One Night with the Viking

by Harper St. George

  Her gaze locked with his, prompting him to murmur, ‘You’ve changed in so many ways, except your eyes. They’re still the same as they were when we were children.’

  Despite herself, she asked, ‘How do you mean?’

  One corner of his mouth tipped up in a smile. ‘The way they look at me, as if they can see all the way through me. Can you see straight through me?’

  ‘There was a time when I thought I could...but now I’m not so sure.’ Left unsaid was the way he had left her. The fact that she had poured her heart out to him that night only to have him tear it in two and throw it away.

  ‘You’re the only one who’s ever seen me, Kadlin. Everyone else saw only what they wanted. What they expected.’

  ‘Then I suppose that makes me the fool.’

  His display of temper this morning hadn’t left her feeling reassured at all with where she stood with him. His behaviour in the front room last night had been completely opposite from the man she’d met this morning. He blew hot and cold. Last night she’d been sure that he would’ve ripped the nightdress from her had he been in possession of his faculties—and such was her weakness for him that she might have let him—but this morning he’d treated her like a stranger.

  Nay, not a stranger. A stranger he would have met with cool detachment. There had been venom beneath the words he spoke to her. Perhaps he was angry at her. Perhaps he imagined that she had moved on and fallen in love with someone else. Kadlin could only imagine the pain that might cause if he felt half as much for her as she did for him. Even imagining the women that he must have spent nights with over the past two years was enough to twist her insides. Had he actually taken one to wife, she didn’t know that she could bear it.

  Yet he was the one who had ended everything. And now, now he spoke soft words that made her remember how he’d talk to her all those nights he came to her in her bed. Nay. It didn’t bear thinking about. She shook her head and forced a deep breath. Only Gunnar could have her so torn up inside that she couldn’t think straight. She despised how he had used her and then left. Why did her weak heart insist on making something more out of him than he had proven himself to be?

  The first step was getting him better. She’d have to deal with him carefully until then. It might even be best to keep Avalt out of his sight. If Vidar had known that Avalt was Gunnar’s son without being told, then Gunnar would probably figure it out, as well. She needed to be fully prepared for his response to the news before she faced that.

  He didn’t reply, leaving her to finish shaving him in peace, but the direction of his gaze changed from her face to her breasts. More than once she saw him looking at them and felt them tighten in response. It hardened her resolve to finish with haste and leave him alone. Once she had, she gathered her things and left without a word, going to the front room and depositing her burden on the table and then leaning heavily against it to regain her composure.

  Her husband had been killed over a year ago in battle. She’d spent the time since avoiding her father and his pleas that she find another to marry. Though she had tried to deny it, part of her hesitance had been because she still imagined that husband to be Gunnar. Those thoughts were not good for her and had often left her angry, and as the year passed she had begun to come to terms with the idea that Avalt needed a male guardian. There was no question that she would marry eventually. Now that Gunnar had returned, perhaps it was better that marriage happen sooner rather than later. Something needed to save her from her own madness.

  Chapter Ten

  Days passed and Gunnar was no closer to resolving his feelings for Kadlin. The woman was in his blood and only death could cure him of her. But death wasn’t an option any more, not now. It appeared his lame leg wasn’t going to kill him. There was still no certain future for him so he didn’t even allow himself to think ahead. Every day was simply waking up and working to make the leg better, or at least somewhat serviceable. There were plenty of days ahead of him to figure out what it would mean when the leg could support him.

  But it was doing a bad job of that at present.

  Tightening his grip on the sapling Harald had replaced for him, Gunnar stared down at his useless appendage, silently willing it to work. It did nothing except refuse to support the weight he demanded that it accept. Instead of behaving properly, a splitting pain moved through the limb every time he let go of the wall to give it his weight. He clenched his jaw and breathed through his teeth as he took his palm from the sod wall and let his weight rest on his left leg, but eventually the muscle gave and he had to grab the wall again to keep himself from toppling over.

  With a loud curse, he threw the sapling, causing it to sail through the air to land with a satisfying thud on the ground several yards away from him. Though it would be difficult to retrieve without crawling on the dirt like an invalid, he smiled just the same to see it lying there. He hadn’t even been trying that hard and had landed an impressive throw. His leg might be rubbish but at least some of the strength in his upper body was returning.

  Grasping his still-sore ribs, he stifled a groan as he dropped to his bottom on the bench. He had taken to coming outside when everyone left in the morning to go to the river. It was an outing they took without fail when the weather permitted and he’d learned to cherish the solitude. He wasn’t ready to be around people now and he knew it. Best for all if he kept to himself, but the chamber Kadlin had assigned him seemed to grow smaller by the day. There were only so many times a man could walk a circle around that room without going mad. Somehow Kadlin had guessed what he was up to, because one day a bench had appeared outside. He tried not to dwell much on the fact that he couldn’t have dragged it out himself had he tried.

  A mild sweat had broken out on his forehead, so he swiped his hand across it, rubbing the moisture on his trousers. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt, knowing the exertion would make him break into a sweat. Any exertion seemed to do that and he was growing impatient waiting for it to get any easier.

  Just as he was catching his breath, the whinny and accompanying hoof beats of horses caught his attention. Battle-hardened and honed for danger, his first thought was that of a threat. Though the farm should have been safe, nestled as it was on his father’s lands, safety could never be taken for granted. It was then that he realised he hadn’t brought a weapon with him and the bloody stick was too far away. That just went to show how too much rest could make a warrior soft. He was just pushing to an awkward stand, with his weight shifted to the right to alleviate pressure from his left leg, when he caught sight of his father, Hegard, riding out from the forest followed by two men. As they came closer, Gunnar recognised them as men who had sailed with Eirik, but who had declined to make the trip to the Saxon lands.

  He waited, a knot settling like a solid weight in the pit of his stomach. His father sat his horse like a king, just as broad and powerful as his oldest sons. Eirik had his golden hair, while Gunnar had inherited the red locks of his mother. A trait that Gunnar suspected had attracted the man to his mother, but repulsed him in his bastard son, though Gunnar had inherited his father’s intense amber eyes. They were rare and, Gunnar suspected, the only reason his father had laid claim to him. Although his mother was the younger sister of the man’s true wife and had been too young to have been promiscuous, so he’d had little choice in the matter of claiming him.

  When they were close enough, he raised his hand in greeting, his voice solemn as he greeted each man by name and then turned his attention to his father. The man had aged a great deal in the two years since Gunnar had seen him. His blond hair was streaked with more white at the temples and he’d added at least a stone in weight. He didn’t look well, but Gunnar had trouble summoning sympathy for him.

  ‘Father.’

  He dismounted before giving his bastard son the solid force of his attention. His manner was stiff and sombre, that of a leader set to p
erforming some unsavoury task. Gunnar assumed he fit that unsavoury category in his father’s eyes. He wasn’t even surprised that it had taken so long for his father to make the ride to see him, despite that fact that he must have known Gunnar had returned the moment their ship struck land. His father had made no secret of his feelings for him during their last conversation. Gathering himself for the confrontation sure to come, Gunnar squared his shoulders.

  ‘This yours?’ Hegard gave the sapling a critical look before deigning to pick it up. Turning it in his hand, he took the few steps needed to reach Gunnar and held it out to him.

  Of course, his father couldn’t have simply ignored the fact that it was there. He wasn’t picking it up out of some long-buried goodness lurking inside him. Nay, he needed to bring it over, to rub it in Gunnar’s face exactly how useless he was now. The flare of triumph that sparked in his eyes when Gunnar reached out to take it proved as much. A bitter tang filled Gunnar’s mouth, but he refused to give way to the bitter words that accompanied it, and instead quietly leaned the sapling against the wall of the house.

  ‘I’d heard rumours that you were back. I had to come see for myself if they were true. Word is that you’re half-dead.’ He looked Gunnar over from head to foot before grinning. ‘It appears the rumours exaggerated your condition. Though the “half” seems accurate.’

  Gunnar looked over the man who had ruled his life and wondered why he’d ever really cared whether he’d had his approval. ‘I’m alive,’ was all that he offered.

  Hegard watched him appraisingly, the exact same golden eyes that Gunnar possessed staring back at him. They were fierce and alive with cunning, as if sizing up an opponent and finding something there that he hadn’t expected. Gunnar didn’t know the real reason for his visit, but there was one.

  ‘Aye, that you are.’ He made a show of looking around, his gaze darting from the house to the green fields on either side. There was nothing there except the sheep grazing in the distance. Even Harald’s house couldn’t be seen as it sat over the rise in the distance. ‘I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t bring Eirik back with you. I believe when last we spoke I expressed to you the importance of not returning without him.’

  ‘It wasn’t my intention to return at all. But Eirik does as he wants, I’m not his keeper.’

  ‘I also hear that Eirik married his Saxon slave. He knew that it meant giving up his place here.’ The jarl shook his head and barely controlled the disgust in his voice. His father couldn’t comprehend how one would choose love over glory. Gunnar might have understood his frustration if he’d never met Kadlin. But since he had, he felt the need to come to Eirik’s defence.

  ‘He loves her.’

  ‘Bah! Love is a sentiment best left for girls and widows. Men don’t allow for such weakness. It won’t go well for him to bind himself to a slave. Not in the long run.’

  There was no use in arguing the point. The bitter man would never understand Eirik any more than Eirik would understand him. Gunnar shrugged. ‘If that’s true, it’s a lesson he’ll learn eventually.’

  ‘You know it’s true. You, Gunnar—’ he pointed at him for emphasis ‘—out of all of my children, true born and bastard, you are the most like me. I’ve long known that to be true. You know what must be done and you accept the sacrifices that come with that duty.’

  Stunned, Gunnar didn’t know how to respond to that. His father had never acknowledged him in that way before.

  ‘You understand first-hand that duty and honour outweigh what we might want personally.’ His father slanted a knowing look at him before glancing to the open door of the sod house as if looking for someone. He must know that Kadlin lived there. Gunnar wondered just how much the man had guessed about his feelings for her, how much he had known all along. Though his father had never said, Kadlin’s father, Jarl Leif, must have notified him of Gunnar’s nightly visits to her as a child. He must have also told him of the night he’d told Gunnar not to return.

  Gunnar took a deep breath and held it. Duty and his consideration for Kadlin’s happiness were the only reasons he hadn’t run away with her, despite Jarl Leif’s wishes. Aye, his father must have known that.

  When the jarl fell silent, awaiting his response, Gunnar offered, ‘I do understand.’ But he was wary of what the man was leading up to.

  ‘We have to be leaders. We have a special role.’ He held his hands wide apart to emphasise the length of the land around them. ‘We must do what is right for our men, for our people. What we want has to be for them.’

  ‘Aye.’ Gunnar’s voice was strong, but his stomach soured because he knew what the jarl was going to say. Somehow he knew that it had been coming to this. His leg throbbed and his ribs ached with the pounding of his heart.

  ‘Eirik is not like you and I. He is nobler, more controlled, temperate. He is slow to anger and calculated in his actions. It’s why I’m so surprised by his choice of that woman.’ Jarl Hegard shook his head, for once looking unsure and almost flustered. Then his eyes sharpened and he shook his head. ‘But you and I, we go to battle with fire in our eyes and blood in our hearts. I remember well how it felt and I’ve seen that same look on your face when you’ve wielded a sword. We are the true warriors. We lead our men to battle and win every one. But Eirik is better because he is a warrior and a leader. A true jarl. He doesn’t have to work as hard at it as we do. A rare combination in a jarl. He’ll be a better one than I.’ He paused and let those words sink in before dealing the final blow. ‘And better than you.’

  Gunnar wanted to deny his words, to explain how he had led his men to many victories over the past years, how each of them had earned a fortune beneath him. But he wouldn’t offer up the words. They would be seen as weakness and used against him. His father had not come to debate the finer points of leadership with him. The man hadn’t come to have a conversation with him at all. The jarl had come to deliver a message. Gunnar wouldn’t stoop to begging for his place before that message was delivered. Whatever his father might think of him, Gunnar knew who he was and knew what he wasn’t. He was a fine warrior who had more than earned his place in the world; he wasn’t the weak bastard the man had intended him to be.

  His father’s gaze pierced him as he took the few steps necessary to breach the distance between them, and even with his injury they were of the same height. Gunnar forced himself not to flinch when the older man put his hand on his shoulder. ‘I have made many mistakes and I see those same mistakes in you. We are not meant for this. If you truly wanted to do your duty, then you would have made sure that Eirik returned here to resume his rightful place as jarl. Instead, he rules in a land far away with his Saxon whore. Tell me, Gunnar, did you plan to have him stay there so that you could return here to claim what you think is rightfully yours?’

  Gunnar met his father’s gaze head-on. ‘My brother chose to stay because he wanted her more than he wanted his place here as jarl. As I mentioned, I had no intentions of returning.’

  ‘Ah.’ The jarl moved back as if his curiosity had been assuaged and walked the few steps back to pick up his reins. ‘Then he is a fool and so are you for missing an opportunity. But the fact is you failed to bring him back; you have no place here any more. You knew the consequences.’ He mounted and jerked the lead to turn his horse, but instead of moving forward, he turned to give Gunnar one last look.

  ‘Have I ever told you how much you remind me of your mother? It’s your colouring, your expressions, but something more. That damnable sadness that always lingers there in your eyes. It’s just like her. She never learned to hide it, but you...you don’t even try to hide it. It’s never sat right with me.’ Gunnar met his gaze without wavering and held it until the jarl sighed and clucked his tongue to get the horse moving. ‘Take the time you need to heal and then I want you gone. Back across the sea or to some other ends of the earth. Somewhere away from here.’ With those words
he kicked the horse into a gallop back the way he had come.

  Gunnar fell back against the wall, gradually sliding to the bench, his muscles fatigued from holding himself up for so long. They shook from the effort as he slumped down. For one heart-stopping moment, there was no sound other than the roaring that filled his ears. Everything that he had done up until he’d left for the Saxon lands to gain his father’s confidence, his trust, had been for nothing. Gunnar had never been good enough to be jarl in his father’s eyes. This wasn’t a new revelation by any means; his father had made it clear two years ago when he’d told Gunnar not to return without Eirik, but the words stung nonetheless.

  Impotent rage coursed through his body as he glanced up to watch his father disappear down the forest trail. He’d known that there would be no homecoming for him, particularly now with his lame leg. There had never been any chance that his father would welcome him back, so the man’s words shouldn’t have been a surprise, shouldn’t have held any power to hurt him. But the ever-present pain in his chest had become unbearable.

  Nothing had changed at all. Even now, with Kadlin so near, he couldn’t claim her. He’d failed Eirik so long ago when they were children, leaving him to the abuse of his attackers; he’d failed his father by not earning his approval; he’d even failed his mother who had seen fit to abandon him. He had absolutely nothing to offer her, not even himself as a whole man. How was he to live in such torment?

  Chapter Eleven

  Kadlin waited until the jarl had disappeared into the forest before approaching Gunnar.

  The nearly overgrown trail that led to Jarl Hegard’s hall passed very near the river at one point before heading around to a narrower spot for crossing. She had recognised him the moment she had seen him and knew that he was coming for his son. The truth was that she had expected him much earlier. If the men who were sure to have made the crossing on the ship with Gunnar hadn’t reported to their jarl that his son had returned, the two men who had accompanied Vidar to see him to the farm certainly would have. The jarl would have known about Gunnar’s presence for weeks now. Long enough to have made the day’s journey to visit.