“They?” Rika said. “You mean we. We’re leaving. All of us. Within the hour.”
“So soon?” He would have thought they’d tarry at least another day.
“I will not spend another night under my father’s roof.” Her lips thinned to a hard line.
“But, your father. What must he thi—”
“I told him you had urgent business.”
“Business? What bu—”
“In Wick.”
He stopped breathing. Her gaze was so cold, her expression so hard, he could scarce believe she was the same woman who had cried his name in ecstasy just hours before.
“That is where you wish to go, is it not?” She arched a white-gold brow at him.
“Aye, but—”
“And I have affairs of my own to deal with.” She knelt beside the pile of saddlebags at her feet and pulled a small chest from under them.
“The silver,” he said, recognizing the chest Rollo had shown him last night just after Rika had fled the hall.
“Precisely. It was waiting for us this morn in the hall. She lifted the lid and ran her hand over the coins. Only then did her eyes show signs of life. She smiled, and George felt suddenly sick.
“So,” he said, “our bargain is concluded.”
“Ja.”
Just like that. So simple. She looked at him, waiting, and for a moment he could have sworn she wanted him to protest. His head spun. The words left his lips before he could bite them back. “And…last night?”
She held his gaze, and he knew—twas by sheer will alone. He could see her grinding her teeth behind lips swollen from his kisses.
“Last night was…” Color tinged her cheeks. “I thought I owed it you, is all. You secured my dowry, and I was…grateful.” She closed the lid of the silver chest and rose, hefting it with her.
“You’re saying ye did it for the coin?”
“Ja.”
His gut roiled. When she turned toward their mounts, he grabbed her arm. “But ye didna know about it before, when we—” he whispered so that the youths would not hear “—made love.”
For a second their eyes met, then she pulled away. “How much longer?” she called to Ottar.
The youth peeked over one of the geldings. “Nearly ready. Your father’s provided us another mount.” He nodded at a black mare. “To replace the one Ingolf stole.”
“Good,” Rika said.
George stood there, stunned. The bloody woman acted as if there was nothing between them. As if he was a stranger she had hired to transact some dirty business for her.
Aye, that’s exactly what he was.
She lifted the silver chest onto the mare’s well-padded back. Ottar secured it tight. “There,” she said, and turned to address him. “Are you ready, Grant?”
He nodded, not knowing what else to say.
“Well then, you’ll wish to bid my father goodbye, no doubt. At least make a show of it. Go ahead. We’ll wait for you here.”
“Ye dinna wish to say goodbye to him?”
Rika snorted. “Good riddance, you mean?” She patted the silver chest. “I have what I want. There is nothing more to say.”
Aye, that was more than clear.
He left her there in the stable and returned to their chamber to gather his few possessions. He felt dirty. Used. Like a tavern wench who’d not yet grown used to her trade.
A short time later, the five of them sat mounted in the courtyard, awaiting their host’s farewell.
Rollo stood on the castle steps with the dour Catherine. George knew their departure pleased her. Her daughters huddled behind her, shivering. Christ, ’twas cold. George raised a hand in farewell.
The Norseman nodded. His gaze strayed to Rika—his daughter, whether he believed it or nay. Her face showed the strain of the past few days. She would not look at him.
Mayhap if George had told her about Fritha and Lawmaker, she’d understand, even forgive, her father’s monstrous behavior. Without a word, she drew herself up in the saddle, head high, and kicked her mount to action.
Nay, she would never forgive, nor did she want to understand.
Rollo watched her until she rode out of sight. His arm slipped from Catherine’s shoulder and, at the last, George read the pain in his eyes.
“Farewell,” George called to him.
“And to you, Grant.”
George reined his mount into line behind Ottar and the others, and met the Norseman’s gaze once more.
“Take care of her, won’t you?” Rollo said.
George smiled bitterly. “Aye, I will—if she’ll let me.”
With but an hour of daylight to spare, Rika reined her mount to a halt just beyond the great wood. George pulled up beside her. The weather had been mercifully mild. Cold and clear with but a light wind blowing off the sea.
George cupped his hands and blew hot breath into them. “Why have ye stopped?” he asked her.
“We’re here,” Rika said.
Ottar shot her a puzzled glance. “Where?”
“The crossroads.” She nodded to the path leading north back to Tom MacInnes’s house. George strained his eyes and thought he could almost see the whitewashed structure hugging the cliffs.
So this was it then.
Rika pointed east to a faint path meandering up and over the moors. “There lies Wick, or so the chart says.”
“You would leave us, truly?” Ottar said. “After all…” The youth’s face clouded. “After everything?”
Leif and Erik looked hard at Rika, as if she would intervene. George knew she would not.
“Our bargain is concluded,” she said. Her voice had that familiar hard edge to it. Good God, the woman was cold as ice.
“But—” One stony look from Rika and Ottar’s mouth snapped shut.
“Grant’s bride awaits him in Wick.” She tipped her chin at George. “Does she not?”
Their eyes locked, his searching, hers icy.
“Aye, she does.” He pulled the rolled chart from his saddlebag and unfurled it. “Two days’ ride, methinks. No more.”
Leif and Erik nudged their mounts in close, straining to see the map.
Erik snaked his hand between them and ran it over the parchment. A stubby finger lingered on the jagged coastline near Dunnet Head.
“A day at most,” Leif murmured.
George frowned. “A day to where? MacInnes’s house is but an hour—”
Erik snatched his hand back, and Rika shot him a look that would freeze water. The youths exchanged loaded glances. What the devil was going on here?
“I will see ye all safe to MacInnes’s house,” George said, “before I take my leave.”
“You shall do nothing of the kind.” Rika turned her mount away from him. “It’s just down the hill. Besides, it will be far easier to explain your absence to MacInnes now, without you, than for you to take your leave of us in his presence.”
“Rika’s right,” Erik said.
Ottar nudged his gelding closer. “But why do you have to go at all? Why not come back to Fair Isle with us?”
“Ottar, that’s enough,” Rika said. “Grant has a life of his own. A clan. A bride. Is that not true?” She arched a brow at him.
’Twas the second time she’d asked him that. She knew the answer, so why did she ask? George met her frigid gaze, searching for a sign. Did she wish him to stay? Was that it? She pursed her lips and tipped her chin at him.
Nay, she wanted him gone.
And he was daft not to want to go.
“But you’re married,” Ottar said. “And with Lawmaker dead, there is no elder to speak the words to undo the bond.”
Rika snorted. “It matters not. I shall never wed again, so I need not the divorce. As for Grant—” she looked him up and down as she had that first day in the courtyard “—it was never a proper Christian marriage, and therefore does not exist.”
“Just like that,” George said.
“Ja, just like that.”
Her arrogance and easy dismissal of him proved too much. “Fine. I’ll be gone then.” He rolled the chart and thrust it at her. “Give this to MacInnes. I’ve no need of it. I know where I’m going.”
She handed the parchment to Ottar who stuffed it into a half-full saddlebag. “Good. Well then, Grant. I bid you farewell—and Godspeed. I am certain your…bride…will be pleased to see you.”
“Aye, that she will.” He reined his mount east, then pulled him up short, remembering something. He fished it out of the small leather bag tied at his waist and weighed it in his hand before tossing it to her.
She caught it, and when she realized what it was, her face turned to stone.
“The brooch,” George said. “Your morgen gifu.”
“I told you, I do not—”
“Take it. In payment for last night.”
Her eyes burned into him like white-hot daggers. By God, she was cold-blooded. A man could break himself against the rock that was her heart.
She kicked the black mare into a gallop and rode north across the moor, her white-gold hair flaming out behind her catching the last rays of the setting sun.
Ottar raised a hand in farewell, his boyish face twisted in sorrow. Erik and Leif bid him goodbye and Godspeed.
George turned away from them, away from her, and spurred his mount east toward Wick.
Chapter Sixteen
This was going to be harder than she had thought.
Rika crouched behind a tumble of broken rocks as the quarry below them materialized in the gray light of dawn. Heavily armed guards rousted a pack of laborers from a barracks and herded them toward the foul-smelling slag heaps on the perimeter of the camp.
She blew a hot breath into icy hands and strained her eyes against the mist shrouding the whole of Dunnet Head. Where was Gunnar? What if she’d been wrong about his whereabouts? What if the conversation she’d overheard among Brodir’s men had been staged on purpose to mislead her?
Nay, her brother was here, somewhere.
She could feel it.
What remained of a stone and timber castle sat on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea and served as the quarry’s headquarters. That much she and the youths had been able to discern from their precarious perch on the moors above.
She jammed a hand into the pocket of her cloak and gripped the silver brooch Grant had delivered as a parting token yesterday morn.
In payment for last night.
The sting of his words seemed no less sharp today. She ground her teeth, recalling the coolness of his expression. What more had she deserved? It was she who had turned a cold shoulder to him.
Perhaps if she’d trusted him, shared the truth about Gunnar, told him of her love…nay, how could she have? Such trust flew in the face of all her instincts. Besides, he would have laughed at her. Surely.
She pulled the silver brooch from her pocket and marveled at the workmanship. Her gaze strayed to the dirt caked under her broken fingernails and the callused wind-burned texture of her hands.
“Hmph.”
Surely he would have laughed.
She watched as the guards directed their prisoners, prodding them with short spears and sharpened sticks. The crack of a lash kissing bare flesh made her jump. She didn’t know whether to hope Gunnar was among them or not.
One thing was certain. Her confidence in freeing him, were he here, would have been tenfold greater were Grant crouched here beside her among the rocks. Strange that she should feel that way. With Brodir, with her father, with all men to some extent—save Lawmaker—she felt weakened, less than what she was.
But with Grant by her side, she had felt near invincible. Almost as if it were the two of them, together, against all the evils of the world. Only now did she realize it.
She remembered that feeling, its power, and pondered the mystery of how such a thing was possible between her and any man. Perhaps she’d been wrong about love—and loving. All her life she’d known naught but despair and weakness to come of it.
Until now.
Yesterday, in her father’s courtyard, as she stole one last glance at the man who’d sired her, she thought she caught a glimpse of something else in Rollo’s eyes. Something besides his obvious relief at her departure.
What was it she saw?
Rollo was a man who she knew did nothing he did not wish to do. He relinquished the silver—a small fortune, really—and in her heart Rika knew there was more to it than Grant winning him over with games and verse and idle banter.
Did Rollo care for her after all?
Perhaps a little. Even Norsemen grew soft in their old age. And were it true, did that wipe away the years of neglect and open contempt he had wreaked on her and Gunnar and their mother? Could she ever forgive him for that?
Lawmaker used to tell her that one day, when she understood Rollo better, she would forgive him. Would that the old man were here to help her make sense of her feelings.
“Look, he comes!”
Ottar’s whispered warning jolted her from her thoughts.
“Where?” She scanned the paths leading from the quarry for Leif’s slight form.
“There,” Erik said, and pointed.
“Ja, I see him. Let us hope he bears good news.”
Ottar and Erik edged closer to her as the three of them peeked between the rocks at their fast-approaching kinsman.
“I still can’t believe you kept it from me all this time.” Ottar shot her a brooding look. “I could have helped in the planning, maybe even persuaded Grant to—”
“Stop it,” she said. Her instincts had been right. Ottar would have told Grant straightaway. “I told you. The fewer who knew our true plan, the better. Brodir’s men see all on Fair Isle.”
“Ja, they found out anyway, didn’t they?”
She frowned at him, not wishing to remember what had happened in the storm. “It’s over now. They are dead.”
“But Grant might have helped—”
“It’s better this way. He has his own life, and we ours. Besides, we have no need of him.” If only she could make herself believe that.
The three of them slid back out of sight as Leif jogged up the path leading to their hiding place behind the rocks. As soon as he topped the small ridge, Rika pulled him down beside her.
“Gunnar—is he there?” She held her breath and searched the youth’s bright eyes.
Leif grinned. “Ja, I saw him.”
A cry of joy escaped her throat before she could control it. She crushed the startled Leif to her chest in a bear hug. “Thank God! Oh, thank God!”
“Methinks the Scot’s Christian ways have rubbed off on her, eh?” Ottar said. Erik grinned.
“Oh, stop—the both of you.” She pushed Leif away and thumped Ottar affectionately on the forehead.
“You know very well I keep both the old ways and the new.”
“You never let Grant know that.” Ottar arched an accusing brow at her.
She ignored him and turned to Leif. “How fares my brother? Tell me everything.” Her hands were shaking. She’d clutched the silver brooch so tightly it cut into her palm. She quickly pocketed it and bade Leif tell them what had transpired between him and the quarry master.
“Gunnar is thin, but moves with purpose,” Leif said. “He is in reasonable health from what I could tell.”
“It’s a miracle.” She shook her head, afraid to believe. “Did he recognize you? Does he know we’re here?”
“Nay. I caught just a glimpse of him, and I don’t think he saw me.”
“Where is he?” Rika scrambled to her feet and fixed her gaze on the prisoners working the quarry. “Show me.”
Leif pulled her back down. “Don’t show yourself. It’s dangerous.”
He was right, but she didn’t care anymore. Her brother was alive!
“Besides,” Leif said, “he’s not among the other workers, but inside—in the castle.”
“The jailer,” Erik said. “Will he deal?”
Leif grinned. “He will. It’s not often the quarry master’s offered a fortune in silver for the release of one man—and a Norseman at that.”
Rika could scarce believe their luck. “When? When shall we make the trade?”
“Now,” Leif said. “The quarry master waits for us below.”
She shot to her feet and started for the horses tethered behind them in a copse where the open moor met a small wood.
Ottar caught her up. “Let me go, Rika. You stay here. It’s too dangerous.”
“Nay.” She waved him off, and cast warning looks to Erik and Leif, who followed. “I shall go. The three of you stay here.”
“But—”
“Should I not return in an hour’s time…” She paused because she didn’t know what to tell them. Her pride, her innate distrust of men had kept her from enlisting even MacInnes’s help. She’d been wrong, perhaps, not to share her secret with him.
It was too late for that now. Gunnar was alive, and that’s all that mattered.
Ottar started to argue, but she ignored him. Gorse and dead thistles tore at her garments as she snaked her way into the copse. Where were the horses? Hadn’t they left them right he—
“Looking for something?”
Rika froze in her tracks. Ottar and the others smacked into her from behind.
She knew that voice, and the deep timbre of it made her blood run cold.
“For this, perhaps?” A huge, battle-clad Norseman stepped from the thicket, her silver chest tucked neatly beneath his arm.
“Brodir,” she breathed, and fought the overwhelming urge to flee. The youths crowded speechless behind her.
Somewhere close she heard the high-pitched whinnies of restless horses and Ingolf’s unmistakable laughter.
Brodir smiled.
Rika knew that smile and what it meant. The hair on her nape prickled.
After a day’s hard ride, George waited anxiously in a small but lavishly furnished chamber for August Sinclair to return home from his hunt and bid him welcome.
In the winter garden below his window, a dark-haired maiden swathed in ermine and brocade tittered with her sisters over a bouquet of dried roses.
Anne Sinclair.
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