He shook his head and then grimaced from the pain. ‘Send it with Vidar, if he’s still here.’
* * *
‘Mama!’ Her son toddled into the house, a smooth river rock held out in his small, chubby hand. ‘Treasure!’
Kadlin scooped him up and exclaimed over the treasure he had found. ‘It’s beautiful. We can add it to the collection.’ She set him down so he could go put it in the basket holding the other rocks he had found and deemed suitable for his collection. She smiled as he gave the alcove a quick glance and a wide berth as he went past it. She’d added a heavy blanket as a curtain as soon as Gunnar had been settled inside, so the child had only heard the strange noises coming from it. It was no wonder he was frightened.
‘Thank you, Ingrid.’ She turned and smiled at Harald’s daughter who had followed her son inside. ‘Could I get you something to eat?’
‘No, thank you, ma’am. I need to be getting home.’ With a nod, the girl left.
‘Come, Avalt, let me feed you.’
The boy was too busy admiring his collection to pay her any attention, until Vidar emerged from the alcove. He stopped playing and looked up, waiting until Vidar met his gaze before running to his mother. She laughed softly and scooped him up, cuddling him close as he intently watched Vidar’s approach. He’d been excited to have a man in the house and had generally welcomed Vidar with the enthusiasm of a young child fascinated with someone new. But the fact that he had emerged from the mysterious alcove had set the toddler on edge.
‘Can we not give him more of the laced mead?’ Vidar scowled as he set the empty bowl on the hearth. ‘He’s as irritable as a bear.’
Kadlin stifled a sigh of relief that Gunnar had drunk it all. She’d been worried that he would deny himself nourishment or that his stomach would rebel against the contents, since he’d apparently had nothing in weeks except for the mead concoction.
When she didn’t answer immediately, Vidar brushed past her with an accusatory look. ‘The Saxon witch sent plenty, enough to last for many more weeks. His leg pains him and his head is unbearable.’
‘Nay, he’s had enough. His head wound has healed. I believe it pains him now only because his body has grown to crave the mead. Once he’s gone without it a few days, that will improve. Besides, did you see him?’ Though his shoulders were still broad, Gunnar had lost the heft that came from fighting and his ribs shone through his skin. Even his face showed how gaunt he was; his cheeks had hollowed a bit and dark circles surrounded his eyes. ‘He’s wasting away. He won’t eat unless we wean him from the mead and he needs the nourishment more than he needs the relief from the pain.’ Though the groans from his pain still echoed in her ears and they tore at her. As much as she had tried to harden her heart against him in the years since his abandonment, she couldn’t bear the image of him in pain.
‘It’s cruel. He needs relief from his pain. Nourishment or not, he’ll never walk again. He’ll never carry a sword or stand a ship. Let him have his solace from the pain. What does the rest of it matter?’ It appeared that he had more to say, but he stopped when she rounded on him.
‘What does it matter? That is your brother lying in there. Are you saying that his life isn’t worth anything without that leg to support him? Are you saying that we should leave him to his mindless solace instead of trying to heal him?’
‘You heard Harald just as I did. Gunnar will not use that leg again. You know him as well as I do, or even better, I’d wager.’ He indicated the baby in her arms with his dark, flaming hair so like his father’s.
Kadlin stifled a gasp of surprise. She’d known that her son resembled his father, but she hadn’t realised exactly how much until she had seen Gunnar again. Apparently, the resemblance was visible to those who had a reason to suspect.
Vidar had the presence of mind to seem chastised and lowered his tone. ‘You know that he wouldn’t want to live with that leg.’
She couldn’t deny the truth of those words. The despair Gunnar had felt upon seeing the injury was imprinted on her mind for ever. He would think it was a weakness, an unbearable flaw that wasn’t to be overcome. ‘That choice isn’t his to make. Eirik sent him to my care, so I will see that he recovers. I hope to make him see that his life can still be good.’
Vidar grunted and walked to the front door, but stopped to turn to her. ‘You haven’t a chance, but I wish you luck. I’m going to see if Ingrid needs an escort home.’ He grinned and walked out.
‘Vidar!’ She waited until he’d popped his head back in before lowering her voice. ‘Please don’t tell anyone your suspicions.’ It was widely assumed that her son’s father was her late husband. No one except her parents knew that it was Gunnar.
Vidar looked towards Avalt and nodded. ‘I won’t say a word.’ Then he left, running to catch up to Ingrid.
Kadlin hugged her child tighter and buried her face in his curls. Vidar was right. She knew in her bones that his words weren’t just those of a young warrior unable to imagine life with an injury like Gunnar’s. His feelings were those shared by almost every man that she knew. An injury that left one lame was an injury that should result in death. Was she selfish to want Gunnar’s recovery even if he himself didn’t? She didn’t know, but she did know that it wasn’t in her power to grant him that alternative. He would recover. Despite her often confused and unfortunate feelings for him, she held no illusions about a future with him. She would heal him because the boy she had known deserved a second chance at life and Avalt deserved a chance to know his real father. She only needed to figure out if his father deserved him.
Chapter Six
Gunnar stayed awake the entire day. It was his first day of full consciousness and he despised it. His entire body throbbed in pain. He alternated between cursing every living Saxon male and vowing to get revenge, to lamenting the fact that the bloody horse hadn’t killed him. Then he laughed at the thought. It wasn’t a Saxon that had bested him at all, but his own horse. There were no tales about a noble warrior falling in battle because of his horse. And there would be no tales because it was ludicrous and pathetic. There was absolutely nothing to celebrate about it.
He was sure that his father had heard the details by now and he imagined the man laughing at the fact that his bastard couldn’t even die in battle properly. It had been his one goal for Gunnar. All of his training, his entire life had been geared towards becoming a warrior. While Eirik had also been trained for battle, their father had made sure that the elder brother was trained in diplomacy and commerce—skills necessary for a jarl. But Gunnar was never meant for that life. He was meant to fight and die by the sword. And his death was meant to bring glory and pride to his father. Try as he might, Gunnar couldn’t summon the energy to lament his father’s loss.
Eirik’s farm wasn’t so far from his father’s hall at a full day’s ride. He wondered if his father might trouble himself to make the trip just to finish him off. But he couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face when he imagined Kadlin meeting the man at the door. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. And if it came down to a battle of wills between her and his father, Gunnar would bet every last piece of gold he owned that she would win.
The woman was magnificent. But thoughts of her brought with them an ache so intense that he tried to close off his mind to them. Except there was nothing to do but lie there and listen to the sounds of life going on in the house around him. Even if he wanted no part of it. There was no life for him and he didn’t want it taunting him. He tried his best to close those sounds out, but occasionally they would reach his ears anyway. A chuckle he recognised as Vidar’s or the low, soft voice he knew to be Kadlin’s. That was the one sound he tried to eliminate above all others. He’d imagined her voice many times over the years, had made up entire conversations with her in his head, but now the sweet tones only made the pain in his heart unbearable. That voice and its soft words belonged
to her husband now.
The mere thought of the man he barely remembered was enough to make Gunnar gnash his teeth against the pain that welled within him. It wasn’t the pain of someone else loving her—he couldn’t fault anyone for that—but it was that she loved someone else. Only love would have prompted her to marry. She had said as much herself when she had explained why she had refused Eirik. He wanted to understand that. Hoped that in understanding he could overcome his urge to kill the son of a bitch who had married her, but it was useless. The fact that she loved someone else, had given herself to him with the same sweetness she had given herself to Gunnar, was like an open wound festering inside him.
Now he was nothing but a burden to her, unceremoniously dumped at her door like an unwanted vagrant. He’d seen the wariness in her eyes, the perfunctory look on her face as she’d seen to his care. He was a burden she hadn’t sought out or asked for. What woman would want to devote her time to caring for someone as grievously injured as himself? There was no real recovery for him, no real life to go back to. He wasn’t a warrior, or even a man any more. He was nothing.
A child squealed as someone chased it across the room. Gunnar could hear its footfalls as it ran across the wooden floor, followed by heavier ones. Nay, perhaps that was the worst sound of all. Worse than Kadlin and her beloved voice. The child was a reminder of all that he had lost. His stolen childhood; the secret life with Kadlin that he’d only allowed himself to dream of on the coldest nights; their children around them in their hall as a fire blazed in the hearth and he told them stories from his battles. His eyes shot open when the scene became too vivid and painful. He’d almost forgotten those scenes.
The child squealed again and the girl—Ingrid, he’d heard her called—spoke to it and carried it outside. He wished she would keep her child at home, but perhaps she lived with Kadlin. With a gasp of pain, he swung his legs over the side of the bench and wobbled as nausea and dizziness warred for dominance within him. In the end, he was able to overcome both and braced his right foot on the ground to support his good leg as he leaned forward to grasp for the bucket he’d been reduced to using to relieve himself. When he was finished, he cast a disdainful glance at the large stick that had been left for his use. In his mind, he saw Harald wobbling around using a similar crutch for balance and recoiled at the thought of using it himself. But another need won out and made him grab it to hoist himself to his feet.
It was the need to flee. He wouldn’t stay there with her. This wasn’t his life. He wouldn’t be a burden and he wouldn’t submit himself to the life of the lame. He’d leave to find some hovel to die in.
But the moment he tried to push himself to his feet, the pain in the lame knee and shin became so intense that he fell to the bench and would have fallen to the floor if he hadn’t braced the stick against the wall so that it caught his weight. He managed to bite back the howl of pain, smothering it to a grunt, but he couldn’t stop the black spots that swam before his vision. A sweat had broken out on his brow as he fell back on the bench and his breath came in great, heaving gulps, causing sharp pain to stab into his ribs like a knife’s blade. He’d try another day and keep trying until he could go.
* * *
‘Why are you tormenting me?’ Gunnar closed his eyes to the sight of Kadlin sitting at his bedside bearing food.
‘Is it torment to bring you nourishment?’ she asked, stiffening her spine against the cut of his words.
‘Aye.’ His voice was a raspy whisper.
It made the skin of her neck tingle in a way that might have been pleasant if she allowed herself to acknowledge such feelings for him. Those feelings had last sneaked in that morning just two days ago, when he had awakened to her bathing him. His tender gaze and words for her, before he’d realised his injury, had been wonderful. For one brilliant moment, it had been like the years apart had never happened. That, perhaps, they had shared those years together and she was awakening him as she might if she had been his wife. Even knowing his pain, his roughened voice and nude body had awakened her own so that the urge to climb into bed and hold him had been almost too great to resist with the clarity of his gaze on her.
But just for a moment.
When she didn’t immediately reply, he cracked an eyelid and glared from her to the platter of meat and broth in her hands and then back to her face. ‘I don’t want it. I have all I need right here.’
Her eyes widened at the sight of the laced mead tucked under his arm. Gunnar had requested all of his meals through Vidar and she had left the boy to the task, thinking to not force her presence on Gunnar and upset him while he was recovering. Vidar had always returned with empty bowls and platters, so she had assumed Gunnar’s appetite had returned and all was going well. It wasn’t a mistake that she’d repeat.
‘That little worm!’ Slamming the platter of food down on to the small table, she reached over Gunnar, intent on grabbing the cask of mead. But he held tight and refused to relinquish it. They struggled for a moment, but his grasp on it was remarkably strong for someone so weak.
‘Nay, I assure you, he’s quite large. You should remember,’ he mocked when she glared at him.
Both hands on the cask, her brow furrowed to see such a teasing grin curving his attractive mouth, his amber eyes half-lidded and lazy with the laced mead. His gaze held hers briefly, but then moved to where her torso was positioned across his hips, her breasts pressed to his groin. He nodded towards that part of his body when he spoke. ‘I’m heartbroken you’ve forgotten his size, but if you allow me a few weeks more to recover myself, I’ll be happy to refresh your memory.’
This was the Gunnar she remembered. Not the boy who would seek out her bed at night when he needed to escape his own home, but the man that boy had become. The one who was mocking and arrogant, and who used those talents to keep others at bay. The one who would stare at her from across the hall with eyes so deep and wrenching that they took her breath away, but in the next moment could wound her deeply by ignoring her for the rest of the evening. The one who kept himself aloof, just as he was trying to do now by making her believe their one night together could be relegated to a few words of banter.
Or perhaps he really felt that way. Perhaps she had just been another woman to him. The thought caused a knot to swell in her throat and it made her unreasonably angry, because she had dealt with her feelings for him. She had wrestled with them and caged them as any intelligent person would handle such wild things bent on doing nothing but harm.
She gave a harsh tug that made a grimace of pain cross his face when she took possession of the cask. She might have regretted the roughness had the pain not washed away the facade so that she saw a glimpse of the true Gunnar in his face. The one with the soulful eyes that spoke of heartbreaking sadness.
Regaining her footing, she rose to her full height and looked down at him. ‘This isn’t good for you, Gunnar. It makes you sleep and not eat. Your body can’t be strong without food.’
‘Leave me,’ he grumbled and shifted on the bench, trying to find comfort.
Kadlin had expected his coldness, but expecting it didn’t make it hurt any less. Though she told herself that it’s what she preferred. It revealed his true intentions towards her and wasn’t something he could cover up with his teasing words. She had thought their years apart had hardened her to him. His abandonment should have made her stop longing for him. It was easy to pretend that she had succeeded when he was off fighting in a world so vastly different from her own and she believed that he cared nothing for her. But seeing him now...she admitted that she was a failure and that nothing had changed for her. She despised his nature and his ability to affect her, but she loved him all the same. It was a weakness of her character that she could not overcome, but that didn’t mean she had to give in to it. She could ignore her love. It was the only way to get through this.
Tossing the cask out of the alcove
, she picked up the food and resumed her seat. But he only shook his head, refusing to eat.
‘Why do you persist in prolonging this...this...’ he raised his hands to indicate their space in the alcove ‘this recovery, this sham of an existence? That is the torment. My head aches constantly and my body isn’t mine any more. I don’t want this. I want my mead and to be left in peace.’
‘Your head injury has healed. It’s the longing for the mead that makes it ache now.’
‘I don’t care what makes it ache now, I only want it to stop.’
‘I believe it will stop after you go a few days without the mead.’
‘Drinking the mead makes it stop.’ He stared at her with those heavy-lidded eyes that said he had already had too much of the stuff.
‘To what end, Gunnar? Will you drink until death claims you? Do you suppose you’ll find a place at Odin’s table now if you expire from imbibing too much of your laced mead? What do you suppose waits for you now?’
‘Nothing. Oblivion. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. At least I won’t be here.’ He scowled and settled back against the straw pillows that propped him up, his eyes staring straight ahead.
‘You’re a bitter man, Gunnar,’ she stated softly.
‘I’ve lost everything, Kadlin.’
‘What about those who might care for you?’
He laughed, a deep hollow sound that she could go the rest of her life without ever hearing again. ‘Aye, and what of those people? Who might they be? Eirik, who sent me here half-dead... He’s already said his piece. Vidar? The boy will recover quickly enough when he is given my treasure. Or do you mean Father? Do you think he’ll lament the loss of a bastard he’s never wanted? Especially one who has shamed him by getting injured instead of dying like a proper warrior should?’ But then his eyes flicked to her briefly before looking forward again. ‘Or do you mean yourself, Kadlin? Will you shed a tear for me when I die?’
One Night with the Viking Page 6
