“Something amuses you?”
He glanced at Rollo from across the tafl table. “Nay. I was just thinking of my wife.”
Rollo snorted. “I find naught about her amusing.” He shot a quick look at Rika, who sat by the enormous hearth absorbed in some needlework she’d borrowed from one of Catherine’s daughters.
George caught himself staring at her many times that evening. To secure the dowry, she’d transformed herself into everything a proper Christian wife should be. The result was shocking.
Catherine had provided her an ill-fitting gown of plain, pale wool. Too short and too tight, it bared her slender ankles and hugged the lithe curves of her body. Her hair was clean and plaited into one thick braid.
’Twas odd to see her wearing no weapons. After witnessing the incident before the looking glass, George had confiscated her dagger. That had angered her, but he would not relent.
The change in her public demeanor was nothing short of revolutionary. She made a show of deferring to him in all matters. What little she did say was swathed in honeyed words and usually of no consequence.
Though her submission was feigned—an act designed to secure Rollo’s favor long enough to gain her coin—George should have enjoyed it all the same.
He did not.
He knew at what cost to her pride she played this uncharacteristic role. The dowry meant much to her. Far more than he’d first suspected. What plan did she have for the silver? Mayhap none.
Her mere possession of the coin ensured her independence. That, all along, was what she’d said she wanted. In the beginning, he hadn’t understood the import of her freedom. But he himself had lived in a kind of bondage these past weeks, and had found it near intolerable.
Aye, he understood her motives well.
Rollo moved a game piece and grunted satisfaction. “You are certain you would not prefer equal shares of cattle and land?”
George met the Norseman’s gaze. “In lieu of the silver? Nay, I have need of the coin.”
Rollo grunted again, then called for another flagon of mead.
It had been like that between them these past two days and nights. George’s gamble had paid off. Naught but the threat of leaving Rika in his care would have coerced the intractable Norseman to hand over her dowry.
George glanced again at Rika. They were two of a kind, father and daughter. Stubborn. Headstrong. Used to getting their own way. God’s truth but she did favor him in appearance. He hadn’t been lying that first night.
Rollo was a powerful-looking man. Tall and fair-haired, and in tremendous physical shape for one so far past his prime. Rika had his eyes—sharp and so icy a blue their gaze chilled a man right down to his bones.
There was more they shared in common, and if either took the time to look, they’d see it, plain as day. Both carried inside them a bitterness born of hate and pride, and no small amount of fear, though neither would have admitted it.
For Rika, the wounds ran deep. She had been wronged, by the two most important men in a young woman’s life—her father and her betrothed. Would that George had known these things sooner.
He thought often of the tale MacInnes had told him, about the chaste love shared between the young Lawmaker and Fritha, and how it twisted Rollo’s heart into something dark and cold.
Rika looked up from her needlework and caught George staring. Her cool smile sent a shiver through him. Though she was again speaking to him, in private she was distant, icy as the day he first met her.
He hadn’t told her yet that Rollo would likely give over the coin. He was saving it for when her mood improved. Mayhap he’d catch her alone this eve before she retired. George rubbed the small of his back. This sleeping on the hard floor had to end.
“Your move, Grant,” Rollo said, jolting him from his thoughts.
“Ah, right. Sorry.” He eyed the stretched sealskin board, then moved one of his attackers.
Lawmaker’s tafl lessons had proved valuable after all. In fact, all that George had learned from the islanders served him well in Rollo’s company. Leif and Erik had been right. The man was shrewd and well schooled.
Over the past two days he’d engaged George in all manner of sport and gaming for the purpose of sizing him up, George knew. Tafl, swordplay—at which he was not his best given his shoulder injury, which was nearly healed—a bit of hunting in the forest, even a sweat together in Rollo’s sauna.
The Norseman had constructed a bathhouse in the castle that resembled much the one on Fair Isle. A vision of Rika naked and perspiring flashed across his mind. He shook off the thought and turned his attention back to their game.
He was surprised to find Rollo staring at his broadsword. “How came you by that?” Rollo nodded at the weapon.
George wondered that he hadn’t asked about it before. ’Twas plain Rollo knew the weapon. “Gunnlogi? It was given me,” he said simply.
“And the giver? Where might he be?” Rollo pretended to study the board, but George knew the question was far from casual.
“Lawmaker is dead.”
Rollo looked up and their gazes locked. “When?”
“On the journey here. There was a storm.” He thought it best not to elaborate on the circumstances of the elder’s death. None had mentioned Brodir or his henchmen since the night of their arrival.
“Were you not given a family sword at your wedding to my daughter?”
“I was. Your son’s, in fact.” George held the Norseman’s gaze in hopes of seeing some flicker of emotion in those unreadable eyes. He did not.
“Where is it, then?”
“Stolen. Along with one of our mounts.”
Rollo ran a beefy hand over his bearded chin. “The weapon was once mine—and my father’s before me. ’Tis of no import now.”
George picked his words carefully. “The weapon meant a great deal to your daughter. She mourned its loss most grievously.”
Rollo remained silent, but George watched his gaze drift to the hearth where Rika sat sewing. After a while, he said, “How came she by that scar?”
“Och, ’twas an accident. She cut herself the evening we—”
“Nay, not that one. The evil looking scar that runs from ear to chin.” Rollo traced a similar line along his own throat. “Was it you who marked her?”
George leveled his gaze at him. “Nay.”
“Who then?”
“Methinks ’twas the man to whom ye betrothed her.”
For the barest moment, he read a flicker of anger in Rollo’s eyes. Then the Norseman let out a bellowing laugh. “Aye, well, he’s not the first man who’s been tempted to slit her throat.”
Nor the last, George thought.
Rollo’s expression sobered as he continued to look at Rika. “You really think she favors me?”
He was treading on dangerous ground, but could not help himself. “Who else?”
The light in Rollo’s eyes went out. “He’s dead you say. Lawmaker.”
George nodded.
“Aye, well they are together at last then.” Rollo rose stiffly from the tafl table, leaving their game unfinished.
They meant Fritha and Lawmaker. Rika seemed not to hear them, or if she did, she took not her father’s meaning.
“About the bride-price,” George said, remembering what Lawmaker had told him.
Rollo dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand. “I care only for your allegiance, should I e’er have need of it.”
George thought this generous, though it hardly mattered, as his marriage to Rika was likely to end within the week. The distance between Rollo’s castle and his own near Inverness was great, and likely he’d ne’er meet the Norseman again.
“The hour is late,” Rollo said. “I would find my bed.”
Rika looked up as her father lumbered from the hall. He spared her not a glance.
“Thor’s blood, what now?” Rika peeked out the open door of the castle. Snow from an afternoon storm flurried across the bailey, sending a c
hill clear through her.
“Archery, by the look of it.” Leif nodded at the straw butts erected near the stable.
Rollo handed Grant a bow and a quiver, then slapped him on the back.
“It’s deadly cold out. What’s my father thinking? And Grant’s injury—he’ll open the wound.”
Erik shrugged. “He is relentless in his quest to discover a sport at which Grant does not excel.”
“We could be here for weeks if that be the case.” Rika turned her back on them and made for the warmth of the hall.
“Why don’t you just tell him?” Erik said, dogging her steps.
Rika snorted. “I will not.” She’d been over this with Lawmaker and the youths a dozen times before they set sail from Fair Isle. “I do not need my father’s help.” She’d go to her grave before she’d ask anything more of him beyond what the law decreed he owed her.
Leif pulled up a bench for her to sit on, and all three of them settled before the blazing hearth fire. “Gunnar is Rollo’s only son,” he said. “Surely if he knew of his imprisonment…”
Both of them looked at her with huge liquid eyes. She was unmoved.
“Rollo cares naught for his son—or for me. If he did, he would have ne’er abandoned us in the first place.”
Leif took her hand in his. “Perhaps if I just mentioned that Gunnar—”
“One word and I’ll cut out your tongue.” She jerked her hand away.
She didn’t want Rollo’s help. She didn’t need it. The silver was enough. And were there a penny left over after Gunnar’s release, she’d send it back to him were there not a chance he’d use it against her in some way.
“At the least will you not confide in Grant?”
“Grant?” Not once had she considered it. “The Scot cannot be trusted.”
Erik’s face brightened. “He’s had a score of opportunities to abandon our cause, should he wish to—but he has not.”
“Besides,” Leif said, “he’s your husband.” She shot the youth her iciest look, but it did naught to deter him. “He’s behaved as one.”
Erik nodded vigorously. “Were it not for Grant’s intervention, we might all be dead.”
The ambush in the wood three days ago burned fresh in her mind.
“You cannot fault him, Rika,” Leif said.
Nay, she could not, as much as she would like to.
“And while I do not pretend to know all there is between you, with my own eyes I have seen how highly he regards you.”
“Ha!” The regard Grant held for her was capricious at best, and expressed only on those occasions when he thought to get her between the furs.
“We are but three now,” Erik said. “And none of us knows the way of things here, or the lay of the land.”
“With Ottar we are four.” Rika glanced at the tafl table in the corner where Ottar sat tittering with Catherine’s youngest daughter.
“Ottar knows naught of our true purpose.” Erik’s gaze strayed to the smitten youth. “As was your wish.”
Rika nodded. “Lawmaker and I thought it best to keep it from him, but soon we must tell him our plans for the silver.”
She had, in fact, thought to tell Ottar days ago, when first they landed on the mainland. But the closer he grew to Grant, the more she feared he’d betray her confidence. And she was more determined than ever that Grant not know.
The Scot would tell Rollo in a heartbeat.
She watched the youth and the maid together. The dark-eyed girl sat rapt as Ottar spun some preposterous tale. Rika had to admit the sisters were sweet and well-meaning. They’d been naught but kind to her these three days. She thought it nothing short of amazing, given the shrewish behavior of their mother—and her own coolness toward them.
Rika’s ears pricked as the castle door crashed open. She heard her father’s bellowing laughter followed by some unintelligible comment from Grant. The two of them blew into the hall laughing, their cheeks ruddy from the cold.
Grant shook his head like a dog, spraying snowflakes across the tafl table where Ottar sat with the maid. She giggled and chastised him. A knot caught in Rika’s throat as Grant smiled at her.
God’s truth, the girl was lovely. Fresh, unspoiled beauty coupled with a gentle grace. What more could a man want? Apparently nothing, as the maid had the admiring eye of every male in the room.
Rika’s face grew hot. She felt suddenly conspicuous, as if she didn’t belong there. Why, she did not know, for neither Grant nor her father seemed to notice her presence.
Mayhap she’d lie down before the evening meal. She started to rise, and Erik caught her hand. “Tell Grant of our plan,” he said. “Ask his help.”
Not this again.
“The man is a skilled diplomat,” Erik said. “We will have need of such talent.”
Leif turned his attention back to her. “Do it, Rika. For Gunnar’s sake.”
Gunnar.
She squeezed Erik’s hand, then let go. “I will think on it,” she said, and turned to leave.
As she crossed the room, Grant’s gaze slipped to hers for the briefest of moments. Was that a smile breaking at the edges of his mouth?
Her father put his arm around him and whispered something in his ear. Grant turned to him and grinned. How alike they seemed to her. Not in appearance, but behavior. It was almost as if Grant had transformed himself into a younger version of her father these past three days.
Mayhap it was the Scot’s way of winning Rollo’s favor. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it.
“Where are ye off to, wife?” Grant called out as she passed them.
Rika shot him an icy glance and did not answer.
He turned to Rollo and shrugged. Her father snorted, and they both laughed together.
Her hands balled into fists as she quit the room.
If Grant were the last man on earth, she’d cut her tongue out before she asked his help. They had a bargain, nothing more. Once Grant delivered his end of it, she’d be done with him. And her father.
That evening, Rika felt no closer to her goal than she had when first they arrived. Her patience was at an end.
“You’ve eaten almost nothing,” Grant said to her.
She toyed with a bit of bread, then tossed it to one of the dogs lying by the hearth. “I’m not hungry.”
Catherine eyed her from across the supper table, then turned her gaze on Grant. “Methinks a missed meal or two willna harm a woman of your wife’s…shall we say…stature.”
Thor’s blood, how much longer must she sit here and suffer the crone’s insults? Rika snatched up her cup and drained it.
Grant immediately refilled it from the flagon on the table. “Just smile and ignore her,” he whispered into her ear.
Rika clenched her teeth behind upturned lips. Behind the pleasant mask her blood boiled.
“So, Grant—” her father paused to devour a slab of meat dangling from the end of his dirk “—what think you of my daughters?”
Rika froze.
All eyes turned to Grant. To her surprise, he slipped an arm around her shoulder. It was the first time he’d touched her in days. The warmth of his hand caused her pulse to quicken. “My wife is a unique wo—”
“Nay, not her. My stepdaughters, Celeste and Karen.” Rollo grinned at the blushing sisters who sat between Erik and Leif.
Catherine shot Rika a triumphant smile.
Had Grant not tightened his hold on her, Rika might have lunged across the table and stuffed an entire roasted hare down the woman’s throat.
“Easy,” Grant whispered between smiling lips. He squeezed her once, then his hand slipped from her shoulder.
“D’ye no find them lovely?” Catherine said.
Grant raised his glass to her. “No as lovely as their mother, but aye, they are most fair.”
Catherine tittered, and Rollo roared with pleasure.
Rika wanted to wretch.
Could she fathom a way to free Gunnar without the dowry, she would ha
ve quit the hall that instant, mounted the first nag she saw, and put a dozen leagues between her and her father—and Catherine, and Grant—that very night.
The crone beamed at her daughters. “They will make fine wives, will they no?”
Erik and Leif and Ottar gazed moonfaced at the maids, and answered in unison, “Ja.”
Rika’s cheeks blazed against her will as Grant looked with unfeigned delight on the sisters. Damn these ridiculous feelings! Why did she care that he—or any man—admired them? They were as he said—most fair. Nay, beautiful.
Exactly what she was not.
There it was. The truth. Rika toyed with the hammered bracelets circling her wrists. Humiliation burned a slow path to her face.
“’Tis a pity your wife does not favor her mother,” Catherine said to Grant.
Rika’s gaze shot to hers.
Catherine’s eyes burned into her like live coals. “I have heard Rollo speak many times of Fritha’s delicate beauty.”
Rollo put down his dirk.
“Aye, but ’twas a blessing for ye and your brother that Fritha died young,” Catherine continued.
Rika rose stiffly from the table, her hands fisted so tight her nails dug into her palms. Somewhere at the edge of her awareness she felt Grant’s hand close over her wrist.
“After all,” Catherine said, “what child should suffer a whore for a mother?”
Rollo shot to his feet.
Rika caught the barest hint of anger in his eyes. A deadly calm washed over her. “What did you say?”
Catherine shrugged. “Why I simply meant that—”
“Enough!” Rollo slammed a fist on the table.
Celeste and Karen gasped. The youths froze, eyes wide and darting from Rollo to Grant, as if the Scot would intervene.
He did not.
After a moment, he let go her hand.
Her father looked at her then, and a lifetime of unspoken emotion passed between them.
Whore.
’Twas not the first time her mother had been labeled so, though it had been years since Rika had heard the accusation. The last time, uttered from her father’s own lips, had been mere days before Fritha’s untimely death.
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