Leaving Norway: Book 1: Martin & Dagny (The Hansen Series - Martin & Dagny and Reidar & Kirsten)
Page 33
After a pause the voice replied, “No, the doctor doesn’t think so.”
Pauses generally did not portend good news. “My head hurts.”
His unseen attendant turned his hand over and stroked his palm. It felt good. “You were concussed rather severely. Do you remember?”
No. “My leg?”
“A shard of metal. It left a deep gash, but a clean one. The metal was so hot that it cauterized the wound and you didn’t bleed. Of course—” she turned his hand over and began to massage his wrist, “—once the doctor pulled it out, you bled. But he stitched up the gash and you should heal well.”
He still didn’t know about his eyes. He lifted his other hand slowly so he wouldn’t be stopped again and laid his fingertips on the bandage.
She answered his tactile question. “The doctor put a salve on your eyes and he wants you to keep them covered for another couple of days.”
Another couple of days. “How long have I been here?”
“This is the third day since they brought you in.” She moved her massage to his other hand.
Reid had no idea why she did that, but her soft warmth and sure touch relaxed him. As long as she was touching him the burgeoning panic caused by his blinded state, which threatened to undo him at any moment, was kept somewhat at bay. He needed to keep talking to distract his tumbling thoughts from dragging him down into hysteria.
“Where am I?”
“My home. My parents have a large manor and we offered the lower parlor as an infirmary for American officers.”
“What’s your name?”
Another pause. “Call me Nurse.”
“Do you know my name?”
“No.”
He couldn’t smile effectively with half of his face bandaged but he offered his free hand, holding it in the direction of her voice. “Reidar Magnus Hansen, Captain of the Massachusetts Militia.”
She gave it a small shake. “You are Norwegian, are you not?”
That observation surprised Reid out of his self-focused contemplation. “American born, but of Norwegian parents. Why do you ask that?”
Reid thought he detected a smothered chuckle.
“Because you are speaking in Norse.”
***
The soldier’s jaw fell open. “Jeg er? I mean—I am? Skitt. Shit!” He waved the hand she wasn’t holding. “I beg your pardon, miss. Apologies for my language.”
Kirsten Sven laughed at that. “You are forgiven, Captain.”
Captain Hansen stilled. “Wait—you understood me. And you answered in Norse.”
“As incredible as it sounds, I am American born of Norwegian parents as well,” she confessed. “And while I would love to sit with you longer, I do have other patients who require my attention.”
She was amazed at how clearly she saw his mood change in the shift of his mouth. She wondered what his eyes looked like and how expressive they might be.
“Of course. I understand.” He pulled his hand from hers and clasped them over his chest. “I’ll just be waiting here, on this cot, if you need to find me.”
The man had a sense of humor, that much was sure.
Kirsten stood and walked through the otherwise empty parlor of the Sven home. She needed to distance herself from Captain Hansen. Finding servants at every turn, she lifted her skirt and hurried up the stairs to the private rooms.
“Kirsten?” Her mother’s voice snared her and Kirsten halted, caught in its tether.
She clenched her fists and drew a calming breath. “Yes, mamma?”
“Is anything amiss?”
Kirsten walked to her mother’s doorway. “Not at all. In fact, I have very interesting information about the injured soldier.”
“Oh?” Marit Sven looked up from her correspondence. Her pale blonde hair had nearly completed its transition to white, but her eyes were as dark blue as always. “Is he awake finally?”
“He is,” Kirsten answered without entering. “And it turns out, he’s of Norwegian descent.”
Her mother looked surprised. “He is? How did you find this out?”
Kirsten shook out her skirt, acting unaffected by the man. “When he woke up, he was speaking Norse.”
“Hm. How odd,” Marit said as she turned back to her letters. “Where are you off to?”
Kirsten took a step back. “I only wanted to lie down a bit before supper.”
Her mother gave a look over her shoulder. “You have been sitting too long with that soldier, haven’t you?”
“It’s not that. I didn’t sleep well last night. The thunder woke me and I couldn’t get back to sleep,” she lied.
Marit nodded. “I’ll be sure you awaken in time. We are having guests.”
Kirsten gave her mother a compliant grin. “Thank you, mamma.”
She turned and walked to her room, careful not to draw any more attention. She closed the door and flopped on her back on the bed.
Kirsten wasn’t given to lying as a rule, but she had told two fabrications in the last five minutes.
The first was to the officer lying in the room below. In truth, he was the only injured soldier in the house, a fact he was certain to discover in short order now that he was awake. The explosion which injured him had claimed the life of five foot soldiers. Two other officers caught in the debacle weren’t hurt as severely as he and didn’t require lying-in.
Captain Hansen was unconscious when they carried him to her home, and only today had said anything coherent.
And in Norse. Kirsten smiled. That was quite a surprise.
Unlike what she told her mother, she had been spending all of her free hours beside the injured man. Something about him tugged at her—and not, she told herself, because he was the only distraction from the boredom of life in a country long at war. He was interesting.
He was quite tall to begin with. Kirsten had to set crates at the end of his cot for his feet to rest on. His thick, straight hair hovered between blond and light brown, with sun-streaks of polished brass glinting in her lamp’s light. Untied, it hung just below his shoulders. On his first night here she carefully brushed out the tangles and detritus of the explosion, and then plaited it out of the way.
When he spoke today, his voice was deep and smooth, like a far-off storm on a heavy summer night. She loved hearing her parents’ native language tripping off his tongue, and wondered if he had ever been to Norway.
I’ll ask him when we speak next.
Kirsten turned over and applied herself to her nap. The soldier hovered in her thoughts and she wondered if she would dream of him.
She truly couldn’t wait to see his eyes.
THE HANSEN FAMILY TREE
Sveyn Hansen* (b. 1035 ~ Arendal, Norway)
***
Rydar Hansen (b. 1324 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Grier MacInnes (b. 1328 ~ Durness, Scotland)
Eryndal Bell Hansen (b. 1327 ~ Bedford, England)
Andrew Drummond (b. 1325 ~ Falkirk, Scotland)
***
Jakob Petter Hansen (b. 1485 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Avery Galaviz de Mendoza (b. 1483 ~ Madrid, Spain)
***
Brander Hansen (b. 1689 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Regin Kildahl (b. 1693 ~ Hamar, Norway)
***
Martin Hansen (b. 1721 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Dagne Sivertsen (b. 1725 ~ Ljan, Norway)
Reidar Hansen (b. 1750 ~ Boston, Massachusetts)
Kristen Sven (b. 1754 ~ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Nicolas Hansen (b. 1787 ~ Cheltenham, Missouri Territory)
Siobhan Sydney Bell (b. 1789 ~ Shelbyville, Kentucky)
Stefan Hansen (b. 1813 ~ Cheltenham, Missouri)
Kirsten Hansen (b. 1820 ~ Cheltenham, Missouri)
Leif Fredericksen Hansen (b. 1809 ~ Christiania, Norway)
***
Tor Hansen (b. 1913 ~ Arendal, Norway)
Kyle Solberg (b. 1919 ~ Viking, Minnesota)
Teigen Hansen (b. 1915 ~ Arendal, Norw
ay)
Selby Hovland (b. 1914 ~ Trondheim, Norway)
***
*Hollis McKenna Hansen (b. 1985 Sparta, Wisconsin)
Kris Tualla is a dynamic, award-winning, and internationally published author of historical romance and suspense. She started in 2006 with nothing but a nugget of a character in mind, and has created a dynasty with The Hansen Series, and its spin-off, The Discreet Gentleman Series. Find out more at: www.KrisTualla.com
Kris is an active PAN member of Romance Writers of America, the Historical Novel Society, and Sisters in Crime, and was invited to be a guest instructor at the Piper Writing Center at Arizona State University.
“In the Historical Romance genre, there have been countless kilted warrior stories told. I say it's time for a new breed of heroes. Come along with me and find out why: Norway IS the new Scotland!”