He put his arm about her shoulder and settled on the bed. ‘And you taught me that a heart grows the more it gives. The only time you are cursed is if you stop trying and close yourself down.’
‘I agree. We both learned that.’
‘Will you join me in the wishing over the porridge, my beautiful wife?’
Ragn thought back over the year and how they had both grown in love and confidence. She might not be beautiful to everyone, but she was to the people who mattered most to her. ‘Of course, although I can’t think of anything to wish for, everything I desire is here with me in this room.’
‘Then we shall have to wish that it continues for as long as possible and use everything in our power to ensure that wish comes true.’
‘That is the sort of wish I agree with wholeheartedly!’
She turned and put her arms about him and there was no need for words as they watched their baby sleep.
* * *
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Author Note
Because the Vikings were the last great European civilisation to become Christian, it remains possible to see echoes of their pagan midwinter festival of light in the Christmas celebrations of the lands they conquered. Jul, or Yule, was the period from about the eighth of November to the twentieth of January, when the Sun Maiden went into the belly of the wolf and was rescued only through the intervention of Thor.
The festival involved much feasting, as when it was dark and cold outside people remained close to the hearth. It was also a time of renewal and the swearing of oaths. This makes sense when you consider how much preparation would have gone into creating a successful war band.
Part of the Yule feast included swearing solemn oaths on boar’s bristles. The boar would be sacrificed as an offering to the gods—in particular Freyr. Some speculate that this is why the boar’s head—or indeed a ham—is traditional at Christmas. Other things such as specially brewed ale and a flaming wreath were also part of the Jul tradition.
In Norway there remains a tradition of the nisser, or elf, who looks after a farm being given rice pudding on Christmas Eve. The nisser served much the same function as a brownie—doing good deeds in secret so long as they were respected. If they were not respected they would play tricks.
There are no primary source documents written by Vikings during the reign of Harald, the man considered to be the first true King of Norway. Because of the movement of Viking war bands during this period, it is thought that he might have insisted on more obedience than previous warlords. However, we do not know what his actual decrees consisted of, or how much control he actually exerted over the Western Isles. Various sagas do record that the Western Isles and the Isle of Manx were under his overlordship.
If you are interested in learning more about the Vikings in Scotland and Ireland, or even the general era—these books might prove useful:
Adams, Max, Aelfred’s Britain: War and Peace in the Viking Age (2017 Head of Zeus Ltd)
Ferguson, Robert, The Hammer and the Cross, A New History of the Vikings (2010 Penguin Books)
Jesch, Judith, Women in the Viking Age (1991 The Boydell Press)
Magnusson, Magnus K.B.E., The Vikings (2003 The History Press)
Marsden, John, Somerled and the Emergence of Gaelic Scotland (2000 Tuckwell Press Ltd)
Oliver, Neil, Vikings a History (2012 Orion Books)
Parker, Philip, The Northmen’s Fury: A History of the Viking World (2014 Jonathan Cape)
Williams, Gareth ed., Vikings: Life and Legend (2014 British Museum Press)
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A Rake to the Rescue
by Elizabeth Beacon
Chapter One
‘Oh, I am sorry...please excuse me,’ the stranger murmured.
How could Hetta have left her toes where a society beauty might tread?
‘It was nothing,’ Hetta lied politely.
‘All this bustle is distracting and I hate the sea,’ the lady explained as if she was grateful to have another woman to talk to, even a travel-worn and weary one dressed in a shabby cloak and old gown.
‘I’m none too fond of it myself,’ Hetta admitted ruefully.
The lady grimaced at the mud-grey water. It was calm at the moment, so she would have a far better crossing than Hetta had endured coming the other way, but it was still the sea and she obviously did not want to be on it.
‘I wish I could stay,’ the lady said wistfully, glancing back at the town as if she was having second thoughts about leaving it.
‘Then why go if you don’t want to?’
‘Because I must,’ the lady said, then seemed to recall Hetta was a stranger and stepped out of her path, looking regal and chilly again.
‘The swell has almost calmed now, so you should have an easy journey,’ Hetta said and turned to go.
‘Thank you,’ the lady said absently, her attention now fixed on a woman walking towards them with a grizzling baby of about eight or nine months in her arms.
‘She needs you, Lady Drace,’ the nurse said.
‘I know,’ Lady Drace replied, with a tender smile for her little girl. Love for the pretty, dark-haired and dark-eyed baby lit her face to a beauty far more compelling than the icy mask she seemed to use to keep the adult world at bay.
‘No, my lady, she needs you,’ the woman insisted.
Hetta saw the lady blush as the meaning behind those careful words sank in—Lady Drace must be suckling her child herself. Hetta had been happy to dislike her as a privileged being who stood on other people’s toes and then frowned as if it was their fault. Now she sympathised with a dilemma she knew all too well and warmed to a fellow mother.
‘There is nowhere private enough to feed you, my angel, but I expect you’ll work yourself into a tantrum and refuse to be comforted if I don’t, and the sea is quite enough to contend with without you adding to it, my pet,’ Lady Drace told her fretful infant with a besotted smile and shot a panicked look round the bustling harbour. Her pale blue eyes looked tearful, as if this was the last straw for her. Hetta could not make herself pretend it was none of her business and simp
ly walk away.
‘Over there,’ she said, pointing at a pile of baggage waiting to be claimed and unwilling to admit it belonged to her family since it was much used and had their names on and she had learned to be wary on her travels. ‘That looks a quieter place than most and out of the way of all the hustle and bustle. If you hold your cloak around your mistress on one side, I can do the same with mine on the other, and Lady Drace will be hidden from view. Between us we can make a tent and glare at anyone rude enough to try to overlook us,’ she told the maid. Having to feed Toby in all sorts of odd places when she had been tracking her father across Europe after her husband died, Hetta knew how rude and crude some could be to a lady suckling her baby. ‘You will be nigh as private as at home in your own bedchamber, your ladyship.’
‘Ah, home,’ the lady said wistfully, eyeing her hungry and fretful baby as if torn between love for her child and her dignity. She must have made up her mind the little girl was more important since she sighed and shrugged. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are very kind.’
‘High time I found Toby,’ Hetta’s father muttered and left the ladies to it.
“Coward,” his daughter whispered at his retreating back, but since she was worried where her boy had got to, she hoped her father really did mean to look for Toby. It felt wrong to dismiss this stranger’s dilemma and find Toby herself now she had made her impulsive offer. So once Hetta and the maid formed their circle, Lady Drace sat down to nurse her child while all three of them thought their thoughts and the baby fed. Hetta wished this trip to her homeland was over and she could go back to the warmth of a real summer somewhere more interesting. Now the greyish-brown waters of the Channel seemed to mock her with gentle ripples after the bitter squall on the way over here and she was quite surprised she was still alive. She stared towards Dover as tame little waves lapped at the quayside gently enough to soothe a fretful babe to sleep.
‘And they call this summer?’ she muttered as soft drizzle began to crown her miserable homecoming. She had barely been back in England half an hour and she was wet and chilled and her head ached. She felt dull and weary and almost wished she could go with this almost haughty lady and her child to Paris and beyond, although it would mean crossing the Channel again while her stomach was still heaving from the journey over, and even if she could find her son in time, that felt like a bad idea.
‘I believe you are finished, my little minx. She might even sleep now,’ Lady Drace announced hopefully at last. Hetta heard rustling as the lady got herself back in perfect order then settled her little girl in the crook of her arm and shook her head at the maid as if she didn’t intend letting her child go. ‘You can let the world back in,’ she said resolutely.
‘I wish you well on your travels,’ Hetta said gently, wondering where this blonde, blue-eyed lady was going with the dark-haired, brown-eyed baby now looking about her with wide-eyed wonder and not in the least bit weary.
‘Thank you. It was kind of you to help a stranger,’ the lady said as if she was surprised anyone would put themselves out for her.
The lady’s life must have been a hard one to make her put on so much elegant armour to keep it at bay. Hetta was glad the woman felt she could love her child wholeheartedly and she was pleased she’d stopped to help a lone mother. Now a nagging anxiety for her own child was urging her to leave the lady to get on with her journey. Her father had already said Toby should be allowed to run off his high spirits so he would be more bearable on the journey to London, so he would not make much effort to track him down, and Hetta knew her son too well to trust him very far with all this bustle and excitement to intrigue him.
‘And they do say you should be careful what you wish for, don’t they?’ the lady added with a rueful smile.
‘But learning when to ignore the naysayers is half the fun,’ Hetta said as she peered around the dock and saw no sign of her son or father and felt more like an anxious sheepdog than an English lady of gentle birth and unusual education.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Travelling is a lot easier if you can see the lighter side of the obstacles in your way,’ Hetta said encouragingly, even if she did think there was little to be cheerful about in the sea crossing her new friend was about to undertake. ‘Paris is on the other side of the Channel, don’t forget, and if you can’t have an adventure there I despair of you,’ she added and found out the lady had a surprisingly earthy laugh.
‘Thank you. I will do my best,’ Lady Drace said, bade Hetta farewell with her baby cuddled close and turned resolutely towards the sea.
Hetta turned to go as well, but the noise and bustle of the busy dock faded away to nothing as a furious-looking and ridiculously handsome man strode into view so fast he was nearly running. The sight of Toby wriggling like an eel under one of the stranger’s muscular arms made her gasp in panic and her heart race with anxiety. Protective fury masked fear as she watched her son bundled along so fast he didn’t even have breath left to cry out. Toby was pummelling the man with his fists and kicking out, so at least he was not cowed by such rough treatment. Her heart thundered as she watched furious energy power every line of the man’s body, but there was always a chance Toby was in the right for once—a slim one from the temper in the stormy gentleman’s dark eyes. He was devilishly handsome, though, wasn’t he? She told her inner idiot not to be stupid and glared at the stern force of nature loping towards them like an angry tiger.
Her stomach had not got over that appalling sea crossing yet, so the stir of something hot and sharp deep in her belly was caused by it being emptied so often as the ship rode the waves of a vicious summer storm like a cork at the mercy of furious Mother Nature. This tall and formidable man could not stir her sensual instincts back to life without even a smile or an interested look, so there was no other explanation for it. And he had Toby firmly under his arm as if her boy was a mere bundle of faggots, so those instincts would be wrong anyway.
‘Is this yours?’ he barked at her as soon as he was within earshot.
As Hetta was the only woman gaping at him with her mouth open, it must be easy enough to pick her out as Toby’s mother. She was vaguely conscious Lady Drace had jumped as if she had been shot at the sound of his deep voice, then turned to stare at him with horror in her light blue eyes. So that made two women scared by the great clumsy oaf roaring and raging as if he had every right to make rude comments about anyone he wanted to, and she wondered why the rest of the world had not stopped to watch him open-mouthed as well.
‘What have you done, Toby?’ Hetta didn’t quite answer the man’s rude question and told herself she was too worried about her son to care about gruff strangers or her new friend’s reaction to them.
* * *
The Honourable Magnus Haile frowned at the strange woman staring back at him like a simpleton. Given the gasp of relief the boy had given on first sight of her, she was his mother, and what a neglectful shabby-genteel idiot to leave her offspring running loose without a keeper. He didn’t have any time to spare, so why was it his job to chastise a brat who threw himself under his weary horse and nearly killed them both? Luckily his younger brother’s man, Jem Caudle, told Magnus he would stable the exhausted and unnerved beast for him, then reminded him the packet would sail if he didn’t hurry. Jem even told Magnus to leave the lad to him and get to the vessel faster, but Magnus was too shocked and angry to leave the boy to Jem’s mercy. So, he’d grabbed the brat in order to berate the boy’s parents before he thought of some way to stop Delphi and his little girl leaving England without him, even if he had to throw himself aboard the boat and leave his homeland with no more than the shirt on his back.
He was a father now, whatever Delphi had to say about it. His frown went fierce again as he grappled with that fact and his helplessness to do anything about it when Delphi refused to marry him. He longed to be able to keep his daughter out of wild scrapes like this when she was big
enough to be naughty. Not that his little Angela could ever be as wayward as this brat, but the boy’s parents obviously didn’t know how lucky they were to have the right to protect him from harm. Yet they let him run around like a street urchin! Now the boy was scratching and trying to bite, as if Magnus was the villain, and he was tempted to drop him on the cobbles and walk away. ‘Try that trick again and I’ll dust your backside for you, whether your mama is looking or not,’ he threatened dourly.
‘No, you won’t. She won’t let you,’ the lad shouted, lower lip wobbling and his dirty face scrunched up with the effort of producing a tear.
‘Once she knows what you did she will thank me for saving her the effort of doing it herself.’
‘No, she won’t. She will skin you alive, then boil you in oil if you even try to smack me.’
‘Then I won’t need to worry about anything, will I? Least of all a wicked little liar like you,’ Magnus said grimly.
‘Put my son down this minute,’ the sunburnt woman in dull clothes, a drooping bonnet and the most ridiculous pair of eyeglasses he had ever seen demanded furiously as she finally snapped out of her trance.
Magnus could now see where the boy got his temper, if not his wild blond curls, wide blue eyes and the daredevil spirit that made him look like a fallen cherub. Perhaps his father was absent for a good reason, but Magnus’s inner sneer felt cheap when he eyed the termagant in petticoats and wished for a brief, mad moment he’d fallen in love with such a tigress in spectacles, instead of the woman hiding behind her, trying to pretend she had never seen him before in her life, even with his baby in her arms chortling at her father with Haile written all over her darling little face like a banner.
‘Gladly, if you promise to keep him under better control in future,’ he told the woman grimly and tried to ignore the pain in his heart when his Angela reached out her arms to him and Delphi snatched her away as if she hated him. ‘A collar and lead should serve. He nearly killed himself running under my horse just now. Luckily for all of us the poor beast was too weary to throw me when I curbed him, or you would have a lot more to worry about than a filthy little thug in a foul temper. A blow from the nag’s iron-shod hooves would have killed him outright.’
Sent as the Viking's Bride Page 24
