THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN

by Shehanne Moore

  “There’s a towel, isn’t there?”

  “If you could call that rag that. Now you have sent these other garments away with Snotra, I have nothing else. So, if you would just be so kind . . . ?”

  “Malice, let’s get something straight.”

  When he was fiddling with the ties of his breeches because he feared being unable to slide the damn things over his erection he hoped she didn’t notice the entendre. “I’m not kind. I’m a War Lord and the sooner you understand that, the better. The towel’s there. You can have my tunic if you want—”

  “Your tunic?”

  Only with the greatest of difficulties, did he refrain from breathing heavily down his nose. His voice was still a rasp. “It doesn’t have the plague.”

  “So you say. I don’t wear men’s clothes.”

  “Really? Then what the hell would you call that?” He landed his foot in the tunic. “And doing whatever the hell you, or someone else, did to your hair? Perhaps you’re not aware, but I’ve seen better looking birds’ nests. Rats’ nests.”

  “Then they must have been of the very best, when the fact is, to escape you Vikings there is nothing I would not have done.”

  Right. That was it. Enough was enough. The hot pool was steaming nicely and it wasn’t the only thing. He never lost his icy cool, born of long necessity and he never ever experienced flaming arrows of arrows of desire for other women. He wasn’t about to start now. He had the upper hand. Why fail to play it?

  Taking his lust by the throat, he choked it with steel gauntlets, squeezed it to the ground, placed it in a longship and respectfully set fire faggots on it.

  He also dragged a long, deep breath into the very pit of his lungs, then he pulled down his breeches. “Well, the fact is you didn’t. You didn’t even cut your nose off. So, I can only surmise you wanted to be taken.”

  “Me?”

  “You, sweeting. Now, I’m going to bathe, right here, right now. If you don’t like it, the towel’s there.”

  She snatched it up, her eyes wide as meat trenchers, her mouth working like a fish’s on dry land. Pleasure streaked through his gut at the sight. Not as deep a pleasure as the knowledge her face wasn’t always spectral white though. Of course rather a lot of tendrils of steam were rising from the azure pool.

  He kicked the breeches aside. “But, if you do, you can stay and get my back.”

  “No . . . I . . . I . . . I will forgo that doubtful pleasure on this occasion, if you do not mind.”

  Hadn’t she ever seen a naked man before? Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse, couldn’t have leapt any faster than she did from the water. She fastened that towel around her softly curved, soapy limbs.

  “Good. Then you can put on my tunic.”

  “Your tunic? I don’t want to put on your tunic. I want the clothes Snotra brought.”

  He shot out his hand. The jeopardy he placed himself in was as dizzying as it was worth it.

  “Well, then sweeting, you go out into the yard and you get them, just as you are.”

  She wouldn’t. Of course she wouldn’t. Not now he grasped the towel. She gave a wild, startled gasp, her eyes widening like swelling oceans as he tugged it free. His probably did as well but he fought to keep them narrowed and focussed on her face.

  “But, when you’re of a mind, the tunic’s there. Put it on while I get washed, then we’ll cross that yard together.”

  Chapter 7

  “I can comb her hair, Drottin. Make her look nice? Only . . .”

  As Malice sat there, trying not to turn her head, she realized her head turned anyway. Then it turned back. Comb her hair? Make her look nice? Only . . . Wasn’t that word one she would normally, not just take offense at, she would stand up and smack Plumplugs across her cart-horse jaw, before she could utter another? Fat Ears was certainly the correct translation of Plumplugs in English. What was it in Norse?

  “Hmmm?” He ceased his contemplation of whatever it was he contemplated at the table. The awful looking thing on four legs anyway, that sat under the rafters, not far from the hole in the roof where the smoke escaped from the fire downstairs. Mother of God how could he live in a place like this? That dreadful peaty room downstairs and all these dreadful, peaty people living in it. “Do what you like.”

  And really interested in Plumplugs doing that too, wasn’t he? A fat lot. Like the fat lot now preparing to sink the comb into Malice’s scalp, when she didn’t think she could take any more.

  Make her look nice? Only . . .

  That only was now upon her. There was the bed. With doors on. Yes. Really. They opened and they shut. She knew because they had been shut till Gentle opened them a few moments ago when he called for her to come up here. So Gentle had opened and shut the doors to let Malice see the bed was there, just when she’d been telling herself it wasn’t. All nicely made up too with woollen blankets and various bolsters.

  There was Sin Gudrunsson—God Almighty, who had threatened to make her walk naked across a yard full of people. And here . . . here she was. Malice Mallender of Regency London, now in Viking wherever this was, about to finally lose her virginity. That thing Cyril hadn’t been remotely interested in having.

  She reached up, batting the comb away. She made a noise too. It wasn’t quite as bad as the one she’d made when he’d grabbed the towel from her, forcing her to dive faster for that tunic, his tunic, than she’d ever dived for anything in her life. Not even these whores on her wedding night.

  “Shh!” Gentle’s breath fanned her cheek. “Just ‘cause I’m big and clumsy don’t mean I can’t be nice. Contrary to what you may think, it’s not every one for themselves here. We got to stick together, you, me, and Mother Bede.”

  “About that . . .” The soft combing compelled her to force her teeth to stop chattering and to blurt out. After all, being in his bed was something she neither desired, nor knew anything about. “I don’t think he wants me.”

  “Of course he does. Chose you, didn’t he? You see and give it to him good. Let that bitch know you are too.”

  Oh yes? So tomorrow Snotra could take a cooking pot off all their heads? Anyway the notion of Malice giving it to him, or anyone else, good, was ridiculous when she’d never given it to any man at all. And actually, the thought of his naked body, as in his completely naked body, sent terror skidding through her veins. She didn’t care he now had clothes on, his breeches and boots anyway. Was Gentle mad?

  “Are you done yet?” He pushed the stool back.

  “Yes, Drottin. Just putting the finishing touches to making her look nice for you. So you can have a good time. The way you saw her on the boat wasn’t—well . . .”

  Did Gentle have to mention that? As for him having a good time? Just because he now filled two wooden goblets from a flagon on the table, didn’t mean he was going to have a good time. Malice had seen happier people at a funeral. As for herself? She would sooner swallow a sea serpent. What would he do if she refused the drink though? Make her climb stark naked up and down the ladder for the rest of the night?

  “This is how she really looks.” Gentle tweaked a strand of hair behind Malice’s ear. “What do you think?”

  Not a lot by the looks of his inability to even raise his eyes. The damn cheek.

  “That’s good, Gentle. Now go downstairs. That’s where your bed is.”

  Downstairs? It was huge but there were no beds in it so far as Malice had been able to determine. Still Gentle’s thoughts of this being a good life might be rewarded when Malice got sent down these same stairs behind her. And she was going to be sent down these steps. Why, Gentle might even get to come back up here. As his slave.

  “Yes, Drottin. Goodnight.”

  The soft drapery at the very end of the platform parted. At least when Gentle was here, he wouldn’t touch her. Now t
he curtains fell shut and the ladder creaked beneath Gentle’s weight, the time had come though. He manoeuvred a heavy trunk into the centre of the floor.

  “Let’s get this open.”

  Open? She had heard of such things of course. Quite often the girls at Strictly had come in with tales of woe that divorcing a recalcitrant wife wasn’t the real object of the game. The hundred guineas either. Now the clasps pinged open she swallowed nervously. Give in willingly, what was she thinking about? She held up her chin.

  “Is there something wrong?” He peered at her from between the strands of silky gilt hair. “Some reason you’re sitting there looking like that?”

  Wrong? Oh, never let it be said. What could be possibly be wrong?

  That she was happy beyond words was not the thing to utter here. Amazing, given the lies she’d sometimes told. But no, there it was. She would sooner swallow the shark’s Aunt Sally and whatever little baby sharks she had. What were the children’s names Snotra had chosen? Yes. These ones. She’d swallow them too.

  “Then put this on.”

  She tried not to recoil. A robe. A perfectly ordinary white robe flumped against her chest. Even in the sudden stillness of whatever this strange candlelit chamber was, something that was more than disbelief, more than astonishment flickered like moonbeams across her scalp.

  Ridiculous when the damned man wanted her for a concubine. No, it didn’t matter how the sisters had begged take me, me, at the convent, how she herself had thought give me, give me—-something she never thought as a rule where men were concerned. No. She wasn’t going to melt here.

  But the lump of white cloth was like something he’d found in a field, or whatever. Something that was stuck in his life somehow, and in that moment, in that second, it was also something that crushed her hopes—whatever stupid things she didn’t even know she possessed—of being other than she was.

  She would put on the nightgown. After his threats about the tunic, of course she would. Then, when he came anywhere near her, no ifs about this, it didn’t matter a damn how staggeringly good looking he was—gorgeous in fact—the pummelling he’d already got from Snotra would be small potatoes compared to what he was going to get from her. Go out into the yard and get Snotra’s clothes, just as she was, indeed. When Snotra’s cast offs were things she would sooner die than be seen alive in. But she’d not wanted to be seen naked either.

  He sat down on the wooden edge of the bed and with a sigh pulled off his boots. “There’s no need to take all night. Just put it on and come over here.”

  Over there? How clinical was this? Did he think he was going to talk her through it? For a second she stared at him, candlelight gilding his hair, his fingers clasping the edge of the mattress, the faint dusting of hair on his chest. Then she tugged the nightdress over her head, slipped off the tunic—his—disgustingly drab too, did Vikings not know anything about fashion—and kicked it aside?

  “You might as well know, Malice, I’ve chosen you for a reason.”

  She raised her chin higher and faced him in the dim light. Oh really? Now, let her just see what it was. Goodness, him having lugged her firstly aboard the Raven and now having lugged her up here, it couldn’t possibly be . . . oh, no, just wait. Just let her think a moment. He couldn’t possibly want her advice on how to improve his illustrated biceps could he? Or maybe even his revolting house that smelt of dust, wood shavings and smoke? Or was it just possible? Oh heavens, why did she not blush to think it he wanted her for a bed slave?

  “I’ve chosen you because it’s something you’re good at.”

  Her? A virgin? Well. Her fame had certainly spread. Across several centuries at that.

  He eyed her, his silver gaze, iced, but with the faintest trickle of warmth, meeting hers in the golden candlelight. “Whatever you’re thinking, I just need you to make a noise.”

  Did she realize he was serious? Only her jaw dropped open so she must think it, which was why he tightened his own. What kind of a man did she think he was? All right, maybe he took things that weren’t his exactly. So did every other Viking he knew. It didn’t mean he wanted her. She didn’t really think he did, did she?

  “A noise? You want me to make a noise?”

  Oh, she did think that and that was why she squawked like an outraged chicken. She looked like one too. Well maybe. Chickens didn’t exactly have rat tails on their heads, masquerading as hair.

  “You mean, you took me from that convent, you brought me all this way—”

  “I mean you should be still.”

  “But—”

  He stood. How was it his palm wasn’t just across her mouth? His palm breathed those same lips through its pores. His lips breathed the chiselled contours of her cheekbones, the chestnut scented silk of her hair. They breathed her. While his body . . . Hmm. What was this that it breathed her too?

  Not just the pores of that same skin right there beneath his hand so he’d die sooner than move it, except, just maybe, to feel her mouth beneath his own. Yet again. When she was everything he neither needed nor wanted. He lowered his eyelashes. Did he care about that when her dishevelment—and by Odin he’d never seen the likes of hers in his life—was so potent and, now he stood so close, his body was against hers. Because he’d leapt hadn’t he? Right off the bed. Anything to silence her. Anything, except the one way his mouth could potentially silence hers.

  He should have known when he caught that second’s glimpse of her in the bath house, the glimpse that had unfortunately led to a lot more glimpses— she wasn’t what she seemed. How was it possible for a woman to be so ugly and yet so sensuous? But he had chosen her. Why? Why not? Hadn’t Snotra taken one look and pounced?

  “I just need you to pretend. Do you understand me?” He kept his voice low.

  “Pretend what?”

  “What do you think? You don’t think I want you, do you?”

  Much. The way his breath and body tightened right there against her. It would be nothing to edge his hand down over her thigh, hitch up the nightdress, skim his fingers over her soft warm sex. Nothing to ease between her legs. Ease himself into all that wet heat. He hadn’t had a woman since Snotra came back.

  And this one, so edgy yet pliant, this one fitted right there against him. Her lips beneath his palm, this one stopped his breath with the brush of her own. That stupid damned hair. Those eyes, suddenly blurrier than he’d ever seen eyes look in his life. Why? Because she’d thought he wanted her?

  Well, he was sorry to disappoint. She wasn’t ugly though, was she? Not when she’d eyes like these.

  “Moans? You want moans?”

  Disappointed her? If he had, her recovery was instant. Good. Because a knife at her throat was his next resort if she didn’t do what he said. Give Snotra the slightest indication none of this was for real? He’d sooner sink the Raven.

  “You mean you want moans? As if I am in ecstasy?”

  “You have it in one, sweeting.”

  Her eyes darkened to tarry pools, her heart shaped chin tightening. She was going to protest, wasn’t she? And protest would give the game away. Tightening his grip over her lips, he wound his other arm around her back and swung her down onto the bed edge. Of course he didn’t want to hold a knife at her throat, but there was nothing like holding a knife to make a woman see sense. It would be his next move if she opened those quite succulent lips of hers to do anything other than moan.

  She blinked. “Well, I can moan. I can moan for England. For Scotland, Wales and Ireland too.”

  Thank Odin for that. This would be spectacular.

  “But, why the blazes should I?”

  Frigg’s foot. How stupid was she? How many times did he need to say this?

  “Why do you think? I’m not going to betray Snotra. I need you to make her jealous.”

  “Then you s
hould be prepared to pay for it.”

  “Pay for it?”

  She started up and he tightened his grip of her, shifting his knee onto the bed. Had he ever heard such damnable cheek? She was his slave and a damn fine position it was too for all bed slaves were the lowest of the low. He wasn’t going to touch her, or make her work the fields, like a hand. What had he thought about a few jewels and maybe the odd nice dress?

  Had he ever been nearly bitten either? No. But he kept his hand across her mouth despite the sharp nip.

  “All right, so the nightgown isn’t the best.”

  It wasn’t. It was some old gown that had belonged to one of his sisters. But he wasn’t going to tell her how badly conflicted he’d been about this, any more than he was going to let her give the game away, as her squawking threatened to do. “But I’ll take you out tomorrow and get you something better. I swear I’ll get you whatever you want. Clothes. Jewels. Shoes.”

  “Shoes?”

  Shoes? Shoes were agreeable to her. At least, out of all the mouthing and biting, the squirming like a sea serpent against him, shoes got the loudest squeak.

  “You think I want shoes?”

  So, he was mistaken? Shoes weren’t agreeable. Shoes ignited her, made her incandescent. And not with joy, he realized as she spat the words in his face.

  “Jewels then.”

  “Jewels? What do you think I am? Do you have any idea what I want—”

  Pressing his fingers harder against her mouth, he tipped her back on the mattress. Just when Snotra would be listening this hissing, spitting troll was going to ruin this.