by Sandra Hill
She was tall for a woman, but unlike most women of her height, she was not slender, no doubt due to her excessive cooking. Oh, she was not fat, either. She was soft…and rounded. Voluptuous, that was the best word to describe her. From her high, full breasts to her small waist and flaring hips. Her tiny nipples and aureoles were of the palest rose hue, almost flesh-colored, blending into the breasts themselves.
All this he noticed in the mere moment before she collected herself and swung around to grab for a drying cloth.
Now he was presented with her glorious backside.
With his heart pounding like a warhorse, he watched as she bent over to pick up a drying cloth.
Was he becoming a pervert now?
Bloody hell, he could no more have not watched than pluck out his eyeballs.
“It really is heart-shaped,” he remarked before he could bite his traitorous tongue.
“Whaaat?” She swung around to face him again, this time covered somewhat with a piece of cloth that scarce hid her breasts and thatch of golden curls, a darker shade than her blonde head hair, which was piled atop her head.
Amazing the details a man could notice when given a bare glimpse of a female’s intimate parts!
“Why are you looking at me?”
“Do you jest?”
She made a clucking sound of disgust. “What are you doing here in the women’s pool?” she demanded, then shouted, “Get out!”
“I’ll wait for you outside until you are clothed,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster, embarrassed as he was to realize that it had not even occurred to him that he was entering the section reserved for women. In his defense, he added, “’Tis your fault I am here.”
“Aaarrgh!”
That was woman language for “You are driving me barmy.”
Well, she was driving him barmy, too, he thought as he closed the door and heard a hard object hit the door behind him. Probably a bar of soap.
Mere moments later she came storming out, fully dressed in a long-sleeved, faded red gunna. “What? What is so important that you had to invade the private women’s quarters? Who are you looking for?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You wily witch! Are you trying to guilt me into letting you stay here? Because, God knows, your actions are having the opposite effect.”
“What in bloody hell are you yapping about? You could at least let me finish bathing afore accosting me.”
“I did not accost you. Believe you me, if I were accosting, you would know it.” Have I lost my lack-brained mind? “And, by the by, dost think foul language befits a lady of your standing?”
She said a word that was even more foul.
“For shame, Ingrith!” Oddly, John found he was enjoying himself. Must be my brain is melting from lack of sex.
“Oh, please! You have said far worse.”
“I am a man.” If you only knew!
“And that makes a difference…how?”
If you only knew! “Do not try to distract me with this pointless prattle.” I wonder if her nipples are still hard. They were moments ago.
She inhaled and exhaled for patience. “What is the problem, John?”
The problem is that I haven’t had a woman in months. The problem is you have a tempting body. The problem is I want to bed you. The problem is that I cannot.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“How?”
“Like you are seeing me naked.”
He smiled then, a slow smile that accompanied a head-to-toe survey. “The image is imbedded in my brain. I cannot will it away.”
She folded her arms across her chest, which, if she only knew, drew attention to their plumpness. And, by the rood, her damp gown was clinging in some very interesting places.
“Everyone is waiting for you to be seated so that the evening meal can start.”
“What?” she nigh shrieked. “The food will be cold.”
He shrugged.
“Why is my presence necessary?”
“Because every blessed person in the entire keep is chastising me for my treatment of you. The latest complaint being that I am working you to death and now starving you.”
“And they do not even know that you invaded my private bath. Tsk-tsk-tsk! Wait ’til they add that to their list of your transgressions.”
He ignored her snide remark. “They say I have forced you to perform menial labor as payment for hospitality here. They say I have treated you with disrespect.” She started to bring up the private bath invasion again, but he continued before she could speak. “They say you are no doubt weeping in your pillow because I begrudged you some honey. They say—”
“They say. They say. What do you care what they say?”
“Well, for one thing, Bolthor is composing a poem about it, as we speak.”
“Bolthor? The skald?”
He nodded. “The world’s worst skald.” He grabbed her hand and began to drag her through the corridor toward the great hall.
“Wait! I cannot come to dinner like this. My gunna is damp from my bath.”
“I noticed.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“At least let me get an apron.”
Now he knew why Viking women wore those long, open-sided aprons. They were hiding treasures from their menfolks. On the other hand, he would not mind seeing Ingrith in one of those aprons…with naught underneath. Now there was another image to imbed in his lustsome brain.
With a snort of self-disgust, he said, “Your attire will have to do for now. The food will indeed be spoiled if we have to wait that long.” He dragged her even harder now. In fact, he put one hand on her upper arm and the other at the back of her waist, propelling her forward.
“You are being a brute.”
He stopped suddenly and pulled her to a halt beside him. They were just outside the great hall, where the buzz of conversation was heavy. He was pleased to see that his men, and some women, had already started eating…and were enjoying the meal immensely.
“You are right, Ingrith. I have been brutish. Let us start over.”
She nodded. “I understand that we descended on your keep without invitation and that our presence here is…inconvenient.”
Inconvenient? That was as good an explanation as any. “I tend to be reclusive,” he attempted to explain. “And I do treasure my honey studies.”
She put a hand on his forearm, which he could swear caused a tingle that traveled up his arm, down his chest, to parts best known to men as their best parts. So distracted was he that at first he did not realize she was speaking.
“…and so I will do my best to find another place for us to stay until the danger passes. In the meantime, I promise that I and the children will stay out of your way.”
“Oh, Ingrith! What a churl you must think me! You may stay as long as you want.”
She beamed at him as if he’d handed her a pot of gold…or in her case, a pot of rare kitchen spices.
He immediately wished he had not issued such a sweeping welcome, but what was done was done.
As they passed through an aisle leading to the dais, various of John’s men called out to Ingrith.
“M’lady, the nekkesan is tasty,” Cyril, his chief archer, said.
“Huh?” John looked at her.
“Turkey-neck pudding,” she translated.
Gilbert, a groomsman, remarked, “The poached pike with mustard sauce is the best I have ever had.”
Hah! Gilbert wouldn’t know poach from roach.
He looked at Ingrith again.
“You are glaring.”
He mentally wiped the furrows from his brow. “What are all these different dishes? Are we having a feast? A visiting dignitary? Perchance a saint’s birthing day?”
“Nay! This is the way I cook every day.”
He groaned.
“You are not to worry. It will cost no more than your usual fare. I will not depl
ete your larder.”
“That is not what I am worried about. ’Tis spoiling my people, you are. They will ne’er accept another cook.”
She blushed, and he suspected that she had no intention of finding a new cook for a good while yet.
Once they were seated at the high table with Bolthor on one side of them and Hamr on the other, he stared, stupefied, as she named each of the dishes placed before them.
Pork with raspberry sauce. That must be what he’d seen earlier on the spit. But there was also maymenye ryalle…spiced pork in a nutted wine puree, Ingrith explained. Gingered carp. Almond eel soup. Henne dorre, or golden cardamom chicken.
Not to mention a sallat of wild endive, leeks, shredded cabbage, carrots, apples, and honey served in an aspic.
I wonder where she got the honey this time. He did not dare raise a ruckus over the honey again, considering the effect of his first tirade. “I had no idea we had so many different spices here at Hawk’s Lair,” he commented instead.
“You don’t. I brought my own with me.” She made that announcement in a way that required a compliment.
“How wonderful!”
She slanted her eyes at him. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“Who? Me? Of course not.” He paused. “Mayhap a little.”
Then there were the vegetables: creamed parsnips, horseradish, cucumbers in vinegar, herbed beets, cabbage with pork marrow, and amyndoun seaw, a vegetable gruel.
“I hate cabbage,” he said. Another halfwitted remark!
“Then do not eat the cabbage,” she advised patiently, as if he were a thickheaded boyling.
And for sweets: the oatcakes he’d seen her baking earlier, plus bilberry tarts, stewed pears, and gilliflower pudding.
Saints save me! Dinner will last for hours. God only knew how many hours afore the trestle tables could be dismantled and folks retire to their sleep benches. He enjoyed the occasional feast, but if she planned such an array every night…well, he might very well begin fasting.
However, no one seemed to mind, except him. There was a vast amount of smacking of lips, and oohs and aahs of delight. At the rate they were going, there would be no food left over for the morning breaking fast.
“You are not eating, m’lord,” she commented.
He stared down at the trencher they shared, which she had piled with a little of all the dishes.
“Here, try this,” she said, picking up a portion of pork dripping with red sauce with her fingertips and placing it at his lips.
He opened obediently, like the boyling she seemed to regard him as, but the sensation that shot from her fingertips at his lips down to his manpart was anything but boyish. Without thinking, he grabbed her wrist when she was about to withdraw and licked the remaining sauce off her fingertips, one at a time.
“M’lord!” she exclaimed.
He knew exactly what she meant, whether she recognized it for what it was, or not. Just that tactile abrasion of his rough tongue on her soft skin caused him to want so much more. Truly, his finger licking had caused desire to lick like a firestorm through his body. Trying to hide his arousal, he remarked, “I notice you m’lord me only when you choose. Other times I am Hawk or John. Make up your mind.”
“M’lord,” she emphasized. “What are you doing?”
“Acting as your finger bowl?” He gave one last lick that encompassed her palm as well. But what he really wanted to lick was…
She jerked her hand away. “What do you think?”
“Huh?”
“The taste?”
“Of your skin?”
“Nay, not of my skin. The raspberry sauce on the pork. Dost think it is too sweet?”
He took another piece off the trencher and chewed it slowly. “A little sweet,” he concluded. Then grinned at her. “Wouldst like to lick my fingertips?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
A virgin…she must be a virgin. At her age! Poor thing!
“Tell me about your beekeeping, John,” she urged then. “What is it that fascinates you so?”
“I don’t know if it is fascination with the bees. More like the honey and what can be done with it. I am not the first person to discover the medicinal properties. Even the ancient Romans knew that it could help heal wounds, cure coughs, that kind of thing. But I believe there are other uses it could have, such as…” He stopped and stared at her. “I am boring you. My apologies, m’lady. I get carried away betimes.”
“You were not boring me. It is refreshing to hear of a man being passionate about something other than…well, passion.” She grinned at him.
Passion was not a word he needed to hear from her lips at this point. Time to change the subject. “Tell me, Ingrith,” he began, picking at the food in front of him with both his knife and a wooden spoon. “Why have you never wed?”
She rolled her eyes.
“What?”
“Everyone asks that of women once they reach a certain age. Do they ask the same of men? I think not.”
“Actually, they do. Especially my mother.”
She smiled at him, and—Heavenly Hosts!—he felt another lurch low down in his belly. What was happening to him? He had met Ingrith in the past and never experienced this overwhelming attraction.
“You are an attractive woman, Ingrith. It is a logical question.”
“Mayhap. I have not wed because the right man never asked me to.”
“Is there one ‘right man’ in particular who missed his chance with you?”
“How kind you are with your wording! I meant that I could not imagine spending the rest of my life with any of the oafs who offered for me. I want to love the man I marry.”
“You still expect to wed?”
“Nay, I do not. I am fast approaching thirty-one years, well beyond the prime time for a woman.”
“Are you still of breeding years?” he asked with sudden hope.
“Of course,” she said with affront. “I am not that long in the teeth.”
His hopes deflated.
“But that does not mean I will be having any of my own,” she added.
“Is that why you work at the orphanage?”
“Partly. The main reason I came to Britain was to escape my father’s ludicrous matchmaking efforts.”
“Ludicrous?”
“In recent years, a sad array of men he presented to me and Drifa, my only remaining unwed sister. Olaf Wart-Nose. Vikar the Vicious. Hakon the Horse, who was rumored to have two phalluses, though I cannot countenance the truth of that boast and do not want to think how that would benefit any woman in the bedsport.”
“I could think of several benefits,” Hamr said from Ingrith’s other side. “Wouldst like me to explain?”
“Nay!” he and Ingrith exclaimed at the same time.
He could not believe that a noblewoman would bring up such a subject in mixed company. In truth, her coarse tongue both fascinated and repelled him.
“Then there is the godly handsome Finn Finehair,” Ingrith continued, “who would be acceptable except he is so vain he adorns his forked beard and the war braids framing his face with colored beads and feathers. Like a peacock, he is.”
“My stepfather often speaks of a far-famed Norseman who insisted that he be buried upside down when he died,” John related, “so the world would kiss his arse.”
Ingrith smiled but at the same time shook her head, no doubt at his crudity. “The worst was Eyvor from the Danish lands. He was the champion of head-butting contests in all the Norselands. Not surprisingly, he drooled a lot and often appeared dazed.”
Ingrith’s sense of humor surprised and pleased John.
“I know Finn Finehair,” Hamr interjected. “Dost know that he combs his chest hairs and trims the short hairs surrounding his manpart?”
“Shhh,” John cautioned Hamr, motioning with his eyes toward Bolthor, who was in conversation with his steward. The skald would no doubt love to compose a saga on those outrageous subjects. Double-pr
onged men and vain Vikings.
“How about you, John?” Ingrith dabbed at her mouth with a linen cloth that she placed on the table, having finished eating. Then she turned in her seat to give him her full attention. “Why have you not wed? You are about the same age as I am, I believe.”
“I do not intend ever to wed,” he said.
Her eyes…beautiful, extraordinarily shaded blue eyes, by the by…widened with surprise. “All men of your station must needs wed for heirs, if naught else.”
“Not me. I want no children of my blood. Hawk’s Lair will pass to my stepsister Larise and her second husband, Sir Garreth of Sussex.”
“And Gravely?”
John bristled, annoyed at her prodding into his personal affairs, but then he berated himself for having started this line of questioning. “I await a male heir. One of my stepsisters is bound to have a boy someday. In the meantime, another of my brothers-by-marriage, Andrew, acts as my castellan.”
“Ah, that must be why you are so averse to having the orphans here. You mislike children.”
“That is ridiculous. I like children as much as the next person, as long as they are quiet and reasonably well behaved.”
Ingrith tilted her head to the side, studying him. “Is it because you are not interested in women…nay, that cannot be so. I have met your mistress.”
At first, John was outraged that Ingrith would question his manhood. “I am not a sodomite.”
“I realized that when I recalled your mistress. Sorry I am if I offended you.”
“Hah! You have offended me right and left since you arrived. What mistress?”
“You have more than one?”
“What mistress?” he repeated. I should have followed my original instinct, gone to my chamber, and buried my head under the bed furs until this pestsome woman left my home.
Hamr was laughing, silently.
Bolthor’s ears had perked up, and any minute now would be gleaning the gist of this absurd conversation.
“Joanna,” Ingrith replied and nodded her thanks at one of the serving girls, who was removing dirty trenchers and placing sweet flummeries in front of them. A whipped cream concoction that appeared to have sliced peaches swirled in.
He could feel his face heat with color. “What do you know of Joanna?”