THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN

by Shehanne Moore

  Her breath hit the air, a sudden sharp puff. One that came from so deep inside her, until it did, she had no idea she’d suffered so many pangs of real anxiety these last weeks.

  Or had she? She swallowed. It was going to make no difference was it? To her. To him. To them. That long sleek ship sailing straight across her dreams and what they’d had here.

  He wouldn’t choose Snotra over her, would he? Why, that would be ridiculous now she considered it, when heat flushed at the memory of how they’d spent quite a great deal of these days here. The nights too. When she thought of how, lying out in the sun here, or arranging that canopy of leaves, he’d been a very different man. When he had her at nights it was because she was who he wanted.

  She stepped forward. Even then she knew by the way he stood rooted, his head tilted, staring not at her, but at some far off point along the sand, what she wanted to believe was as idiotic as this whole thing had been from that first second she kissed Cyril.

  In that instant a black swirling tide engulfed her.

  My God. No. The polished floorboards jarred beneath her bare feet. Malice’s stomach lurched. Not just lurched, it then danced all the way up into her throat. Her eyes, which she’d closed for protection against the tide, stayed that way for a second or so, bathing her in darkness, while she counted to ten, willing her stomach back into place. Then she pinged them open.

  Haggersly Hall. She knew it instantly by the hideous pairs of eyes glaring down at her from the equally hideous frames on the staircase wall. By the musty stink of rooms like tombs assaulting her nostrils. She gagged. Haggersly Hall. How could she be back in Haggersly Hall? How? When she hadn’t kissed Sin Gudrunsson there just now.

  She froze. Just because the Reindeer had apparently appeared in the rolling waves there it didn’t mean she should be here. Dear God. That could not possibly be the case.

  No. No. No. No. No. This was not happening. A trick of the light surely? A trick of something. A trick.

  She swung her gaze like a beam over the dark panelled walls. Haggersly Hall. It was happening. The thought nearly felled her right there on the staircase. Every time she’d found herself in one place or the other it was because she’d kissed one man or the other. But she’d done more than that with Sin Gudrunsson and she hadn’t found herself here. Why was that? Why did she now?

  He was as real to her as this place yet she must beg the question. Was she suffering from some disease? Raging lunacy in other words. What had Aunt Carter died of exactly after she made that will? There were those who would argue she must have been stark raving mad before she made it. What if insanity ran in the family? And Malice had been here the whole time, imagining everything? From Sin Gudrunsson, to Ragmoose, to the Reindeer appearing in that bay?

  She put out a hand to steady herself. As for these noises, these grunts of pure pleasure coming from a room somewhere along the passageway at the staircase top —were these also a manifestation of her condition?

  No, it was Cyril and some trollop he’d chosen for his evening’s entertainment. She put out her other hand. Such guttural grunts she could not possibly conjure. No. These were real. Disbelief swamped, her throat tightening so she had to remind herself to breathe, in out, in out, instead of in, in, in. Unless it was Lady Grace?

  To think that simpering pasty had paid Malice to cheat on herself when she could have done it for her. Of course that would have meant ruining her own precious reputation. Were they even now laughing about her, the harridan he had begged and begged on bended knees to let him go? The harridan they thought was completely insane?

  To think that when Cyril kidnapped her, she had thought they might make a go of things. That it was all better than two rooms off the Ratcliff Highway? Insane? She was barking mad.

  She arrested her dropping jaw. As her heart pounded and her stomach churned, it was sheer folly to stand here. When she thought about what she had experienced even if it may only have been in her clearly depraved imagination, she would sooner swallow Great Uncle Maudling’s portrait.

  This wasn’t better than two rooms off the Ratcliff Highway. This wasn’t even better than a quarter inch on a street corner. So, what she was going to do was go in there and confront him. Then she was going to demand he let her go. Then she would decide the rest. Whatever that rest might be.

  In that second she had no damned idea but she gathered what remained of her skirt. It . . . it was her skirt wasn’t it? Torn and water stained. Slightly damp too. As for her neck? She clasped it. Bare. Like her feet. Relief held her breath captive. Then it let it go in a long sigh. Unless her insanity extended to her completely acting the part and she wouldn’t do without her shoes, she wasn’t imagining this. Thank her sacred stars. Sin Gudrunsson did exist. He must.

  If she’d had a third hand she’d have put that out to steady herself too. All these days, these nights, these moments had happened. She didn’t need any time to think.

  What she was going to do was march in there and yes, she would confront Cyril. Then she would kiss him. The Reindeer would not have sailed yet. Was it possible that even now Sin Gudrunsson turned that island upside down looking for her? Already she’d wasted enough time standing here, debating her sanity. Why waste more debating her next move, how she’d got here and whether any of this still worked? When there was one way and one way only, to find out?

  She pounded up the stairs. She reached the door. Then she flung it open.

  Her first thought that this wasn’t happening, was replaced by another, that she had somehow wandered through another black hole into yet another universe. That was Cyril. And this was surely his room? His bedroom. Certainly there was a bed in it, A stuffy, ornate, yet moth-eaten, four-postered affair. So really, her second thought was overtaken by a third. Not only was it a bed, but he was in it.

  It was who he was with that almost upended her on the floor. A man. A man with a mane of black curly hair and a shy, sweet face. Not that the hair or the face mattered. That it was a man was what mattered. Naked at that. Mother of God. She had expected Lady Grace.

  “Malice!” Cy at least had the decency to tear his mouth from his companion’s body. To throw the covers aside.

  Gulping, she tried to turn. It was one thing to catch him red-handed, another to catch him red-handed like this. She believed she even managed a step. But her palm seemed welded to the ornate brass door handle.

  “Malice.” His footsteps danced across the floor. “My . . . my God. Where have you been?”

  A minor point at such a moment. Why was it, that every time she jumped in time, she landed where she shouldn’t be? A convent? A storm? Now this?

  “Bee-ee-een?”

  The word came out horribly garbled. If only it wouldn’t. But really, how many shocks was a woman expected to suffer? Being shunted back and forward to Viking times? Being enjoyed half to death there. Again she tried dragging her palm from the door handle, although really, what was it to her that he preferred men? Preferred anything it seemed to her?

  Or was this the reason—not that she knew a lot about it—the reason he hadn’t been able to commit to her. Commit to any damned woman? Commit? For a second she thought she was going to do what rhymed with the word. Vomit.

  “Well . . . well, look at you Malice. Look at your clothes.”

  Her clothes? At least she was wearing some. Unlike him and his lover.

  “Not that it’s important right now when you are so busy entertaining, but Scandinavia. I have been in Scandinavia.” Her teeth chattered. How she spoke she didn’t know. But she would sooner swallow all her pain, her indignation, than not.

  “Again?”

  Astonishment—indeed admiration—flickered that she spoke with such authority. Travelled so widely. He had just been discovered in one of the most compromising positions a man could possibly be. To think for years she had imagined
herself unattractive because he didn’t want her. Why would he when this was what he wanted?

  “Yes. Now, Cyril, if you’d please just be so good as to stand aside.”

  His eyes darkened. A stupid thing to say to him obviously, when he was blocking her way after all. “I’d like to, Malice, but as you can see I can’t.”

  Dear God. What did he think? That after being held prisoner by the Vikings she was going to stand for being held prisoner by him? No. She would sooner swallow the four-poster. She would do anything.

  “Cyril, I advise you please to step aside—” She would even beg.

  “And I advise you that if this gets out in polite society I am finished.” He seized her wrists in one swift movement. A movement she should have known was coming. She remembered being tied to trees by him. She remembered a lot actually. Things she could not afford to let terrify her here, yet things that did.

  “I mean it, Malice—”

  “I’m sure you do, but I do too, so take your hands off me, Cyril—”

  “Grace will not marry me then. She will not marry me and it will be your fault.”

  He forced her wrists backwards, bruises to go with the ones she suddenly felt on her pride. Her knuckles striking the wall was nothing to being forced back against it so her shoulder blades pressed the wooden panelling.

  Of course, she should have known, his pretty boyish looks, she should have known when Aunt Carter insisted the two of them wed, this was why. Aunt Carter must have known. And had thought that was all right? To saddle her with a man who didn’t want a woman? Worse. To saddle her with a man she had found attractive who didn’t want a woman. Look at that business when she’d had supper with him. How close she’d come to throwing herself at him. Because he had seemed to invite it. What the blazes was that about?

  “My fault? My God. And do you think you should be marrying her?”

  “What choice do I have with these damn debts? Anyway, she doesn’t have to know because you’re not going to tell her.”

  Maybe desperation blazed in his eyes, maybe it tore in his voice, making him even more dangerous, in that second pity mingled with pride. Pity that he was right. He would be finished if this got out. Got out? She tried wrestling her wrists free. It was her bargaining counter wasn’t it? Why shouldn’t it get out? Why should she pity him? Who she should pity here was herself. She must because what she had really come in here to do was kiss him. How could she do that now? The thought made her stomach curdle.

  “You’re not going to tell.” He clapped his hand over her mouth. “Because I’m going to . . . Ouch!”

  His hand over her mouth made the curdle worse. Maybe he was going to, not if she sank her teeth into his palm, not if she bit as hard as she could. She raised her knee and as she did, pushed her fist hard into his bare chest. This was her chance to escape and she must take it. Reach her room and she would be safe. Reach her room and she could barricade herself in. Heavens, what was that to the convent raid? To finding herself on a boat with forty men or however many it was, baying for her blood? He staggered backwards and she ducked into the corridor, her heart racing to match her slapping feet.

  The familiar brass handle bobbed into her vision and she grabbed it. So long as the door wasn’t locked, like every other door in this damnable place, so long as she could get inside.

  It turned and she fell over the threshold in the shaft of light from the candles burning in the passageway. The only light, so the door swung shut behind her before she could find something to barricade it with. And not just shut. The key rattled in the lock. Then it twanged. Her breath dried. Her heart almost started from her ribcage. My God, she wasn’t locked in, was she? The room was darker than pitch. Airless too. God alone knew what lurked in the corners. Might even now be in here with her. Waiting to pounce. Waiting to snake up her legs. Like these old times at Aunt Carter’s when he’d put a snake in her bed.

  “Cyril . . .” What else could she do but press herself against the door and beg even if she’d sooner swallow anything there was to swallow? What if there was nothing? What if he starved her? “I shall scream, Cyril. I shall scream if you don’t open the door. I mean it. Now.”

  What else could she do? Very well, beg, rather threateningly, she admitted it. But when the breath tore in her throat like this and she was at his mercy, she would sooner swallow the damned door than give him the advantage. She cocked her ear. Then she bashed on the panelling. “Cyril . . .”

  “That’s why I knew you couldn’t be pregnant, Malice. Because I don’t like women and I couldn’t have made love to you even if you paid me.”

  Paid him? My God. Her eyes stung with what filled them. When he must have been with women? When he was going to marry Lady Grace?

  Even the rooms in Ratcliff Highway depended on him opening the door. So, how could she afford to be that woman, the one these words incensed, brought down? She’d known a man who hadn’t just been happy to sleep with her even if it was hundreds of years ago. He’d told her she was beautiful. A man who stole women’s breath. Just think of that first time he took his helmet off. It could not be some figment of her imagination.

  The Reindeer might have sailed by now. If getting back to Sin Gudrunsson was what she wanted, then at all costs she needed to swallow her hurt, the belief she was ugly, do whatever it took. Every lap of the waves might be taking him closer to Snotra and Snotra wasn’t good for him. And, when Malice thought about it, was being here in London really that good for her?

  “Now then, Cyril, who says I’m pregnant?” She adopted her most wheedling tone. “Well, my dearest?” A tone that would surely take him by surprise when she thought of all the hurts she wouldn’t just have inflicted by this point, he would too, hurts she would have failed to endure.

  “You did, Malice. You insisted after you nearly took me by surprise. If you remember it’s why I brought you here, to confess the truth.”

  She pressed her body to the door. Confess the damned, blasted truth? Lock her up in other words. So he could have the life he wanted. Still, she must bite her tongue.

  “Well, I’m not pregnant, Cyril. Certainly not by you. I’m confessing it now. So, if you don’t mind opening this . . .”

  “You mean you are to someone else?”

  “Cyril . . . Open the door. Open it now.” Bite her tongue? With this venomous offering standing on the other side of the door? The panelling shook beneath her fist.

  “Malice . . . I can’t.”

  “Cyril!”

  “No.”

  All right. Fury had sparked there and that was something she must control. No problem surely when for years she had battened everything, been serene, found solace in shoes, that suddenly she couldn’t? Because shoes . . . what were shoes and who gave a toss about them, compared to Sin Gudrunsson? Was she not broken enough? But she could. She would master this.

  “I only want to go to Scandinavia. That is the truth.” It was, which was why she strove once again to adopt her most wheedling tone. “Let me out of here and I swear you will never see me again.” That bit she was less certain of. “At least . . . at least I hope you won’t.” If she refrained from kissing Sin Gudrunsson, sleeping with him, surely? Yet, why was she here this time if that was the case? And how was she ever going to stop herself sleeping with him? Look at what she’d done that day at the cove.

  “You hope? You see, Malice? You can’t guarantee it.”

  Oh God, why had she said that she couldn’t? Whatever intention he’d had to open the door must now be stone dead, killed by herself. She rattled the handle.

  “Cyril!”

  “I’m sorry, Malice.”

  She continued shrieking his name long after she heard his footsteps retreat along the corridor. Whether he heard them didn’t matter. In a lifetime of being laughed at and coveting shoes, she only knew one
thing. She must escape. Whatever it took.

  Chapter 14

  Hearing the key scrape in the lock Malice tightened her hold on the ewer. Not only had its contents been hideous to drink, it deserved to die. Cyril did too when he opened that door. One smash was all it would take, then she would get out of here. Kiss him first. Yes. Run next if that didn’t work. The door creaked back. She raised her arm. Why wait?

  The strangled cry, the hard thud, the clunk of porcelain—she’d done it. One maddened smack was all it took. And having been kept here all night she was for giving that smack. As for getting out of here, all she had to do was get down on her hands and knees—numb, aching, frozen from such cold her teeth chattered—being very careful the porcelain shards didn’t puncture her palms and kiss him.

  She didn’t know she wanted to when she thought of where his lips might have been—which was up to him entirely— but what choice did she have? In all this she had observed one thing. The absence of Vikings in Regency England. So, if she did not kiss him, she would need to find someone else to kiss. And she would need to pray hard. Even harder when her teeth chattered because Sin Gudrunsson was never going to come here for her, was he?

  Taking a deep breath she dropped to her knees. Cyril’s lips were here somewhere, but her own trembled so badly, she struggled in the dark to find them.

  “My God . . . Malice . . .” A cultured voice pierced her consciousness just as she thought she had. “What do you think you’re doing? Get off of George.”