THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN

by Shehanne Moore

  “How do you think?”

  Think? Was he joking?

  “You mean you pleasure Saxon women?”

  “I mean women talk about Saxon men and their tendency to get things over with—”

  “You betray Snotra with Saxon women?” She couldn’t help it. The urge to ask what things had filled her. It was better to snap. She lowered her burning gaze. “What would you call last night?”

  “Of course.” Something splashed as he kicked it into the rolling waves. “Maybe if you hadn’t sunk the Raven . . .”

  “I sunk the Raven?”

  “And tried drowning me in twelve inches of water . . .”

  “A pity I never succeeded.”

  “If I’d beaten you when I had the troll toothed chance, we’d still be afloat.”

  She jerked up her chin despite the fact her heart lurched to the bottom of her ribcage. Was she meant to give thanks on her knees for that fact? Or was it possible, last night, she’d already done that?

  He dropped to his haunches. “Anyway.” His shoulders slackened. He reached for a piece of seaweed. “We’re here now. I just shouldn’t have slept so long. I need to get a fire going. See where we are. We could just be on a land spit. We’d only been sailing a few hours when that storm hit, so we can’t be far.”

  “From England?”

  “Juggesland.”

  Of course. Home to him and Snotra? She pushed the palm of her hand through the strands of hair flapping in front of her face and clasped the top of her head. Before her the sea swelled like a rolling plain. Behind her, the trees stood like gnarled statues.

  If this had happened to her mother—and it was a very big if—how had she managed, because it was one thing to find oneself landing somewhere nice, with home comforts. A soft feather bed. A jug of hot water. Instead of spending the night sprawled under an outcrop of rock on hard sand. Then, there was the matter of how this worked.

  Suppose, for example, she had kissed Cyril for some other reason last night, might she have landed differently? In a place that was kind? And last night, despite everything, she wasn’t in love with Sin Gudrunsson, was she? A fleeting moment on a longship did not a lifetime make. So why had she woken up here? Because she’d kissed him with the intention of getting to Haggersly Hall, whereas that night she’d had sex with him, she’d not had any thoughts about getting home? It must be.

  She couldn’t live here. This dotting back and forwards must stop. Imagine for example, if she got pregnant and that baby was born in Regency London but she was whisked back here. Who would look after it? Cyril? She would have to find him first. Besides, she was penniless there.

  Pregnant? Dear God, was that what had happened to her mother with her?

  “All right.” She let go of her hair. Obviously getting out of this mess required great effort on her part but she needed to get out of it. “Would you like me to help?”

  “Don’t you go putting yourself about to help me, Malice. I mean I’m just your master.”

  “Well, if you say so, I’ll just sit down here.” It required an effort she was struggling to make. “After all I’m only your bed slave, so I suppose I shouldn’t do too much.”

  “Fine.” His ice cold gaze cut into her. “Although you wearing that dress hardly makes you my bed slave.”

  Surprise fluttered like moth’s wings all along her scalp. When the choice was clear, she stayed here and refrained from anything physical, or she indulged in it in order to get home? No more? No less? Without actually thinking that way? Then she never went near a man again? She was actually letting surprise flicker? She set her jaw. “And I suppose that’s why you disarranged it last night?”

  His gaze washed over her, silver as the sea, just not as iced, then it flickered over the sand to the shimmering horizon. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Really?” And she was Aunt Carter. “And that lack of finesse was the best you could do, despite talking to Saxon women? Their men must be absolute boors then. Snotra will have a lot to look forward to. But don’t you trouble yourself to apologize.”

  “I’m not. But I’m also a Viking as you’ve sometimes reminded me, what do you expect?”

  Her gaze froze. In that case, whether he’d married Snotra or not, she could expect . . . more, which was fine if she was to get home. She bent down, picked up the stray twigs lying at her feet, largely to hide what swept her in that instant though. When she lied about his finesse. When he’d said things about her that way. Things she couldn’t afford to think of here. When he was what he was. When he also lied about thinking she was someone else. She needed to keep him at arm’s length. In another moment she’d be wanting to stay for good and she couldn’t.

  Cheating was cheating. Shouldn’t she think of that? Maybe he’d dragged her under that huge rock last night, after he’d taken her as if his life depended on it. Even if he’d then saved the best bit of sand for himself, all Cyril had ever taken was her teapot and her money. She was waiting yet for an apology. In fact she was waiting for many things. Most of all she had waited to be his wife.

  Of course it was a mistake to think so but was it cheating when her marriage was a sham in name only and even then it was a name Cyril failed to remember? And this man hadn’t been capable of waiting? Very well, it was a mistake to berate herself on the subject of cheating.

  “Here. For the fire.” She tossed the sticks on his lap and bent down to pick up more. “If you think you can get one started. I’m sure you will. I’m sure you’re Viking enough to do that.”

  His lean muscled body shifted slightly away from her as if she’d bitten him. Looking at her backside? If he ever had done that once, now it was as if he couldn’t stand the sight.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” He cleared his throat. “I mean you’re cold. And I’m supposing you’re hungry.”

  “I am hungry. But there isn’t any food so what’s the point?”

  “Well, being a Viking has its uses, Malice.” He scrambled to his feet. “Whatever you may think of us.”

  She lowered her gaze. Quite a lot actually. There was no point denying it. The next time she kissed him, she did it in order to escape from here. Not because his trim waist and sleek buttocks were things her palms itched to smooth themselves over and his voice was like warm honey on her skin. “Yes. Yes of course.”

  “So sit down. Let me take care of this.”

  She did. Instantly. He was going to find her something to eat. For what might be their last meal together. She wondered what it might be.

  “Here.” Several bits of broken wood and seaweed thumped onto the sand beside her toes. “We can eat that.”

  “What?” Was he crazy? “You mean the seaweed?” She hoped so. Even then she’d sooner wait until she got back to Haggersly Hall. If she got back to Haggersly Hall.

  His silver eyes warmed slightly. “Exactly.”

  They could eat it, couldn’t they? Hadn’t she read somewhere in one of Aunt Carter’s books something about that anyway? And truly when he was doing his best here, better by her than any man she had every known—not that that had exactly been many, if any—to improve their dire predicament, shouldn’t she help?

  Only he looked almost too handsome there, his damp hair clinging to his tanned face. He even looked vaguely pleased with himself for once. No, she could not help him. She shrugged and deliberately studied the sunlit horizon. “I don’t know how to cook seaweed.”

  “Cook it?” He stared as if she had been let loose from some Viking mental asylum. “You don’t need to cook it. Just eat it raw.”

  “Raw? Perhaps you don’t need to cook it, you being a Viking. But I do. Unless you get a fire going and find a pot, I am afraid it is out of the question.”

  “A pot?” That stare said she hadn’t just been let loose from some Viking
mental asylum, she should have been kept in. “Are you crazy? Out of your tiny burnished helmet? In case you haven’t noticed, let me spell it out for you.” He snatched up a stick. “This . . . is an island.” He drew a large shape in the sand. “With sea all around.” Now he added squiggles. “Do you think there’s a whole homestead load of pots washed up on the beach there we can just take our pick—”

  “Not if it’s Juggesland.”

  “What’s wrong with Juggesland?”

  Nothing. And everything. Which was why she’d said it. Incredible for a man so handsome the sisters had all but torn off their veils, that he really didn’t like not measuring up, or being thought wanting. Her mouth tightened. Such understanding wasn’t just in danger of gaining territory in her conquered veins, it was in danger of staking its claim, digging its trenches, erecting its houses, right there in her centre.

  Perhaps she would be better just to kiss him and get this over with when her heart pounded in this unruly fashion? She could be nice and do that, couldn’t she? Do it calmly, He fiddled with the pouch on his hip. “Do you want to go and live down the other end of the beach? Hmmm?”

  “Certainly, if it means getting away from you. Oh. And finding a pot.”

  She tried clearing her throat of the burning constriction. The piece of flint he dragged from the pouch looked threatening. But what glinted beneath his long straight brows was worse. He was of ice. But ice could melt. She shot to her feet.

  A spark flew as he smashed the flint against a stone. “Then go and find your damned pot. No doubt there’s some poor fool you can get it off, just like you got that dress.”

  The dress. The damned dress. She had known it was wrong to wear something so clinging and revealing. She just hadn’t known how wrong. But it wasn’t just the dress, now clinging in damp tatters to her body. How did it look to him that she’d appeared as she had, after being missing for weeks? In this dress? The diamante studded panels must look very rich to him and nothing clung tighter than damp satin. She would have marks across her breasts for days thanks to the piping. “Oh, let us all hark at that. A man who steals women to sell for gold—”

  Another spark. This time, a bright burning one. He leapt to his feet. Sprung so quickly, something untamed, something feral, he didn’t even try to disguise flickering in the depths of his gaze—and not just his gaze, his hard set mouth—her heart skipped unfortunate beats. “I tell you what, Malice. You have the fire and you have this end of the beach. The way you stinking Saxons live—”

  “I am not a Saxon. So if you do not mind I would appreciate it if you would refrain from calling me stinking.”

  This was getting out of hand. Although she supposed, at least she had the fire. So she could be as stinking as she liked. Where was her intention to be nice though? To extend the hand of friendship?

  “Anyway I didn’t see you finding any fault with the dress last night when you all but ripped it off me.”

  “Are you purposely trying to irritate me?” Another growl. His crystalline gaze swept her, raising hot prickles on her skin. Him taking up temporary residence at the other end of the beach was preferable. There was no place for her here in this world, was there?

  “What I’m trying to do, if you don’t mind, is cook this seaweed. No easy thing without a pot and this piddling fire you’ve built me. But one I shall accomplish.”

  “Piddling?” He drew his brows together. “Are you meaning small?”

  “Well, some men can’t help having small ones. Fires I mean.”

  Wet globs of sand flew around her. He had a very nifty right foot that way but so long as he now walked on it across the golden expanse to the other end of the beach, as opposed to landing it in her backside, she would be fine. Her heart pounded fit to break her ribcage and her breath threatened to choke the life from her.

  But fine when this was about one thing. Because now that he trudged through the gleaming wet sand, across its pools and furrows the pale sun glinted in, there was something almost desperate about him, that made the thought of going home hard enough as to be impossible. She didn’t want to go home? Ridiculous.

  She had the fire—going, if not terribly well, smoking in fact. Soon she would have the seaweed, cooked, or nicely steaming. Then when she had calmed down she would invite him for breakfast. Then she’d kiss him. What she would have the seaweed in was something she was less sure of but there was bound to be something. Some piece of metal, a stone she could fry it on.

  Aunt Carter’s book had said something about that. The pity was she couldn’t remember exactly but it hardly mattered. Seaweed was seaweed and it wasn’t as if she could serve it with roast potatoes, now was it? She could stew it perhaps in some water but that was about it.

  She glanced around. There by the water’s edge, just beyond that rock, what was that? That thing the light glinted off, pale silver in the struggling rays? Although every bone in her body now felt as if it had been removed, smashed and then put back inside her skin in the wrong place, she splashed through the shallows to see what it was. Feeling the water drag the hem of that gown, she halted. A helmet, that’s what. A Viking one, lying partially submerged in the sand.

  For cooking in, if upended over a fire? Ideal.

  Carefully she prised the gleaming piece free. She would invite him for breakfast then she would escape from here. She shook the sand off then swung around.

  The fire, if anything, was burning brighter than before. Even as she padded back along the beach, smoke was billowing. All right, not exactly as in a this is going to burn forever way. But smoking just the same and in a way that lifted what remained of her spirits as high as the grey plume that headed into extinction.

  She sat down. When it might be his helmet—actually, how could it be his helmet, it looked to have been buried in the sand for weeks—she didn’t want him over here. Not till she’d placed the helmet down on the pile of twigs, the seaweed in it.

  She pushed a straggling tendril of hair back from her forehead. For all he was at the other end of the beach he must surely glance over his shoulder, be beguiled by the sizzling scents of sea brine and kelp? Forgive her for that stupid, childish row?

  And when he did, it was vital he see her looking her best, no mean feat when her hair doubtlessly stuck in rat’s tails to her head and she could barely suppress the shivers sweeping her body. She stole a sideways glance. Actually, whether he did or not wasn’t important. Her eyes burned as if they had been stung by a thousand wasps from the smoke from the fire—now even larger and billowing.

  She shook her head, anything rather than fan, or screw them up. although now her throat seized . . . seized to match her eyes. Now she couldn’t see or speak. But so long as she sat here looking nice did it honestly matter that she spat and fought a cough? Fought it several times over?

  Despite the smoke paradoxically clawing her eyes open yet forcing them shut, she leaned forward. A little poke, a little rake, a little tweak of the fire plus the pot and its contents, even if the smell so clogged her throat, she spluttered. Actually she didn’t just splutter. She fought for breath. As for the vile smell? Her stomach heaved.

  “Freya’s feet. What the—”

  Apologize? No, she wasn’t going to apologize despite the fact he stormed towards her.

  “What do you think you’re—? Frigga’s sake, is that my helmet?”

  To be truthful she had no idea. But she could have told him it was hot. Burning in fact. But he’d picked it up, so how could she?

  “Will you please stop swearing? I’d have told you had you asked, not to touch it.”

  “And I’d have told you had you asked, not to fry damned seaweed in it. Damned, stinking, damned—”

  He snatched a piece, yanking blackened fronds free of the glowing red edge.

  “Will you stop swearing?”

 
“Cursed, damned—”He stuffed the crisped piece in his mouth. Crunched. Chewed. Chewed some more. Silence fell. Now what? Spit it out on the sand? Choke at her lack of expertise? He grasped another piece. Chewed that too. “Actually, Malice, this is quite good.”

  What?

  “Much as I hate to say so.”

  Of course he had to qualify that.

  “I mean . . . I mean I’ve had worse. Where did you learn to cook it like that?” He gave a sigh of satisfaction as he edged down on his haunches. Then he gave another as he spread out on the sand. “Hmm?”

  “I—-I—just did.”

  She just didn’t. Aunt Carter’s book hadn’t possessed such a recipe. But Malice was damned if she was about to admit it. Not when he chewed the seaweed around and around with such obvious relish, it cracked between his teeth. She forced what she prayed was a modest expression. After all, this was what she wanted wasn’t it? To put this back so that she could do what she must calmly, although calmness as he flicked his gaze over her, was well nigh impossible. He looked so at home, so relaxed, so different from his iced self. So pleased with her too.

  “Well, it’s good.” He stretched out his hand. “Here. Have some.”

  That she was not so sure of although it was good of him for once, to demonstrate some small grain of chivalry towards her. She cleared her throat, trying to ease what still prickled the back of it, so much so she struggled to appear serene. Bad enough to cook the damned thing, but to eat it? Even if she’d somewhat given up on her attempt to appear serene and beguiling, why detract further by rushing over to that rock there to vomit? She would if she ate that. “No. I—”