Sandra Hill (2 page)

Think? Hah!
She was a clueless amoeba on the brain chain right now. A
screaming
clueless amoeba.

The man carried her into the living room with her legs still dangling a foot off the hardwood floor. She assumed it was a man because of his height and strength and the size of the hairy forearm crammed against her abdomen, way too close to the undersides of her breasts. Callused fingers snagged her silk blouse. He smelled of salt water, wet leather, and apples.

Apples?
A quick glance showed a half dozen McIntosh apples missing from the bowl she’d placed in the center of her coffee table this morning. Their cores were thrown carelessly on the floor.
The pig!

Meredith tried to peer back at him, but the blade at her throat prevented movement. So, still kicking and screeching, she back-jabbed him with her elbows. It was like hitting a brick wall, even though she just about knocked her arms out of the shoulder sockets with the force of her efforts.

With a curse of “
Blód hel!
” the wretch threw her to the sofa onto her back. Coming down on top of her with a suffocating whoosh, he leaned over her, practically nose to nose, brandishing the weapon, which she recognized now as Gramps’s favorite carving knife. He spat out his earlier order, more clearly this time, though with a foreign accent, “
Kyrr!
”

Her befuddled mind registered the guttural word. Ancient sounding, like Old English. Having a doctorate
in medieval studies, she was well-versed in Dark and Middle Age languages.

Meredith frowned in confusion, panting for air, bucking upward, to no avail. The gorilla must weigh well over two hundred pounds. And there were intimate parts of his anatomy that were becoming familiar with intimate parts of her anatomy. The possibility of rape loomed its ugly head once again.

But then, the hairs stood out on the back of her neck in warning, and a strange niggling tugged at her memory. The word and the dialect were similar to Old English, but different.

Oh, my goodness! “
Kyrr!
” was the Old Norse word for “Be still.” She ought to know, having spent her honeymoon with Jeffrey a lifetime ago in Iceland where a version of the archaic language was still spoken. Jeffrey had convinced her that combining a honeymoon and research was a sensible idea. All she remembered was the cold.

He let loose with a long string of foreign words.

Heart hammering at the disconcerting pressure of his body, not to mention the danger, she puzzled over each of the separate words, deducing finally that he was asking in some convoluted combination of Old Norse and Old English, “Who are you. woman?” Her interpretation was reinforced when he added. “
Hvað heitir þú?
” which definitely meant, “What’s your name?”

“Dr. Meredith Foster,” she squeaked out.
A burglar fluent in medieval languages? Must be one of Mike’s friends. A joke
.

“Dock-whore Merry Death,” he repeated slowly, his breath feathering against her lips. Apple breath. You’d think Mike could do better than a bloomin’
Johnny Appleseed. “Merry-Death,” he said again, slowly, testing her name on his tongue.

She wasn’t about to correct his mispronunciation, just in case he wasn’t a prankster. And, yes, she’d like to kill him and Mike, too,
merrily
, for scaring her to
death
.

“
Geirolf
,” he said, pointing at himself, “
ég heiti Geirolf
.”

“Great. Now that we’ve got the introductions out of the way, Rolf, baby, how about getting off of me? So far, there’s no real harm done, but you must weigh a ton, and you’re wrinkling my best Yves St. Laurent blouse, and…”

Her words trailed off as he lifted himself off her and stood in one smooth motion—remarkable for a man his size. Her mouth dropped open in shock at her first good glimpse of her attacker.

A very tall male—at least six-foot-four—stood arm’s length away, wearing a thigh-high, sleeveless, one-piece tunic of supple leather. The Dark Age garment was tucked in at the waist by a wide belt with an enormous circular goldlike metal clasp engraved with a writhing animal design. Etched silver armlets circled heavily corded upper arms. Jillian, who designed her own line of medieval-style jewelry, would go nuts if she saw these masterpieces. Heck, her brother Jared, an archaeologist, would be impressed, too. Even if they were reproductions, they were the finest examples Meredith had ever seen outside a museum.

His light brown hair hung down to his shoulders, damp, as if he’d just emerged from a leisurely swim. Flat-soled, leather boots covered his feet, cross-gartered up to the knee.

A Viking. Her captor resembled an ancient Viking god.

An extremely handsome Viking god.

Meredith had never paid much attention to the physical attributes of men. Raised in a scholarly home, she’d been much more attracted by brains than brawn. But, for the first time in her life, she comprehended why her female students squealed over Brad Pitt or rolled their eyes in appreciation when a particularly appealing college boy in tight jeans walked by.

Oh, my God! My hormones are regressing
. She bit her bottom lip to prevent herself from saying something really stupid, such as, “Can I touch you?” But inside she was squealing like any lust-crazed teenager.

Amazing! Wherever he’d found this guy, Mike had really outdone himself. Maybe he was a male stripper at one of those female nightclubs. Oh, yeah! Vikings ’R Us.

But, no, he looked too…authentic. Meredith peered closer. Old scars and new wounds, oozing blood—
probably ketchup
—covered most of the exposed skin of the guy’s well-muscled physique, from his massive shoulders to his perfectly formed face to his tendon-delineated calves. Despite the glower on his face and his menacing, widespread stance, the big lug was devastatingly gorgeous. In fact, he looked a lot like a Viking Age version of that actor, Kevin Sorbo, from the Hercules program on television. Not that she watched much television, she reminded herself with hysterical irrelevance.

He raised his chin haughtily and drawled out with pure insolence a string of Old Norse words, too low for her to catch them all. Meredith didn’t need a translator to know that he was asking, “Do you like what
you see?” She cringed at the reminder that she’d been scrutinizing him much too long. “Not much,” she lied.

He sat down on her low coffee table, knees casually widespread, and Meredith wondered—even as she chastised herself with disgust—if he wore underwear beneath the short tunic. He rubbed the fingertips of one hand over his bristly jaw as he studied her, appearing distressed, as if unable to understand her. Then he distractedly stroked the fingertips of his other hand over his belt buckle, which she could swear was solid gold.

To her bewilderment, she no longer feared the guy. In fact, she felt a deep pull of unwarranted compassion for him, even though he still held her grandfather’s knife. He appeared lost, like a little boy.

He had to be an actor, hired by Mike. Hadn’t her grad assistant told her over and over that she needed to lighten up? In fact, he’d given her a novel one time called
Love With a Warm Cowboy
, about a female college professor who goes out cruising for nothing more than a quick relationship with a cowboy after her longtime lover leaves her.

But enough! Fun-and-games time was over. Maybe if she threatened criminal prosecution, the jerk would end this joke and go home. Forcing a threatening tone to her voice and a deep scowl to her face, she gritted out, “Get out of my house, you…you rapist, or I’m going to call the police.”

He blinked at her with surprise, and then glanced down at his belt with a peculiar expression. Anger quickly replaced confusion as he turned back to her. “Rapist? You call me a rapist? Hah! I am Geirolf Ericsson. My father is a high jarl in Vestfold and brother to Olaf, the king of all Norway—”

“Yeah, and I’m the queen of England,” she scoffed.

“Nay, you are not. Aelfgifu is queen of all Britain, and a more timid wren there never was. I misdoubt she’ll live another year. Many times has she gone through the childbed fever and yet produced but one heir for King Aethelred.”

She gaped at him.

He waved a hand in the air imperiously, annoyed that she’d interrupted him. “Know this, my lady…I, Geirolf Ericsson, have no need to force my attentions on any wench. Women have been begging for my favors since I was an untried boy.”

Favors?
She rolled her eyes at his arrogance. “Listen, buster, I don’t care if you’re Kevin Sorbo. Get the hell out of my house.”

“Your language…’tis odd. What is this Calf in Shore Bow?” As he spoke, a frown creased the man’s brow and he continually looked down at his belt buckle, which he clasped tightly now. Then he muttered to himself, “How curious! I can understand and speak her foreign tongue when I touch the talisman.”

“Give me a break,” she sneered, but she realized, at the same time, that she could understand him now, too. And the bizarre thing was that she knew they both spoke different languages. A shiver of alarm swept her skin. “I don’t know if this is someone’s idea of a silly gag, or if you’re a burglar, or a rapist, but—”

Meredith stopped speaking as she noticed a strong odor, like charred meat. Sniffing, she scanned the room, and couldn’t believe her eyes. Some kind of skinned animal was impaled on a peeled stick, roasting in her fireplace. “Wh-what is
that?
” she asked shrilly. “Oh, God, is that the stray that’s been hanging around my back door lately? Did you…did you kill Garfield?”

“Guard field?”

“Yes, Garfield, the cat.”

His eyes shot up. “A cat? You think I killed a cat? And plan to eat its flesh?
Blód hel
!” Then he grinned.

“’Tis a rabbit.”

“Rabbit?” Inwardly, she sighed with relief.
Not a cat
.

“Yea.”

Yea? What’s this “yea” business?
He was still grinning, as if killing a rabbit was normal. He was probably one of those NRA redneck fanatics. “Why…are…you…cooking…a…rabbit?” she asked very slowly, barely reining in her anger.

“Because…I…am…hungry,” he replied, mimicking her snide pacing. “And because I’m sick of eating raw fish. Why else?”

Of course. Why else?
“Hungry? Raw fish? But…but where did you get a rabbit?”

He exhaled loudly with exasperation, as if her questions were foolish, “I snared it outside your keep.”

“Keep?”

“Your manor house. Why do you keep repeating words? Are you a lackbrain?”

“No, I’m not a lackbrain, you…you lackbrain.” Suddenly, she thought of something else. “Where did you put the…other parts?” Lord, she hoped she didn’t have rabbit fur and guts in her kitchen sink, especially since her garbage disposal was broken.

“I offered them to the gods, of course, in thanks for my safekeeping.” He gazed pointedly at the blazing fire, a mischievous glimmer in his whiskey-colored eyes.

“I beg your pardon. Did you say that you used my fireplace as an altar to some heathen god?”

He shrugged. “I worship both gods, Norse and Christian.”

“How dare you practice some pagan rite in my fireplace!”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Blessed Freya! You have a voice that could peel rust off armor. Best you shut your teeth, wench, or I may decide to sacrifice a virgin as well.”

That mischievous gleam was still there in his sparkling eyes, which she decided were the color of aged bourbon. Yes, booze eyes. And that twitch at the edge of his full lips—was it a nervous tic, or suppressed amusement?

“Well, good thing I’m not a virgin then,” she snapped.

He broke into a full-fledged smile, rewarding Meredith with a dazzling display of his white teeth. Her mind said,
So what?
But another part of her body said,
O-o-h, boy!

The creep soon jolted her back to reality, though.

“I should have known a woman as long in the tooth as you are would have spread her thighs for the pleasuring. Where is your man now?”

Long in the tooth? Spread my thighs? The nerve of the chauvinistic beast!
“I’m only thirty-five years old. I’ll bet you’re about the same, you long-in-the-tooth oaf. And I have no husband, if that’s what you’re asking—” Meredith immediately regretted her hasty words and backtracked. “I mean, my husband will be home soon.”

He arched his brows, unconvinced. “So, you are a wanton woman—an aged wanton woman—who lives alone. Do you entertain your lovers here?” He swept
her with a swift physical assessment that clearly challenged her ability to attract a lover.

She didn’t care if the ape did wield a knife; Meredith had had enough. Jumping to her feet, she put her hands on her hips, demanding. “Who are you and what are you doing in my home?”

“
Ég er týndur
.” Geirolf watched the quarrelsome woman who dared to defy his commands as she assimilated his statement, word by word.

“I am lost,” she translated.

His ears still rang from her high-pitched screams. Claw marks seeped blood on his forearms. And Merry-Death—the oddly named wench—dared accuse him of being a rapist. As if he would even want a woman such as she. Too tall. Too thin. Too sharp-tongued. And old. He liked his women young and soft-fleshed and biddable. Like Alyce.

He was sore tempted to toss the foolish wench into the raging sea, but he needed answers first. And, more important, he feared she might be a sorceress. On first entering her keep, he’d explored all the chambers—none of which had the customary rushes on the floor. And not a candle or soapstone lamp in evidence anywhere. Of particular interest was the room with a magic box that threw off light when the door opened. He’d found some cheese inside, but it was nigh inedible, covered as it was by an unchewable, invisible film.

If she was a witch—and those pale green eyes of hers, flashing angrily at him now, were surely witch’s eyes—he would have to tread carefully. Even with the talisman, a sorceress’s charm would be hard to withstand.

But Merry-Death would suffer for her insults, no
doubt about that. Later, he would show her the fate of a defiant woman.