ruby sighed softly, and a low, appreciative growl rose involuntarily from deep in Thork’s throat.
Ruby shut her eyes briefly to savor the exquisite sensation. All the fine hairs on her body stood to attention, attuned to this man whose body was as familiar to her as her own.
When Thork moved back slightly, then ground himself against her—in just the right spot—Ruby gasped.
“I have shown you what I want,” Thork groaned, panting through parted lips. “What do you want?”
“I think…” Ruby tried to speak but her voice broke with emotion. “…I think I’d love one of those kisses I told you about the other day.”
Thork grinned wolfishly, understanding her words immediately. He lowered his lips until they almost touched hers. “How did it go? Long, slow,…”
When his lips finally touched hers, he moved his mouth back and forth until he shaped the kiss to his satisfaction. The kiss was as electrifying as Jack’s had ever been, and more so. They kissed endlessly, never coming up for air. Ruby savored the feel of lips that matched perfectly, knowing instinctively through twenty years of practice what this man liked and needed. Her lips clung to Thork’s eagerly. Ravenous, she could not seem to get enough of their sweet torture.
Finally Thork pulled back slightly and whispered, biting the edge of her bottom lip playfully, “What were the other things that man Kevin liked in his kisses? Was it…yes…deep, I think you said.”
When Thork’s tongue plunged through Ruby’s parted lips and began a slow, rhythmic, in-and-out cadence, Ruby put her arms around Thork’s neck and parted her legs slightly so she could feel him better. His manhood touched the bud of her femininity, and a shock of pleasure hit Ruby, so intense that she went limp in his arms. Thork’s body spasmed in reaction. He pulled his mouth away roughly, holding her face firmly between his two hands.
So hoarsely that Ruby could barely hear him, Thork asked, his self-control obviously near the exploding point, “And the last thing this man liked in his kisses?”
“I can’t think,” Ruby admitted, watching smile lines crinkle Thork’s eyes. But then she murmured, “I remember now. I think it was ‘long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.’”
Thork grinned and Ruby’s heart lurched, as it always did when Jack looked at her like that. There she went again, thinking of the two of them—Jack and Thork—as one.
“I don’t know about the three days, but I think we can manage the next to the last one,” Ruby promised shakily. “Don’t you?” Playing the aggressor, she pulled his head down to hers, then wet his lips with the tip of her tongue before plunging into his mouth as he’d done to hers moments before.
Thork’s low, throaty moan gave proof positive that he liked what she was doing, not to mention the increasing, delicious pressure Ruby felt below the waist.
Thork pulled away from her, passion glazing his eyes.
“Truly, are you a sorceress?”
“No, just a woman.”
“Will you be my woman this night?”
Ruby whimpered as he seduced her with a slight movement of his hips. “Oh, Thork, a part of me wants to, but—”
“Which part?” he asked with a lopsided grin, arching an eyebrow as he moved against her again.
“That’s not fair,” she gasped with a short laugh. “Thork, I want you, too, but I’m too old for one-night stands. I’ve lived with you, I mean Jack, for too many years to be satisfied with so little.”
“One-night stand?”
“It means that I won’t be just another notch on your bedpost, to be forgotten the next day. Unless, of course, you mean your invitation for more than one night.” She looked up at him hopefully.
Thork bared his white teeth in a devastating smile. “Oh, sweetling, ’twould be more than one night, I wager, afore our appetites were sated.”
No doubt about that, Ruby thought. Every inch of her skin pulsed with want of him.
Impatient, Thork asked once again, “Will you share my bed tonight?”
“Will you admit to being my husband?”
Thork tilted his head questioningly. Then his eyes stormed over as realization hit him that she wanted more from him than he was willing to give.
“Never!” Thork said vehemently, pulling back from her. Suddenly his passion turned cold. He slammed a fist into his palm angrily. “I should have known. Ever do women want something from a man. Never do they give their love unconditionally.”
“That’s not fair.”
“’Tis the fool I am for thinking you showed honest emotion when, in fact, you sought payment for favors given. Marriage vows in exchange for your body! Hah!” His blazing eyes raked her body scornfully. “It appears you were well named after the harlot in your bloody name-song, after all.”
“Thork, that’s not true,” Ruby cried, but he’d already turned and left. She touched her fingertips to kiss-swollen lips to stop her sobs.
Would this man ever stop hurting her?
Chapter Seven
For the next few days, thoughts of Thork tormented Ruby. No matter what she was doing—helping Gyda to put away summer produce, marketing with Astrid under U
lf’s ever-present surveillance, playing with the children, singing and telling stories at Sigtrygg’s court each night where she’d gained an unwanted popularity—Ruby couldn’t stop thinking about this Viking prototype of her husband.
She should have felt guilty, having such adulterous feelings for another man. She didn’t.
The rational side of Ruby’s brain told her Thork was not her husband. The other side of her brain, however, the one with a pipeline directly to her heart, saw no difference between Jack and Thork.
Ruby needed to talk to Thork, but he avoided her like the plague—rarely coming to Olaf’s house and leaving whenever she saw him in Sigtrygg’s hall, usually with the blonde she likened to Dolly Parton.
Somehow she had to convince him she came from the future and that, for some reason known only to God, she’d been sent to him. Then, too, Thork’s sons demanded her attention. She must convince Thork that his neglectful behavior hurt the boys. They needed him almost as desperately as she did.
And what about Jack and her own two boys? Was Jack sorry now that he’d left her? Did he think she’d died? She couldn’t bear to picture Eddie and David at her funeral, having to live without a mother. But then, Jack planned to look for another woman. He’d already told her so. As painful as the thought of Jack with another woman was, Ruby hoped his second wife would be a good mother for her sons—if she didn’t return.
Ruby swiped at her eyes and glanced at Gyda who’d been chattering away while Ruby’s mind wandered. A guard, Ulf, followed close behind as they walked toward the Norse castle.
“’Tis a puzzle to me yet why Sigtrygg’s latest mistress, Byrnhil, would summon us. And midday, at that! ’Tis the busiest time of the day. Leastways ’tis for honest folk.”
“I don’t know any more than you do. Believe me, I would as soon stay far away from your king and his volatile moods. I’m afraid he may behead me yet.”
When they got to the palace, the empty great hall echoed with silence. A servant escorted them to an upper chamber where a dozen well-dressed women of Sigtrygg’s court eagerly awaited their arrival.
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