“So, what day do you want to get married?”
“Argh!” she screamed, pulling at her hair.
“Do you think Bernie would perform the ceremony for us?”
“You are brain-dead. Do you hear me?”
“Methinks your screeching can be heard all the way to Jorvik, sweetling.”
“And don’t call me that name anymore.”
He grinned. “Oh, did I tell you that King Athelstan asked me an odd question afore I left Winchester? He wanted to know how to find a G-spot. Seems someone was talking to Elgiva and—”
She walked away, face flushing hotly, and didn’t hear the rest of his sentence, but it sounded very explicit.
The next day, Selik showed up at the hospitium, looking absolutely gorgeous in a gray wool tunic with black braies and mantle. His eyes sparkled almost as much as the twelve children who stood beside him in brand-new clothes and shoes, their faces spit-clean from recent baths—even Adam’s hair was slicked back wetly. She wondered how Selik had managed that. Even she had trouble luring the children to bathe.
“I threw them all in the horse trough,” he remarked dryly in answer to her unvoiced question.
“What do you want, Selik?” she asked, looking over to Bernie and Father Theodric, who were frowning in her direction, not liking all the company in the hospitium.
“You,” he said somberly, his eyes no longer glittering with mischief. “Just you.”
The following day Ubbi came, shifting uncomfortably. “Please, mistress, will ye not come home? He is driving everyone mad with all his demands.”
Rain didn’t need to ask who the “he” was.
“He finished the house, fixed up the leaks in the barn, plowed two hectares of land, took in five more orphans, is fixin’ to—”
“He took in five more orphans?” Rain asked.
“Yea. Saw ’em in the streets and said he could not resist. Next, he plans to build a house jist fer the orphans.”
“He does?”
“Yea. Plans to call it Rain’s House. Now me, I be thinkin’ of goin’ to Norway.”
“Ubbi! You would never leave Selik.” Rain’s House?
“Yea, I would. Like a bear, he is, when he is not workin’. Cannot stand to be still. No doubt, he starts thinkin’ ’bout you and—”
“Ubbi, did Selik send you here?”
He glanced from side to side, everywhere but at her intent eyes.
“Tell the jerk I’m not coming back.”
He groaned and turned back for home with slumped shoulders.
The fourth day, Adam came alone and followed her around, grumbling, “Yer poisoning him, ye know?”
“Who?”
“Me father. Who else?”
Rain frowned, then realized that Adam was referring to Selik.
“He keeps eatin’ all them god-awful Lifesavers ye made, even when they make ’im gag. They be crampin’ his stomach somethin’ terrible, but he sez if a man loves a woman he should be willin’ to eat her cookin’.”
Rain couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Adam, you are making that up.”
“Are ye accusin’ me of lyin’?”
“Like a rug.”
The fifth day, Gyda came, complaining about Tyra and all the time she spent at the farmstead helping Selik with the children. “I fear the neighbors will begin talking of her unseemly conduct. How will she find a husband if she spends so much time alone with Selik? Can you talk to her, Rain?”
Not in a million years!
Rain shouldn’t have been jealous of Tyra. But she was.
She should have wanted Selik to find another woman to love after she was gone. But she didn’t.
The sixth day, Ella arrived with a beautiful green silk tunic with gold embroidery along the edges and sleeves.
“What’s that for?” Rain asked.
“Me weddin’ to Ubbi. I want ye to wear it fer me weddin’. Will ye be me witness?”
“Ella! How wonderful! Ubbi never told me. The stinker!”
“We are goin’ to have it outdoors at the farmstead. Will ye come?”
“Of course.”
Rain rode out to the farmstead with Gyda and Tyra the day of the wedding. Tyra looked like a combination of Sharon Stone and Julia Roberts, sitting on her white palfrey in a stunning bluesilk tunic. Rain felt more like a tall Bette Midler.
A festival atmosphere reigned at the farm. Long trestle tables set up with tons of food were being arranged by servants whom Selik must have hired; a harpist was playing in the background, and the farm was crowded with guests whom Rain recognized from Gyda’s neighborhood in the city. Even Father Bernard was there, probably to perform the ceremony.
A trellis-type apparatus had been erected before a makeshift altar decorated with hundreds of spring flowers. Gyda sat on a bench nearby weaving some of the flowers into a circlet for the bride’s head.
“What do you think?”
Rain turned to see Selik standing behind her, very close behind her. She stepped away. “Very nice, Selik. I don’t know how you managed this in such a short time.”
“Gyda and Ella helped.”
She nodded, uncomfortable under his intense gaze. He wore a black tunic over black braies and boots, the stark color set off only by his pale hair and a silver belt and armlets.
She licked her lips, desperately wanting to reach out and touch the jagged scar on his face and the word Rage on his arm. His eyes riveted on her mouth, intense with yearning, and Rain’s knees almost buckled under the onslaught of warmth that washed over her.
“I love you, Rain.”
“No,” she whimpered and forced herself to break eye contact. Her eyes scanned the farmyard, taking in all the improvements—the completed house, new outbuildings and fences. He must have had a great deal more money than she’d thought to do so much so quickly.
“Would you like to see your house?”
She groaned. “It’s not my house, Selik.”
“Athelstan gave you this property, I understand. So truly, the house is yours, even if you do not want me.”
Don’t want you? Don’t want you? Rain felt as if she were sinking fast and sought some anchor, any anchor. Her eyes darted around the farmyard, then stopped dead. Could that be Eirik and Tykir standing there talking to Ubbi? Why hadn’t anyone told her they were coming?
She heard horses approaching the farm and turned. Guards wearing the golden dragon emblem of the House of Wessex accompanied a well-dressed woman. Elgiva! Rain’s head began to ring with confusion.
Something was not right in this picture.
Tykir and Eirik might come for Ubbi’s wedding, but not Elgiva. And the floral head circlet that Gyda was weaving—well, somehow Rain couldn’t picture Ella wearing such a frivolous hair adornment. Her eyes caught a swath of green cloth draped around the altar, and she looked down at her dress. The same fabric.
She turned on Selik angrily.
“Now, Rain, be reasonable,” he cautioned, seeing the dawning understanding on her face.
“You didn’t, Selik. Surely you didn’t plan all this without my consent.”
“Come, I want to show you that building over there,” he said, taking her arm firmly and pulling her along beside him before she had a chance to create a scene.
The rectangular building, much smaller than the house and barn, sat by itself near the edge of the clearing. He shoved her inside and barred the door.
Her eyes quickly scanned the large room. Benches lined one side, several pallets covered the floors, and at the end a high table and built-in shelves lined the walls. The pungent smell of new wood filled the air.
“Selik, you can’t lock me in here forever. Let me go.”
“I will, but first I want to show you this new…building.”
“Is this the orphanage Ubbi spoke of?”
Selik looked surprised. He leaned against the doorjamb, watching her every reaction like a hawk. “Nay, ’tis much too small for that, if you would look closer.
”
“Then what?” she asked, puzzled.
“A clinic. For you.” He looked at her with such hope in his eyes, almost childlike in open yearning for approval. “You said once you would like to open your own small hospitium—clinic, I mean—and, well, I did not know exactly what an examination table looked like, but I figured waist-high would be sufficient. And the shelves could hold your healing herbs and receipts. And—”
“You planned my wedding and my clinic? Without asking me first?” She couldn’t help herself. She started to cry.
“You do not like it,” he said, clearly hurt. “Ah, well, ’tis not worth weeping over. Hush now, I only wanted to please you.”
“The clinic is wonderful. It’s you. You’re impossible.”
“I know,” he said with absolutely no guilt.
“Selik, you can’t do underhanded things like this.”
“You did.”
“What do you mean?”
“You kidnapped me when you thought ’twas for my own good. You came after me in Winchester when you thought ’twas for my own good. You even bartered your pain when you thought ’twas for my own good.” Selik said the last words bleakly, his voice full of self-recrimination.
“And you think that excuses your planning my wedding without my knowledge? Because you think it’s for my own good?”
“Yea,” he said and smiled broadly, folding his arms across his chest.
Rain shook her head in wonder. “That’s the most convoluted, twisted logic I’ve ever heard in all my life,” she said, laughing.
“I love you,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes, trying to wipe out Selik’s image saying those wonderful words. She couldn’t. She clenched her fists and scrunched her eyes tighter.
“I love you,” he repeated.
Her pulse raced, and she felt an odd humming in her ears, rather like a wedding march. She opened her eyes and pleaded, “Selik, even if I could forget everything you’ve done, it doesn’t erase the fact that, at the first major injustice that arises, you are going to go off seeking revenge. It’s the kind of man you are.”
He smiled and breathed a deep sigh of relief, as if he’d just won a major battle. “’Tis odd you should mention that.” He pushed her onto a stool by the examining table and laid a heavy parchment in front of her. “There.”
She looked down at the thick paper with the indecipherable scratchings. “Selik, I can’t read medieval English. What is it?”
“A wedding contract.” He ignored her gasp and went on blithely, “I will read it for you.”
She looked up at him in amazement, and the humming in her head grew louder.
“I promise to love you forever, of course.”
“Of course.”
The humming intensified.
“And I will give you a dozen children.”
“A dozen? There are already a dozen children running around out there.”
“Nay, I mean a dozen more of your own.”
She slanted a cynical look up at him.
“Do you doubt my ability?”
“Never,” she laughed. “It’s my ability to care for so many children that I doubt.”
He waved a hand airily. “I will help you.”
Rain made a scoffing sound.
“And I promise that every morning you will awaken with a smile on your face.”
“You are outrageous.”
“I know. ’Tis one of the wonderful things about me.”
“Selik, you have a way of making me smile even when I’m so mad at you that I could spit.”
He beamed. “’Tis another wonderful asset of mine.”
“Would you like me to read the rest for you?” he asked, smiling at her with such open adoration that Rain felt blessed. “I think you will like this part. It says you may stick needles in me if you want…”
She laughed.
“…and I promise to never embark on any act of deliberate revenge or violence without my wife’s consent. Even when it involves my own beloved wife and children.”
Rain put a palm to her chest in dismay. She was sinking fast, and Selik was her only anchor.
His face turned suddenly somber then, and he knelt on one knee to bring himself eye-level with her. “Will you marry me, Rain?”
The music in her head turned into a full-blown orchestra.
“Yes,” she said softly, taking his face between her hands and kissing him gently.
At first, Selik was not sure he had heard Rain right. He stared at her, stunned. But then her single word sank in, and he let out a whoop of delight, “Thank God!”
You’re welcome.
“Oh, dearling, I have been trying so hard to please you. I truly am trying to change. But still I was fearful you would never give in. ’Tis about time.”
You can say that again.
Later that night, after the most wonderful wedding in history, Rain lay in bed in her new home with her new husband. She didn’t think she could be any happier.
“Are you sure you can be content staying in the past, sweetling? Will you not miss your mother?” Selik asked, leaning up on an elbow to gaze down at her.
“Believe me, my mother will understand.”
“And your hospital? Someday you may regret the lack of more advanced medicines and tools.”
Rain shook her head. Her heart filled almost to overflowing at the mere thought that this wonderful, handsome, outrageous man was her husband. How could he think she’d want anything more? “I can do a great deal of good here in the clinic you built for me. We both can.”
“I worry that you will be sorry someday.”
“Selik, I love you. As long as I have you, I’ll never be sorry.”
“I love you, too, dearling,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck and then lower, and still lower. He chuckled and raised his head suddenly. “I forgot to show you your bride gift.”
“Selik, you have already built me a house and a clinic. I think that’s more than enough.”
“Yea, but this is more…personal. Since you were so gracious to mention the G-Spot to me when we first met, I am going to introduce you to the famous Viking S-Spot.” He tickled her in a very sensitive spot for emphasis.
“I don’t believe there is such a thing.”
“Hah! Woe to the unbelievers!” he said, quoting the infernal voice, which had disappeared once Rain agreed to be his wife. He ducked his head, laughing. “The tricky thing about the S-Spot is that it can only be found with the tongue.”
Rain gasped. “Oh…oh, I think you’ve found it.”
And she soon became a believer.
And the god-spirit looked down and was pleased.
Author’s Note
A Viking museum does exist in York today, as depicted in this novel. It commemorates the great Coppergate archaeological dig, which unearthed many treasures related to Viking Age England, 800–1000 A.D., shedding new light on the proud, fierce Norsemen.
However, the massive oil painting of the Battle of Brunanburh that brutally ended Viking domination in England, with my war-ravaged hero Selik in its center, is pure fiction.
Or is it?
Modern scientists are just beginning to understand genetic memory, and, truth be told, my family tree on my father’s side can be traced directly back to Viking times through thirty-three generations to the great Viking Rollo (or Hrolf the Ganger).
Perhaps the scenes I describe in Viking England are mere figments of an overactive imagination based on an innate attraction to these magnificent people who are a biological part of me. Logic would certainly say so.
On the other hand, couldn’t they be more than that?
Perhaps, somewhere in an ancient, moldering castle or a long-neglected museum corridor, there hangs just such a portrait of Viking history. I like to think so.
Stranger things have happened.
Other Love Spell and Leisure books by Sandra Hill:
THE LAST VIKING
SWEETER SAVAGE LOV
E
DESPERADO
FRANKLY, MY DEAR…
THE TARNISHED LADY
THE RELUCTANT VIKING
About the Author
SANDRA HILL is a graduate of Penn State and worked for more than 10 years as a features writer and education editor for publications in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Writing about serious issues taught her the merits of seeking the lighter side of even the darkest stories. She is the wife of a stockbroker and the mother of four sons.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE OUTLAW VIKING. Copyright © 1995 by Sandra Hill. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © June 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-202499-2
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