by Sara Bennett
Slowly, trancelike, Rose became aware that he was consuming her with his gaze, just as she was consuming him.
The strain on his face grew—did he struggle against some compelling emotion, some aching need? Struggled and lost.
He lifted his hand.
He is going to touch me.
No! Stop this, stop it now!
But Rose couldn’t find the strength to stop it. She didn’t want to.
He had long fingers with callused pads and scarred backs, and yet as he brushed them across her cheek his touch was so soft, so gentle, it was barely a touch at all.
Her flesh burned.
Rose heard her own gasp, felt the blood surge beneath her skin, heard her heart begin to beat faster. His closeness was making her dizzy—it was as if she were slowly spinning, around and around.
Frightened, looking for a diversion, Rose did the first thing she thought of—asked the question that had been occupying her before he came. “What happened to the man in the village?” Was that her voice, low and husky, so sensual?
Gunnar cupped her face, molding the delicate shape of cheek and jawline. He eased off the metal circlet that held her veil in place, and plucked the length of fine cloth from her hair.
For a moment he simply stared, and then he pulled undone the leather strip that fastened her braid, and thrust his hands into the thick mass of her hair, setting it free. It billowed like a dark cloud about her head and shoulders.
A faint, satisfied smile curled his mouth, his rigid control allowing for no more. That was what it was, Rose realized abruptly. Control. Gunnar Olafson reined in his emotions like a restive horse, forcing them to obey his will. He was a man of iron.
And yet he wanted her. It was there in the stark, tense lines of his face and body; it was burning bright and hard in his eyes.
The knowledge that she had shaken that control, that she had shaken him, pleased Rose in a completely feminine way. There was power here, the sort of power she had never experienced before. It felt exhilarating; it was a secret, voluptuous quivering, deep inside her.
Rose tilted her head back, keeping her eyes fixed on his, feeling his fingers tense against her skull. His answer came at last, a whisper.
“I don’t know. That is something yet to be discovered.”
Rose’s voice trembled like winter reeds on the Mere. “Something you don’t know, Captain? It surprises me to hear you admit it.”
Again Gunnar gave her that faint smile, his eyes half hidden by his lashes. There was something so compelling about him, so irresistible. She wanted to touch him, to hold him, all of him. The need was swelling within her, building like a fire in dry tinder. She had always feared giving too much of herself to a man, but this feeling was so strong it was able to swallow up her aversion to intimacy.
He cupped her face with warm hands. His thumb rubbed gently against her soft lips, testing the shape and texture of them. Rose parted them slightly, touching his flesh with the tip of her tongue. He shuddered, his iron control crumbling.
Her head was spinning faster. She knew she was going to kiss him, and knew she couldn’t stop herself. Just once wouldn’t hurt…would it? As Rose stretched up to his lips, Gunnar was leaning down. His mouth brushed softly against hers, and then he slanted his lips and opened them just a little bit, enough so that his tongue could taste her.
Rose lost all the strength in her legs. She sagged, leaning in against him, clinging to his shoulders. With a soft murmur she opened her mouth to him, and groaned as his tongue plundered within.
For a long moment he was her anchor, the calm center of her spiraling world. His hard, ungiving body was pressed to her soft curves. He was a creature made for war and fighting, a warrior. But he wanted her, and just now she held greater power over him than any armored opponent. Her trembling fingers slid into his hair, feeling the silky, damp fibers. Feverishly Rose knew she wanted to touch all of him, be free to allow her hands to roam where she willed. That was when the stark truth became clear to her.
Kissing wasn’t enough.
Mayhap Gunnar felt the same, for suddenly he was moving, half carrying her. A few steps and they were beyond the reach of the betraying torch, hidden in the shadows by the wall. Rose knew she should protest, but his big hands had curved over her shoulders and around, stroking down the arch of her back, finding the dent of her waist and closing on the rounded flesh of her bottom. He pulled her closer and she felt the hard prod of his manhood against her belly.
His mouth savaged hers, almost brutal now in his need, but she did not pull away from him. Rose pressed closer, arms twined about his neck, her body melded to his. She was completely beyond the reach of the scolding voice in her head, everything forgotten but these new, wondrous sensations. Her breasts, flattened against that hard chest, felt painfully full, her nipples hard as pebbles. Could he feel them through his tunic? It seemed that he could, for he rubbed himself back and forth against her, at the same time using his grip on her bottom to lift her high onto her toes.
The soft mound between her thighs came to rest on the hard, solid ridge between his.
Rose gasped into his mouth, and at the same time Gunnar groaned. A shudder went through him, and he moved slowly against her, easing himself in yet closer. Pleasure sang through her, melting flesh and bone. For an endless moment Rose thought she would join him in the mindless dance that was their destination, and then his voice, harsh and low and barely recognizable, brought her thumping back to cold reality.
“I want you. Do not play with me, lady. I’m not one of your tame Normans.”
Her chest was rising and falling violently. She felt heated and achy, her mouth swollen from his kisses, her breasts painful. Lower, between her legs, where Edric used to lie so ineffectually, there was a wild sensation that was unfamiliar and urgent. She wanted to ride upon his manhood. She felt wholly carnal, sensual…totally unlike herself.
Aye, there was power here, and much pleasure to be taken, but Rose was afraid. She stood on the brink of the precipice, and was frightened of what she would see in the chasm below.
That was when the voice in her head broke through.
What are you doing? Swooning in his arms like one of those silly serving wenches? He is a Viking savage, a mercenary, and you are the Lady of Somerford Manor!
Gunnar sighed, evidently reading the answer in her eyes. He stepped back, his blue eyes, turned almost black with arousal, fixed on her face. Slowly, reluctantly, he released her. She felt the chill of his leaving. Rose took a shaky backward step away, only this time he did not reach out to steady her. Instead, he stood watching her, silent and unmoving, as she took another step, and then another…And then she was turning and running in full flight toward the stairs that led to the floor above.
Gunnar stood listening to her retreat. He hadn’t been able to sleep and had come to the hall to make sure all was well, or so he had persuaded himself. Instead he had found Lady Rose…He had lost his famous control—he didn’t need the painful throb of his body to remind him of that. Lost it? Great Odin, it had shattered like thin ice when a fire is lit upon it! Yet he could not regret learning what she felt like under his hands, his mouth, his body. She was so sweet and so hot, and he wanted more.
Much, much more.
Rose was certain she would never sleep. Her mind was churning and her body still ached in a manner that embarrassed and shocked her. She tossed and turned, trying not to think of those brief, vivid moments with the mercenary captain. But the day had been a long one and dreams finally claimed her.
After wandering for a time in misty darkness, she found her dreaming self nearing Burrow Mump. As she approached, the earth suddenly opened into a cavernous hole, stretching back into nothingness. Out of the blackness sprang the ghostly warriors, their hair like smoke and the muscles of their chests and arms gleaming. Warhorses tossed long manes and snorted white breath, their hooves making no sound as they galloped through the air.
Terrified, Rose turned to run
. Too late. She had hardly taken a step when she felt an iron arm close about her waist. Abruptly she was swept up, her feet dangling in nothingness, and drawn in against her captor.
All the strength seemed to drain from her then, as it was wont to do in dreams.
“Let me go!” she cried, but her voice had no substance. She turned, trying to see his face, but there was nothing there. Only the velvet night sky with stars blazing. As her eyes fluttered closed, something brushed against her cheek, and reaching up she felt a tendril of hair. His hair. Her fingers tangled in the long strands and found a narrow braid.
In the dream Rose opened her eyes. The braid lay threaded through her fingers, lustrous in the starlight.
It was the color of copper.
Chapter 7
Rose was pretending it hadn’t happened.
The fact that she had allowed the Viking mercenary to kiss her was…well, impossible. Not to be borne. The feel of his mouth on hers—hot and urgent, making her head swim—had stayed long after he had released her. Indeed, was with her still. She had allowed Gunnar Olafson to kiss her, to fondle her—and she had kissed and fondled him back.
Heat crept into her face. Even now the sense of need pooled in her belly and quickened her heartbeat. Lust, that was what it was. What else could it be? She had known the man for a day.
Rose withdrew into her thoughts while she went about her tasks, hardly knowing what she did.
Her tasks were many.
The villagers had to be fed and cared for and comforted. Most of them were keen to return to their homes or to begin rebuilding, but there were others who had no wish to leave the safety of the keep. Places had to be found for them to sleep there in the great hall or in the bailey, and tasks had to be set them. Somerford Keep did not feed idle hands, could not afford to. It was summer, but the harvest would not begin until next month, and food was scarce. Ironically, it was during summer, while waiting for the harvest, when most of the peasants in England starved.
With such serious matters to consider, Rose knew she should not be remembering the feel of Gunnar Olafson’s lips on hers.
She had spent a number of hours teaching Millisent the finer points of cleaning clothing. This, as she had explained to the girl with a smile, mainly involved hard work, but a paste of wood ash was useful when it came to whitening linen.
They were presently in the kitchen, engaged in the tedious business of making candles. Using a wooden board cut into regular holes, Rose had carefully fixed twisted linen threads through these holes. The threads were in fact wicks, and they would be dipped into a bowl of mutton fat again and again, until the candles had grown to the required thickness.
Millisent, at her side, watched closely and helped where she could. The girl had washed and changed into a plain, homespun gown supplied by the more buxom Eartha. The long sleeves hung over her hands and had to be folded up, while the hem swept the floor—it made her look younger and even more vulnerable.
While the servant women chattered around her, Rose dipped her candles once more into the congealing mutton fat, and knew with a sense of helpless dismay that she should be using this time to consider the measures needed to protect her people against their attackers. She should be deciding what to do about the dead stranger. She should be contemplating Harold the miller and his strange disappearance. And, apart from her current troubles, there would soon be crops to harvest—if they were not to starve.
Rose wiped a hand across her brow—it was very hot in the kitchen—and, catching Millisent’s eye, smiled comfortingly. The girl was pale and worried, and it would do no good to add to her fears until they knew the truth. Will was playing in the corner with Eartha’s child, the two of them giggling as if this were an ordinary day. Rose could not remember being so carefree when she was a child; she had too soon been burdened with adult cares. Serious and solemn, that was little Rose. Her mother had seemed always to be weeping and when she had deigned to notice Rose, she had tended to hug her too tightly, as if to make up for her previous neglect. Her love for Rose’s father had been a terrible affliction to both her and her daughter.
Rose had never wanted love. She was no romantic. Few Norman girls dreamed of finding that sort of romantic love with their husbands—that was not what marriage was for—but Rose was even less romantic than most. Thankfully Edric had been kind and gentle; she had been grateful for that. There had been no passion between them, none of the aching intensity Rose had heard sung about in the sweet ballads. Such excess of emotion disturbed and frightened her, threatened her ordered existence. And yet, contrarily, most nights she did dream of it. Of him, her ghostly warrior.
And last night she had dreamed he wore his copper hair in narrow braids, like Gunnar Olafson.
Fear rose up in her, a thick black wave she could almost taste. The kitchen was too hot, too noisy. The intensity of her feelings—feelings she had always believed she could control—overset her outer calm, causing her hands to shake. Suddenly Rose had to escape. There must be somewhere quiet where she could think this thing through—reason with her mind instead of allowing her emotions to overcome good sense.
Rose turned to Millisent and said in a false, bright voice. “Here, now ’tis your turn.” And she thrust the candleboard she had been working on into the girl’s surprised hands.
“But lady—” Millisent blinked.
“Ask Eartha if you need help.”
“Aye, I’ll help you, Millisent.” Eartha smiled kindly, glancing up from the table where she was rolling pastry for a fish pie. “There be nothing to it.”
“There, you see?”
Millisent still looked as if she might object, but Rose gave her no choice. With another wooden smile, she turned and left them to it.
The stairs leading up from the kitchen were dim and deserted, and the air was cool and still. Rose stood a moment, taking deep breaths, grateful for the respite. Slowly her panic subsided, and order was restored to her erratically hammering pulses. She was able to consider her situation with some measure of tranquillity.
The dream had been only that—a dream. A fantasy fashioned by her overwrought mind. Her ghostly warrior was not Gunnar Olafson. He could never be Gunnar Olafson. It disturbed her that she could imagine, even for a moment, that he was. Her dream man had no face—he wasn’t real—and thus it was safe to love him and to long for him. But Gunnar Olafson was very real indeed—an earthy, sensual warrior—and he was anything but safe.
Probably, Rose told herself, he was the sort of man who kissed every woman he came across. And she had not fought him, she had been more than willing, even encouraging. For a moment last night, as they stood locked together, she had believed herself capable of rattling the mercenary’s control. She dismissed such imaginings now. Probably he had meant to seduce her from the beginning, and had gone about it in his cold, methodical manner. And she had been ripe for seduction.
Was Constance right; did she need a lover?
A vision came rushing over her—her bed filled with hard, powerful flesh and blazing blue eyes. Once again she felt swamped, breathless and shaking.
She had had enough of quiet.
Now she needed clamor!
With a gasp, Rose hurried up the stairs, trying to outrun her own thoughts, and burst into the great hall.
In contrast to the stairwell, it was awash with people and movement. The outside noise left no room for her own wayward thoughts. And at least the mercenaries weren’t there, so she was spared the embarrassment of coming face-to-face with Gunnar Olafson. For now.
He was out hunting. Arno had told her so, and at first she had thought he meant for meat for the table—they were sorely in need of such with all the extra mouths to feed. Then she realized that of course Arno had meant “hunting” for whoever had attacked the village. She had an image of the mercenary troop pursuing the merefolk like a savage wolf pack chasing deer, and shivered.
Arno hadn’t gone hunting, he had remained in the keep. “To protect you and your
people,” he had told Rose, shooting her a wary, sideways glance. As if, she thought, he had not drunk so deep last night that he could not lift his own sword. Perhaps he did not remember, or hoped she had not noticed it or was too polite to mention it? He had failed her last night, and today he was trying to make amends, but the fact remained.
Again her comparison of the behavior of the two men—Arno and Gunnar Olafson—made her uneasy. Surely it should have been Arno who remained sober and this morning took charge of the hunt, and the mercenary who stayed at home recovering from his drunken excess?
“God curse them, halffishes that they be. Aye, tails for legs!”
The imprecation brought Rose’s head around. Faded blue eyes turned red from smoke and lack of sleep, set in a mass of wrinkles. The ancient creature was clasping a wooden cup full of milk in her crooked hands, and over the brim her gaze was fixed defiantly on Rose. As Rose was well aware, it was the general belief among her people that the merefolk were in fact halffish—grotesque creatures of skin and scale, designed for their watery home rather than dry land.
Rose bent down and tried a soothing tone. “Did you see the merefolk burning your house, grandmother?”
“Nay! They be too clever for that, lady. Hergat’s dead, the old whip-tongue.” Her eyes stared, unblinking, more surprised than sorrowful.
“I know. I’m sorry to hear it.” Rose leaned closer, ignoring the snuffling of a small spotted piglet confined in a willow basket. “Grandmother, have you lately seen any Normans in the village?”
“Apart from yourself, lady, and Sir Arno? Not I.”
“Did you see Harold the miller last night?”
“I heard his daughter scream,” she said helpfully.
Rose nodded and touched the woman’s bony shoulder. “Rest now. Drink your milk.”
But the old woman hadn’t finished. “He be a fine man, that Captain,” she said, her pale eyes gleaming in a manner quite unbefitting her age and situation—almost lasciviously.