My Lord Viking

by Ferguson, Jo Ann

  “It means sweetheart, as you well know. Nothing more, nothing less.” Nils smiled. “And Linnea Sutherland is sweet.”

  “Odin himself has warned that a woman can dull your wits as well as your weapons.”

  “I know of the great god’s advice. He counsels as well that a wise man recognizes his foes and uses them to his own advantage.”

  “So you intend to use her in your quest?”

  “Of course. My oath is a blood-oath. I must do whatever is necessary to do as I pledged.”

  “Those are strong words from a mortal, Nils Bjornsson. Once already you have disdained your destiny.” Loki stood and went back to the window. “Make sure you are ready to pay the price if you do so again.”

  “I have no choice. The vow is spoken.”

  “No choice?” Loki laughed as he jumped back up onto the sill. “You have choices now, Nils Bjornsson, but your path narrows ahead of you. Soon there will be only a single choice you may make. Right or wrong, it is all that will be left to you.”

  “I have made my choice.”

  “And Linnea Sutherland has made hers?”

  Nils sat straighter. He had not expected Loki to speak of Linnea by name. The god had spoken of her only as “the Englishwoman,” in the most disdainful tone.

  “Yes,” he answered, “Linnea has made hers.”

  “Without knowing what she has vowed?”

  “What do you mean? She has vowed to help me.”

  Loki chuckled. “To share in your quest?”

  “Yes.”

  “In its rewards if you succeed?”

  Nils did not answer quickly. Linnea had said nothing of expecting a prize for helping him. Now that he had a chance to think of that conversation without her beguiling eyes teasing him to think of other things more delightful than his search for the knife, he realized she had not asked for anything. It might be that she was eager to be rid of him. He was an obstacle in her well-ordered life.

  “A warrior,” he said with slow caution, “always remembers to reward those who help him in his duties.”

  “True, and you will be generous, I am sure. But what if you fail?”

  “I will not fail.”

  “Are you so sure of that, Nils Bjornsson? Do you have a god’s farseeing that you can know what the future holds for you?”

  “Of course not.”

  Loki leaned his shoulder against the window’s stone frame. “Answer me, Nils Bjornsson. You have asked a daughter of this green island to share in your quest.”

  “Yes.”

  “So she will share your rewards if you succeed.”

  Nils was sure his icy face had no more color than the moonlight as he whispered, “Are you saying that she will share my damnation if I fail?”

  Loki’s wild laugh erupted through the night like the crash of thunder. Something flashed, blinding Nils as if a thousand stars had erupted in his hand.

  Blinking, Nils rubbed one eye, then the other. Slowly the bright glow waned, but the truth remained along with the echo of Loki’s laughter. In his desperation to find his chieftain’s stolen blade and return to the past where he belonged, Nils had entangled Linnea in his uncertain future. If he failed to achieve what he had vowed to do in his blood-oath, she would share his doom in the cold, ebony mists of Niflheim.

  Forever.

  Eight

  “My lady, please wake up!”

  Linnea tried to recapture the dream that vanished even as she fought to remember what it had been. Confusing images ricocheted through her head, none of them making sense.

  Turning her head, she blinked as she saw Olive holding a lamp. Her maid reached out and shook Linnea’s shoulder.

  “My lady, please wake up!”

  “I am awake,” Linnea mumbled, pushing herself up to sit. She glanced toward the window. The stars were bright, so the moon must have set. It was still more than an hour before the first hints of dawn. “What is it?”

  “‘Tis him, my lady.”

  Linnea swung her legs over the side of the high bed. She recognized Olive’s disgruntled tone. Clearly Nils had done something to unnerve Olive again. Even after a week had passed, the two continued to treat each other with open distrust.

  “What has happened? If he is having nightmares again, you know you should just leave him alone.” She rubbed her eyes and yawned. Last night’s gathering had gone late, and her head ached with fatigue. “There was no need to rouse me, Olive.”

  Her maid affixed her most vexed expression on her face. “My lady, you know I would never wake you if the matter was not of the greatest importance.”

  “Yes, Olive, I know that.” She eased her toes down from the bed onto the steps. Reaching for her wrapper, she pulled it over her shoulders, pausing when she heard a clock chiming somewhere in the house. Three chimes. She wanted to toss aside her wrapper and jump back beneath the covers.

  “He refuses to heed sense.”

  “How?”

  “He is insisting on taking his leave.”

  Linnea whirled to face her maid. “Leave? At this hour? In his condition?”

  Olive nodded as she folded her arms in front of her.

  Such a pose would not work with Nils, Linnea was tempted to say. She did not. Shoving her feet into the slippers she had worn to the dance last night, she rushed toward the door. She buttoned her wrapper as she hurried along the dimly lit corridor and toward the back stairs. Although it was unlikely she would meet any of her family at this hour, she did not want to chance it.

  Jack was coming in the kitchen door just as she reached it. Anxiety lengthened his usually smiling face. “Thank heavens, my lady, you are here. He will not heed any sense.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Trying to get down the stairs.” Jack’s grin returned for a moment. “I stole his crutch, so he is not finding it easy.”

  Linnea was tempted to smile, too, but she just patted Jack’s shoulder before going out into the darkness. The grass was damp with dew and clung to the hem of her wrapper. Within steps, her toes were wet inside her slippers. She ignored her discomfort as she ran to the pavilion.

  Light pulled her into the ground floor. A single lantern was set beside the door. Picking it up, she heard the swish of water against the doors on the side of the building that opened onto the pond. A thud came from above. She raised the lantern to chase back the shadows and saw Nils sitting on a step three down from the top.

  “Where are you bound?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

  “I must—” He muttered something else under his breath as he lowered himself down another step.

  “How far do you think you will get when you cannot even walk down the stairs?” She pointed toward the door. “There are steps up from the pond in every direction. The front gate of Sutherland Park is nearly a quarter of a mile inland. Of course if you wish to travel along the strand, you need only clamber over the rocks that litter the shore.” She put one foot on the lowest riser. “At the rate you seem to be going, you should reach there just about the time your arm knits and you can get rid of the splint.”

  Nils snarled, “That young daari took my crutch.”

  “Jack is not the fool. You are.”

  “I must continue on my quest. I have wasted too much time here.”

  Linnea laughed without humor. “You can wait until you heal, or you can chance hurting yourself worse. What is the point of risking your recovery with thoughtless impatience? I told you I would help you all I could.”

  When he winced as if she had struck his broken arm, her eyes narrowed. There was a desperation about him that she had never seen. Even when she had found him on the beach, he had possessed a cockiness that suggested he could do as he wished, with or without anyone’s assistance.

  “Nils, what is amiss?”

  “I must be on my way. Alone.”

  She climbed the stairs and sat next to him on the cool stone riser. “Be sensible, Nils. You can barely walk with the crutch. How can you thin
k of going all the way to London when I cannot even tell you which house to call at?”

  “When I began this quest, I vowed nothing would halt me.”

  “Nils, be sensible!” Raising her chin, she asked, “Or did you lie to me? Are you like those warriors who cannot control themselves?”

  “We spoke of men who become beasts when they smell the scent of battle.”

  She shook her head. “No, we spoke of men who think so much of the outcome that they do not consider the cost.”

  “I vowed a blood-oath to retrieve that knife for my chieftain.”

  “I know, but what good is trying to leave now when, if you wait a few more weeks, I may have recalled where I saw that knife? Then we can send to London for it, and you can be on your way.”

  “Waiting is wrong. I did not vow to bring that knife to my chieftain when it was convenient for me.”

  She put her fingers on his right arm. “But, Nils, what difference does it make now?”

  “Nothing has changed my vow.”

  “But your chieftain has waited nearly a thousand years. What does it matter if you wait another few weeks before you go to London?”

  At the sorrow in Linnea’s voice, Nils did what he had promised himself he would not. He let his gaze be caught by hers. By Thor’s hammer, he was witless to let her gentle warmth touch him again. He had been warned by Loki, who would not hesitate to make his threats real.

  A sigh sifted through his tight lips. He was just fooling himself if he thought that the gods would let him remake his blood-oath now to keep Linnea from being a part of it. For some reason, he had been brought here to this place and this woman. To turn his back on this happenstance might bring on the very doom that he wished to avoid.

  “Nils, let me take you to your bed,” she murmured.

  A thud of sensation seized him at the soft invitation in her voice. She did not mean it as his body was hearing it, for, while she was willing to let him steal a few kisses, she wanted him gone. He had never thought he would consider an Englishwoman wise, but Linnea Sutherland was.

  “Nils?”

  “Yes, yes.” He sounded as short-tempered as an old man, and he doubted if she guessed his irritation was aimed at himself.

  Hating that he had to depend on her to assist him, he said nothing while she helped him up the stairs and back to the area that was separated from the rest of the room by a trio of screens. The images on the screen were from the distant east, a place that apparently was as mysterious in this time as in his. Greatly exaggerated by the single lantern burning by the stairs, the dragons seemed ready to rise and devour them.

  Nils heard his halting breaths. Not because the walking was difficult, for he had carried more than his own weight so many times on a drakkar as the deck rolled beneath him with the motion of the waves. The uneven sound came from his efforts to avoid the dulcet scent of her perfume that remained even in the depths of the night. Her arm was around his waist, so her breast—separated from him only by the thin layers of her garments and his— tantalized his side.

  How much temptation could one man endure? The echo of laughter rang through his head. Was this torment what Loki intended to visit upon him? To have this luscious woman in his arms and know that he should be thinking solely of his quest? His only answer was the resonance of that taunting laugh.

  He dropped heavily to the pallet where he slept. Beside him, Linnea knelt. Her exertion had added a pretty shade to her cheeks. When he reached up to brush a bead of sweat from her forehead, she slanted away from him, her eyes wide.

  “You need to rest,” she said, reaching for the blanket that he used.

  He caught her hand, folding her fingers within his. The wool oozed between her fingers to brush his palm, but he could think only of her silken skin against his. Pushing that thought out of his head, he said, “I have rested so long. I need to consider how best to realize my vow.”

  “I have told you I will be happy to give you what help I can when the time comes for you to leave Sutherland Park.”

  He released her hand and swore under his breath.

  “What is it, Nils?”

  Knowing he should say nothing, he explained the vision that had increased his determination to continue on his bizarre journey. He watched her face closely. When he saw her disbelief, he wondered how he could blame her for her lack of faith. The old ways had not been part of England even during his time.

  “It must have been a dream,” she whispered when he was finished.

  “A vision from the gods should not be belittled as a dream.”

  “True, but...”

  He cradled her chin in his hand as he asked, “You think the blow to my skull has unsettled my mind?”

  Pulling away, she came to her feet. “How can I suggest that when my mind believes you are here from a time long past? I was not struck, yet I face something that is impossible. I would be a hypocrite to suggest that you had not been visited here in my father’s water pavilion by a Norse god.”

  “But you cannot believe.” He sighed. “Nor does the rational part of my mind. Yet I am here in this impossible place.”

  “To complete your vow, and that is what you must do.”

  He looked up at her. On the beach, he had wondered if she was some sort of dainty Valkyrja. Now he suspected she had the heart of one, for she spoke of honor and duty with the certainty of a warrior. “Yes,” he said, waiting to see what scheme she had in mind.

  “To do that, you must go to London.” She counted on the fingers of one hand. “First, you must get well. Second, you must go to London where you will have the chance to search for the missing knife. For that, you will need to pass yourself off as someone who belongs in this time and in England.” She shuddered. “Your accent is a liability in this time when we are at war.”

  “At war?”

  “With the French.”

  He frowned. “But I thought you said that the descendants of the Norrfoolk on the continent won the English throne.”

  “Almost 800 years ago. Since then, there have been many wars between the French and the English. We have been battling Napoleon for years.”

  “This is the sort of thing I must know if you want someone to believe I am of this island in this year.”

  “Tomorrow...” Linnea glanced at the shuttered window where no hint of the sun’s arrival could be seen. If Olive had not come to her to prevent Nils from leaving, it could have been hours before they were able to search for him. In that time, he might have been found by someone else who would have deemed him completely mad. “Today...Later today, we will devise a plan to help you do what you must. The first thing you must have is a name.”

  “I have a name of which I am proud.”

  “But Nils Bjornsson is not the name of a gentleman to whom the doors of the ton will be opened.”

  “The ton?”

  “The upper classes who meet in London each spring to arrange for business and marriages.”

  “Then I must have another name.”

  She nodded. “And a title. If you were to claim to be a baron or a viscount—”

  “These words mean nothing to me.”

  “They are respected titles, and there are enough men who claim those titles that no one would take note of you never having come to London before. If you were a duke or a marquess—”

  “Again, those are not titles I know.”

  “What do you know then?”

  “In my time, your island had a king and his jarls.”

  “Jarls?”

  Nils smiled at her bafflement, and she tried not to believe that he was enjoying betwattling her with his strange words. “Forgive me, Linnea. Jarls is the term the Norrfoolk use. Earl is what the English say.”

  “Earl? That title is still in use now, for my father is an earl. You can be the earl of...of...” She tapped her chin as she considered what title he should claim. “Barrington. That is close enough to Bjornsson, so you should notice when someone uses it.”

&
nbsp; “Earl of Barrington?” His nose wrinkled. “That name stinks of this island.”

  “Stinks?” She scowled at him. “You clearly need lessons on how to behave in polite company, Nils. On the morrow, your lessons will begin.”

  “Such lessons are certain to prove to be a waste of time.”

  “You have plenty of time to waste, Nils.”

  “A millennium’s worth.”

  She started to reply, then drew the collar of her wrapper up as if a chill struck her. It had. Just the thought of how Nils had traveled through time unsettled her. Hurrying down the stairs and forcing a smile for Jack who was coming in the door, she did not slow as she went back toward the house.

  A thousand years.

  She could not imagine that length of time, yet Nils had traveled almost all of it to come here. His tales of speaking with half-forgotten Norse gods here in Sutherland Park bothered her almost as much as the idea that he had come so rapidly from the past.

  And somehow he must find his way back to his own century to take the missing knife to his chieftain. She wondered if he had any idea how he would make such a journey.

  * * * *

  Olive shook her head and scowled. This was an expression that was becoming habitual. “My lady, I do not know how you have the patience to deal with him.”

  “Nils is a guest here.” Linnea took the tray her maid held out to her.

  “No guest at Sutherland Park has ever been like him.”

  Wanting to agree, Linnea did not. She was unsure if either Olive or Jack guessed how Nils had come here or from where or when. She had taken great care not to say anything that would reveal the truth. Nils was certain to be as circumspect, because the greatest danger was to him and the completion of his vow.

  Instead of saying what she was thinking, Linnea replied with, “Jack should be here any time now to get the list of items you need from the house.”

  “How much longer do you think he will be here?”

  “It has been just over a week. His arm should take another four or five to heal, I would think.”