My Lord Viking

by Ferguson, Jo Ann

  “Feila!” he called. When she did not move, he repeated in her language, “Woman. Aa-sjaa.”

  “What?”

  Nils sought in his slow mind for the English word. “Aa-sjaa. Help.”

  He was astonished when she folded her arms in front of her and said, “You have your gall asking me for help when you have threatened me with a knife and nearly choked me to death.”

  Trying to decipher her peculiar accent, he smiled as he said, “I did not kill you.”

  “You tried.”

  “If I had tried, you would be dead.”

  “Do you expect me to be grateful for your clemency?”

  Nils gave up all attempt to comprehend what she meant by that question. His mind was clearing, and he could recall more and more of the language of Britannia. Lowering the sax, he said, “I need help. Bring some.”

  He watched as she hesitated. Her dog ran about her, but he ignored it. The pup had no more sense than the birds above, and he saw no use for such a puny creature. It was too small to herd or to hunt.

  Slowly she nodded. “I will get some help, but you must give me the knife.”

  “So you may kill me?”

  “If I wanted to kill you,” she said in the same superior tone he had used, “you would never have wakened. You were as helpless as a babe.”

  In spite of himself, Nils smiled again. This was a dangerous woman, for she used words with the skill of a skald.

  “Will you bring help?” he asked.

  “Will you give me the dagger?”

  He flipped the sax into the air. The blade drove into the sand only an inch from her toes. “That is your answer.”

  Taking a deep breath, she bent to pick up the knife. “Rest. I will bring others to help.” She frowned as she looked at his left arm. “That will need to be set. It looks broken.”

  “It feels broken.”

  Her eyes grew wide. She took a step toward him.

  He tensed. Did she mean to slay him now that he had been a daari and given her the dagger? Maybe she had guessed how weak he was.

  When she knelt beside him, she said, “Rest here. I will leave Scamp with you. He will keep the birds and any other curious creatures away until I can return.”

  “He will do nothing but make noise.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I need no more noise when my head is as heavy as a drakkar.”

  “What?”

  Could she be so sheltered she did not know of the large ships which could slip in and out of every bay and estuary on this island? “Take the beast with you, and bring help.”

  She picked up the thing she had tied around her neck. “This will shield you from the sun.”

  He took the basket-shaped thing and stared at it. What was he to do with it?

  Her laugh startled him, and he looked from the straw basket to her face which was pleasingly close to his. The sunshine had scored her cheeks with the same color as the laces on the basket.

  She lifted the basket out of his hand and, upending it, set it on his head. “I know ‘tis a lady’s bonnet, but it will keep you from turning as red as—” She gulped and suddenly looked away.

  Red as what? Blood? He smiled as he stared at the sand. His enemies had...Where were their bodies? He scanned the beach in both directions. Had they been sucked out to sea? If so, there was no explanation why he had been left behind.

  “Rest,” she said, yet again.

  He caught her hand before she could rise to her feet. “What is your name?”

  “Linnea.”

  “Daughter of whom?”

  She regarded him with bafflement, but said, “Lord Sutherland.”

  He smiled. Suthrland! A name he recognized. All might not be as bizarre as he had begun to think. The chieftain was sometimes called Suthrland. This woman must be part of his family. He might be closer to the completion of his quest than he had guessed. If he...He swayed and fought to hold onto his senses.

  “Careful,” Linnea warned needlessly, for he was certain his head had been laced with a demon’s fire.

  When she put her hand on his right shoulder, he let her lean him back against the embrace of the sand. He hated being as frail as a nurseling, but the ethereal caress of her fingers on his skin through his ripped tunic was an unexpected diversion on this journey. Her skin was as soft as freshly carded wool.

  “I shall return as soon as I can with help,” she whispered. “With aa-s—”

  “Aa-sjaa,” he supplied, although speaking even the single word sapped him as if he had rowed from Jutland to this accursed island.

  Nils watched as she gracefully rose. She held the sax close to the diaphanous fabric of her gown, and she backed away as if she suspected he might give chase even now. Clearly she no idea how feeble he was.

  With her puppy at her heels, she rounded the pile of rocks at the edge of the headland. She glanced back once.

  He wondered if she would return.

  Two

  How was she going to explain this?

  Linnea hurried along the path leading from the shore as Scamp sniffed in the hedgerows edging either side. Her efforts to persuade the pup to remain with the stranger had been futile. He continued to tag along at her heels.

  Pulling her hair back, she tied it in place with a ribbon from her bodice. She hoped no one noticed she wore no stockings beneath her gown. If she walked quickly enough, nobody might ask for the truth. How could she explain finding a man on the beach?

  And such a strange man. Even if she could have guessed the source of his accent, the words he muttered in some other language were totally incomprehensible. She had seen his eyes narrow in concentration each time she spoke, as if he understood her and yet still did not.

  Those eyes...She shivered, although the sun was still warm. She had seen such eyes in one of the foxes prowling through the gardens. Cold as a snake’s, but with wit that could bamblusterate the master of the hounds. Yes, he had the look of the hunted in his eyes. Dampening her lips, she glanced back at the narrow strip of strand she could see from here. She could not see the man, but his eyes haunted her.

  The thought added speed to her feet. In the distance, beyond a copse in the shape of a crescent moon, the roofs of Sutherland Park rose like a beacon. Chimneys sprouted as wildly as weeds, and windows twinkled in the stone dormers. The first house on this site had been raised centuries before the Conquest. Papa had found Roman coins and tools in a barrow beyond the stables.

  She wondered if, in all that time, anyone had found a castaway like the man on the beach.

  Dash it! He had never even told her his name. She paused, midstep. He might have a good reason not to reveal his name, a reason that could explain his injuries. If he were a gentleman of the pad, those wounds could have come when the coachman fought off his attempt to heave the purses of the carriage’s passengers.

  That made no sense. No highwayman would be riding out in such an outlandish outfit, and only an addled fool would go out to rob someone with a knife as his sole weapon. None of this made any sense.

  The scents of the stable grew stronger as she neared. When Scamp bolted off toward the house, yipping wildly, she was tempted to follow. It would be so simple just to pretend she never had met the man on beach. She sighed. She could not leave him there alone when he was in such dire condition.

  “’Morning!” came a cheery voice from behind her.

  Linnea whirled. Resisting the temptation to throw her arms around the short, thickset lad who held a currying brush in one hand and, in the other, a bucket, she said, “I need your assistance, Jack.”

  Jack Wetherell dropped the brush into the bucket. Setting them on the cobbles in front of the stable door, he pulled his cap off his red hair and wiped his full sleeve across his freckled forehead. His breeches were stained, and he wore heavy boots, warning that she had arrived while he was busy getting the horses ready for Papa, who must be expecting guests to arrive soon for Dinah’s wedding. Oh, dear heavens, could it get more
complicated?

  “’Course, Lady Linnea,” he answered. “How can I help?”

  She was grateful for Jack’s friendship and loyalty. She had first met him when he was just a youngster in the kitchens where his grandmother was the cook. “Come with me.”

  “All right. Soon as I put away this bucket.” He gave her a ragged-tooth grin. “If we have time.”

  “Of course.” Again she wanted to hug him. If she had gone to her brother, he would have peppered her with so many questions, the man on the beach could have died of old age before she finished answering all of them. “Bring some of those rags.”

  “Yes, Lady Linnea.”

  “And, Jack?” She held out the knife the stranger had given her. “Please put this somewhere safe until I can decide what to do with it.”

  His eyes widened, and she knew he had taken note of the strange engraving on the pommel. “Safe?”

  “Where no one will find it.”

  He grinned. “Know just the place.”

  Jack hung the wooden bucket on a brad inside the door and went somewhere into the shadows to hide the dagger, and Linnea motioned to another of the stablemen. She gave him a quick message and turned back to Jack before the other stableman could ask the questions she saw in his eyes. Just now she did not have any explanation of why she wanted her maid Olive to meet her at the fishing pavilion in the water garden. She had no explanation save the truth, and, right now, she wanted to be careful who was privy to that. The pavilion was the building closest to the sea path, so they could tend to the man’s wounds there to ease his pain before taking him the rest of the way up to the house. His odd words and strange actions worried her. He might have some appalling fever. If so, she must discern that before taking him into the house.

  As Jack walked with her back to the beach, he whistled a merry tune and his boots stamped against the road, sending the pebbles skittering ahead of them. Linnea was glad Scamp had found something to amuse himself. She did not need him getting in the way. With luck, Cook would give him some scraps by the kitchen door or a bone which would keep his attention until they could get the man off the beach.

  “So you found something right interesting,” Jack said as they stepped out onto the sand.

  “Yes.”

  “Always interesting to see what washes up after a storm.” He began to whistle again.

  Linnea doubted she could have displayed his lack of curiosity. As she climbed over the rocks separating the coves, her shoes slipped on the moss-covered boulders.

  “Careful there, Lady Linnea,” Jack said, putting his hand under her elbow. “You could break your neck doing this.”

  “I was barefoot before.”

  “Right wise of you.” He glanced at her feet, and his forehead furrowed.

  Again Linnea was grateful for his lack of curiosity, for he did not ask why she was out without stockings as well as without a bonnet. As before, she shielded her eyes with her hand and looked along the beach.

  The man was gone!

  Linnea jumped down off the rocks and ran to where the man had been lying. When she saw indentations in the sand to mark where she had knelt beside him, she was relieved. At least, she knew she had not imagined the whole of it. How could she imagine a man like him? And where was he now?

  “Where to now, Lady Linnea?” asked Jack.

  Linnea motioned for him to follow as she saw more impressions in the sand. Deep holes where a hand or a foot would have pushed against the beach. Shallow ones, too.

  “Someone dragged something away from here.” Jack’s smile disappeared as he scanned the cliffs above them. “Someone might have come and taken what you found, my lady. Let me check to make sure no one is up there.” He turned and loped back toward the stones.

  A faint motion had caught her eye. Raising her voice, she shouted, “Not that way, Jack! This way! There he is!”

  “He?” called Jack back to her.

  Linnea ignored the disbelief in the stableman’s voice. She rushed forward to where, in the shadow of the cliffs, the man had wedged himself into a cleft. He would not have been seen once the tide rose to wash away the marks in the sand. The man waved his unbroken arm and shouted something she could not understand.

  “Are you mad?” she asked as she ran up to him. “You could have hurt yourself worse by—”

  He grabbed her arm and jerked her down to the sand. As she shrieked, he clamped his gritty arm over her mouth. Jack cried out a warning and came running as the man growled in her ear, “Uraad. Quiet!”

  Jack skidded to a stop, spraying them with more sand. Linnea realized why he stared in horror at them when the glitter of the sun off something metallic seared her eyes. The man was holding another knife in the hand directly in front of her.

  “Whoa, friend,” Jack said, raising his empty hands. “There is no need to be waving that blade around. Lady Linnea and I are here to help you.”

  “Uraad!” The man muttered something else, then said, “Danger! There is danger here. For you. For the woman. Hide!”

  Jack flattened himself against the stone an arm’s length from them. The glance he gave Linnea warned that he was certain this man was out of his mind.

  Slowly Linnea reached up and put her hands on the man’s arm. She gave a slight tug, and he lowered his arm from her mouth. “You are mistaken. There is no danger here, except that you will injure yourself worse.”

  “I saw him!” the man exclaimed, his eyes narrow with fury. “I thought I had slain him, but he is here.”

  “Who?” asked Linnea and Jack at the same time.

  “Wyborn Kortsson.”

  Nils saw the woman named Linnea and the lad exchange another glance. Even though he spoke their language with difficulty, he could easily understand what went unspoken between them. They thought he was seeing things that did not exist.

  That was confirmed when Linnea said, “You have been struck hard in the head. You must let us tend your injuries.”

  “I know what I saw. He is here. You are in great danger!”

  “If he was, he is no longer,” she replied quietly. “The sand is empty save for us.”

  Looking past her, he saw she was being honest. Kortsson was not in sight. Had her arrival with the lad sent Kortsson into hiding? That made no sense. Kortsson always fought to be the first ashore so he might have his choice of the maidens.

  “Please release me,” Linnea continued.

  He fought to focus his eyes on her face. No, Kortsson would not have left if he had chanced to see this pretty woman. He gritted his teeth. Was he mad with pain? They should have seen his blood-enemy as soon as they reached the rocks at the edge of the beach. He must get all of them away from here. He could not confront Kortsson while in this condition. Kortsson would give him and the lad death with quick slashes, then make Linnea rue that she had ever been born.

  “Go,” he ordered.

  “The knife—”

  He looked down at the small blade he had hidden in his gartered stockings. “You will not have this one! While Kortsson lives, I will not be left unarmed.” He did not add that he feared that, if he moved his arm any farther, he would topple on his face in the sand.

  When she slid from beneath his arm, he had to clench his teeth harder. Her slow sinuous motions while she eased away contrasted with her expression that revealed she did not trust him not to slice into her with the sax. How could he think of anything but her touch, which sent a sensation through him that was as powerful as the blow of a broadsword? Her soft curves made him rue his injuries that kept him from pulling her back into his arms and persuading her to caress him even more intimately.

  He cursed under his breath, and she froze. He was tempted to tell her that she need not worry. His obligations to his chieftain must come first, so, even if he was hale, he would have had to ignore her obvious charms.

  The lad edged away from the wall and took her arm, pulling her away from Nils. Linnea had called him “Jack.” The lad was frightened. Good! Jack wa
s wise to be fearful when Kortsson was nearby.

  Trying to push away from the cliff, Nils collapsed to the sand. By Odin’s beard! He was too weak. He tried to stand, but pain riveted him. Something struck the sand. The hat Linnea had given him to protect the wounds on his face. He heard a snicker.

  “Hush, Jack,” Linnea said, bending to pick up the bonnet. She shuddered when she saw the blood on its rim. Jack would learn soon enough that, even though the bearded man wore her bonnet like some weird badge of honor, only a fool would fail to look past it to discover the inherent power in the blond man’s gaze.

  “You came back.” The man’s deep voice crashed on her ears like waves in the midst of a tempest, sweeping through her.

  “I told you I would,” she said as she knelt beside him again. His face was a paler gray than it had been before.

  His gaze swept past her to scan the beach. He must truly believe someone dangerous was close. “Only a daari believes someone of this island.”

  “Daari?” She noticed Jack’s frown of concentration. She wished him better luck than she had had in figuring out what place had spawned the man’s accent.

  He smiled. “A man without wits.”

  Deciding the best answer to that was none, she asked, “Do you need help to get back to your feet so we can take you where we can tend your wounds?”

  He pointed to his shoeless foot. “I doubt I can walk. That may be broken as well.”

  “Rough use,” Jack muttered.

  The blond man glanced at him. “Yes. Kortsson thought to leave me dead.”

  “Who is this Kortsson?” the lad asked.

  “My blood-enemy.”

  Linnea held out her hand, and Jack handed her the ball of rags he carried. Peeling off the top one, she said, “While we are asking such questions of names, I would appreciate you answering the same one.”

  The blond man’s purple eyes crinkled with amusement she doubted she could feel if she were as battered. “Your words confuse me, Linnea.”

  Jack cleared his throat, and Linnea saw a rare anger on his face. Quietly he said, “Lady Linnea would like the courtesy of your name.”

  “Lady Linnea is it? A most unusual lady you are,” the blond man said. His fingers once more reached for his knife, so she knew he had seen Jack’s fury. “I am Nils Bjornsson.”