The weight of his father’s stare settled on him again. ‘Aye, you will.’ Then he rose to his feet, his hand shaky on the chair as he pushed himself up. Gunnar moved forward, but the old man put his hand up to stop any assistance and stepped slowly towards the bed almost as if the conversation had taken the last of his strength. After he sat, he looked up again and their amber eyes clashed. ‘You were not my first choice, Gunnar, but you are a solid choice. You have my support. I will make sure the men know that. Go, and send Dom in.’
Gunnar could only stare at the man and see the future that he’d been headed towards. Without Kadlin, this is how he would meet his end. He’d live out his life knowing that he had never fought for the woman he loved. Just as his father had done. Giving his head a shake, he acknowledged that he deserved more than that. Kadlin deserved more than that. She deserved to know that he wanted her, needed her and would do anything to keep her. Anything. Nothing mattered except what she thought of him. Not her father, his father, no one mattered except for them and the child they had created. Right now, she despised him and he couldn’t blame her, but he’d not let that stand.
He turned to leave, but stopped at the door to look back at his father. Though his anger with the man had died, he couldn’t summon any stirrings of tenderness, only pity. It was shameful that the man had wasted his life in bitterness. He could, however, thank him for finally letting him know what he had kept quiet for so long. The knowledge wouldn’t change the past, but he’d make sure that it would alter his future for the better. ‘Thank you, Father.’
His father glanced at him and something passed between them in that quick look. It wasn’t acceptance or love, but a small glimpse of understanding. In that look, Gunnar understood what his father had never been able to articulate. His severity had never been about Gunnar, but about his own disappointments. There had been nothing Gunnar could have ever done to overcome that. It was too late for them, but not for Kadlin. Not for Avalt. He had a lifetime with them ahead.
Gripping the door frame with one hand and the sapling with the other, he pulled himself from the room. He was exhausted. His muscles all but shook with fatigue. The limp was even more pronounced. Spying Dom and Hilla across the hall, he threw himself down on to the nearest bench, too tired to make the trip. They both rushed over, making him think he must look as horrible as he felt. As Hilla tsked over his wound and began the agonising process of cleaning the blood away, he leaned back against the wall and let his thoughts wander to Kadlin and Avalt. It wasn’t over. He wouldn’t allow the mistakes of his father to rule his future any more. They were his and he would claim them.
* * *
Kadlin awoke the moment an arm went around her waist, pulling her back against a broad chest. Even in the darkness, she knew that it was Gunnar. His scent enveloped her as completely as his arm held her secure to his chest. She closed her eyes and allowed herself just a moment to revel in the comfort of his hold and the knowledge that he was safe. His lips brushed her neck before he buried his face in her hair and took a deep breath. It didn’t really surprise her to awaken in her childhood chamber to find Gunnar there, but she hadn’t expected him to come. She’d spent the past days certain that whatever had been between them was over for ever.
She had come home only to realise that it didn’t feel like home any more. Home was the farm. Nay, home was Gunnar. The farm had been a sanctuary, but never a home until Gunnar had made it so. Home was here in his arms.
‘How do you keep getting in here? I’m beginning to doubt the strength of my father’s fortifications.’
He laughed and kissed her neck again. The harsh rasp of his short beard made her shiver and sent a thrill of pleasure to her belly. It was so easy for him to do that to her, to reduce her to a puddle of need without even trying. ‘Don’t fear, love. This time I’m here by his consent.’
That made her eyes shoot open and she sat up so quickly he had no choice but to relinquish his hold on her. ‘What?’
The sounds coming from the house outside her chamber assured her that it wasn’t very late in the evening. A glance assured her that Avalt hadn’t come to bed yet, which meant that her mother hadn’t relinquished him yet. She’d left them playing outside in the twilight, going to her chamber because it seemed to be the only escape from her family’s constant prodding about what had happened between them on the farm. Also, it was the only place she was safe to indulge her own fear that something terrible had happened to Gunnar. Flein had relayed the information about Baldr to her father once they had arrived and he’d been so alarmed that he had gone with a group of his men to aid in the fight, but hadn’t returned yet.
Gunnar shifted, leaving the bed, and in moments a few candles flickered to life. It wasn’t much light, but enough to make out his form and bring colour to his face when he returned to set a candle on the bedside table.
‘Oh, Gunnar, what happened to you?’ Rising to her knees so that she could reach him, her fingertips brushed near the swollen flesh above his cheekbone and then the cut above his eye. ‘Did you fight Baldr?’
His large hand, a strip of linen wrapped around the swollen knuckles, caught hers and brought it to his lips before dropping it and moving slowly to sit on the bed. He winced and her attention moved to the side he seemed to be favouring. Her hands were already on the linen pulling it up, before his fingers intercepted her. ‘It’s merely a small cut, nothing to worry yourself over. Aye, there was a fight, but Jarl Leif is safe. He arrived after everything had been settled and has stayed behind to pay his final respects to my father.’
‘I know that I should say I’m sorry for your father. Flein mentioned that he is sick, but I cannot. He caused so much—’
‘It doesn’t matter, Kadlin. That’s over.’
His eyes were so clear and warm as they looked down at her that her breath caught in her throat. Then he smiled at her and it was a true smile untouched by bitterness or anger, and it made her see anew just how handsome he was despite the injuries. ‘What happened with Baldr?’
‘Defeated. He’ll be exiled.’
‘Oh.’ His explanation seemed like a brush off, but then, she hadn’t really expected that he would not defeat Baldr and the specifics really didn’t seem to matter as long as Gunnar was safe. She wanted to ask if he was staying, if the defeat meant that he could take the jarl’s place when the time came, or if he was planning to leave. Then she realised the only question that mattered right now was why he was in front of her. She opened her mouth to ask, but just as she did, the pad of his thumb brushed across her bottom lip, stealing her breath yet again.
‘My father has given me his favour and his men have sworn their allegiance to me.’
‘That’s wonderful. It’s what you’ve always wanted.’ She meant it, but even she knew that her enthusiasm hadn’t reached her eyes.
‘I’ve come to take you home with me to be my wife.’
He said it so simply, as if it could be the easiest thing in the world. Perhaps it could be if she wasn’t still hurting inside. The intensity of his gaze was too much, so she dropped hers to the blanket. He moved slowly and sat on the bed beside her, his knee brushing her thigh. ‘I’m not sure what to say.’
‘Fair enough. I’ll talk. There are things I should have said to you long ago and I’ll say them now. I’ve always loved you, Kadlin. That much you must have suspected, but you don’t know how much I struggled with knowing how to love you. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know how to take care of you. I only knew that no one believed in me, believed that I could be a warrior, a man worthy of you.’ When she looked up at him, ready to point out that she had, he took her hand and nodded. ‘Aye, I know that you did. You were the only one, but I couldn’t be that man until I believed that I was that man. There was so much that I needed to learn to deserve you. If I could go back and do it all again I would make sure that you knew how I felt about you. I
would have asked you to wait for me. I love you, Kadlin. I should have told you back then. I should have given you the promise to come back to you because it was there inside me. I just didn’t know how to say it. There will never be another person I love as I love you. Never. I know that I haven’t been worthy of your love, but I will do everything that I can to deserve it. I know that I can’t demand your trust on that, but I will earn it going forward. Come back with me. Give me a chance and I’ll prove to you that I’m the man you deserve, the father Avalt deserves.’
Her breaths had become short because she couldn’t get air past the ache in her chest. He was saying all the things that she had ever longed to hear from him, but she couldn’t quite believe the words. ‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t know how much it hurt me to watch you leave and then to later find out that I was with child. Gunnar...it was the most wonderful and terrifying time of my life. I’d only ever wanted to be your wife, to bear your children, but to do it alone was terrifying.’
‘Kadlin...’ Her name came out as a breath filled with pain. It threatened to break her heart. ‘If I had known, I would have come to you. Why didn’t you try to reach me?’
The ache in her chest moved up her throat, stealing her ability to speak until it finally receded, but her eyes had filled with tears. ‘You told me you didn’t want me, Gunnar. What was I to do, send for you and trap you into a marriage you didn’t want?’
He moved closer, his lips brushing across her cheeks and eyelids as he kissed the tears away. ‘Kadlin... Kadlin...don’t cry. I’m here now and there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t wanted you. Your dreams are mine, as well.’ His voice was strained so he cleared his throat before speaking again. ‘Our children around us, a fire in the hearth and the winter raging outside. Every time I ever dared imagine the future, that’s what I saw. I saw your beautiful face and our children. It’s what’s meant for us. Let it be now.’
Closing her eyes against the ache of tears, she pushed the imagery away so that she had a hope of continuing with what she needed to say. Even without seeing it, the weight of his gaze touched her. ‘But how can I trust you again?’
He sat back just enough to look down at her. ‘I have faith that you can and I’ll keep proving myself to you until you do. In another life, we could have had this all along. I’d never have been apart from you. Our friendship as children could have been nurtured to grow into something powerful and consuming. This is the life we have and, despite all that’s happened, what we have has grown into something powerful. We are so much stronger together than we could ever be separately. You’ll see that when you come home with me.’
‘You say that as if it’s a foregone conclusion.’
He smiled, a hint of desire shining through. ‘I have to return tomorrow and I want to take you and Avalt with me. I won’t force you to be my wife or to stay with me. All I want is for you to give us a chance. If you choose not to return now, then I’ll come back every day to remind you that I love you. I don’t want a day to pass that you don’t hear those words from me and I don’t want Avalt to ever grow up thinking that I don’t love him or that I regret his birth.’
‘It’s too far for you to come every day.’ She couldn’t resist the tease.
‘Then I’ll make camp and wait for you.’ His smile had vanished as if he was serious about that.
He spoke as if what he declared was easy, as if there was nothing to lose. Perhaps he didn’t understand how it had almost destroyed her when he hadn’t returned for her. ‘I’m afraid of giving us a chance. You hurt me before, Gunnar. I can’t just brush that aside.’
His arms wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closer to him until her hands settled on his shoulders. ‘We can’t change the past, Kadlin. We can only move forward. You only have to believe that I’ll do everything in my power to keep you happy, just as I believe you will do the same. Do you believe?’
‘I want to.’
A grin spread across his face and his arms tightened around her. ‘You and Avalt mean everything to me. I won’t let you down again. You have my vow and my faith. I promise that I will earn yours. I’m just asking for a chance. I’ve gone without you in my life for as long as I can. There’s not a future for me without you.’
Before her was the man that she had always caught glimpses of, but could never see clearly in him. He’d come into his own and the transformation was breathtaking. She was nodding before she even knew what words she would say. The light in his eyes glowed brighter. ‘Is that an aye?’ he whispered.
‘Aye.’ With her hands on either side of his face, she pulled him down to her. His mouth claimed hers in a fiery kiss as his fingers clenched her nightdress, pulling her even tighter against him until he winced and she pulled back just enough to gauge his pain. ‘You’re wounded. I almost forgot.’
He chuckled and pulled her back to him. ‘That won’t stop me. I’ve waited too long for you.’ Before she could brace herself, he gently toppled her so that she landed on her back on the bed. He followed her more gingerly until he was lying upon her, staring down into her face.
She gasped at the pleasurable shock of the weight of his muscled body pressing down on hers. ‘You really don’t know what’s good for you, do you?’ she teased and tangled her fingers in the hair on the back of his head.
‘Aye, I know exactly what’s good for me. You, love. Only you.’
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE CAPTAIN AND HIS INNOCENT by Lucy Ashford.
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The Captain and His Innocent
by Lucy Ashford
Chapter One
Kent, England—1815
In the grey light of a January afternoon, two dark-clad men stood on a lonely shingle beach gazing out to sea. ‘Soon we won’t be able to see a thing out there, Captain Luke,’ muttered the older one restlessly. ‘This wretched mist that’s rolling in is as thick as the porridge they used to give us in the army.’
‘Be grateful for that mist, Tom.’ Luke Danbury’s eyes never shifted from the forbidding grey sweep of the sea. ‘It means the Customs men won’t spot Monsieur Jacques’s ship out there.’
‘I know, Captain. But—’
‘And I wish,’ Luke went on, ‘that you’d stop calling me Captain. It’s over a year since you and I left the British army. Remember?’
Tom Bartlett, who had a weatherbeaten face and spiky black hair, glanced up warily at the taller, younger man and clamped his lips together for all of a minute. Then he blurted out, ‘Anyway. I still think you should have sent me as well as the Watterson brothers to bring in Monsieur Jacques. It would be just like the pair of them to lose their way out there.’
‘Would it?’ Luke’s face held the glimmer of a smile. ‘While you and I were soldiering in the Peninsula, Josh and Pete Watterson were in the navy for years—remember? Those two don’t lose their way at sea, whatever the weather. They’ll be here soon enough.’
Tom looked about to say something else; but already Luke was walking away from him to the water’s very edge, a low sea breeze tugging at his long, patched overcoat and his mane of dark hair.
‘Well,’ Tom was muttering to himself as he watched him,
‘I hope you’re right, Captain. I hope those Watterson brothers will row the French monsieur to shore a bit faster than their wits work.’ He glanced up at the cliffs behind them, as if already picturing hostile faces spying on them, hostile guns pointed at them. ‘Because if the Customs men from Folkestone spot us, we’ll be clapped in irons fast as we can blink, you and me. And that’s a fact.’
The other man stood with his hands thrust in his pockets, studying the mist that rolled ever thicker across the sea. As if his gaze could penetrate it. As if he could actually see the coast of France; could even perhaps picture the far-off place where last year his brother had vanished without trace.
Bitterness filled Luke Danbury’s heart anew. He clenched and unclenched his gloved right hand, thinking... News. He had to have news, one way or another. He was tired of waiting. He needed to know—for better or worse.
Behind him Tom Bartlett, once his loyal sergeant-at-arms, had started grumbling again softly, but broke off as Luke shot out his hand for silence.
Because Luke’s sharp ears had registered something. And, yes—a moment later, he could see it, a rowing boat slowly emerging from the mist, with two men pulling at the four oars, while another man in a black coat and hat leaned forward eagerly from the bow. Tom was already wading into the shallows, ready to reach out a hand to the black-clad passenger and help him ashore as the boat’s keel grated on shingle. ‘There we are now, monsieur!’ Tom was calling in welcome. ‘You’ll enjoy being back on dry land again, eh?’
‘Dry land, yes.’ Jacques laughed. ‘And with friends.’
Tom preened a little at that praise, then turned to the Watterson brothers, who were making the oars secure; brothers who looked so like each other, with their mops of curling brown hair, that they might have been twins. ‘Well, you rogues,’ declared Tom. ‘I always said the navy’s better off without you. You took that much time, I thought you’d lost your way and rowed to France and back.’
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