by Sara Bennett
“No, Constance, not Alfred. I must speak with Captain Olafson. He has done this, he can undo it. Mayhap I can appeal to him…somehow.”
Constance blinked at her as if her eyesight were failing. “No, lady,” she gasped harshly. “Do not give yourself to that man again! I was wrong, oh so wrong, I thought…Do not sacrifice your sweet self to such a one.”
Rose’s smile was grim. “You forget, old woman, I have already made the sacrifice…several times, in fact. It will be no different, and if it means I can help my friends, then I must at least make the offer.”
She meant it. Constance shook her head, but Rose continued to persuade her, and eventually the old woman gave in and went off to do her bidding.
Rose sank down on the stool. She was shaken and wounded, but not mortally. There was a new resolve growing within her. She would not be beaten by men like Fitzmorton and Miles de Vessey and Arno d’Alan. They were brutal and ignorant, and they did not understand the strengths a woman could garner. But she would show them now.
And Gunnar Olafson?
Anguish filled her. The pressure in her chest and throat was unbearable, so that she longed to scream and rend something.
I will give you my body, but my heart is my own.
Aye, because he had no heart! He was made of cold Norse ice. Rose remembered now all the times he had spoken of death and killing and money, as if only the last mattered to him. My sword is called Fenrir and he feeds on blood. How could she have forgotten that! And yet while she had been in his arms, she had forgotten all the distasteful things, pushed them from her mind. Now they were rushing back, those blood-soaked words.
If Fitzmorton and the rest of them were monsters, then Gunnar Olafson was an abomination. A creature without compassion, who knew not the meaning of kindness or love. How could she think to win him over to her side, to help her save the lives of the miller and his family? Jesu, how he must have laughed to himself when she asked for his promise to obey her! And how he must have laughed when she commanded him to her bedchamber…
Rose stilled.
Or maybe not.
Although Rose knew she had willingly allowed herself to be deceived in the mercenary’s character, she was not so certain she had been deceived in his desire for her. True, she was naive when it came to matters between men and women—one elderly husband did not make her an experienced lover. But Gunnar wanted her. She had not imagined the look in his eyes, the way he had arched against her hands, so eager to touch him, to worship him. Oh aye, he had enjoyed her worship!
Command me to be inside you, lady.
Rose hid her heated face in her hands. She had wanted him, too, but she told herself now that his deceit had killed forever her own lust. But what of him? Why should a Viking savage want her any less now than he had before? For him nothing had changed. Mayhap her hatred of him would even increase his pleasure in taking her.
Earlier, she had sat in the great hall and dwelt on last night spent in Gunnar’s arms. Remembered the expression in his eyes when he joined his body to hers, hot and yet determined, as if he were marking her in some way. Marking her as his.
Aye, that was exactly what he had been doing.
’Tis time I settled, took a woman, and stayed in one place long enough to see her swell with my seed. Somerford is as good a place as any, and I have already plowed the lady.
Despite the crudity of his words, he had meant what he said in the stables just now.
He wanted Somerford Manor, and he wanted her.
Aye, this was something Rose could work with, use on him. If Gunnar Olafson still wanted her, then she could turn his desire around and destroy him with it.
Chapter 15
Constance found Gunnar Olafson in the great hall. He was speaking with Ivo, his second in command. The two big men looked serious, and although their voices were too low for anyone else to hear, it was obvious to Constance things had not gone according to plan. Ivo appeared even wilder than usual, his hair windblown and tangled, his dark eyes blazing. In contrast, Gunnar was still and calm. He radiated confidence and reliability—leadership. Aye, he was a born leader, ’twas a shame his heart was as black and rotten as Rose had said it was that day in the solar.
Constance hovered at the edges of their conversation, awaiting an opportunity to intervene. Even now, looking at the mercenary captain, knowing what she did, she could not believe him to be an evil monster. So handsome! The air about him hummed with sensuality. Constance sighed. It didn’t seem fair. She had wanted Gunnar Olafson for her lady, she had believed that here was the man she had been waiting for, who would stand by Rose and love her. She had been so certain he was that one that she had even told him so to his face.
And now all appeared lost.
Ivo hurried off, intent on carrying out whatever orders he had been given. Constance turned her face away as he passed, so that she would not have to meet that fearsome black gaze. There was something even more frightening than usual about Ivo, he fairly shimmered with rage. In contrast, Gunnar had coolly lifted a mug of ale to his lips and was swallowing it down, his throat working. It was only when he had drained it to the very dregs and replaced his mug on the table that he noticed Constance, waiting. Cautiously, before he could send her away, she crept forward, keeping her eyes on the ground.
“Captain, I…my lady wishes to speak with you.” Constance was relieved her voice did not shake too much.
He did not move, though a quick glance upward showed a tightening of the muscles in his arms, the clenching of the hand resting upon the hilt of his sword.
“Can she not come herself?” he asked, but it was softly said, not the roar of a monster.
Constance shook her head.
And then she heard him sigh—there was a world of sadness in that sigh, a world of regret. It was the sigh of a man who has lost all hope.
Constance was thrown instantly into doubt and confusion.
Surely an evil monster would not sigh like that? And had she not seen him save a child from a possibly fatal fall when no one else would move to help? And had she not seen him show kindness to the silly wenches who gazed slack-jawed at him during mealtimes? And what of the manner in which he looked at the Lady Rose, as if she were all he had ever wanted in a woman and more?
Nay, this man was not evil! She had been right from the first. Constance dared a look up into a pair of wary blue eyes.
“Does she hate me as much as I think she does?” Gunnar asked her, and there was a wry twist to his lips Constance had never seen there before. As if he mocked himself for caring.
“Aye, at least that much.”
“I told her to trust me.”
“My lady does not trust men easily. Her experiences with them have not always been…agreeable.”
But still he was wounded by her mistrust—Constance sensed it. He had wanted Rose to cast all else aside on the promise of his word—barter with the lives of her people, her lands, her own life. And she had not known him above a week!
Gunnar must have read the amazed amusement in her face. He folded his arms, the muscles bulging, and gave her a frown.
“Lady Constance, do you recall what you said to me last night, when I came to her room?”
Constance thought back to the moment when she had opened the door—the look in the mercenary’s eyes as they met Rose’s, that blind blaze of emotion she recognized so well. They had already forgotten she was there, and Constance had slipped past Gunnar to the door, saying…
“I said, ‘Open your heart to her.’” Constance shifted uneasily before the intensity of his gaze. “My lady is tender-hearted, Captain,” she explained, choosing her words carefully. “I saw in that moment that you could hurt her badly. I wanted you to be honest with her, show her she had nothing to fear if she did the same.”
Again that wry smile. “’Tis not easy to open your heart when to do so could cost lives.”
“I understand that, Captain. I am not a fool. You have your work to do—whatever
that may be. But my lady will not easily come to trust you again, not fully, maybe not ever. She is gentle-hearted, but she is also strong and stubborn.”
He smiled.
Constance’s voice softened, and she returned his smile. “Aye, like the flower she is named after, my Rose has thorns.”
Gunnar glanced past her, and his gaze sharpened. Constance turned to look back, and saw Arno farther down the hall, partaking of his own ale.
“Can you look as if you’re afraid of me?” Gunnar Olafson asked her quietly, frowning all the time as if he meant to strike her dead on the spot.
Constance nodded jerkily.
“Then do it. Now.” He leaned into her face, glaring. His voice rose to a shout. “Get out of my way, you old witch!” And he brushed rudely past her, out of the great hall and toward the stairs. Constance cringed, pressing herself to the side of the hearth. The hand she clutched to her fluttering heart shook convincingly.
Arno guffawed, enjoying seeing the old woman bested, and poured himself another ale.
Rose was prepared. She was, so she told herself, tranquil in mind and body. This was simply something else that must be done for the sake of others, and Rose was always prepared to make such sacrifices. She would bargain with him just as she had done before. She knew he wanted her. She did not believe he could pretend such a thing, not so many times as he had taken her. No, he wanted her, and that could only work in her favor.
The knock on the door was loud, peremptory. His call of “Lady Rose!” was a demand for entry.
With trembling hands, Rose lifted the bar, and then he was pushing open the door and striding in. As if he already owned Somerford Manor, she thought angrily, and the anger helped to steady her. Rose turned to face him.
Jesu, he was big!
He made the solar seem tiny. Her composure wavered but she held on to it with both hands.
Forget what has happened between us thus far. Forget how he made me feel when he held me in his arms. That is over and done.
This was the real Gunnar Olafson before her now, his face impassive, his eyes empty of any feeling. This was the man who had kissed her in the stable and a moment later looked at her as if she were no more than a tasty hunk of meat on a hook, who spoke of taking Somerford, and her, for his own, as if it mattered not that they were not his to take.
I have already plowed the lady…
When he said it, the image had been so sharp, Rose had not known whether to weep for what might have been, or to scream her outrage. He wanted her to swell with his seed. It had been there in his eyes, in the way they shone so hot. He wanted to take Somerford from her, but he wanted her as well. Like the ghostly warrior of her dreams, he would snatch her up and carry her away as his prisoner.
Only this time she would not be able to wake up.
“Captain,” Rose said, and was glad to hear her own voice so unwaveringly authoritative—the voice she had learned to assume in moments of trouble. This was not a time for begging or pleading, as her mother would have done. It had not worked on Rose’s father and it would not move a man like Gunnar Olafson. How could it? This creature would not be shamed into penitence by a few tears.
“Aye, lady? I am waiting to hear what you have to say.”
He was impatient to be gone, pacing across to the window and back. His hand was closing and unclosing on his sword hilt, as if he might draw it out at any moment. His glance flicked to her and away again. Such restlessness was unusual for Gunnar—even in the short time Rose had known him, he had seemed amazingly unruffled. The still center of a storm. And yet here he was, behaving more like Ivo. Aye, clearly he was a man with much on his mind. Mayhap that, too, would work in Rose’s favor.
“I have heard that you have moved Harold the miller.”
He stopped. “So?”
“I do not want him hurt. Him or his children. I know Lord Fitzmorton wants justice for his man Gilbert, but killing Harold in cold blood is not justice.”
He was watching her. “Do you think I will hurt him?”
She searched his handsome face, but where was the point in trying to find feelings where there were none? It was easy to pretend to herself that there was a hint of hurt in his blue eyes or a touch of self-mockery in the curl of his firm lips. But Rose had discovered she was adept at attributing emotions to Gunnar that were not real. He was a cold-blooded monster that she had endowed with all the virtues she so longed to see in a man, and she had been silly enough to think him real.
“Please do not hurt Harold and his children,” she said quietly.
He frowned and opened his mouth to reply. Thinking he meant to tell her bad news, Rose went on hastily, frankly.
“I am willing to bargain for their lives.”
“Bargain?” He eyed her warily—they were on opposing sides, after all. “What do you have that I could want, lady?”
But he knew. She read it in the sudden blaze of his eyes, saw it in the abrupt tightening of his mouth. Mayhap he wouldn’t make her say it aloud.
He wanted her, he had wanted her since the first moment their eyes met in the bailey. Just as she had then, Rose sensed desire’s heady presence in the room, and—God help her!—felt her body begin to soften and ache. Rose turned away, so that he could not see her humiliation.
He was going to make her say it after all.
“There is me, Captain,” Rose informed him in a cold little voice.
He said nothing for a long time, but she could not turn and face him. She did not dare. Not because she was afraid of him, but because something had happened to her. For although she knew full well what he was and what he had done, her body didn’t care. His mere presence was enough, just being close to him. Was this what her mother had fought against? Rose asked herself. The bitter realization that, no matter what promises she made to herself, they would inevitably be broken?
His step was soft behind her. He was so close now that she could feel the heat of his body. His arms came around her, forcing her back against him, so that she had the urge to gasp for breath. Then she felt him, already fully aroused, hard against her. She realized then that this was a test. He had done this on purpose. He wanted to know whether she was really willing.
Gunnar’s hands slid up her body, cupping her breasts impertinently through her gown, pressing her soft flesh into his callused palms. Rose stood rigid, refusing to weaken against his touch. Her mind was stronger than her body, she told herself. She could overcome the weakness. She could!
He found her nipples, hard as buds. His fingers were delicate as he caressed them, sending arrows of sheer pleasure into her treacherous body. Rose heard herself gasp, and wanted to scream in despair as her resolve began to crumble.
He did not laugh, as she had thought he might. Instead he bent his head, his mouth hot against her neck, sending more shivers of want through her. Rose’s head fell back against his shoulder, and she closed her eyes. One of his hands slid down over her belly, seeking the hot core of her, his fingers sliding into the apex of her thighs. Even through the stuff of her clothing, she sensed the pleasure to be gained, longed to give herself over to it. Want pooled between her legs, and she trembled with the effort of not pressing against him. In another moment Rose knew she would be totally lost.
Violently, she pulled away, taking a couple of desperate, shaking steps before she turned to face him. Her chest was heaving, her hands clenched at her sides. She must have looked like a madwoman. She took in a gulp of air.
“You have not agreed to your part of the bargain,” she reminded him, and was not surprised by the hoarseness of her voice.
He looked as if their impassioned embrace had disturbed him not at all. If it had not been for the faint flush on his tanned cheeks, the glitter in his eyes, Rose would have believed him untouched by their encounter.
“Do you remember what I said in the stable?” He surprised her with the question.
Rose glared at him, her weakness receding as she regained some control over her senses.
This was better; she was really angry now. “What you said? Do you mean the part where you were willing to betray me to Fitzmorton for a few more marks? Or, Captain, do you mean the part where you admitted to wanting my lands and getting a child on me?”
He shook his head at her in mocking disapproval. “None of that, lady. I mean the part when I told you to trust me.”
Rose stared at him a moment more. She felt confused, but didn’t want him to see it. Surely he did not think she could trust him now? Did he think her a fool, to believe any man just because he asked her to do so?
“I trust no man,” she said coldly.
And Gunnar believed it.
She had trusted him, for a time. He remembered her asking for his word the first night there, and then by the Mere when Miles had come, her fingers resting so trustingly in his. Aye, she could deny it all she wanted, but Gunnar knew she had trusted him and, by Odin, she would trust him again.
But, for now, Gunnar knew he had no option but to secure her obedience in any way he could. Her life depended on it. And if that meant using fear and threats, then so be it.
He smiled a cold-blooded smile and fingered the hilt of his sword, as if his breeches were not stretched tight over the evidence of his lust. It amused him that she was having difficulty keeping her eyes away from that most eager part of him. She might no longer trust him, but she still desired him.
“Listen to me now, lady. You have a choice to make. Both Miles de Vessey and Arno want you—which do you prefer?”
She stared back at him defiantly, but she couldn’t hide the flicker of fear in her eyes.
He let his smile grow. “Aye, I thought not. Then listen to me, Rose, and listen well. I have sent Harold and his children with Alfred to safety—”
“I don’t believe you.”
He laughed harshly in surprise, quelled it. “Constance believes me.”
Rose’s lip curled. “Constance is half in love with you, Captain. You could be cutting her throat, and she would believe you meant her no harm.”
Now he was angry. She had finally gotten him angry. He saw her stiffen as she read it in his eyes, saw the doubt, but she did not step back, did not retreat, although she must be longing to. Aye, by Odin she was brave! A beautiful, courageous woman. Was Rose his fate—assuming he could save both their lives?