The Devil had tricked her! And fool that she was, she had walked blindly into his trap. She thought the prince of Dunlough was an honorable man. She thought he would allow her to work her hostage-geld by using her skills in battle. Instead, he wished to wed her—to wed her!
Pivoting with a growl, Erika used the staff to attack a wooden shield attached to a five-foot-high post. Even four days later, she still smoldered. After his stunning announcement, Conor had given her the use of his rooms and leave to practice her skills. Yet Erika had been loath to leave the chamber, loath to see the expressions of the people of Dunlough, loath to see her brother, loath to see Conor. Why would a man chain himself with a woman he clearly didn’t want, especially one who’d tried to kill him and given the opportunity would certainly put her hands to his throat the moment she saw him?
The staff wasn’t doing enough damage. She tossed it down in utter disgust and reached to her sides for the twin short-swords. That Conor had seen fit to return her weapons to train with showed how confident he was of his victory. She would show him just how wrong he was.
With a chilling ululation, she attacked the defenseless shield. Within minutes, it was nothing more than splinters. Breathing harshly, Erika spun about, seeking something else to destroy.
“Erika!” Olan’s voice broke through the red haze of rage that surrounded her. “If you re-injure yourself it will be even longer before Conor can fairly fight you. Is that what you want?”
“What I want,” she began, balancing a blade in the palm of one hand, “is my freedom. What I want is to erase the self-satisfied, pompous smirk from his face. What I want—” and by this time she was yelling, “—is to wrap my hands about his throat!”
“Calm yourself, wer-datter,” Olan cut in brusquely. “A warrior who loses his temper has already lost the battle.”
Sheathing her twin blades, Erika walked to where her brother sat in the shade of a large tree. The past four days had done wonders for Olan, though she was sure that was due more to Gwynna’s attention than to the healer’s herbs. They had not discussed it, but Erika knew that her brother had never regarded a woman with the intensity he reserved for the dark-haired Gael.
His lack of fury when Erika had finally imparted to him the nature of her challenge was suspect.
“You knew, did you not?” she accused, standing before him. “Even before I told you, you knew what the Devil had in store for me!”
“I did not know Conor’s intentions until he spoke to me in the chamber, the same day he told you himself.”
“Oh, it’s Conor now, is it?” she retorted hotly. “Are you so friendly with the man you vilely called diabhal not four nights ago?”
Crimson stained her brother’s cheeks. “I laughed at him when he told me his intent. Laughed! You have been defending your right against marriage nearly half your life, and I told him so.” He looked at her. “I do not need to ask you if you favor his wager, do I?”
“You do not.”
Shifting beneath the shaded branches, Olan leaned towards her. “Would it be so terrible a thing, to be married to the mac Ferghal?” he asked. “He is jarl of Dunlough. This place, its lands, and its people would be yours as well. You would finally have a home. You would be safe.”
Erika stared out over the practice yard. She was all too aware of how much her brother wanted her to have a place of her own, a place to live happily for the remainder of her days. “Do you really believe I would be safe here?” she wondered. “The people of Dunlough know that I tried to kill him once. They know I fought the battle that cost many of them husbands and sons.”
She shook her head, answering her question herself. “No, I would not be safe here. Conor’s people would not accept me, especially when their ruler hates me.”
“If he hated you, he would not offer you the honor of marriage,” he said in a reasonable tone.
“Honor?” The word was strangled and bitter on her tongue. “What does the man know of honor?”
“Do you still have your maidenhead?”
The blunt question blindsided her, and she could only stare at her brother wordlessly. Heat rushed to her cheeks and it was some moments before she could stammer. “Y-yes.”
“Then surely that proves his honor to you.”
Confusion rippling through her, Erika turned away from her brother, her eyes to the packed earth of the practice area. Olan’s defense of the man she preferred to consider as her enemy felt like a betrayal. Yet his judgments of character had saved their lives more than once on their journeys.
How could he not understand the turmoil within her now? He had been imprisoned in Denmark because of her refusal to be forced into a marriage. They had turned their backs on everything they knew for her right to be free. Why would Olan repudiate that right now?
A sickening sensation coalesced in her stomach. Spinning about, she stared at her brother as if he were a stranger. “D-do you wish to be q-quit of me?”
Olan was on his feet instantly. “Never that, Rika,” he said solemnly. “It wounds me that you would think so.”
Contrition stained her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Olan. I know you have sacrificed much for me, and would do so again. But I have seen your regard for the princess of Dunlough, and would not blame you for wanting—”
One large hand cut the air between them, silencing her. “When you win your duel, we will ride away from here and never look back.”
Considering the matter done, he unsheathed one of her short-swords. “Prepare to defend yourself.”
Erika gratefully accepted the diversion of sparring with her brother, putting all thoughts of marriage and freedom from her mind. They exercised fiercely despite their mending injuries, so intently that they did not notice the gathering watching their display.
It was quite a crowd. Nearly all of Conor’s men, tribal leaders and servants without pressing duty thronged the yard, watching the warriors in respectful silence. Everyone had noticed the short work Erika had made of the shield, especially Conor and his sister.
“Perhaps she saw your face on that target,” Gwynna murmured to her brother. “And this is the woman you mean to do battle with, and take to wife?”
“’Twas she who challenged me,” Conor declared. Under his sister’s steady gaze, he added, “Perhaps I did goad her into it, knowing she would leap at the chance. Erika’s honor forced her to do the only thing she could—bargain with her sword arm for her freedom. I would not begrudge her the opportunity, but I mean to keep her here, Gwynna.”
“And if you lose?”
Conor snorted. “The Devil will not lose. Do not tempt fate by thinking such a thing.”
Gwynna snorted in return, glancing pointedly at the splintered remains. “Very well, then. Let us cease this exercise before one of them is hurt.” They started across the yard.
Olan blocked his sister’s thrust then froze, staring over her shoulder. “Blood of Odin!”
Erika spun instinctively, her sword raised—
A scream split the air. The blade, flashing in the afternoon sun, stopped with just an inch to spare.
Conor looked down at Erika then at the blade pointed at his chest, an inscrutable expression on his face. “Think you to kill me now, and be done with it?”
Her hands shaking, Erika lowered the blade then sheathed it. “Your people would immediately hang me, and well you know it,” she muttered, not looking at him. Blessed Odin, what was happening to her? She had nearly killed him again!
She retrieved the other sword from the packed earth where Olan had dropped it so that he could better hold Gwynna, who had fainted dead away. Her brother had already scooped the healer into his arms and sat her on the bench. He hovered over her, his face etched with such obvious concern that she had to look away.
Keeping her eyes lowered to conceal her flaming cheeks, she said, “I have told you that I no longer wish to kill you, and I mean what I said. Not that you do not deserve it.”
The muttered aside bounced off him
as he gazed at her. Even drenched with sweat and dust, with her hair in disarray, Erika was magnificent. He remembered how it had felt to kiss her, the tiny waves of shock that had coursed through him. The need to have her took him and held him fast. “Then you are near ready to spar with me, that we may settle this with honor once and for all?”
That brought her head up. Her eyes were so fiery, they could have roasted a deer. “Honor?” she spluttered. “You call tricking me into a duel honorable?”
“The contest is your idea. We can be wed this evening, if you like.”
“If I like? If I like?” Heat rushed into her cheeks, and her eyes began to spark. “What I would like is to—”
She broke off the impassioned hope, darting a glance at the curious onlookers. Sighing with a visible effort to calm herself, she placed her hand on his forearm to draw him away.
Conor would not allow such highhandedness in normal circumstance, but the ease with which Erika touched him showed that she was warming to him. And if she could be warm, she could be blazing.
“Shall I tell you what I would like?” he whispered before she could speak.
Her lips parted as she gazed at him, wary. “What?”
“I would like to see your hair as free and wild as your spirit is,” he told her, amazed at the huskiness of his voice. “I would like to guess at the mystery of your legs as you walk to me in skirts. I would like to kiss the laughter from your lips.”
He dropped his face within inches of hers, so that their breaths mingled. “I would like to kiss you right now.”
How came she to be in his arms? Erika was surprised by the husky, longing quality of his voice, surprised by the ease with which she went to him, yielded to him. Surprised and appalled.
She stepped away from him, away from his scent and his heat, away from the magic he worked on her senses. “Again, Conor, I ask you—let us settle this another way. Olan and I are more than skillful with our swords. If we could join your men—”
“My men serve me out of loyalty and respect,” he cut in. As quick as Irish weather, the sun in his eyes changed to stormclouds. “In return, I give them food and clothing, a home, education for their young. I am there when they are born, I am there when they are wed, and I am there when they are buried. For this, they call me lord and follow me most willing. I’ll not hire a blade whose loyalty is only to herself. You’ll do the honorable thing, Valkyrie, and meet me on the field to settle this thing between us. My sister tells me that three weeks more, at Beltaine, is sufficient time for you to be well. If you are fit earlier than that, please inform me. For now, go with my sister to bathe and change. You and your brother will dine at my table so that I may ensure you keep up your strength.” He stormed off.
Erika could only stare after him as the crowd dispersed around her. What was so wrong about offering her blade into his service? Most of the Irish, merchants and nobles alike, had been more than willing to accept it. Was it because she was a woman? If that were so, why was he so willing to do combat with her and take her to wife?
Shaking her head, she joined Gwynna and Olan by the bench. “I do not understand him.”
Gwynna had recovered enough to watch her brother stalk away. “Conor values loyalty and honor the way most value silver and gold.”
“Loyalty is important,” Olan said carefully, “but does he not react overmuch?”
Gwynna’s eyes grew misty. “He has good reason. His wife betrayed him by having another man’s babe.”
Frost ran through Erika’s veins as she remembered the fierce look in Conor’s eyes. “He told me his wife gave him the scar,” she admitted. “He never said why.”
“That is why. When we saw the babe had red hair, everyone knew it could not be Conor’s. They argued, and Aislingh slashed his face with her dagger before falling upon it herself. The babe was sick, and died two days later. Conor has not been the same since.”
Erika looked after Conor. Her anger left her, replaced with a heaviness she could not name. “Honor is important to me too,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Besides Olan, honor is all I have left. I would have him know that.”
“Perhaps you will have the opportunity to tell him,” Gwynna said, just as softly. “We will dine soon. Time enough for a long herbal bath and finding the perfect gown.”
Erika’s eyes widened in alarm. “I will not put on a dress!” she exclaimed frantically. “I refuse to wear a dress!”
Chapter Twelve
Olan sat with Conor and Ardan at the head of the honor table, finding it difficult to wait for the ladies to appear. Memories circled his mind. Larangar falling, Erika taking the blow to her side. Fevered nightmares calmed by a woman he should not care for.
By Odin’s blinded eye, what a road the Norns had them on! Although he’d enjoyed a variety of women in his travels, none of them had held his heart in her hands. None of them had stood between him and death, brought him back to the land of the living with knowledge and force of will.
Was what he felt simply gratitude that Gwynna of Dunlough had saved his life? Olan took a deep draught of his ale, discarding the idea. Gratitude was part of it, yes, but there was something else, something deeper. Something that made him feel...almost as he did when the berserker fit left him. Shaky, sensitized. Aware of the beating of his heart, her heart, the pulsing of her blood at the base of her throat.
He wanted Gwynna as he’d wanted few things in his life. Yet if—when—Erika won her duel, Olan would ride away with her and leave his unvoiced emotions behind.
But first, he would beat the Devil so senseless the Irishman would believe he’d been struck by Thor’s Hammer.
Ardan was the first to break the heavy silence. “Your sister does not seem taken with the idea of being queen of Dunlough.”
“She is not.” He answered Ardan’s question readily enough, but his eyes were on Conor. “I knew she would not agree to the idea.”
The dark-garbed giant shifted on the bench. “I have to wonder why she is not already wed,” Conor said, his eyes fixed to the opening through which the ladies would appear.
“It is the right she was given, by her birth and our father’s decree, that she wed whom she chose,” Olan explained. “She chose to wed the man who could disarm her or draw blood in a duel.”
“And none took the challenge?”
Taking another long drink from his mug, Olan sat back, a savage pride swelling his chest. “Oh, there were suitors aplenty, from the time of her twelfth year. Even our close-kin Larangar tried for her hand. She bested them all.”
All. The word seemed to ring in the hall. More than a few had turned their full attention to the honor table.
“The men of your country are weaker than the women?” Ardan asked. “Little wonder then, that we drove your kind out.”
Olan let the incendiary comment pass. His eyes were on Conor. “It was Erika’s right to learn the way of the warrior, and her right to have the freedom to wed the man she chooses. It was that right, joined with loyalty and honor, that caused us to leave Denmark.”
Conor leaned forward, his interest piqued. “Go on.”
“Our father was a powerful jarl,” Olan began, as good with a tale as any of the Gaels. “We are his children by his second wife. Our older half-brother, Gunthar, always hated us, and that hatred blossomed after our father died. Gunthar had me imprisoned, and offered Erika’s hand to anyone who would pay his price.
“She refused marriage unless I was released. Gunthar then threatened to have me hung if she did not wed. He gave her a week to make her choice, or he would make it for her.
“The night before Gunthar was to kill me, Erika freed me. It was the first time she’d killed someone, and she cried as she stepped over the bodies of men she had known all her life.
“We spirited away from home, aided by our friend Lars, who had been one of Erika’s suitors. She’d hidden a store of weapons and coin away, and we gathered those and Lar’s longboat and sailed around the coast to France.
Five years we have traveled, from Constantinople to Normandy, selling our blades and protecting the innocent. We have endured, but it has not been without strife.”
Fists clenched against the pain, he stared at Conor. “I will never forget that I owe Erika my life. That is the burden I bear, that she turned her back on all that she knew and loved, comfort and security, to see me free.”
Conor and Ardan exchanged glances as Olan gulped his ale. Loyalty indeed. Leaving behind luxury and the sight of home to come to a land not known for its love of Vikings, to be forever on the road without a place to call home. All this, for the love of a brother. What would she do, Conor wondered, for the love of her husband?
“The last five years have not been easy for Erika,” Olan said suddenly. “She does truly have a gentle heart, and I believe that she longs to put her sword away. That is why I hope yours will prove the better blade.”
Ardan nearly choked over his ale. “You want the Angel to lose?”
“I want my sister to be happy,” Olan retorted. “I want her to put down her sword and wash the blood from her hands. I want her to become the carefree sister I remember. I want her to be an angel of life, not the Angel of Death.”
Conor regarded the younger man with narrowed intent. There was much of Erika in her twin, the same determination, the conviction and the deep love they had for one another. Yet he had seen the way Olan had watched Gwynna and realized that the Viking was infatuated with his sister, perhaps more.
“Do you tell me this for your own ends?”
The bear of a Viking leapt to his feet, oversetting his bench. Dogs and servants scattered, and several men-at-arms started forward. “You question my motive, Devil?”
His voice wasn’t raised, but the soft menace of his tone was enough to cause some of the soldiers to stand back. His huge hands clenched into fists at his sides, the only outward show of anger. “I place my sister’s life and happiness so far beyond my own that mine have no meaning. Whatever the outcome of your duel, I will ride away from here if that is what she wishes. Can you tell me that your motive is pure?”
A Promise Kept Page 9
