Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 03]

by The Tarnished Lady

  “I am not laughing.”

  “Mayhap you should. It might loosen your stiff countenance. Most times you look like you have a pike up your arse.”

  Wilfrid chortled gleefully, but flame-hot anger turned Eadyth’s face blood red, even through the ashes. She looked as if she would love to throttle him with her bare hands.

  “You filthy-mouthed, wicked man!”

  Eirik shrugged. “And you are a carping crone, my lady wife. Mayhap we make a good pair.”

  “Bloody beast!”

  “Dour dowd!”

  “Lecherous lackwit!”

  “Shrill shrew!”

  “Odious oaf!”

  “Wench!”

  “Wretch!”

  Eirik smiled widely, enjoying their exchange and her anger to the fullest. He grabbed her arm, pulling her forcibly back to her seat.

  Visibly fighting to control her roiling temper, Eadyth finally managed to speak in a level tone of voice, “I do not deserve to be treated in such a crude manner.”

  “Do you not? Ah, well, then I must be sorry, I suppose.” He knew he did not look one bit apologetic. Eadyth turned to Wilfrid, glaring her distaste at his continuing mirth. Wilfrid had the grace to duck his head sheepishly.

  “Here, wife. Methinks you could use a cup of your own mead.”

  Eirik reached in front of her for the tankard on her other side, accidentally brushing her left breast with his hand in the process. His eyes shot wide in response to the sensuous feeling it invoked. Testing, he surreptitiously repeated the stroke when bringing the tankard back in front of him.

  He felt Eadyth’s nipple peak against the hairs of his forearm, and a red-hot spear of sensation shot to his fingertips, which yearned to examine the shape and texture of her firm breasts. He licked his suddenly dry lips and tried to ignore the hardening evidence of his arousal beneath the constraint of his tight braies.

  And he noted that Eadyth’s body reacted involuntarily to his touch, as well, in a way she obviously could not comprehend. She stared at him in confusion before crossing her arms across her nipples, which were clearly outlined against the thin fabric of her gunna.

  Despite Eirik’s deplorable behavior, despite her aversion to the act men and women performed together, did her body ache for his caress? Was her blood thickening? Did her limbs grow heavy with longing?

  “You are a perverted man,” Eadyth exclaimed, jarring him from his sensuous reverie. “Do not mistake me for some lackwit maid who will spread her thighs for a mere whiff of your man scent.”

  “Ma…man scent?” Eirik sputtered out.

  “Do not think you can bewitch me with your unholy ways.”

  “’Tis naught unholy about the coupling betwixt a husband and wife.”

  Eadyth snorted in a very unfeminine fashion. “Go thee off to Jorvik and ease yourself on your mistress, but leave me alone.”

  Eirik smiled, realizing his new wife was finding it hard to resist his considerable charms. She would completely lose her sanctimonious self-control if he had any say in the matter.

  She stood, preparing to leave the dais.

  “Did you suckle your baby?”

  “What did you say?” Eadyth asked, plopping back into her chair. Then she noticed, with consternation, that he was staring at her breasts.

  Eirik loved it.

  She folded her arms again, glaring violet fire at him.

  “Did you suckle John as a babe?”

  “Why?” she choked out through deliciously soft lips.

  Eirik shrugged, finding it harder and harder to hold on to his anger in the face of her seductive allure. “I just wondered if your nipples were still pink, or a dusky rose as some women’s are wont to be after bearing a child. And—”

  “Argh! You are truly loathsome.” Eadyth jumped to her feet, scowling equally at Eirik and Wilfrid, who both chortled gleefully at finally breaking the shell of her haughty composure. This time she would not allow Eirik to pull her back into her seat. The tune of their laughter followed her as she stomped down the dais steps and through the great hall.

  Eirik realized that Tykir had been right about the sway of her hips. His eyes followed her form until she started to climb the stairway to the second floor and her bedchamber.

  Several hours later, when Eirik entered the dark bedchamber, he lit a candle, then chuckled aloud when he looked toward the bed. His recalcitrant wife was lying under the bed linens, no doubt sweltering in the May heat. She hugged the edge of the bed frame, pretending to be asleep.

  Eirik grinned.

  First, he pissed noisily in a chamber pot behind a screen at the side of the room, certain that this intimate aspect of married life would annoy his prickly wife. After washing his face and arms in a bowl of water, he removed all of his garments and slipped naked into the huge bed which dominated the center of the room.

  He slid a bare leg over to Eadyth’s side of the bed, nudging her with his big toe. She jerked and almost fell off the bed. He smiled to himself, then exclaimed, “By the Faith, Eadyth! Why are you wearing so many garments?”

  “I got a chill,” her weak, muffled voice said from beneath the bed covers now pulled up to her nose.

  “Show me yer legs,” another muffled voice, a mite more squawkish than Eadyth’s, called out from the corner where a dark fabric had been thrown over its cage. Then, “Would ye like to see me arse?”

  Eadyth groaned and muttered something about making parrot porridge.

  Eirik shook his head in wonder at the comedic turn his somber life had taken of late. Then he grimaced with self-disdain when he remembered that he was the target of the biggest jest of all—his lady wife’s grand charade.

  “Take the damn shroud off, Eadyth. You will make the bed too hot for me to sleep with your body heat.”

  She grumbled something under her breath, and Eirik could have sworn he heard Abdul snicker.

  “At least, snuff the candle. ’Tis immodest,” she demanded shrilly. When he did not immediately do her bidding, she turned in chagrin, no doubt intending to land him a good clout to the head. She inhaled sharply when she saw his nude body reclining indolently alongside her, with hands folded behind his head. Quickly, she turned her face away in embarrassment.

  “Ah, well, I can understand a bride’s shyness with a new husband,” he said in a voice oozing with solicitude before rising to do her bidding. When the room was in total darkness, he returned to the bed, realizing that Eadyth had removed her gown in record time and was naked but already covered once again by the bed linens.

  Oh, Eadyth, you are sadly mistaken if you think you can hide from me. You are going to pay for your deceit. In good time. In my own way.

  She lay on her side with her back to him, stiff as a cold poker. Slowly, he slid his leg closer to hers, testing her reaction. At just the slightest caress of his furred leg against her smoother calf, she jolted. Eirik felt a jolt, as well, but his was of raw desire shooting up his leg and ricocheting to all the important sensual spots on his body—especially those centered in his aching staff.

  Suddenly, he wished he had not snuffed the candle. He would like to better see this new wife of his. And that long, curly hair he had barely glimpsed this afternoon. How would it look spread out against the white bed linens?

  Eirik reached blindly toward the vicinity of her pillow but felt no strands of silky hair. Feeling his way closer, he eventually found her head, but the wily witch had braided her hair and wound it into a tight coronet around her head. And even worse, it was covered with a thick coating of grease. He sniffed his fingers. Lard. So, that is why her silvery-blonde hair appears to be gray with age. Eadyth has gone to much trouble to dupe me. Why?

  Suddenly, Eadyth shoved his hands away with a sound of disgust and sat up in the bed, making sure the linens were pulled up, hiding her breasts from his scrutiny. Not that he could see them in the dimness anyway.

  “Listen, I do not believe in delaying the inevitable, no matter how distasteful. I have much to do
on the morrow. ’Tis time to gather honey from some of my hives. Bertha and I intend to strain it all and put it in containers for market. Let us get this…this bedding over with so that I can get some sleep.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just do…it.”

  Good Lord! The shrew thinks she can “manage” the coupling betwixt man and wife, as well.

  He heard a rustling of cloth and moved closer to see what she was about. By the moonlight coming through the two arrow slits in the near wall, he could see, just barely, that his dutiful wife was lying on her back, arms frozen stiff at her sides, eyes squeezed shut and her legs spread wide like some sacrificial victim. And she was bare-arsed naked!

  Despite the lack of sensuality in Eadyth’s martyr-like pose, Eirik felt his heartbeat accelerate. His fingertips yearned to examine all the mysterious places that his wife had been hiding so long. His lips ached to shape her finely defined lips with his kisses. His tongue thirsted for the suckling of her mouth and for the taste of her supple skin, and, oh, Lord, even the nectar between her legs.

  And his staff! His rock-hard staff wanted nothing more than to plunge deep into her virgin-like body and be caressed by the inner folds of her femininity.

  Eirik inhaled deeply to slow the raging fire that threatened to consume him, then knelt between her legs. The only sounds in the room were his heavy breathing and the occasional flutter of Abdul’s wings as he shifted in sleep. Eadyth appeared to have stopped breathing altogether.

  Placing his hands on each of her widespread ankles, Eirik slowly brushed his fingertips up her calves, trying to learn the shape and texture of her body by touch alone in the near-darkness.

  He had no intention of consummating their marriage tonight, not until he was absolutely certain of her motives in deceiving him. But he could still enjoy teasing her, though he was beginning to suspect that he might not emerge from the night’s play unscathed.

  When his roaming fingers had examined the curves of her shapely knees and began to move upward on the muscled contours of her thighs, Eadyth made a strangled sound of protest, then clamped a hand over her mouth.

  His hands moved higher toward the apex of her thighs. He wished he had left the candle lit so he could see if any moisture glistened there. Not likely! Icicles would be more probable. Next time, he would be prepared. He would fill the chamber with dozens of her precious beeswax candles and be damned with her false modesty.

  When his fingertips just barely skimmed the silken hairs, Eadyth whimpered, “Stop it.”

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  “Touching me.”

  “Why?”

  “I do not like being touched.”

  “Does it make you nervous?”

  She made a soft sound of surprise at his question. “Yea…I mean, nay…oh, for the love of God, just get on with it and be done so I can go to sleep.”

  “I must touch you,” he whispered huskily.

  “Nay.”

  “Yea.”

  She slapped at his exploring fingers, but Eirik just laughed low in his chest, ignoring her protests as his hands moved like butterfly wings up her body. They traced the curve of her slim hips and the womanly indentation of her waist, over her abdomen, then under her breasts where he could feel the wild beating of her heart. For just a moment, he let his hands rest under the firm mounds. When he cupped the small breasts in his hands, testing their weight and shape, Eadyth stiffened even more, seeming to hold her breath. Still cradling her breasts in his palms from the underside, he flicked both tips with the callused pads of his thumbs, bringing her nipples instantly erect.

  Although her breasts were not particularly big, the nipples were large and hard as pebbles. He liked that.

  She moaned, fists clenched tightly in the bed linens at her side, and tried to buck him off. “Oh, you are vile. Take your perversities and leave me be.”

  Eirik wanted to know all of her. His fingertips became his eyes, exploring her flat stomach, her armpits, the high arch of her feet, her spidery eyelashes—yea, her eyes were still squeezed tightly shut—her knees, the small of her back. By the time he blew softly in her ear and traced the delicate whorls with the tip of his tongue, Eadyth was tossing her head back and forth, her body rigid with tension.

  Eirik discovered a liking for the taste of his wife’s skin, even the salt of her perspiration. He licked the smooth skin of her neck which smelled faintly of beeswax and her own woman scent—and fear.

  Actually, Eirik had carried this bed sport much farther than he had intended for tonight. If he did not soon put a halt to the love play, he would be unable to stop.

  But there was just one thing he wanted—nay, needed—to do. Leaning down, he took her left nipple between his lips and flicked it with his tongue, then suckled it wetly against the roof of his mouth. He held her nipple in his mouth only a moment. It was all he could stand.

  But he was almost undone when she sighed and instinctively arched upward for more. Blood roared in his ears, and Eirik felt his control slipping fast at her involuntary response.

  “Oh,” she whispered.

  “Oh?”

  “It was ne’er like this with Steven.”

  Steven! Mention of his hated enemy drew Eirik jarringly back to his present dilemma. Could he risk making love to Eadyth and possibly planting his seed in her womb when there was even the remotest possibility that her charade these past few sennights connected somehow with Steven of Gravely? Nay, he decided, forcing himself to ignore the pulsing hardness between his thighs and the churning of his blood which ached for the satisfaction that only her body could provide. With determination, he rolled over to his side of the bed.

  “Wha…what?” Eadyth asked.

  Eirik yawned loudly and tried to appear unaffected as he lied, “I find I am not really up to all this bed sport tonight. Mayhap another night.” Then he turned his back to her and pretended to fall asleep.

  For once, he had stunned his shrewish wife speechless. She probably thought her age and uncomeliness repelled him. Hah! If he were any more attracted, the bed might burst aflame. Smiling, he considered, then discarded, the notion of relieving himself with his own hands to ease the ache of his powerful erection. He had given Eadyth enough shocks for one day.

  Eadyth lay on her back, frozen in the same position for a good long while, stunned by Eirik’s rebuff. Oh, it was humiliating beyond belief. Finally she had yielded to a man’s lustful advances, and he had found her…deficient.

  Eirik let out a loud snore. Her lips curled with disgust as she turned to view her husband’s naked back. The brute! How could a person fall into such a sound sleep so quickly? She was sorely tempted to kick his bare bottom.

  But Eadyth was not sure she wanted him awake. She felt her carefully guarded self-control unraveling, and she did not like the prospect one bit. Acutely conscious of her sensitized body, she needed to understand the odd pleasures Eirik’s touch had ignited just moments ago. Slanting a look his way to make sure he could not see, Eadyth brushed her fingertips over her thighs, across her flat stomach and up over the still turgid nipples of her breasts. She felt nothing nigh approaching the delicious sensations Eirik’s fingers had evoked.

  Why did it feel so different, so achingly wonderful, when it had been Eirik’s hateful fingers doing the caressing? What would it have been like if he had kept doing those wicked things with his lips and tongue on her nipple? Her breasts swelled and ached oddly at the image. And if he had kissed her lips, especially if he had kissed her with his tongue as he had done that one time in this very room, and if he had been touching her body with those feathery caresses at the same time…well, Eadyth did not know if she would have been able to hide her response.

  The puzzle nagged at her for hours before she finally fell into a troubled sleep.

  Eirik was already up and gone when Eadyth awakened the next morning. Thank God! She recalled that he and his retainers intended to travel to the far reaches of his estate to investigate reports of s
trangers on horseback trampling a new field of wheat. Eadyth shuddered, knowing that Steven was, no doubt, behind this latest trouble that plagued Ravenshire.

  The demonic Earl of Gravely played with them—a macabre game designed to set their nerves on edge as they waited for his final action. What that would be, she could not guess, but she swore it would not involve her son John.

  Eadyth also resolved not to let Eirik put her off again today. She must confess her ludicrous masquerade before it went any farther. Especially since he had put such emphasis on honesty in their talk yestereve. Oh, Lord!

  Later that morning, she sat at the kitchen table helping Bertha and Britta shell a basket of early peas. She wanted to clear the large table for the dozens of honeycombs she had gathered that morning. She intended to prepare them for market in small pottery containers she had designed. Kettles of hot water and special straining devices lay at the ready.

  “I heard how our Lord Raven teased you at the great table yestereve,” Britta commented companionably. “Men are such vulgar beasties sumtimes.”

  Eadyth popped several sweet peas in her mouth and crunched as she raised an eyebrow in question.

  “You know, about the color of your nipples and such.”

  Eadyth choked and the peas went down the wrong passage. She coughed and coughed until Bertha finally fetched her a cup of water.

  “You know what Eirik said to me?” Eadyth finally asked the artlessly blunt maid, not sure if she was more incredulous or angry at her private talk being repeated about the keep. But then, that was ever the way with servants, she supposed.

  “Yea, Wilfrid…I mean, Master Wilfrid…sumtimes tells me things.”

  I bet he does. The wretch!

  “Do not be embarrassed, my lady. All men are like that on the odd occasion, ’specially when they are drinking or when they are ’specially…uh…’specially lustful.” She blushed prettily at her last word.

  Oh, Good Lord! How did I get involved in such a conversation?

  “’Tis the tits what will do it every time,” Bertha offered sagely. “Men do love a good bosom, ’specially if it wobbles.”