“What?” His tone was still low, but forceful in a way she didn’t dare deny.
“Moira … a woman I knew well. She … was attacked.”
“What did you say her name was?”
“Moira.”
He was silent for a moment, unrelenting in his hold upon her wrists and body. Then he spoke coolly. “I can assure you, I did not touch this Irish woman. If you were there, you must be aware of that fact.” Take a woman, a terrified, screaming woman, when Grenilde had lived? No, Olaf thought angrily. “I have told you that I have no taste for frigid virgins.”
Erin returned his stare, trying not to blink against the contempt in his voice and eyes. She prayed that tears would not come to her eyes, for while he might have no taste for her, his casual hold and intimate press against her were creating a wild rushing sound within her ears, a sound that seemed to sap her of strength, to bring the world sweeping in out of black shadows while she attempted to still the rampant trembling within her. She tossed her head back and forth against the bed, willing herself to speak before paralysis could come to her tongue.
“Perhaps, Wolf of the North, you were not one of the attacking dogs. But Clonntairth was razed on your order; it was your men who so abused poor Moira—”
“The king of Clonntairth could have surrendered,” Olaf interrupted impatiently. “All would have been spared. When men fight battles, people will be hurt and killed. It is unfortunate that the innocent are often involved, but that is the way of the world.”
“Surrender!” Erin raged. “Clonntairth belonged to my uncle—”
“The conquests of men are also the way of the world,” Olaf snapped irritably. “And it is the strong who conquer.”
Her fury growing along with the rampant trembling that assailed her, Erin twisted against him to struggle. She stopped in horror as she watched a slow smile seep into his features. He was amply proving himself the stronger and she was succeeding only in making their position even more intimate, making both of them more aware of naked flesh against flesh and the definitive differences in their sexes.
Erin locked her jaw as she stared at him with her emerald eyes burning with a fire more fierce than that of the sun. “Then tell me, Lord of Wolves,” she bit out coolly, “what happens when men are of equal strength?”
“Then,” Olaf replied lightly, “men compromise. Much as I have compromised with your father.”
“Remember your own words, Viking,” she hissed, “Your ‘compromise’ was with my father, not me—” Erin broke off, startled, as there was a tap at the door.
Frowning and distracted, Olaf issued an absent, “Come in.”
Erin’s eyes flew open with horror. Again she automatically entreated him, the humiliation in her eyes reminding him of his Irish wife’s nudity.
He released her and quickly snapped out the command, “Wait!”
Bloodred, Erin furrowed beneath the furs. Olaf ripped a linen sheet from the bed, wound it around himself, then went to the door and opened it. A little man, very small for a Norwegian, bobbed to Olaf and peered beyond him to smile at Erin with a gamine grin she found she couldn’t resist.
“Your bath, Lord Olaf,” the gnome of a man said with another bob.
“Bring it in,” Olaf commanded.
The gnome stepped aside. Two servers walked in with a heavy metal tub, followed by several blushing girls who filled it with steaming water, looking at neither Olaf nor Erin, but giggling as they filed out of the room. The little man stayed behind, arranging an assortment of glass vials upon a large wooden trunk by the door. “Shall I assist you, my lord?”
“No,” Olaf said, turning back to Erin. “Erin, this is Rig. Rig my wife, Erin. Rig will serve you any way that you please.”
The little man bobbed to her with his contagious grin and Erin found herself shyly smiling back. “Yes, my lady, if you need anything, I will be there.”
“Thank you,” Erin murmured, her fingers clutching the furs to her chest. He bobbed again and left, winking at her as he closed the door behind him.
As if he had forgotten her, Olaf dropped the sheet and sank into the steaming water with a sigh, his eyes closed. Erin watched him nervously for a moment, then began to edge out of the bed to bolt to the trunk that held her undergarments and delve through it. She was sure she had been dismissed as she slipped into a light shift, yet she suddenly felt that sensation again at her nape that warned her he watched her. She turned quickly to see that his eyes were half open and lazily upon her. “Come here,” he ordered. “I wish you to scrub my back.”
“I will not!” she replied instantly, outraged.
She regretted her words as soon as she had voiced them because he rose sopping wet from the tub to stalk her. She started to back away, but there was nowhere to go and his hands were on her shoulders in a flash.
“Lady, you sorely tempt your luck. When I was gravely injured you saw fit to torture me, and yet you call me barbarian. I think I have been very lenient with you, under the circumstances, princess of Tara, so I think we had best start getting a few things settled before I lose my resolve to be temperate with all Irish. I took a wife only because it was the political thing to do. Stay fairly invisible and docile and you will find yourself left alone. We spoke of compromise. Princess, you are nothing but a tool of compromise, however that may personally dismay you. But continue being a spiteful bitch and you will spend your days as well as your nights a bound prisoner. Do you understand? I have been informed that my Irish is quite clear.”
She was shaking, her gown soaked by the dampness of his body pressed to hers, but she stared at him a long while. How she hated to give in to him, loathed the steel of his strength that she was powerless against. And she was powerless. Even taking into consideration the fact that she was a strong woman, her strength was like a gentle breeze against an arctic wind.
“I understand your words perfectly,” she told him between gritted teeth.
Their eyes seemed to lock in a terrible contest of wills, northern ice against the heat of emerald fields. Then his fingers tightened their steel grip around her shoulders and she muttered heatedly, “I’ll scrub your damned back.”
He smiled slowly, heavy honey lashes half falling over his sharp eyes. “I think I shall require a massage first.”
“A massage,” she murmured blankly, frowning as chills crept up her spine while she wondered what new humiliation he was planning.
“A massage,” he repeated slowly, still smiling as he grabbed a towel to dry himself. He released her, fully aware that, for the moment at least, she was powerless to do anything but follow his orders. “The first container on the chest … bring it.”
Erin straightened her shoulders as she moved across the room and forced herself to sigh deeply, as if she were dealing with a child. She feigned vast annoyance as she returned to him, hoping she could hide her trembling from him. She stretched her arm out to him to offer the vial, staying as far away from him as she could.’
He shook his head, refusing to take the vial. “You will need it,” he said pleasantly, his eyes, beneath the lowered lashes, continuing to sear her with frost fire. She knew that he watched her for reaction as he spoke and she forced her expression to remain bland and immobile. “It contains a very special oil procured by some of my brother ‘barbarians’ when they ventured into the southern regions of the continent. It has a pleasant and aromatic scent and, when heated, is quite soothing when kneaded into the muscles by gentle fingers. I am feeling quite tense. It is difficult to sleep when one attempts to do so beside a woman intent upon his early demise.”
“You slept quite well!” Erin snapped.
“Did I? Still, my muscles are quite sore.”
He turned his back on her and stretched his frame upon the bed. Erin stared at him blankly.
“Well?” he demanded.
Erin approached him and sat gingerly at his side. She opened the stopper and poured an amount of the oil upon his back, then hesitated before tentatively putting her f
ingers on his shoulders. She began to smooth the oil over his broad back, grudgingly admiring the expanse of bronzed flesh and hard knotted muscle that she stroked. Erin started to feel dizzy. The scent of the oil was subtle and yet enticing on his flesh, but she willed herself to display no reaction.
She rubbed his shoulders, the cleft between his blades, cringing a bit as his muscles rippled beneath her touch, then brought her fingers down his tapering midsection until she reached the trim line of his waist. Then she drew her hands away, about to rise.
“Your back has been massaged.”
He twisted, his eyes opening fully as he caught her wrist before she could retreat. He smiled, that mocking smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes.
“You do well,” he murmured politely in a drawl that was almost a dangerous purr. “You please me so much that I would like you to continue.”
She couldn’t control the hot flush that crept over her features. “Be glad,” he warned her softly, “that all I ask of you is a massage.”
Erin’s teeth were so tightly locked that the strain was painful, but she poured oil in little streaks along his legs, trying to keep her eyes averted from his buttocks. She worked over his calves, noting that they were strong and hard and well shaped.
Her fingers worked firmly—shaking slightly as she strove to keep them gentle—to a point above the back of his knee. There she halted, determined that she was finished and unaware that he lifted himself on his elbow to watch her.
She suddenly sensed his eyes and looked up at him. He smiled mockingly. “Please … continue.”
Aware that he would see her slightest flinch, Erin kept her face rigid and impassive. Dear God, how could it be possible that she had come to this? Stroking, touching the very flesh she despised with all her heart and finding that it was fine, firm and disturbing.
“There—” She started to rise again, but he shifted quickly, capturing her wrist again.
“Not quite.”
She met his eyes venomously. “No further, Viking.”
“As far as I say, Princess.”
She stood silently but stubbornly defying him, not caring at that moment if he chose to slap her across the room.
He didn’t. He smiled again. “Remember, my wife, things will always go just as far as I say.”
Erin took a very deep breath and sat again, suddenly wishing that he hadn’t proven to be extraordinarily fastidious and strangely sophisticated for a Viking. She closed her eyes as she touched his buttocks, but she could feel that they too were firm and hard. Suddenly, as she touched him, he rolled in a circle, leaving her unprepared fingers dangling over his manhood. It had a life of its own. It pulsed hot and huge beneath her gingerly fingers. She knew that her face burned red, but she was loath to give him the satisfaction of further response. Barely blinking, she brushed his sex aside as if it were no more of an annoyance than a stray lock of hair might be upon the forehead and rubbed her oil-slick fingers quickly over his hip and up to the lower portion of his steel-flat belly.
He roared with laughter.
A temptation came to her then, an urge to twist and hurt him as she had been hurt by humiliation. Strength suddenly seemed to ripple down her arms, and she lowered her lashes over her eyes as she moved her fingers downward again. But before she could carry out the savage and irrational intent of pure fury, he spoke sharply in warning. “Watch it, Irish. I really wouldn’t try anything you’re not entirely sure you can handle.”
Erin tensed and braced herself, curling her nails into her own palms, hating him, hating herself. If only she could fight him with a chance of winning.…
“Take great care, sweet bitch,” he interrupted her tempestuous thoughts softly. “You are in my hands now and I am no longer weak, no longer injured. Nor completely numbed by battle and pain. If you hurt me, you will be hurt in turn.”
The strain to keep from striking out at him was great, but she managed to unclench her fingers and proceed to massage his chest, her fingertips extremely sensitive to the golden hair that flourished across that breadth. With lowered eyes she moved her hands to his thighs, and then swallowed nervously as she saw the inner flesh there—and the injury that had healed to a long white line. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it, and she fought the memory of his pain and her own cruelty. He had healed marvelously. But that had probably been her doing. She had closed the wound, and she had bathed and packed it with the healing weeds and clay. She had hurt him, yes, but she had also gently helped him.
And even on that long-ago day by the stream, she had been frighteningly aware of him as a man. And when she had escaped him, she had never thought that in a thousand years she would find herself touching him again, frighteningly aware of him again, but much more so with him so casually naked and demanding.
She jerked her hands away once more and folded them in her lap and sat stiffly. She was no longer touching him, but still she could feel him, and what she felt was steel. He was the stronger … the conqueror. He was aptly proving it all to her.
“Thank you,” he murmured gravely, his amused mockery obvious.
Erin stood quickly and drew away from him and the bed, swiftly retreating to the shuttered window. This time he didn’t stop her.
She kept her back to him, hearing his quiet movements about the room as he dressed, fully aware that his eyes were upon her the entire time. The subtle scent of the sandalwood oil was still within the room, a pleasant and masculine scent—a scent she would come to always associate with him.
It was he who spoke again. “I really have no desire to make you miserable,” he said quietly. “I simply needed you to understand that I will not have my life made so by a hateful and treacherous woman. I haven’t time to deal with your petty dreams of revenge. I am sorry that your aunt died. I have no excuse for what I am—a Viking. But I choose to be a builder now rather than a destroyer. It is a pity that fate brought us together before now, because all I desire is that you be a cordial queen. But fate did bring us together before, and circumstance has brought you here now. Accept that you are my wife—my possession. You may live peacefully and unbothered.”
“I was raised an Irish woman. The Brehon laws make me no man’s possession. How can I accept this?” Her voice was quiet and low, and haunted by misery and despair and pride.
Olaf felt a twinge of pity—and admiration. “Because you must. Brehon laws mean nothing to me. I am my own law. Still, I don’t seek to hurt you.”
“If you wish merely a peaceful coexistence,” she asked softly, “why do you wish to humiliate me so?”
“It is strange,” he said quietly, “that you can ask such a question. There was a time, Irish, when you did far worse to me. And you are still harboring a dream of ending my life. Keep it a dream, Irish. But today was not for vengeance, but because I believe it will be a kindness for you to realize that you cannot best or defy me. I do not have time to humor you. There are those who do not like this alliance. Dubhlain and Irish cities will be plagued by those who honor neither your father nor myself. There will be wars to fight and cities to rebuild. You must understand that if you cross me, you will be dealt with harshly.” He paused for a minute, but she didn’t reply. “I will send servants with a bath for you.”
“My sister—” Erin began.
“You may see your sister later,” he interrupted her. “I plan to send you a lady I believe you will find to your liking.”
Erin heard the door close behind him but she continued to stare sightlessly out the window, alternating between the despair that threatened to engulf her and the rage that she was powerless against the enemy who baited her mercilessly to prove his mastery. And wishing that he weren’t proving himself to be rational and clean, and, yes, a strikingly powerful and handsome man. It would have been easier to live with her hate undented by his positive assurance that he was not a murderer of women.
A tap sounded on the door again. She absently called, “Enter,” beginning to wonder what her life was to be, how
she was supposed to fill her days in this Norse stronghold.
“It is me, Rig, my lady. We have brought your tub and fresh water.”
Erin blushed as she remembered her gown hid little, but Rig went quickly about his business, supervising the arrival of her tub and the departure of Olaf’s. As the room emptied again, he kept smiling and bobbing, his voice very gentle as he said, “Anything you need, my lady, you will call on me. Yes?”
“Yes, Rig,” Erin said softly. “Thank you.” She smiled at the little man, unaware that she had made her first loyal friend within Dubhlain. He had taken one look at her beautiful, haunted eyes, at the misery in her still-kind smile, and he had fallen into adoration. Olaf was a lucky man. Rig decided. He had married for an alliance; he had unwittingly received a fine and rare gem.
“Your lady comes,” Rig murmured, dismayed by his blush of pleasure at her smile. Bowing out awkwardly, he closed the door behind him.
Erin suddenly felt her head begin to pulse with pain. Too much had happened too quickly.
She had been free. A dreamer. Sometimes a warrior. A woman with a vague vision that she would one day defeat the very man who now held her surely beneath his power. A man with apparently very little interest in her except to put her firmly in her place.
Thank God that was his only interest. A blush seemed to spread throughout her body. At least she had not been forced to receive him. That would have left her truly devastated.
If only she wouldn’t have played so recklessly with chance! She should have married Fennen. And if she had, surely she would have enjoyed the masculine scent of his body, the touch of firm and strong masculine flesh.
Erin closed her eyes, sickly aware that Fennen had never caused her to tremble like this man, that her Irish suitor’s kiss had left her mildly interested, but never quaking inside as she did with the mere glance and proximity of this golden Viking.
It is because I hate him so that I react so weakly and yet so violently when he is around, she thought desperately. He leaves me quaking with fear and fury, that is all.
But there was more she was refusing to admit. Because even as she had abhorred her task, her traitorous fingers had been fascinated by the ripple of muscle beneath them, by the tautening of his fine bronze skin.
Golden Surrender Page 13
