And that night, there was a desperation in the way she kissed him back in his furs. Surging against him and shamelessly pressing her body down on his. Reaching up so she could put her hands on his hard jaw, exulting in both the feel of his flesh, the flash of his teeth, and the rough silk of his beard.
She could not have said what drove her. Grief, perhaps. Fear—but it was this particular fear she associated with Thorbrand. It did not make her want to curl up in a hole and hide. It did not make her wish she was the sort to faint. It made her want...this.
To throw herself into the fire and burn as hot as she could, before his true purpose became clear and he stamped out the flames.
The morning of the fifth day was different still. When she finally dressed and made her way outside, only Thorbrand waited for her at the fire. Her heart lurched in her chest.
Aelfwynn had not exactly felt comfortable in the presence of the other men. They watched too closely. Too darkly. They muttered in Irish and wanted her to know they spoke of her while they did it.
But any difference in their situation could only be to her peril.
“Do both your kinsmen hunt this morn?” she asked lightly.
“A different game entirely,” Thorbrand replied.
Did she imagine the heightened intensity in his gaze?
“They are for Jorvik,” he told her. “Ragnall awaits and there is much to report of Mercia’s fall to Wessex. Not least how Edward treats his own kin.”
Aelfwynn had never been a queen. She had not even been the Lady of Mercia her mother had been. And yet still, deep in her breast, she felt a wild surge of temper. Fury.
“You speak so easily of my enemies,” she whispered.
Another mistake.
“You have no enemies,” Thorbrand said softly, but she did not mistake the threat of it. “You have one concern in this life, sweeting. Me. I thought you understood.”
“Forgive me,” she said, after a moment, though it was possible she addressed that to her mother, not the forbidding man who watched her too closely. And though the words stuck in her throat and tears threatened, she kept going. “I forgot myself.”
“You will have ample time to remember,” he promised her.
And Aelfwynn could not hide her shiver.
He offered her no food to break her fast. He kicked dirt and snow over the fire, then moved with a swiftness that made her imagine, against her will, what he must be like in battle. Deadly. Fierce. He took down their tent and bundled everything up, fastening it to the saddle. Then swung himself into position, looking down at her with a kind of triumph stamped all over his face.
She didn’t understand it. Just as she did not understand the reaction inside her. Did she wish to faint after all? Kneel? Anything to push out that great weight inside her, in a scream or a song, she knew not which.
There were so many things she wanted to say. So many things she dared not say.
Aelfwynn only understood that something had changed. Thorbrand had changed, while she slept unaware. Everything, even the air between them, was as a strike-a-light in the moment before a spark bloomed.
She could hardly breathe.
And she stopped trying when he rode toward her, leaned down and hauled her up to take her place before him once more.
Did she imagine he held her closer—more possessively? Or did she merely wish it so?
As he rode, the winter sun made a feeble gesture over the far hills. And had hardly breached them when he left the woods entirely and rode out to a small valley that looked to her eyes as if neither man nor beast had set foot upon it, at least not since the last snow. Thorbrand was halfway across the valley floor when she realized that he was headed for a cottage at one end. The only dwelling she could see in any direction. It was tucked slightly up the rise of the furthest hills, its back to the very place where the hill became steep. And impassable.
Her heart started to pound, in tune with the horse’s hooves beneath her.
The cottage was timber and thatch, and looked desolate.
But Aelfwynn knew.
Sure enough, Thorbrand rode them straight to the door of the cottage and dismounted, swinging her down with him to set her in the untouched snow at his feet.
“Is this your home, then?” she asked him, and it was a feat worthy of a whole hall’s song that she kept her voice so even and her gaze meek.
“I have no home.” There was something in the way he said it that made her skin prickle. “But you and I will use this cottage to come to terms, Aelfwynn. So you may call it a home, if you wish.”
She risked a look at the empty, unhappy cottage, covered in snow.
Though her heart beat so hard she could hear it in her own ears, she did not let herself wilt. Once again, she was faced with the notable difference between duties she had been so certain she’d prepared for and the stark reality of fulfilling them.
Weaving peace did not occur if things were already peaceful. How had she not understood that? If things were peaceful already it would simply be the usual, daily work of weaving that all women knew already. If it was peace she weaved, she should expect the threads to be anything but silk. Rather knotted thread requiring skill and grace.
So she smiled at him as if he had given her a long hall filled with men and gold. A dragon’s hoard.
“Home it shall be, then,” she said. Thinking of peace, not grief. For the past was done and there was only what she made of this. Of now. “I accept your offering, Thorbrand. With gratitude.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blind byþ bam eagum se þe breostum ne starat.
He is blind in both eyes who does not look with the heart.
—The Durham Proverbs
Aelfwynn expected a lonely cottage in a distant valley to need a great deal of work in order to do more than simply provide shelter. Or...provide whatever it was Thorbrand wished it to provide here. But she could not allow herself to think on such things overmuch. It made her far too unsettled.
She braced herself as Thorbrand opened the door and looked inside, his hand on his sword as if he expected to find bandits lurking within. He inclined his head, inviting her in, and she was thus surprised to discover that when she stepped in after him there were rushes on the floor, recently changed from the looks of it. There was a bench along one wall and a small table on another. There was a hearth in the center of the single room, and when she looked up to see why it wasn’t heaped with snow thanks to the usual hole in the roof that let out the smoke from the fire, she saw it had been covered over.
It dawned on her that they had not come upon this cottage by chance. That it had been...prepared for them.
Her heart set up a low, thudding sort of beat, making her bodice feel tight.
Yet she did naught but stand back as Thorbrand tossed his furs and pouches down, then reached up over the hearth to pull down the flat piece of wood that had kept the weather out. He eyed her as he put it on the floor, his gaze a dark foreboding, yet said nothing as he set about lighting the fire beneath the typical cauldron that sat raised above it.
Aelfwynn was happy enough with his silence. Grateful for it, come to that. He headed back outside, no doubt to tend to his horse and stable it in the small building she’d seen across what must have been a yard of some kind when there was less snow covering it. Lest the wild horses that roamed free come for him. And once the wooden door shut behind Thorbrand, she set about the tasks before her with something far too close to genuine pleasure.
Because it was much better than waiting to see what would happen now they were face-to-face. And alone.
She busied herself with the pot in the hearth first. She went to the door and pushed it open, the cold slapping at her. Cutting straight through her and making her wonder how it was she had ridden all this way in the midst of it.
But as soon as the thought was formed, she
knew. Thorbrand. He was his own fire, and he had kept her warm. He had made her burn, too. And now there was nothing here but the wind and the lowering sky to watch over them should they turn to ash.
Aelfwynn shuddered at the notion, then made herself cast it aside.
She knew not where the nearest river was, though it could not be far. For who would build a cottage where there was no water? She used her dress to fill the great iron pot, taking trips in and out of the cottage to heap it high with snow, for there was always a need for hot water.
By the time Thorbrand came inside, she had spread out his furs in the far corner to make a bed, and refused to acknowledge that she was in all likelihood making her own bed too. That he could do as he wished upon that bed. That he might very well spread her out below him and take from her what he liked, no matter what he might have said days before.
What she wished to acknowledge least of all was that it was a certainty that no matter what he did, she would like it. She was that sinful.
Thorbrand looked around the cottage as he came in, and Aelfwynn stopped thinking about her immortal soul and took a measure of pride in his look of surprise. As if he did not think she was capable of the smallest, most necessary tasks any woman learned in infancy. As if he truly believed she was useless, because people had said so.
She had hung up her cloak on one of the wooden pegs near the door and when she saw him hang his beside it, something funny twisted in her belly. She chose to interpret it as concern, and purely in a domestic sense.
“I would have aired the rest of your things,” she told him, feeling almost shy. “But I did not wish you to think that I would go through your bags without permission.”
“I would go through yours.” Something dangerous glinted in Thorbrand’s midnight gaze. “I have.”
Aelfwynn blinked at that. But naturally he had done so. Why was she surprised?
“Are we on the same footing then?” she asked lightly. “That was not my impression.”
His mouth curved and she still could not quite make sense of what happened inside her when he did that. Because she knew that mouth, now. She had tasted it. She had, more than once, had his tongue inside her own mouth—and even thinking about it made her feel red and swollen all at once.
“No, indeed,” he said, his voice gone rough, “we are not.”
And then there was naught but silence.
Thorbrand stood there just inside the door and Aelfwynn reflected that she had not had sufficient time to simply...gaze upon him. They were always riding on his horse. Or it was dark. Or the cold and snow made it impossible to do more than hide behind her hood. Or yet he wished to speak to her of her aptitude for captivity and it was all she could do not to let loose her own temper in return.
She was not certain she was prepared to gaze upon him, now that she could. Inside the cottage, his hugeness was a different beast. His shoulders seemed to fill the whole of the room. He was broader than the door behind him. He was tall enough that he had reached the roof with no difficulty. Surely he need only shrug and could touch one wall, then the other.
Aelfwynn had known full well he was a large man. Yet here he seemed all the larger.
And she could hardly recall thinking him brutish, back in that road south of Tamworth. For now all she saw was the beauty of him. Remote, undoubtably ruthless, made of stone and iron—though there was snow dusting his beard, melting into something sparkling as she watched.
He was more beautiful than any man she had ever beheld. Than all the men she had ever beheld.
She had grown accustomed to these desolate landscapes they had traveled through at such speed. Bared forests overlooking distant moors. Fields lying fallow beneath the press of darkness this close to midwinter. Stark and lonely, all of it, and in the middle of it was Thorbrand.
And he was so alive. He laughed loud, he rode hard, and given infinite opportunities to harm her, he had not. She knew not why, yet he had used those warrior’s hands of his, battered and calloused, to rub her until she was limp. To spread fire all over her body until she wanted nothing more than to surrender to him. To give him things she knew not how to name.
Then again, perhaps that was why.
“Take heed, sweeting,” he growled, though his gaze was bright. “Else I will take the invitation I see in your gaze here and now.”
Aelfwynn was trembling, but she cast her eyes toward the floor and did her best to look meek instead of...aflame.
“I am weary.” Yet Thorbrand did not sound in any way weary. “I have been too long on the road and I am not a Saxon content to steep in my own filth. I must bathe.”
“I have heated some water.” Aelfwynn nodded toward the cauldron that had still not begun to boil, though she knew it would. “There is no tub, though it will be easy enough to wash.”
“We have no need of a tub.” There was a different note in his voice, then. She scarcely dared look at him now that it was only the two of them here, and he had already warned her about invitation, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
Sure enough, there was a gleam in those dark blue eyes of his that made everything inside her seem to...change position.
“Come, then,” he said. “I will take you to the hot springs. We will bathe together.”
It was true, then, what she’d heard about these warriors from overseas and their constant bathing. Aelfwynn washed herself diligently, as she had been taught, and had looked forward to doing so here now that the woods were behind them—but she did not fully immerse her person in water any more than necessary. Mildrithe had always held that such practices brought on the gepos with a vengeance, and any who indulged would be lucky indeed that the illness not take root in the chest.
Though Thorbrand did not look as if he tolerated such petty weaknesses as a thick head and a scratchy throat.
Aelfwynn felt hushed and humming straight through. More, there was that look of intense command all over his hard face. She could not have defied him if she wanted to.
She did not want to.
Instead, she banked the fire. Then, as if in a dream, she walked to the door where he stood and pulled her cloak on. He did the same. Then he led her outside into the cold, where she found to her surprise that he had stamped down a path through the snow from the front door of the cottage. It was easy enough to walk around to the back of the cottage to the small stable where his horse nickered a greeting, then beyond it, toward the steep hill that loomed behind. She wondered if he intended to take her on a march up that hill, a daunting prospect, though she dared not complain. Yet at the base of the hill’s steep rise was a set of boulders. Thorbrand led her to them, then between them.
And when Aelfwynn stepped through the stone gateway, she stopped. Then gasped aloud.
For a pool waited there, hot enough that steam rose from its surface. Though there was snow all around, dusting the surrounding boulders, it yet bubbled. And as it did, a rich, earthy scent filled the air.
Aelfwynn had never seen its like, though she had heard tell of such wonders, far to the south in Wessex.
She went to the edge and knelt down, tugging off her glove so she could skim her palm over the surface of the water. The heat was a miracle. It sank deep into her skin, like the heat of summer in this cold, dark place. She lifted her hand, bemused, to rub her fingers together for even the water itself felt different. Not simply warm. But like silk.
“I trust it meets with your approval,” Thorbrand rumbled. “I know your people prefer their dirt and grime.”
Aelfwynn had not precisely forgotten about him. That was impossible. But the pool had so captivated her that it shocked her a little to recall that he stood there behind her even now. She shifted where she knelt to gaze up at him, intending to gently point out the difference between diligent washing and dirt and grime—but her mouth went dry.
For Thorbrand was not simply stan
ding there making remarks. He was undressing.
For a moment, Aelfwynn simply froze.
She’d seen glimpses of the male form, though she had always been too aware of those who ever watched her to see if she looked too long. And she certainly had impressions of Thorbrand’s form. She had lain upon him. She’d woken, some nights, to find his broad thigh thrust between her own. She knew his mouth, and thinking so made her feel too hot, suddenly. Even hotter than the water itself.
If she was truly pious, surely she would protest. If she was pure in heart as well as body.
But no protest formed on her tongue.
It was wicked to look upon any man who was not her husband, and so she knew it must be wickedness that swelled in her as Thorbrand tossed off his cloak and set his weapons within reach of the water’s edge. And then, those dark blue eyes of his meeting hers with a kind of mild challenge, he first pulled off his tunic. Then the tighter layer he wore beneath.
Aelfwynn had seen male chests, but only from a distance. Soldiers practicing in the forecourt, laborers in the fields.
But never before had a man simply stood before her, close enough to touch.
It had to be wickedness, that throbbing pulse of fire deep in her belly. That alarming slickness between her legs that she might have thought were her courses were it not the wrong time.
And then, while her mouth dropped open and she felt a kind of heat rush at the back of her eyes, Thorbrand stripped off the rest of his garments and stood before her.
Naked.
Aelfwynn could hardly accept what she was seeing. Every part of him was massive. His arms were thick with muscle. His chest, that wall she knew well pressed against her own back and beneath her cheek as she drifted into slumber, was shaped like one of the boulders that stood sentry around them and livid with the marks of his profession. Scars crisscrossed his flesh, some silvery with age and some new. And though she knew this man was naught to her but an enemy, a master whether she liked it or did not, yet she still felt her fingers tremble with the need to trace each one of them.
Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Page 36
