Surrender To The Viking
Page 23
She glanced around the room and, as so often before, her gaze fell on the pile of war gear in the corner: shield, spear, axe, sword, helmet and byrnie. Suddenly, as though a dam had burst, memories flooded back: the voyage and the fight with Kal and how Alrik and Guthrum’s forces had joined with Finn to defeat Steingrim.
The recollections were accompanied by excitement and relief. Bit by bit everything was falling into place. After they had dealt with the foe, Finn brought her here to Ravndal and he’d given her a gift, an astonishing gift. She looked around trying to locate it and her eye came to rest again on the pile of war gear. Her heart beat a little faster. Getting to her feet she crossed the room.
Among the war gear were two swords. One was Finn’s: Foe Slayer. She reached for the other and drew it part way from the scabbard. The blue-grey metal gleamed softly, the patterns flowing through it like water. Steel whispered against wood and leather. Death Kiss...
In an instant all the rest came back and with it, loud and clear, the words that Finn had spoken. The woman I loved is already dead and you’ll never take her place. I don’t want your death on my conscience. Reeling as from an impact, she put a hand against the wall to stop herself from falling. If she’d once thought the pain in her head was bad it was as nothing compared to the hurt in her heart now. Finn didn’t love her and he never had. This latest display of concern was about guilt, nothing more. All the loving words were lies; intended to make her feel better perhaps, but lies nonetheless. Nothing had changed. In that moment she wished he hadn’t interceded with the gods at all.
‘Lara?’
His voice reached her from the far side of the room. She remained quite still, apparently contemplating the pile of war gear. ‘You were right when you said that the sword would tell me its name. It’s called Death Kiss.’
‘Most apt.’ He paused. ‘Did it tell you just now?’
‘No. It was the day that Steingrim returned.’ Slowly she laid the weapon down again and turned to face him but his image blurred through the water in her eyes. ‘I remember now. All of it.’
A muscle jumped in his cheek. ‘It was only a matter of time, my love.’
‘Don’t, Finn. There’s no point in pretending any more. Besides, I’m strong enough to bear the truth.’
‘I’m glad. This conversation is long overdue.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘What I said that day was a lie, Lara.’
‘No, what you told me this morning was a lie.’ As the extent of the deception became clear the fragile hold on her emotions began to unravel. ‘How could you do it? Were you secretly hoping my memory would never return?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And yet it would have been most convenient for you, wouldn’t it?’
‘I never wished any such thing. I swear it.’
‘You have learned how to be convincing, as you hoped you would be.’ She shook her head in self-disgust. ‘And I fell for it. I really believed you.’
‘You were right to believe.’
‘No, I was a gullible fool, eager to be told what I most wanted to hear. Your experience of women must have shown you that.’
‘Do you truly think me so devious?’
‘I’m no longer certain of anything, Finn.’
He paled. ‘I did not lie to you.’
‘Odds of six to one tell a different tale.’
‘I think you’d better explain because I’m clearly missing the point.’
‘You believed that you were going to die when Steingrim returned that day. That’s why you told me the truth. You knew you had nothing to lose.’
His gaze locked with hers. ‘You’re right about the first part. I did expect to die, although I thought I might account for two or three of them before the others cut me down.’ He paused. ‘But you couldn’t be more wrong about the rest of it.’
‘What possible reason could you have for lying at such a time?’
‘The best of reasons.’
‘Ah, yes, you didn’t want my death on your conscience.’
‘I wanted you out of there and I had to say something to make you leave so I deliberately chose the most hurtful thing I could think of.’
A lump formed in her throat. ‘You chose well.’ Better than you’ll ever know.
‘I wanted you to live. It was all that mattered.’
‘I’m grateful for the thought.’
‘Damn it, Lara. I didn’t say it in the expectation of earning your gratitude. I said it because I love you.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘If I’d had any sense I would have told you long before. I’d have told you the day you declared yourself only...’
‘Only what?’
‘I was afraid it had been just a casual comment.’
The blue-green eyes grew stormy. ‘A casual comment? Do you really imagine I would ever say such a thing without meaning it?’
‘Now? No. At the time... Those words were the ones I’d most hoped to hear you say and when you eventually did...well, it seemed too good to be true.’
‘You didn’t trust me.’
‘I didn’t trust myself.’ He sighed. ‘After what happened before, with Bótey, my relationships with women have been of a certain kind. I never expected to love again. I told myself that marriage with you was just a business arrangement. I tried to pretend I wasn’t attracted to you and eventually I tried to deny my deeper feelings.’
‘Why should you deny them?’ she demanded.
‘Such feelings make us vulnerable. I learned that the hard way. A man who loves nothing fears nothing. But that day when Steingrim returned and I thought he might kill you I was afraid and I knew then that I loved you more than my life.’ He paused. ‘Instead of saving yourself like any sensible woman ought to have done, you came back. That was when I knew beyond all doubt that you’d meant what you said before.’
Lara was silent. Such an interpretation had never occurred to her. Was it possible to have got things so wrong? She tried to think. In all the time she had known him Finn rarely revealed his deeper feelings, never mind discussed them, concealing them behind the barrier of his wit and apparently imperturbable manner. By laying his heart bare he made himself dangerously vulnerable, the one situation he had always sought to avoid. He’d given his heart once before and been betrayed. By offering it again he was taking a terrible risk. He couldn’t give his heart without also giving her the means to hurt him badly. It was a measure of his trust that he had done it. Not only that, he’d been prepared to lay down his own life to save hers.
Anger evaporated and suddenly she was blinking back tears. ‘Even if you didn’t love me it seemed better to die with you than live a lifetime without you.’
He folded her in his arms. ‘Oh, my sweet love. Steingrim was right when he said that I wasn’t worthy of you. In future I’ll try to do better.’
‘Steingrim was wrong. So wrong.’ The tears spilled over then in spite of all her efforts to check them. ‘I’m s-sorry. I d-didn’t mean to cry. I d-don’t usually.’
‘I know and I am ashamed to be the one responsible for it. I have hurt you in so many ways.’ He grimaced. ‘I even gave you the means to get yourself killed.’
‘No, you gave me a gift I value above any other. No one else would have thought of it.’
‘A halfway decent husband would have kept you safe not put you further into harm’s way.’
‘You didn’t. You taught me how to defend myself.’
‘I never met any woman one-half so courageous or as generous as you. Can you ever forgive me?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive. I love you, Finn. If I have your love in return it’s all that matters.’
‘You do have it. You’ll always have it.’
‘Then what you said about Bótey wasn’t true.’
/> ‘No. She belongs to the past.’ He sighed. ‘I was much to blame for what happened but not entirely. I’ve come to realise that absence and distance don’t alter love, not if it’s the real thing.’
‘I won’t try to keep you here if it’s your will to be gone.’
‘Any absences of mine will be of short duration. I meant what I said about that.’
‘I’m glad,’ she replied. ‘I’d rather have you here with me.’
‘That’s fortunate since you’d find me hard to get rid of.’
‘I don’t want to be rid of you. I want to build a future with you. That’s something I never thought I’d say to any man.’
‘It’s an honour I have done little to deserve.’
She looked up at him. ‘You see me for who I am, Finn. You don’t find fault and you don’t try to change me.’
‘Why would I want to change you when you’re perfect as you are? My brave, beautiful, indomitable Lara.’
He bent and kissed her, a lingering and tender embrace that conveyed more eloquently than words what was in his heart.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460333464
SURRENDER TO THE VIKING
Copyright © 2014 by Joanna Fulford
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