Ragnar sighed. Any one of their men could have come out for her. But he knew what had driven him out here: the same thing that made him ride headlong into battle, always at the front of the pack, swinging his axe with violent dexterity around his head; the cursed restlessness of his soul, the tortured guilt over what had happened to his sister. His mind and body never settled, beset with a constant, driving energy.
When he finally reached her, the water was up to his knees. Still she did not look up. Had she not heard him approach? Legs braced apart, Ragnar stood on the plank, the maid a couple of feet away, her gown floating around her, swirling in the vicious tide. ‘Give me your hand!’ he shouted at her.
* * *
The voice stabbed in her chest. A harsh, guttural order, in Saxon, which she struggled to understand. Her hands dropped from her cheeks, midnight-blue eyes rounding in shock. A huge man stood in front of her, his hand stretched out across the churning water. The dying sunlight caught the ends of his hair, firing them to a molten bronze. A golden halo, springing out around his head. Like an angel, she thought stupidly, her mind befuddled. Had an angel come to rescue her? The heady scent of leather and woodsmoke rose from him, mingling with the strong salt-laden smell of the sea. Was he an illusion, a figment of her exhausted brain dreamt up by her desperate plight?
Gisela frowned as she peered more closely. Nay, not an angel. The man towered over her, spreading his long legs wide against the surging rush of tide. Clad in a sleeveless leather tunic, criss-crossed with leather straps, fearsomely riveted, he looked more like a barbarian, scowling darkly at her failure to move, or to even stretch her hand out towards him. Secured by an ornately wrought brooch, a length of woollen cloth wrapped around his broad shoulders served as a cloak; woollen braies encased his powerful legs. Honed thigh muscles flexed beneath the cloth. The sun’s low angle threw his face into relief, like a carved statue, the craggy angles of his square jaw and the shadowed hollow of his cheeks beneath sharply delineated cheekbones.
Her heart plummeted foolishly. She was not often given to fanciful notions, but her imagination, dulled with fatigue, had certainly excelled on this occasion. Her fear of drowning, of near death, had forced her mind to evoke this image of perfect masculinity. She folded her arms, mouth set in a mutinous line, challenging the vision to disappear. An apparition dreamed up by her mad, unfocused brain through fear and lack of food. The man did not exist. If she stared at him long enough, he would surely vanish. Gisela tipped her head to one side, waiting.
‘What is wrong with you?’ the man roared again in Saxon, his generous mouth twisting in frustration. ‘Do you understand me? Give me your hand!’ The water caressed the hemline of his woollen shirt, hanging beneath his shorter tunic. Frowning, she struggled to work out his identity; he wore no surcoat to denote his coat of arms like any Saxon or a Norman knight. With that mass of golden hair around his head, he appeared before her like a Norse god of old. Laughter bubbled up in her chest. What would her confused mind come up with next?
Something gripped her shoulder, shaking her violently. Then a hand pushed against her cheek, fingers calloused and warm, one thumb digging into her chin. She reared back at the contact, but the fingers held tight, pulling her forward. Bright green eyes loomed into the centre of her vision.
‘Look at me,’ the man said, his harsh voice clipping the Saxon vowels. ‘You have to help me, otherwise you are going to drown. Do you realise that? Put your arms around my neck and I will pull you out of here.’ As he reached over, his hands dug intimately beneath her armpits, gripping her flesh through the layers of clothing. Gisela flinched, a jolt of heat racing through her; his thumbs brushing against her breasts.
But this isn’t happening, she told herself dully, as a small squeak of protest fell from her lips at his cursory manhandling. Bending double, the man reached out from his place of security on the plank, the white wood palely visible beneath the water, and pulled and pulled, dragging her slowly, inexorably, from the mud. ‘Put your arms around my neck!’ he demanded again, growling against her ear. Stung to compliance by the harsh command, Gisela lifted her slim arms, linking her fingers at the back of his neck. His skin was warm; the fronds of his hair tickled her hand. She frowned, her muddled mind trying desperately to make sense of the situation. Was he truly pulling her out of this godforsaken mud?
Air sucked around her frozen limbs as the mud released its cruel snare upon her legs. Her feet, caked in heavy mud, dangled uselessly as arms of thick-roped muscle lifted her, shoving her slender frame against a hard, masculine body, chest to chest. The man thrust one arm beneath her hips, swinging her legs up high. Her soaked gown clung to her thighs, to the soft flare of her hips.
Warmth surged through her, a delicious puddle of sensation that broke through her vague, dream-like state of semi-consciousness. His nearness was brutal, a curt slap on the jaw, buffeting her sensitive core, wrenching her body to a state of full, throbbing alertness. Breath squeezed in her lungs; it was as if his cursory touch ripped the clothes from her body and exposed her nakedness for all to see. She felt stripped bare, vulnerable, her breasts bouncing treacherously against his solid chest, her arms flailing away from his neck, not wanting to hold on to him for support.
‘Put your arms back around my neck, or we shall both be in the water!’ He began to carry her back to shore, jolting her light weight deliberately so that she was forced to hold on to his neck, his shoulders. Twisting her face up to the rigid features that loomed above her in the semi-darkness, she released one hand to brush her fingers across his jaw, a fleeting butterfly touch, in wonderment.
‘Êtes-vous vrai?’ she asked in French, using her mother tongue without thinking. Are you real?
* * *
Ragnar’s step faltered in surprise; he almost lost his footing on the plank. The maid’s speech was soft, musical; her lilting French accent tunnelling into him. It was not often he heard the language out loud, but he understood it, for his mother had spoken in her native tongue to him from birth, but only when they were alone, for his father did not approve. His father hated any reminder of how he had abducted his wife from France, all those years ago, despite their happy marriage now. Ragnar peered down into the pale glimmer of the maid’s face. What, in Thor’s name, was she doing here?
‘Je suis,’ he replied, confirming her question.
‘Dieu merci,’ she gasped out in relief. Thank God. Her light-boned frame sagged against him, ropes of unconsciousness binding her into oblivion.
Chapter Three
‘Who is she?’ Eirik demanded as Ragnar laid the maid down carefully. Her face was grey, pallid. She was so still. Kneeling beside her, his big knees grinding into the shingle, he seized her wrist, pushing up the fraying cuff, searching for a pulse. Against his fingers her blood bumped reassuringly; relief flooded over him. He rose to his feet, his eyes assessing her calmly. Her over-gown was loose, a plaited belt gathering the shabby, patched material at her waist. Dark brown in colour, stained with white streaks of drying salt, clagged with mud at the hem. No decoration around the plain circular neck, the centre slit opening. Her garments denoted her status: a peasant, living hand to mouth on whatever coin she could earn. Foolish of him to be so concerned; the maid was quite clearly a nobody, nothing to him certainly. And yet her plight plucked at his soul. She seemed so alone, and vulnerable, with no one rushing to protect or claim her.
‘I’ve no idea.’ Reaching down, Ragnar yanked the rucked hem of her longer underdress over her shapely shins, woefully caked in layers of grey, cracking mud. He was not about to reveal the traitorous words the maid had spoken to him out on the marsh; he would keep that knowledge to himself until he found out her reasons for being in Bertune. Why here, of all places? In a part of the country where Normans were truly hated. A place where the Saxons had begged the Danes for their help in overthrowing them. But this solitary maid, whey-faced and slender? Whoever she was, she was no threat to him,
or to anyone else. Had she any idea of the danger she was in?
The woman who had originally alerted them to the maid’s plight lurked by the cottage wall that backed on to the beach. Ragnar turned to her. ‘Who is she?’
‘She works out at the salt pans with us,’ the woman replied, a wary look half-closing her red-streaked eyes. ‘And a hard worker she is, too. But she’s only been with us a day or so. Needs coin for the ferry, I think. Doesn’t talk much.’
‘Where does she live, then?’ Eirik said, his tone faintly peevish. ‘We can’t leave her lying here.’
‘Eirik, why not go and join the rest of the men in the town?’ Ragnar suggested, hearing the growing frustration in his friend’s voice. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
‘Are you sure?’ Eirik’s boots crunched heavily across the shingle as he came towards Ragnar. ‘I could do with a drink.’ He touched his leather-bound toe to the maid’s right flank, lifting her body in a desultory manner, a sneering twist to his mouth. ‘Surprising that such a little thing should cause so much trouble, don’t you think?’ he said disparagingly, removing his foot so abruptly that the slim body rolled back on to the beach. The maid’s arm fell out to one side; her palm, delicate pink lines creasing the soft underside, scraped against the jagged stones. Ragnar’s fists curled tight; he resisted the urge to shove his friend away. Hell’s teeth, treat the woman like a human being, he thought, not an animal!
‘Go.’ Ragnar pinned a wide grin on his face that he hoped was convincing. He pushed at Eirik’s shoulder, a friendly gesture. ‘I can take her home.’
‘After one look at you, she’ll run anyway.’ Eirik laughed, starting to walk up the beach. ‘You’re enough to scare the hell out of any woman. Don’t waste too much time on her. I expect to see you in the inn before full dark!’ He lifted his arm in farewell, the strengthening breeze ruffling his dark hair. Then he disappeared down an alleyway between the gable ends of two cottages, the shadowed twilight swallowing up his tall figure.
The maid was shivering now; a blue caste tinged her face. Unpinning his cloak, Ragnar dropped to his knees, the shingle poking through his braies into his muscled shins. His sword hilt jabbed upwards as the tip of the leather scabbard hit the beach; he shoved it to one side so that the weapon rested against his hip. He frowned, drawing thick coppery brows together. Was Eirik right? Despite Ragnar’s vicious reputation on the battlefield, his skill with an axe and sword, he had no wish to scare any woman, let alone this delicate effigy lying on the stones. She lay so still, like one of those statues in the new church in Ribe, her cheek as smooth as marble, unblemished. Hulking over her slight figure, he felt like a cumbersome idiot, awkward and unwieldy, his body too big to tend to a woman so slight. He spread his cloak over her chest, then, sliding his hands beneath her, he raised her carefully so he could tuck the woollen cloth around her back.
The fragile knobs of her spine pushed against his fingers. As he laid her back down, the faintest smell of roses lifted from her skin; his solar plexus gripped, then released with the sensual onslaught. His senses jolted, quickening suddenly. When was the last time he had been this close to a woman? Close enough to smell her perfume? He couldn’t remember. His sister’s desperate situation had consumed his days and haunted his nights. Any desire had been crippled by guilt, his couplings with women rare, and, if they occurred, tended to be swift, joyless affairs in which he took little pleasure.
Impatient with his memories, Ragnar swept his gaze around the beach. He needed to rid himself of this girl and concentrate on finding the man who had bullied his sister into a ghostly shadow of her former self. But now the shingle was deserted, save for a lonesome gull, orange-beaked, stalking along the foaming edge of the incoming tide. Strange that no one wanted to help her. But then, these were troubled times—trust had to be earned. He wondered whether the townspeople had sensed the maid’s difference, her foreign ways, without actually putting a name to them.
A slight moan made Ragnar look down. A whimper of returning sensibility. The girl’s long eyelashes fluttered rapidly against her pallid cheeks, mouth parting fractionally. Her lips were full, plump, stained a luscious rose-pink. Inexplicably, he yearned to see the colour of her hair, fingers itching to pluck at the constricting headscarf, unfasten the silver brooch and cast the voluminous length of material aside. Sweat prickled on his palms; he rubbed his hands down his braies.
Her eyes sprung open. Huge pools of deep blue dominated her face, sparkling like sapphires. The inky depths of the ocean on a bright summer’s day. In the fading light, he drank in the magnificent colour, devoured it, nerves spiralling round and round in increasing excitement, pushing his heart to a faster beat. What was happening? Inconceivable that such a dull little maid should have such an effect on him, bundled up as she was like a nun in her drab, mud-stained garments, every inch of skin hidden from view apart from the white terrified circle of her face.
Wait. Nay, not terrified. Ragnar read the flare of anger in her eyes, the lips compressed in tight rebellion. The mutinous clenching of her fists by her side. ‘I’m here to help you,’ he said in English, trying to keep his voice gentle. He reached out to touch her shoulder.
‘Get your hands off me!’ the maid squawked at him. Knocking his arm sideways, she struggled to sit up. His cloak fell forward, pillowing in her lap as she brought herself upright. She threw his garment irritably to one side, digging her palms and heels into the shingle, rocking her hips, struggling to shift her body backwards, away from him.
‘Easy, maid,’ Ragnar said, sitting back on his heels. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ Despite her efforts, she hadn’t managed to move very far.
‘I know that, you blundering lump!’ The maid stopped, seemingly frustrated by her lack of movement. She touched a finger to the brooch at her neck, as if reassuring herself that the silver pin remained in place. ‘Why would you bother to pull me out of the mud, if you were going to kill me?’
Ragnar bit his lip to stop himself laughing out loud. Where on earth had she learned her English? From an army camp? Her cursing was on a level with any common knave. He grinned, rapidly adjusting his original opinion of her. Out there on the mudflats, she had been a forlorn, helpless figure, her diminutive frame and finely honed, angelic face denoting a benign, docile character. How wrong he had been. She was worse than feisty, a regular termagant. He folded his arms across his wide chest, almost as if he prepared to do battle with her. Curiously, he relished the thought.
* * *
What, in heaven’s name, was he smiling at? The man hulked over her, great shoulders blocking out the darkening sky, his green gaze intense, flaring over her with bold scrutiny. Her eyes ran rapidly across his leather-strapped torso, his calf-length boots stained with salt water. Was he a Saxon? Or worse...one of the men from the longships. A Viking? Despite her truculent bravado, anxiety gripped Gisela’s chest; she knew she had to stand up and walk away, but at the moment, the task seemed impossible. A horrible weakness engulfed her, sapping the strength in her legs, numbing her arms and hands.
‘Who are you?’ Her blunt question, hard-edged, accused him.
He tilted his head to one side. ‘I’m a Dane,’ he replied. ‘We have just landed here, on the shore.’
Oh Lord, he was a Viking, after all! They were even worse than the Saxons with their bloodthirsty reputation for merciless fighting, laying waste to whole villages without a hint of remorse. ‘But you...you can’t be.’ A wary light entered Gisela’s eyes. ‘You...you’re speaking English!’
He laughed. ‘English is very close to our Norse language. It’s easy for us to change from one to the other.’
Her thoughts tumbled, fuzzy and confused. What was happening to her? She felt caught, trapped in some nightmare for which she couldn’t find a way out, despite the way her mind twisted and turned. She had no memory of how she had arrived back at the beach. ‘Did you carry me?’ Her tone was brittle, sharp.
<
br /> He lifted one shoulder, then let it drop, unconcerned. ‘Yes. You fainted. I’m not surprised. You probably thought you were going to die out there.’
Gisela stared rigidly at the shingle, the slick of green algae across white stone, remembering the slosh of water around her thighs. Her throat was raw from shouting. Yes, she had truly thought she would die. But why had he come out to rescue her, this man, this stranger, of all people? Beneath the intense scrutiny of his emerald-green eyes, she shuffled her hips uncomfortably, glowering at his hands, loose fists curled against his brawny thighs. Hands that had moved over her insensible body, hoisting her high. How could she not remember his touch? Her cheeks flushed suddenly, a livid stain dusting her high cheekbones. Lord, he could have done anything! She would have been at his mercy, him, a Dane! Her eyes flashed blue fire. She crossed her arms over her bosom, jutting her chin forward. ‘What did you do to me?’
Ragnar drew his dark-blond brows together in a deep frown. What on earth was the woman talking about? Her expression was stony, openly challenging him, as she waited for his answer. What was she expecting him to say? His eyes traced the curving top line of her lip, the fierce, determined set of her mouth. Tipping his head to one side, he recalled the soft weight against his chest, the sensual roll of her breast as she folded against him.
‘Er... I carried you from the mud to the beach. That’s it.’ His speech was a low burr, rumbling up from his ribcage.
‘What else?’ she fired back at him. Her hands dropped to her sides, balling into fists against the pebbles.
He followed their movement, wanting to laugh. What was she about to do? Clout him around the jaw? Beat him senseless? It was as if... His mouth parted slightly as the line of her questioning became clear. Of course, he was a Dane and she would judge him as such. ‘Nothing else, maid. What were you expecting? That I would rape you midway between the river and the beach? How low your judgement is of me.’
Rescued by the Viking Page 3
