A Prince of Norway: Nicolas & Sydney: Book 2 (The Hansen Series - Nicolas & Sydney)

by Kris Tualla

  Sydney faced him, her jaw set in warning. She glared at him for a moment and he felt chastised to his marrow by her righteous determination. Then she set the lantern on the porch and disappeared into the house.

  “Please, sir. I beg you to let her go,” the man pleaded. “I’m the one who stole the hen. She’s innocent.”

  “Jaqriel…” Sarah’s voice was Cajun spiced. “I cannot go on without you.”

  Jack rolled his eyes and shook his head. His shoulders rounded and he curved inward with a soft sob.

  Nicolas narrowed his eyes at Jack. “How far have you come?”

  “I—I don’t rightly know.” He straightened again and met Nicolas’s eyes. “How far is it to St. Louis?”

  “About ten miles.”

  Jack’s uneasy look jumped to Sarah. “I reckon eighty miles, give or take.”

  “In how many days?”

  “Five.”

  And she’s far gone with the babe. Nicolas frowned at one then the other, pondering his course of action.

  Sydney reappeared carrying a quilt, her old work shirt, and a small cast iron skillet. She knocked past Nicolas and handed the items to Sarah.

  “These things are mine to give.” Her stance and her tone challenged Nicolas to disagree. “The shirt should fit your man.”

  Sarah accepted the gifts with a small curtsy. “Bless you, Ma’am.”

  “And take a second chicken.”

  All eyes turned at Nicolas’s words; surprise at his sudden transition was displayed on every face. He ignored his own wife’s apparent lack of faith in him and continued, “Do you need a place to sleep?”

  “No, we travel at night,” Jack answered.

  “Let’s get the bird.” Nicolas turned toward the coop. “You can be on your way, then.”

  April 10, 1820

  Nicolas awoke at dawn with the immediate need to relieve his bladder. It took him a moment to realize where he was.

  After yester eve’s episode with the escaped slaves, he and Sydney walked through the house in stone-like silence. He retreated to his study and she stomped upstairs. Nicolas finished yet another glass of brandy in his study and knew that his banishment from his wife’s bed needed to end.

  And it needed to end now.

  He shoved open the door between his bedroom and the nursery and stepped in, decided and determined. Moonlight filtered through the clouds and grayed the room, so he had no trouble crossing to his wife’s narrow bed. He dropped to his knees beside it, and rested his face in the crook of her neck. She was warm and soft and smelled of rose oil.

  “I need you, wife,” he declared. “I love you. I miss you. Gud forbanner det, I burn for you.”

  She turned toward him. “Nicolas—”

  “Hush, min presang.”

  He dug through the bedclothes in search of her. When his hand found what he desired, he climbed onto the small bed and kneeled between her legs. He pushed his breeches down to his knees and lowered himself to her. Entering her sent heat—and indescribable relief—coursing outward from his groin until his entire body tingled with it. He stroked urgently, satisfying his need with single-minded resolve, and sweeping her to a sobbing, shuddering release in the process. The last thing he remembered was her lying trembling in his arms.

  Now his head felt too heavy for his neck, so he used the chamber pot rather than venture out to the privy. Then he tucked himself back on the narrow cot alongside his wife.

  “You couldn’t bide eight days without me in your bed,” she whispered, startling him. He didn’t know she was awake. He grunted, not able to conjure words to refute her.

  She twisted toward him. “What makes you believe you could last eight months or more?”

  Nicolas rubbed his hand over his aching forehead. “It’s different when I see you daily and you sleep under my roof,” he objected.

  “You’re a very passionate man, Nicolas. We both know that well. What happens when your hand no longer suffices? Will you seek comfort from a more substantial source?” she pressed.

  Nicolas leaned up on an elbow and faced her; his unbelieving shock sculpted his countenance. “Are you daring to suggest that I would break my marital vows?”

  “No…”

  “Then what?” he growled.

  “I’m suggesting that you don’t put yourself directly in the path of that temptation.” Sydney rested a cool hand on his cheek. Her eyes were seductively dark in the pinking light. “But if you don’t care for your own needs husband, then I beg you to please have a care for mine. For without your presence I will most assuredly die of loneliness.”

  Chapter Three

  Nicolas had been at the ancient oak desk in his study for two hours later that morning when Sydney came in and set a mug of coffee and a still-warm oat muffin at his elbow.

  “What are you working at so diligently?” She leaned on the desk and looked over his scribbles while Nicolas bit into the muffin.

  “How far is Shelbyville from Louisville?” he mumbled through the pastry.

  “Twelve miles. Why?”

  Nicolas washed down the muffin with a long swallow of the strong black coffee. “If we plan to winter in Christiania, then we might take our time getting there.”

  Sydney slammed upright. “We?”

  “We could get off the paddle boat in Louisville and spend some time with your parents.”

  Sydney’s hands flew to her face and her eyes welled, gratifying him deeply. Why had it taken him so long to see this was absolutely the right thing to do?

  “Oh, Nicolas!” She threw her arms around his neck and very nearly choked him. “It’s been so long since I last saw my mother! Do you truly mean this?”

  Warmth, thick as winter syrup, suffused his chest and he pulled Sydney into his lap. “I do, min presang. I don’t know what I was thinking. I could never leave you for so long.”

  Sydney relaxed into him and her joy lit the room. “I love you, husband.”

  Nicolas chuckled. “And I hope you still do when this questionable odyssey is completed!”

  ***

  “…the four passages.”

  “Five.”

  Nicolas raised his brows in question over the bowl of buttered carrots. “Five?”

  His wife nodded. “I’ll need assistance on the journey. I’ll not be able to handle all of the cooking, the laundry, a young boy who needs schooling and a suckling infant on my own.”

  Nicolas pondered the situation. “I see.”

  “Might I go?”

  Both Nicolas and Sydney swiveled in search of the source of the question. Only Maribeth, their elder housekeeper Addie’s young assistant, was in the room. Sydney looked at Nicolas, her surprise evident. Quiet and shy by nature, Maribeth rarely said anything at all.

  The reticent maid continued, “Please, Sir. I’ve never been anywhere. In my twenty-three years, I’ve never been beyond St. Louis.”

  Surprised by the shy girl’s sudden and completely unexpected interjection, Nicolas didn’t respond right off. Maribeth shifted her supplication to Sydney.

  “I’m a hard worker, Ma’am, and I don’t complain. And Stefan and I are fast friends.”

  Maribeth’s brown eyes widened and her cheeks flushed with the effort of speaking up. Nicolas realized with a start, that the girl could actually be quite pretty. “I can cook, too. Addie taught me.”

  Nicolas threw his hands up and laughed.

  “Ved, Gud!” he wheezed. “In six years as your employer I’ve not heard you put two sentences together!”

  Maribeth’s color deepened to an astonishing shade of crimson. She dropped her gaze to her rough, twisting hands.

  “But,” he continued between chuckles, “I’ve no objection. It’s up to Mrs. Hansen.”

  Maribeth turned to his wife, who then turned to him and said, “You’ll need to hire help for the estate while we’re gone. It’s too much for Addie and John alone.”

  Nicolas nodded his agreement. “I’m sensible of that. The necessity be
came quite clear after the incident with the ‘chickens’ the other night. So it’s apparent I’ll need to hire help in either case.”

  “Well, then.” Sydney smiled at Maribeth. “You had better see to your winter wardrobe. I understand it’s quite cold in the north Atlantic.”

  If their status had been different, Maribeth might have hugged Sydney. As it was, her cheeks spread wide in the biggest grin Nicolas had ever seen on the girl. She bounced in a brief curtsy to each of them.

  “Thank you, Ma’am! Thank you, Sir! I’ll not give you cause to regret this! You have my word!” Maribeth flew from the room.

  “We may have just had all of her words,” Nicolas quipped.

  “Either that,” Sydney laughed, “or her words have only now been unleashed!”

  ***

  Nicolas lay in bed and traced the landscape of Sydney’s back with his fingertips; four months into their marriage he still couldn’t keep his hands off her. She was so warm, so passionate, and so responsive. He no longer felt complete without her close by his side. Very, very close.

  “Mm. That feels good,” Sydney purred and snuggled into him.

  “I ran into Rickard this afternoon when I went for Stefan. He was waiting for school to let out. Said he was taking Miss Price on a picnic for supper.”

  “He’s smitten and he has it bad. He was never like that with me,” Sydney spoke from under her arm, her disheveled hair muffling her words. “But I do wonder if his notorious past with women will dissuade the fair Bronwyn.”

  Nicolas chose to ignore her reference to Rickard’s courting her. After all, that was four months and one marriage ago. “I doubt that she knows about it,” he said.

  Sydney shifted, tossed her hair back with one hand and faced him. “Was Lara your first?”

  “My first what?”

  Sydney raised one expressive eyebrow. Nicolas startled at the intrusively intimate memories summoned by her query. He slid his gaze to the waning fire.

  “Why do you ask me such a question?”

  “So she was not.”

  Nicolas frowned. “The question remains.”

  “I want to know everything about you. It shaped the man I fell in love with.”

  He was not at all convinced. “I still don’t see the need.”

  Sydney pulled away from him. She retrieved her nightgown from the foot of the bed, where he had tossed it before making deliberate, sensual and shattering love to her. She slipped it over her head, and sat cross-legged on the mattress next to him. Nicolas could smell the warm musky scent of their lovemaking on her. Her eyes were forest green in the firelight and her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders. Helvete she was beautiful.

  “I know about Rosie. And of course there was Lara.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “I just want to know who else.”

  “But why, Sydney?”

  “I don’t know for sure. But it feels important.” She reached out and touched his cheek. “Please, Nick?”

  Nicolas placed his calloused hand over her smaller, softer one and moved his lips to her palm. He kissed it and tickled it with his tongue as he pondered her question. Sydney only called him ‘Nick’ when what she asked of him was serious. He lowered her hand from his lips.

  “How much do you wish to know?”

  “Everything. And everyone.”

  He still wasn’t sure. What sort of woman asked such a question? His stubborn new wife, apparently.

  Nicolas sat up and leaned back against the headboard. Sydney scooted closer and held on to his hand. Her fingers were cool, but her palm was warm. He scratched his chest absently.

  “When I went to Norway to meet my extended family, one of my cousins was a beautiful woman named Sigrid. She was twenty-seven, and had been married at the age of eighteen to a nobleman more than twice her age. She wasn’t happy with her marriage, that much was clear. And seeing the obese, hairy thing she was wed to, I could understand.”

  Nicolas shifted his weight and raked his free hand through his hair. “Now, I don’t mean to boast, but I was the height I am now and I had a decent beard. I looked older than nineteen. Sigrid pursued me, and when she learned that I was still a virgin she doubled her efforts.”

  “What did she do?” Sydney whispered.

  “She began walking me to my room after dinner. At first she pulled me into the window casements in the halls and she used her hand on me while we kissed behind the drapery. Then one night, after she had more than her usual amount of wine, she took me in her mouth.”

  “Oh.” Sydney’s glance dropped to that part of him.

  “Å min Gud! I didn’t know women did such things! But the effect was swift, for sure. And not the least bit unpleasant. Soon she was walking all the way to my room and coming inside.”

  Nicolas’s mouth curved into a mischievous half smile. “And not long after, I was coming inside as well.”

  Sydney slapped Nicolas’s chest in mock consternation. “How long did this go on?”

  Nicolas held up his two pointer fingers about ten inches apart. “About yea long.” Sydney smacked him again, but she chuckled.

  Nicolas rubbed his chin. He hadn’t thought of Sigrid in years. The memory was now distant enough to be polished by nostalgia. “We consorted for seven or eight months, as I recall. We started with the window casings and moved to culmination a few weeks after that.”

  Sydney nodded slowly.

  “But I knew I was coming home with the intent of marrying Lara when I finished my university career. And while Sigrid was very beautiful and talented in bedsport, she wasn’t…” He paused and searched for the right words. “She couldn’t divorce, so she took one lover after another. And she drank too heavily for my taste.”

  “How sad,” Sydney murmured.

  “It was a sad situation, true.” Nicolas leaned toward his wife. Recollection stirred his arousal once again. “But she was a forbannet fine teacher!”

  “Sigrid was one of the names you suggested for me.”

  Nicolas sat back, for the moment distracted from his purpose. “Was it? How can you remember that?”

  “It struck me as an odd name. I hadn’t heard it before.”

  “It’s a common Nordic name.” Nicolas’s hand slid under Sydney’s nightgown and hit its target. His arrow stiffened. “Shall I show you some more of my lessons?”

  Sydney scooted closer and wrapped her legs around him, opening to him. “Did Lara know about Sigrid?”

  “No,” Nicolas grunted. Then he added, “She never asked.”

  He brushed his lips over Sydney’s. Her eyes softened and she pulled her nightgown over her head. It landed at the foot of the bed once more.

  April 21, 1820

  Nicolas’s advertisement in the St. Louis Enquirer described the position of “Short Term Employment” as “Assistant to the Housekeeper and Foreman” and indicated “Room, Board and Stipend” for compensation. Prospective employees began to arrive, appearing at his doorstep every other day or so. Most were victims of the country’s depression of 1819, desperate for work of any kind.

  The first candidate to appear was a woman whom Nicolas judged to be a bit older than himself. She appeared at the door and looked around nervously. He led her into the study and indicated a seat.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Nicolas sat in his favorite stuffed-leather chair and faced the woman. “The position isn’t permanent,” he began. “It’s just while my family and I are away on an extended journey.”

  “I see.”

  “Have you experience in running a household?”

  “Oh yes, sir. I have three boys of my own.”

  Nicolas frowned at that. “Do you? And how old might they be?”

  “They are ten, seven and five.” The woman shifted in her seat. “But they aren’t a bother.”

  Nicolas cleared his throat as he considered how to respond to her revelation. “You do understand that this is a live-in position?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s why I am ap
plying.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The woman leaned toward Nicolas, her haggard eyes begged for his compassion. “My husband, he likes the drink. Likes it so much in fact, that he gets worked up when someone gets between him and the whiskey.”

  Nicolas’s shoulders sagged as he realized what was facing him.

  “My boys, well, they don’t always understand how to stay out of the way.”

  Nicolas shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve only the one room.”

  “They can share with me. It’s no matter.”

  Nicolas considered the woman and her situation. A woman with three young children of her own wouldn’t be a help to Addie and John. On the contrary, she’d bring extra work along with her.

  Correctly reading Nicolas’s silence, the woman added one last qualification. “I’m strong and able, Sir. I’m but twenty-seven.”

  That fact shocked Nicolas. He attempted to hide it by standing and circling around behind his chair, while he struggled for ideas. Facing the woman, he dragged his fingers through his hair.

  “With regret, Madam, I feel your situation makes you unsuitable for this particular position.”

  The woman’s shoulders and gaze plummeted in defeat.

  “However—” Nicolas sat at his massive oak desk and reached for his quill and ink. “I can give you a letter of introduction if you’re willing to go to St. Louis.”

  The woman frowned at him. “Why?”

  “My lawyer is there. He’s a bit older and never married. I believe he might be in need of a housekeeper.” Nicolas spoke as he penned a quick note to Nelson Ivarsen explaining the situation. As he waited for the ink to dry, he turned back to the woman. “And if he doesn’t, he’ll put you up for a week, at my expense, while you search for other positions there.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Her voice wavered on the edge of tears.

  Nicolas handed the letter to the woman. When she reached for it, he didn’t let go until she looked him in the eye. “Mr. Ivarsen is a good lawyer, should you need an advocate.”