Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 03]

by The Tarnished Lady

  “After all, Eirik,” she continued in a surprisingly level voice, trying to ignore her heightened senses, “the queen bee lays up to two thousand eggs every day from March ’til October.”

  He shook his head from side to side in disbelief. “What will we do with all those bees? Turn the keep into one giant hive?”

  “You did not let me finish. ’Tis not an endlessly increasing supply. For example, the male drone bees die after they…” Eadyth’s words trailed off when she realized where her words had taken her.

  “After they…what?” he prodded.

  “Mate,” she said in a small voice.

  Eirik hooted with laughter. “Ah, Eadyth, is that not the way of the world? Men fornicating themselves to death. And women, well, women just buzzing off to another…flower.” He winked at her.

  Eadyth tried not to smile, but she could not help herself, even sensing there was more bad news to come. Eirik released one of her hands and reached up to touch her lips with his fingertips. “You should smile more often. You are not so barley-faced when you do.”

  Barley-faced! Eadyth stiffened at his backhanded compliment, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously when she noticed the mischievous glint in his blue eyes.

  “Mayhap you take life too lightly, you brute. Methinks you smile too much.”

  “Well, I give you credit, wife. A few hours ago, I did not think I would be able to smile again for a long, long while.”

  She slapped his hand away from her lips then and forcefully pulled her other hand from his grasp, demanding, “Spare me your mysterious words. What happened today?”

  “Steven burned all your beehives at Hawks’ Lair,” he disclosed bluntly. “There is not a bee betwixt there and Ravenshire.”

  Eadyth gasped and tears sprang to her eyes. “Was anyone hurt?” she whispered.

  “Nay, but it was a horrid mess—putting out the fires and cleaning up the debris. The fires spread over at least one hide of land.”

  “Why would Steven be so cruel? I have never hurt him. ’Tis obvious this latest act was aimed at me.”

  Eirik shook his head. “Nay, not just you. He means it as a warning to us all, but do not fear, my lady. I promise I will protect you and your son.”

  Eadyth was touched by his words, expressed with such heartfelt sincerity, and was about to tell him so when he continued, “And I will help you replace every one of the damn bees, even if I have to wear one of your bloody veils to do it.”

  Eadyth swiped at her eyes and tried to smile. “Now, that would be a sight to set the servants ashivering—the two of us walking through these gloomy halls in gossamer veils.”

  “Especially if we were wearing nothing beneath,” he added, flashing her a devastatingly seductive grin of deviltry.

  Too stunned to rebuke him, Eadyth lingered even after he had gone to his bedchamber to bathe. Did married couples do such perverted things? It was perverted, was it not?

  Eirik lay soaking his weary muscles in the huge wooden tub long after the water had cooled. Blessed Christ! He wished he could just meet Steven face to face and end his evil misdeeds. Surely God would not condemn him for such. Surely the world would thank him for it.

  And Eadyth? What of his lying wife? Should he allow her to confess her duplicity, as she so obviously chafed to do now? Or should he continue his own deceit a short while longer in hopes of discovering her true motives?

  Eirik did not doubt that she was surprised and sorely grieved by Steven’s burning her bees today. Unless…

  In some ways, it was too convenient that Eadyth had given him a goodly number of her precious stock for dowry and that she had just happened to remove them from Hawks’ Lair before the fire. The puzzle nagged at Eirik and he saw no ready answers. But he was determined to clear up the mystery. And soon.

  While he lay in the tub, he sent Wilfrid to fetch Sigurd. His trusted friend from the Norse lands listened carefully to his instructions. Eirik instructed Sigurd to go to Hawks’ Lair, the surrounding villages, even Jorvik, and learn everything he could about Eadyth and her associations with Steven of Gravely over the past years. If anyone could discover whether Eadyth was in collusion with Steven, it was his crafty retainer. He directed Sigurd to return as soon as possible.

  Aside from the danger, Eirik had another reason for wanting an answer with all haste. Of a sudden, he ached to consummate this marriage with his wedded wife. He had not bedded a woman for many, many sennights, and his body craved satisfaction between a woman’s thighs. But not just any woman, he realized with chagrin. He wanted to make love with the feisty Eadyth. Who would have ever believed it possible that The Raven, infamous for his woman-luck, lusted after his own true wife? Not the drab sparrow she pretended to be, but the sleek bird he suspected he would find under all her dowdy raiment.

  Throughout the day Eirik kept remembering her nude body in his bed the night before, wondering exactly how she would look without the ashes and drab garments, with the grease washed from her hair. Under his body in the throes of passion.

  Like a blind man the night before, he had begun to learn the womanly shape of her. Beneath that cold facade she liked to portray, he suspected there lay banked the embers of a hot sensuality, just waiting for the right man to blow them to life.

  Could he be that man? Did he want to be?

  Hell, yes!

  Eirik shook his head in self-derision, then lathered his hair and slid under the water to rinse. When he came up for air, Eadyth stood frozen in the middle of the room carrying a bundle of folded linens. She gawked at him in amazement, as if he were a whale blowing water through its breathing hole.

  He used both hands to slick the wet hair back off his face. And stood.

  Her jaw dropped like an iron weight.

  Eirik barely stifled a grin. “Would you hand me one of those drying cloths?”

  Eadyth was staring at a part of his body that liked to be stared at. Very much. He felt an immediate reaction, and his wife’s eyes shot upward in embarrassment.

  “What did you say?” she squeaked out.

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  “Would you hand me one of those cloths in your hands?” he asked with amusement.

  “Oh.” She stepped closer, making an obvious attempt to keep her straying eyes above his chest as he stepped out of the tub.

  Quickly, she laid the rest of the cloths on a chest and turned to leave.

  “Could you dry my back?” he asked, trying to delay her departure.

  He thought he heard a choking sound.

  “Please?”

  She returned to his side, practically dragging her feet. Reluctantly, she reached for a cloth and began to dry his back, starting with the shoulders.

  “You have a bad bruise on your shoulder. Does it hurt?”

  She pressed her fingertips inward, and he jerked. “God’s Bones! Of course it hurts.”

  “How did it happen?”

  He shrugged. “We were putting out the fires, and a smoldering tree limb fell on me. I have more than a few scratches, too, I warrant.”

  “The orchard trees burned, as well?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Yea, but many of them can be saved with careful pruning. Knowing your expertise in just about everything in the world, I have no doubt you will be able to revive them.”

  She ignored his taunting words. “You need to put some ointment on the bruise. The skin is broken.”

  “How about some of that lard from your hair?” he offered dryly.

  He felt her fingers hesitate, as if questioning whether he jested or was serious.

  “You did say it worked well on horses, did you not?”

  “Yea, I did, and you certainly fall in the same category, though more like a mule.” She laughed, and the tenseness left her fingertips as she continued drying him with gentle, sweeping strokes that left his senses uncommonly agitated.

  “Why is your skin always so hot?” she blurted out.

  “What?”
<
br />   He looked back over his shoulder. Eadyth was biting her bottom lip and blushing through that infernal gray film on her face.

  “Your body throws off heat like an oven.”

  “It does?” Eirik smiled. “Mayhap ’tis just you and your intoxicating nearness that warms me,” he teased.

  “Hah! Me and every other maid from here to Jorvik.”

  Eirik disregarded her insult and asked huskily, “I wonder, my lady wife, what would it take to turn you hot?”

  Eadyth’s face drained bloodless, making the ash even more uncomely. She threw the drying cloth aside with disgust and stepped away from him. “Stop muddling my senses all the time.”

  Eirik grinned. “I muddle your senses?” I would like to muddle a lot more than your senses right now, sweet witch. Why do you not come a little closer? Come, Eadyth, let us play a little game of…muddling.

  Her senses were not the only ones muddled, Eirik realized, as he looked down ruefully at his burgeoning arousal. He started to turn, then hesitated, lest he give her another shock.

  Shock be damned, he finally decided with a roguish grin, and turned anyway.

  Eadyth looked down, blushed again, then looked him directly in the eye, obviously realizing that he was teasing her. “Best you don some garments, my lord, or some of those crows you mentioned below stairs may find a new roosting spot.”

  It was Eirik’s turn to choke. He had to admire his wife’s quick wit, even when she turned it on him. Chuckling, he donned small clothes and a pair of faded braies, all the time watching her graceful movements as she put the cloths in a chest at the foot of the bed and proceeded to pick up his dirty garments and wet drying cloths, mopping the damp rushes near the tub into a pile for discard.

  “You need to be trimmed,” she remarked behind him as he ran an ivory comb through his shoulder-length hair.

  “Yea, I do,” he agreed, looking at himself in the polished metal above the washstand. “You can do it for me.”

  “I am not very good at hair cutting,” she balked.

  “God’s Breath, Eadyth! Have we finally uncovered something at which you are not the master?”

  She did not smile at his jibe.

  “Lighten up your countenance, wife. Life is too short to frown all the time.”

  “Cut your own hair, lackwit. I have no time for your foolery.” She started toward the door with her bundle of laundry.

  “Nay, stay and cut my hair. I cannot reach the back,” he cajoled. “Besides, I want to talk to you about Steven.”

  She returned reluctantly and laid the laundry down. When he was seated on a low stool, his back to her, he handed Eadyth a pair of shears.

  “How short do you want it?”

  He shrugged and drew an imaginary line across the back of his neck with a forefinger. “Short enough. Just do not nip my ears.” Or any other body part.

  She remained silent at his back as she held clumps of his hair together and clipped the ends off with the shears.

  “Eadyth, do you never laugh?”

  “Yea, I do, when I hear something laugh-provoking. Mostly, though, the things you consider amusing are just vulgar jests at my expense.”

  Well, that was mostly true, he supposed. “What would make you laugh?”

  “You tripping over that appendage betwixt your legs that you prize so highly,” she retorted quickly. He could feel the immediate regret for her hasty words in her fingertips which stilled in their work.

  Eirik chuckled. “You overestimate my powers of…enlargement,” he replied quickly, finding that he liked this lighter, less prim side of his wife.

  Wife!

  Eirik recalled his earlier thoughts about Eadyth and his yearning for consummation of their marriage vows. And the reason why he hesitated to do that which his body ached for—Steven of Gravely.

  Mayhap he should just toss her on the bed right now and be done with all the games. A day in bed with a willing woman was a damned good idea. He looked over his shoulder to find Eadyth scowling at his last words of humor.

  Maybe not, he decided wisely.

  Finished with the cutting, Eadyth ran a comb through his hair to check the evenness of her efforts. “’Tis good enough,” she declared, putting her implements aside, and tossing his hair clippings on the pile of damp rushes to be removed.

  She stood in the center of the room, as if pondering some weighty subject.

  “Eirik, I have wanted to discuss something important with you for a long time,” she said hesitantly.

  He sat down and motioned her to the chair beside him.

  “I am not proud of what I have done, but I would have you know why ’twas necessary to my way of thinking.”

  Eirik’s body became alert, knowing she planned to confess her masquerade. Now that he was aware of her ruse, Eirik saw clearly that Eadyth was an uncommonly handsome woman. What he had previously considered wrinkles were nothing more than temporary scowl lines. And that mouth of hers with its disarming mole, well, he looked forward to exploring it and many other parts of her body she had kept well hidden.

  But did he want her to confess before Sigurd returned with his report? One part of him needed to have the confession over with so that he could take her to bed and work out this fever of wanting in his blood. It was the part below the waist, for a certainty. The other, more logical part warned that he risked planting his seed in yet another woman who might be conspiring with Steven for his demise. No, he must wait a few more days until Sigurd’s return.

  Eirik tried to think of a way to forestall her confession. His senses came to full alert on one blossoming, tantalizing idea.

  “Eadyth, tell me more about those timekeeping candles of yours?”

  “Huh?”

  “You told me you specialize in timekeeping candles. What are they? Did you invent them yourself?”

  “Nay, King Alfred designed them first, many years ago. But I have experimented and refined mine so they are near perfect.”

  “Would they dare be any less?”

  “Do you want to know, or just make sarcastic remarks?”

  “I really want to know.”

  Eadyth looked at him warily but then explained, “The good Alfred devised candles of seventy-two pennyweights of wax that would burn for four hours, thus six candles per day in succession to mark the time. I developed one extra-large candle, with hour markings, that would burn for twenty-four hours, thus—”

  “Thus eliminating the need for someone to remember to light the subsequent candles,” he finished for her, impressed, despite himself, with her ingenuity. “They must needs be huge.”

  “Exactly. And very expensive, but still people buy as many as I can make.” She studied him quizzically for several moments before asking, “Why did you want to know about my candles?”

  So, she does not accept my sudden interest in her wonderful talents. Clever lady! “You do not want to know.”

  “Yea, I do.”

  “Well, if you insist.” Before I am done with you, you will learn never to lie to me again. You will regret your masquerade much more than you could possibly guess. “I was wondering—could you make me a five-hour candle?” he asked meekly.

  She raised an eyebrow, her suspicions definitely aroused now. “For what purpose?”

  I thought you would never ask, my prim and proper little wife. Let me see if I can muddle your senses a bit more. “Have you ever heard of the five-petaled lotus?” Not in a thousand years, I wager, especially since I just conjured it up in my mind.

  “Nay.” She frowned, obviously trying to connect his question about timekeeping candles with a lotus flower. “Does the flower have aught to do with the type of candle wax produced when bees gather petal dust from it?”

  Eirik could barely keep from rubbing his hands together with relish before saying casually, “Nay, it has more to do with what is done during the five hours the candle is burning.”

  “Oh?”

  “I am sure you would not be interested.” He exa
mined his fingernails in a bored fashion. Ask me. Ask me. Ask me.

  “You have piqued my interest.”

  Peak! That is the key word here, my trusting little pigeon. And you stepped very nicely into my word trap, thank you very much. “Well, if you really want to know, there was a caliph in one of those eastern harems—”

  “Oh, nay, not another one of those harem tales of yours!”

  He raised his eyebrows innocently. “Have I told you this saga afore?”

  “Remember, you mentioned once that sheer fabrics, like my beekeeping veils, are used for a different purpose in the eastern harems.”

  “I had forgotten. Nay, ’tis another tale.” He wagged his fingers impatiently in the air in front of his face. “This one involves time, and mayhap your candles.”

  She eyed him skeptically with the most beautiful violet eyes he had ever seen, finally prodding, “Go on.”

  Oh, I love it, I love it. “As I was saying, there was a caliph in an eastern harem who bought a slave girl who did not appreciate the honor of sharing his bed.”

  “Humph!”

  “Even when he agreed to make her his eleventh wife, she refused to let him ease himself with her bodily charms.”

  “Eleventh! Hah! He was probably too tired to do more than breathe.”

  Eirik grinned, satisfied that he had snared her interest, looking forward to trapping her in the web of her own curiosity. “He tried gifts, aphrodisiacs—”

  “Aphro…what?”

  Eadyth’s question stopped Eirik short for a moment, setting all kinds of indecent fantasies in motion in his head. When he regained his composure, he said gruffly, “Let us save that explanation for another time. Are you going to keep interrupting me? If so, mayhap we will miss dinner, and I am mightily hungry.”

  “Go on, I promise not to interrupt again.”

  I doubt that sincerely. “In any case, the caliph tried everything, but to no avail. Finally, he consulted a wise old man who told him of the five-petaled lotus.”

  He looked over to Eadyth who was leaning forward with interest. That is a good trusting bird, Eadyth. Just a little longer.