Viking in Love

by Sandra Hill

  A reprieve for my hasty tongue, he thought, but why does it feel like a stab to the heart? He remained silent as they walked across the angled bridge that led from the upper motte to the bailey below and then through the drawbridge outside the keep toward an orchard of cherry and apple and pear trees, still in blossom.

  “I would say one more thing, Caedmon. I am appreciative of the protection you offered me and my sisters, and if, by some mischance you lose Larkspur as a result, I am certain that my father would offer you an estate in the Norselands to reestablish yourself.”

  He grinned at that. “You would make me into a Viking?”

  “There are worse things.”

  “Would you buy me a longship? Would I be able to rape and pillage?”

  “No Norsemen I know rape and pillage. Plunder is a different matter. Some folks deserve to be plundered. You have been listening to too many biased priest historians.” Offended at his teasing, she tried to pull away from him, but he held on tight.

  “Now who is getting their bowels in an uproar?” Backing her up against a tree, he dropped her hand, but imprisoned her with elbows braced on either side of her head. He watched with fascination as a shower of white flower petals dusted her head and his.

  She turned her face away from him, but he just used that opportunity to lick the red spots on that side. When she pivoted to chastise him, he kissed her. “Raspberry kisses,” he said against her open mouth. “Have you e’er been tupped against a tree?”

  “You know I have not.” Try as she might, a smile twitched at her plump lips.

  In between kisses, he was ruching up the hem of her gunna, bit by bit, until she was bare from the waist down. “There are so many ways I want to make love with you. So many things to do that I have not yet had a chance. How can you think of leaving afore then?”

  She was busy, too. Bemused, he had not realized that she had already unlaced his breeches and had them shoved down to his knees.

  “Mayhap I will have to find another man to show me those things,” she offered.

  “Nay!” he exclaimed, surprised himself by the vehemence of his response. He lifted her by the buttocks and arranged her legs around his hips. With one mighty thrust, he was inside her tight sheath. “You are mine! Dost hear me?”

  “They heard you all the way to Larkspur.”

  He tried to laugh, but it came out as a gurgle. So overaroused was he that he could not move for fear of peaking, way too early.

  “Help me,” he said against her ear.

  She cupped his face in her palms. “How?”

  “Touch,” he grunted out, taking one of her hands to touch that place where they were joined. Guiding one of her fingers, he showed her how to strum that nubbin of woman-pleasure.

  Almost immediately, she began to whimper and her inner muscles spasmed around him. Only then did he began his strokes, in and out, only a few times afore he came to a blinding peak within her still convulsing insides.

  With his forehead pressed against her forehead, he panted, fighting for breath. “Sorry,” he finally said.

  “For what?”

  “Being too quick.”

  “I was ready, Caedmon.”

  He drew back a bit and smiled. “Yea, you were.”

  She smiled back at him, reaching up to brush a strand of hair off his face.

  His heart turned over, he swore it did.

  “I cannot bear to think of you doing this with another woman,” she confessed.

  “I think I would kill the man who takes you to bed,” he confessed, as well.

  “’Twould seem we have a problem.”

  He turned and sank down to the ground with his back to the tree. She landed on her knees astride him, sitting on her haunches, with his limp member still inside her.

  “Does this count as one of my remaining nights with you?” she teased.

  “Hah! I figure one night accounts for at least six bouts of lovemaking. So, what we just did merits, oh, let us say, a sixth of a night.” Never did I realize that my talent for numbers would come in so handy.

  She laughed. “You are an optimist.”

  “Four times then, and a quarter of a night.”

  “I cannot believe I am bargaining like this for my virtue.”

  “You lost your virtue to me more than five nights ago, sweetling.” He shook his head at the ridiculous position he was in…making love out in the open with his breeches about his ankles and her gown hiked up to her waist. “’Tis insanity, the risks I take to be with you.” And well worth the risk!

  “Your risks? All my plans for my own woodworking business teeter on the edge. I will tell you what is insanity. It is me spreading my thighs for any man, let alone you.”

  “What is wrong with me?”

  “You have ten children. You want no more. You have been twice wed, unsuccessfully, according to your own accounts. Any woman holding out for marriage will be sore disappointed. You hold on to your lands by a thread, at the whim of a greedy overlord.”

  ’Tis true. ’Tis all true. He tilted his head to the side. “So, what is wrong with me?” he repeated, disregarding what she had just said as unimportant.

  She shook her head at his hopelessness.

  I am. Hopeless, that is. “Rashid says that we cast lustsome glances at each other all the time, that anyone with even a speck of a brain could guess what we have been doing.”

  “Just so Dunstan and the king do not suspect.”

  “Will someone tell your father of our doings when you go home?” That is all I need…an angry father with a sword at my throat.

  “Nay, but Rashid might tell Adam, my brother-by-marriage.”

  That could be just as bad. He started to say something, then stopped. His nostrils flared, and his heart skipped a beat, then began to race. He looked downward, where they were still joined, then back to her face. “By the saints! What are you doing?”

  “Practicing my exercises.”

  His thankful, growing cock, if it could talk, would be saying about now, “Insanity be damned!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Help came from the lone stranger…

  Caedmon and Geoff had been sitting before a reduced version of the Witan, “holding court” at a long table in the solar for more than two hours and no end in sight. You would have thought they were being tried for some high crime.

  When Archbishop Dunstan announced the meeting several hours after the king’s arrival, he said there were three things on the agenda. Geoff’s wedding to Lady Moreton. Caedmon’s betrothal to Lady Breanne. The disappearance and possible murder of Lord Oswald, earl of Havenshire. Why the king’s council would need to be involved in those first two was beyond Caedmon’s understanding, and he had told the members so, to no avail. Ealdorman Orm of Donchester, the royal magistrate, had informed him in no uncertain terms, “Lands held by the nobility in Britain may be gained by Odal rights, but they are still under the king’s sufferance.”

  “I take exception! Geoff and I have both served you well, Your Grace,” Caedmon told the king, who was leaning back in his chair, indolently examining his fingernails. “You have no cause to think we have acted in any way contrary to your wishes, had we known of them.”

  King Edgar was very short—coming barely to Caedmon’s shoulder—tow-headed, and pudgy, but he considered himself a prize to females, none of whom dared to disagree. Of late, he had been encouraging the title “Edgar the Peaceable,” because he had managed to avoid any new wars, no matter that he paid Viking brigands to stay away.

  And he had been giving Dunstan free reign to build one monastery after another, reinstating the Benedictine rule of poverty, chastity, and obedience, none of which applied to himself, of course, whose style of living was anything but religious. Secular clergy were being ejected without warning, and to date he had built twenty-five new monasteries and repaired that many existing ones.

  An odd dichotomy, really. A king with a legendary sexual appetite aligned with a priest who hat
ed women.

  “We do not question your loyalty, Caedmon. Nor yours, Geoffrey,” the king said, although his tone said otherwise. “But we do question your timing. Why the haste?”

  “I fell in love on first sight,” Geoff said with a perfectly serious expression on his face.

  “With a hunchback?” the king scoffed.

  “Who lisps,” Lord Orm added, also with skepticism.

  “Sybil is beautiful on the inside,” Geoff claimed with a long sigh.

  Caedmon almost bit his tongue. Geoff was the most superficial man when it came to appearances, his own and his women.

  “Well said, Geoffrey. A good sentiment,” Archbishop Dunstan said, impressed with Geoff’s piety.

  What an idiot!

  “Truth to tell, Geoffrey, I came here this morn, expecting to dissolve your presumptuous handfast marriage. There are others of more merit who could benefit from the Heatherby estates.” The king glanced pointedly at the two thanes, sons of his cousins, who sat on either side of him, sulking. “However, after some consideration, methinks that the marriage should go forward on the morrow.” Under his breath, he muttered to the two thanes, “And I wish him joy of her.”

  In other words, the two thanes did not want the lands enough to bed a hunchback. Caedmon had no idea what would happen in future times if Geoff and a beautified Sybil ran into any of them. He supposed they could say that a holy relic rubbed over the hump had caused it to disappear. Bloody hell!

  “That is not to say there will be no penalty,” Dunstan was quick to add. “Let us say, twenty mancuses of gold.”

  Geoff was about to protest, but Caedmon squeezed his forearm in warning. Now was not the time to argue.

  “Now, ’tis your turn, Lord Caedmon,” Dunstan said.

  “You may leave us, Geoffrey,” Dunstan added.

  “Oh, I do not mind staying,” Geoff started to say, looking to Caedmon for guidance.

  “’Tis not necessary,” he whispered to his friend. “Make sure the women are ready.” Breanne and her two sisters were presumably sitting outside this room all this time, waiting for their own interrogation.

  Once Geoff left, Edgar sat up straighter. Caedmon was fairly certain he had a cushion under his arse to give him height. “Last time I heard, and ’twas only a few months ago, you were adamant about not remarrying. Tell us of your relationship with the Viking princess? What made you change your mind?”

  The two thanes bracketing Edgar sat up straighter, too. It became apparent to Caedmon that while Heatherby was no longer of interest to them because the hunchbacked Sybil went with the package, Larkspur was not so encumbered. They wanted his land.

  Caedmon warned himself to tread carefully. “That is how I felt at the time, but then I met Lady Breanne.”

  “Is she the one with red spots?” Edgar asked Dunstan.

  The archbishop nodded.

  “How long will she have them?” Edgar wanted to know.

  Why in bloody hell does he care? If he thinks to force her to his bed, he will have to plow through me first! “I have no idea. Is there a reason why you ask?” Caedmon’s voice was icy with affront. No one in the room could doubt that he was giving the king a silent warning.

  Edgar tented his short fingers in front of his face, staring at him with barely concealed hostility. “Why should we give our permission for this betrothal?”

  Caedmon would have liked to ask since when was a royal approval needed for anything involving this remote, small estate?

  Just then, the door swung open and in strode a man clearly of noble stature. He was tall, his black hair sprinkled with gray, wearing a fine wool cloak over soft leather breeches and tunic. Gold shone from his shoulder brooch and belt. It was Eirik, earl of Ravenshire, kin-by-marriage to Breanne’s sister Tyra. Caedmon did not know him personally, but he had seen him at a distance in the past at royal events.

  Geoff followed Eirik in and sat down beside Caedmon, whispering, “The women are primed for battle.”

  “Please tell me that you jest.”

  Eirik made a short bow from the waist at the “royal” table and said, “Greetings, Your Eminence. Greetings, Your Highness. I came as soon as I heard a meeting of the Witan was being called. I must have missed my invitation.” Without being asked, Eirik pulled a chair up to the table where the others sat. He turned then and winked at Caedmon, so quickly no one else saw it.

  “This is not a formal meeting of the Witan,” King Edgar said in his usual whiny voice.

  Caedmon had mixed feelings about Lord Ravenshire’s arrival. On the one hand, he resented the implication that he could not handle his own affairs. On the other hand, a good soldier never looked a gift horse in the mouth. Or, as Rashid would say, “Never look a gift camel in the mouth.” It was a sign of his melting brain that he was making up camel proverbs in his head.

  “Continue as you were.” Eirik motioned toward them with a wave of his hand. “Do not let my presence inhibit you.” The latter was ludicrous, considering how uncomfortable he was making the other Witan members.

  “King Edgar asked why he should give permission for my betrothal to Lady Breanne,” Caedmon explained to Eirik, whose eyes widened just the tiniest bit at the news of a betrothal. “I was about to say that I married twice to satisfy the crown’s wishes, and I vowed that I would ne’er wed again, but that was afore I met my lady love, a gentle, sweet lass. She is everything a man could want in a wife.” He was sure that Geoff and Wulf would laugh their arses off one day in recounting his description of his fierce Viking lass. Breanne would, too, for that matter.

  “But she is a heathen Viking,” Dunstan protested.

  “I told you afore that her family has been baptized.”

  “Do not think that I am unaware of the Norsemen’s practice of being baptized as a convenience to travel in our lands.” Dunstan sneered. “They are no more Christians than camels.”

  Good thing Rashid was not here. He would not like the maligning of camels.

  “Have a caution whom you speak ill of, Your Eminence,” Eirik warned. “I am half Viking.”

  Dunstan made a harrumphing sound.

  “I understand the wench has a sizeable dowry,” Edgar said. “How much and how is it to be allocated?”

  What he really meant was, how much would he get if he allowed the marriage? A marriage that would never be happening. What a mess!

  “I have not even talked with her father yet. Until that happens, I cannot say.”

  “What is this really about?” Eirik wanted to know. “The king, two thanes, an archbishop, and an ealdorman do not travel to the far reaches of the kingdom to discuss a betrothal that represents a pittance compared to the rest of the realm.”

  Dunstan tapped his fingertips on the tabletop. “The murder of the earl of Havenshire…that is what this is about, and we have reason to believe his widow is the culprit.”

  Eirik turned to Caedmon with mock dismay on his face. “Is this true?”

  Caedmon shrugged. “I did not know they found a body.”

  Dunstan’s face flushed with chagrin. “We do not need a body to know there has been foul play.”

  “Are you saying that this whole flummery is being played over a murder that might not have taken place?” Eirik’s face was livid with outrage.

  “Call in the women. Let us get to the bottom of this vile situation.” Edgar was probably bored by now. “Know this, Caedmon, any persons who helped Lady Havenshire escape are considered accomplices and will be judged and punished accordingly, and that includes you and the sisters.”

  “Escape? How can someone escape when they have never been charged?” Eirik glowered at the other Witan members. “This is an exercise in stupidity, if you ask me.”

  Caedmon stood and snarled at the king. “Accomplice? The injustice of your insult cuts deep. Do not threaten me, Your Highness, when I have done naught but give you good service over the years.”

  Now it was Edgar’s turn to flush with embarrassment. Backtracking
, he said, “My apologies, Caedmon. I do value your service. Understand our dilemma, though. A valued nobleman and close friend is missing, and the only clues to his whereabouts lie with the women under your protection.”

  “Get the women, and let us be done with it,” Dunstan ordered.

  And then the terrible trouble just got more terrible…

  The longer they waited, the more nervous they got.

  Breanne and her sisters had been sitting at the far end of the great hall, closest to the solar, for more than two hours, waiting their turn. The only thing that gave them hope was the arrival of Lord Ravenshire and his wife.

  Lady Ravenshire, who asked to be called Eadyth, was a fascinating woman, and beautiful. Even though she must have been close to fifty, her naturally silvered hair and clear skin belied her years. In fact, she had once been known as the Silver Jewel of Northumbria because of her beauty. Right now, she was in deep conversation with Drifa and Ingrith about her beekeeping operation. She had already promised Breanne help in setting up her woodworking stall in Jorvik when she was ready.

  Rashid sat with them, but he had been advised to remain quiet or stay as far away as possible from Dunstan, who hated Arabs almost as much as he hated women. Never mind that Rashid was a far-famed healer and comrade of some well-placed men. “Even the camel knows not to stand in a place of danger and trust in miracles.”

  “What does that mean?” Breanne asked on a deep sigh.

  “It means that Allah helps those who help themselves. You and your sisters have done well.” Rashid patted her hand. “Making yourselves scarce and unattractive. Huddling behind the shield of strong men. Speaking up when all else fails. You are fighters, all of you, and that is good in the eyes of Allah.”

  “There is fighting, and then there is fighting. King Edgar does not play by the rules. He is a vile man,” Breanne answered.