Erinsong (17 page)

“Oh, me heart,” Brian crooned as he patted
her head against his chest. “I can’t tell ye how many times I’ve
prayed to take this hurt from ye. But there’s naught I can do. Ye
must simply trust me in this, daughter. The little ye know of what
passes between a man and a woman, ‘tis not the whole of the matter,
truly ‘tis not.”

Brenna’s cheeks burned and
she was grateful
Brian crushed her against
him so she couldn’t see her
father’s
face.

“If the Northman’s willing
to wait for ye, it gives me hope he’s the one to see ye made
whole.” Brian pressed his lips to her forehead, then stooped
to
gather up the basket. He walked toward
the sea once
more, heedless of whether
Brenna followed or not.
“But ye must try,
darlin’. Loving takes two.”

Brenna shook her head sadly
and trotted to catch
up with the king.
“
I
don’t think I
can, Da.”

“There’s not so much
thinking as needs to be done
about it,
girl,” Brian said. “Mayhap that’s your prob
lem. Stop thinking so much and just... well...” He cleared
his throat uncomfortably. Then he squared his shoulders and nodded
curtly. “Life is hard enough without love. If the man offers ye
comfort
and kindness, accept it, lass.
Accept the love.”

She ventured a weak smile as she pondered his
words.

They strolled in silence to the head of the
trail that led downward to the cove where Jorand was working.

“Right, then.” Brian handed
the basket back to her
and turned toward
his keep. “Pass a good evening, daughter.”

Brenna watched him go.
Could her father be right?
Her one
experience with a man’s base needs was as terri
fying a thing as she ever wished to face. But would it
be different with Jorand? He’d certainly made
her
feel different on their wedding night.
Until she’d de
manded he stop.

What if she’d been wrong?

She turned to look down at
her husband in the cove below. He’d stripped off his tunic and
was
working only in his trews. Jorand’s
fair skin had bur
nished to a golden
bronze from long hours in the sun,
but
Brenna knew that his thighs were still pale in
comparison.

For a moment, she
remembered how he
looked in the flickering
light of the fire in their bridal
bower—strong, potently male, with a hint of the
same wild glint in his eyes Brenna had seen in
her fa
ther’s stallion when the mares were
in season. She
swallowed the rising lump
in her throat.

A vise tightened on her
chest. Jorand was exceedingly fine to look upon. She’d seen more
than one of
the neighboring women rake him
with their gaze and find reason to linger.

Perhaps her father was
right. Sinead wouldn’t
want her to go
about cringing in fear all her life. Even
though he was a Northman, Jorand wasn’t the least
like the man who’d raped her sister.

Accept the
love
.

If only she could screw up the courage to
try.

Jorand bored another hole
with the auger and slid the iron rivet home. He gauged the depth
perfectly
and the metal he’d worked the
night before fit snugly
into the opening.
The iron and oak came together with
the
neatness of two things designed for each other.

Pity he couldn’t have that kind of precision
in his marriage...

He shook his head and
shoved the unproductive
thought aside. He
needed to concentrate on his boat.
The
more he worked the wood, the more malleable it
became in his skilled hands. The small craft was taking shape
beautifully.

As he labored, memories
came to him in rushes,
vivid flashes of
sight and sound. They were jumbled
up—brief glimpses of strange places, snippets of
conversations, faces that seemed to melt into one
another so he wasn’t sure who or what he was seeing in
his mind. Always the new memories were
accompa
nied by a pounding in his temple
that threatened to send him into dizzy oblivion.

It was exhausting to try to make sense of the
disjointed images, but he slogged away at it even as his hands
kept busy building the boat. He hoped remembering would help, but
nothing in his past seemed likely to show him what to do about his
present. He was totally lost.

He felt like a swimmer nearly spent, clawing
his way toward the surface of the water, lungs bursting and mind
tunneling for lack of air. If only he could break through, feel the
cleansing breath of a clear memory, piece together a true sense of
himself, maybe then he’d be able to make sense of the rest of his
life.

“Brenna.” He whispered her name like a
prayer.

When the strange images in his brain proved
to be too much, he filled his mind with her instead. Brenna,
acid-tongued and saucy, working as hard as any man in the keep.
Brenna, frail and vulnerable, singing sad Irish songs when she
thought he didn’t hear her. Brenna, round and soft, sighing in her
sleep while he gritted his teeth on his pallet across the room.

He hadn’t made any more advances toward her
since their wedding night, though not for lack of wanting. He was
beginning to crave her the way a starving man lusts after a crust
of bread, but he pushed the urge down.

Her threat of a knife in his ribs wasn’t what
kept him away. It was the glint of terror reflected in her eyes,
the way she drew away from him inside her clothes whenever their
bodies chanced to brush against each other in the small confines of
their hut. If he had to hurt her to have her, he was determined to
wait.

The hunger grew in him like a suffocating
vine.

Brenna was either going to be his salvation
or the death of him. He wasn’t sure which.

“That boat doesn’t care if ye fall down from
overwork, ye know.”

He turned at the sound of
her voice. “But you do?”
He couldn’t
resist needling her.

“Sure and ye’ll make
yourself sick if ye don’t stop
for a bite
now and again.”

“I’m glad to know you care.”

“Of course, I care.” Brenna
set down the basket she
had balanced on
her hip and rummaged through it. She drew out a small jug, pulled
out the bung, and handed it to him. “If ye fall ill, who’d have to
drop
her work and tend to ye, I’d like to
know? ‘T’would be
me, and then what would
become of the rest of those who need me?”

He downed a swig of ale and found it cool and
soothing to his parched throat.

“I expect Moira could pick up where you left
off giving orders,” he said dryly and was rewarded by the dangerous
glint in her eye.

“Aye, well... someone needs
to see to things.” The
steam seemed to go
out of her as she turned her attention to the boat. “How is this
cursed contraption
coming along? Will it
be finished soon?”

So, she’s anxious to be rid of me.

“I can try it now if you like.”

A panic-stricken look
crossed her face. “ ‘Tis not
done yet,
surely.”

“No, I need to add a mast
and finish the inside of the hull with some flooring to make her
more com
fortable, but I intend to see if
she’s seaworthy today.”

“You’re not leaving?” She
caught his arm as he
turned away, then
dropped her hand when he looked
back at
her.

“Would it bother you if I did?”

She didn’t meet his gaze.
“Ye promised me Da not
to go without his
leave.”

“I’m a man of my word,” he
said testily. “I’ll not go
yet. No,
princess, you’re not that lucky. Today I only intend to try her in
the lagoon to make sure the joints
hold.”

He put a shoulder to the
stern and shoved the craft
toward the
smooth water of the sheltered cove.
When
the prow lifted in the light ripple of a wave, he
turned back to face her.

“Can you swim, princess?”

She hesitated for an instant. “I expect I can
make do.”

“Come, if you like.”

To his surprise, she walked
toward him still carry
ing the dinner
basket. When she reached the water’s
edge,
he lifted her gently into the swaying craft. Her
hem rode up for a moment and he caught a
tantaliz
ing glimpse of a slender ankle
and calf.

“Better have a seat,” he
ordered before he gave the
boat a final
push and clambered over the side to join
her. Jorand slid the twin oars into the ports and bent
to his work, rowing against the slight swell of
waves in the small cove. When they reach the center of the
lagoon, he shipped the oars and tossed out the
anchor stone.

“That should do it,” he
said, settling himself so he
could see
Brenna. Her face paled and she gripped the
sides of the small craft so hard her knuckles were
white.

“Now what?” she asked.

“We wait to see where she leaks.”

“What do you mean ‘where’ she leaks?”

“I think I sealed all the joints,” he pointed
to the bits of tar and moss jammed between the strakes. “But I
might have missed a spot or two. Anything made by human hands is
prone to failure. So we have a trial run in a shallow spot to see
if she’ll hold.”

Her eyes widened. “How shallow?”

He leaned over the side, looked down into the
clear gray water, and counted the number of knots left on his
anchor rope. “Not more than five spans.” He spread his arms wide,
then leaned back against the stern.

“But that’s over your head.”

“And yours, too, even if you stood on my
shoulders,” Jorand cocked his head at her. “What’s the matter,
princess? I thought you said you could swim.”

“Well, are ye telling me I’ll have to?”

“Not likely,” he said. “Even if she leaked
like a sieve, it takes a great deal of water to swamp a boat like
this. We’re close enough to shore that I could row back before she
sank. Anyway, I’ll warrant she’d stay afloat even half full.”

“Let’s not be trying to prove it, shall
we?”

He peeked under the clean cloth covering her
basket. “What have you brought me?”

“Just a bite of supper.” She relaxed enough
to let go of the sides of the craft as she pulled off the cloth and
displayed her offering. “I’ll not have anyone saying I neglect me
husband’s appetite.”

“Not all of them anyway.” He bit into one of
the barley loaves and wished it had been his tongue instead.

“What do ye mean?” She narrowed her eyes at
him.

He moved toward her in an easy half crouch so
as not to make the boat sway more than necessary. “Just that a man
has other needs besides a full belly.”

She cast her gaze downward.

Why did he say that? It sounded demanding and
pathetic, but when he looked at her he couldn’t help himself. His
gaze was drawn to the swell of her breasts pressing against the
thin fabric of her linen tunic. He forced himself to look away. She
couldn’t bear his touch and he couldn’t keep from wanting to touch
her. What a fix he’d gotten himself into.

He had to change the subject, and
quickly.

“
Ja,
a man needs to feel the wind on
his face and a brisk sea breeze at his back from time to
time.”

“Then you’ll be leaving soon?”

“I mean to.” He offered her the jug of ale.
When she declined, he tipped it back and let the warm bite of the
golden liquid soothe his throat. “My boat isn’t finished yet
though.”

“It wanted a mast, you said.”

“
Ja,
and a sail to hang from it.” A light breeze
rippled over them. He adjusted the steering oar and the prow
turned in the water. “If she had a sail, she’d be a fine boat. It
needs to be of heavy wool, tightly woven. Can you make one for
me?”

“I have a length of yellow wool on me loom
now that might do,” she offered. “How does it all work?”

“Come.” He led her, walking carefully down
the spine of the boat to the midpoint where he’d already built the
housing for the mast’s base. He explained in layman’s terms how
he’d harness the wind and bend it to his will.

“Ye’ve remembered all that?” she asked.

He nodded.

“And the skill it took to build this?”

“Some of it was hit or
miss, but most of it came
right back to
me. It was almost like my hands did the
remembering.”

To his surprise, she took one of his hands in
hers and turned it palm up. He held his breath as she traced her
fingertip over his calluses and along the new red scar knifing
across his palm.

“Ye certainly are clever
with your hands, Jorand,” she finally said. Traces of a blush
bloomed in her
cheeks.

Was she thinking of how his
hands had molded to
her body? How he’d
explored her like a newly dis
covered
inlet? He roused to her. T
aking her right
there in the swaying craft would be no bad thing. But she dropped
his hand and eased away.