Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 03] (22 page)

He felt a momentary twinge of guilt. “I had to know for sure,” he said defensively.

“Why could you not ask me? I would have told you the truth.”

“Would you?” he asked softly.

He knew.

In that moment, Eadyth saw the light of recognition in Eirik’s pale blue eyes, and she realized that he knew of her masquerade. Suddenly, she understood his odd behavior these past few days.

“How long?” she asked, backing away defensively. “How long have you known?”

He shrugged. “Long enough.”

“Are you…angry with me?”

He nodded, taking one step closer to her.

She took one step backward.

“Well, I am angry with you, too.”

“Oh?” He took one more step.

This time, she took two steps backward. “You spied on me.”

“With good reason.”

“Mayhap I had good reason for my…my innocent little harmless masquerade.”

Eirik grinned at her choice of words, and Eadyth realized that he taken two more steps closer to her while she talked. She stepped backward five paces, just to give herself more distance, and he smiled at her in a predatory fashion that she did not like one bit. She felt like a helpless bird being stalked by a wise old cat.

“Mayhap you would like to enlighten me as to your motivations,” he asked, rubbing his muddy upper lip thoughtfully.

“You look ridiculous standing there practically naked, covered with mud,” Eadyth snapped without thinking. Actually, he looked remarkably virile and alarmingly handsome, Eadyth admitted to herself. She would never tell him that, though.

Eirik’s wonderfully clear eyes sparkled mischievously. “Ah, then, ’tis only fair that we should even things up.”

Eadyth’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. She had said he looked ridiculous, standing
naked
and covered with
mud
. Looking down, she saw that she, too, was completely covered with mud. That only left…

Her mouth dropped open. He would not!

Eirik lunged for her.

Apparently, he would.

Throwing Eadyth over his shoulder, Eirik ignored her squeals of protest and flailing arms and legs. By the time they reached the pond, he was shaking his head at her unladylike language.

Lord, he loved a good battle, and this stubborn, domineering, stiff-backed wife of his was going to provide him with good sport. Without any hesitation, Eirik waded knee-deep into the ice-cold water of the spring-fed pond. Despite the hot
sun, their baths would be coldly invigorating because of the recent rain. He smiled widely and dumped Eadyth, clothes and all, into the watery depths.

She came up sputtering, calling out every epithet she could name. “Loathsome lout! Odious oaf! Bloody bastard! Lusty Lackwit!”

Shamelessly, Eirik removed his loincloth and approached her. “Let us see just what I have bought in this marriage bargain, wife.”

“Bought? Bought? You have not
bought
me, you wretch. If anything, I have bought you with my dowry,” she shrieked, trying to walk past him to the shore with as much dignity as possible in her water-heavy garments. She had already lost her head-rail and wimple in the dunking, and the rest of her garments molded her body with enticing promise.

Eirik raised an amused brow at her feisty words, tearing his eyes from the clear outline of her breasts and hips and long legs. “Well, then, we shall both examine our purchases.”

As he stepped after her into the shallow water, she glanced downward and inhaled sharply, noticing that he’d discarded his loincloth. “Have you no shame?”

“None whatsoever.”

He proceeded to remove her clothing. And it was no small feat, with her kicking and scratching and swearing vengeance on him the entire time.

“Do not dare touch me…oh, you have torn my gown, you clumsy brute.”

“Stop twisting so. You are as slippery as an eel. Ouch! You scratched me. You drew blood with your claws,” he exclaimed incredulously and dunked her under the water.

She came up sputtering, “You bastard!” and launched herself at his chest, knocking him over, attempting to kneel on his chest. His nose burned, and he barely escaped emasculation when she tried to knee him in the groin.

“Eadyth! ’Tis time you behaved like a wife, not a fish-wife.”

“Hah! ’Tis time you behaved like a chivalrous knight, not a rude troll.”

“A troll!” he gasped out. “We shall see who is the troll here. I have had enough of your obstinance and unwomanly ways.” Forgoing tenderness then, he roughly ripped her gown and undergarments from her body.

“Look what you have done to my shoes. Oh, you will pay for all this damage to my belongings.”

Grinning at her soft leather slippers which floated by ignominiously, he yanked her stockings from her legs.

Once naked, Eadyth gave him no opportunity to view her bodily charms. Slipping out of his grasp, she dove into the water and swam away from him, giving him only a momentary glimpse of her bare buttocks and deliciously long legs.

He smiled.

Grasping the soap Britta had left on the bank, he took off after her, overtaking her in a few strokes. Grabbing hold of her hair, he pulled her back toward the shore and sat down on the bank, pushing her into a sitting position in the water between his knees. Her screams could, no doubt, be heard in Jorvik.

“Do not turn your back on me from this day forth, you heathen Viking beast, for I will pay you back tenfold.”

“I quiver with fright, my lady.” Quickly, before she had a chance to turn and truly render him impotent, Eirik soaped her long hair, then dunked her head under the water. Three times he repeated the procedure, ignoring her shrieks of outrage at his brutish treatment.

When he was satisfied that he had finally removed all the lard from her hair, he let Eadyth stand. Angrily, she flicked her long, wet hair over her shoulder and stormed away from him before he had a chance to truly study her body. Ah, well, he would have plenty of time for that later.

He began his own ablutions, going off to the deeper water. He washed his hair and body, diving underwater again and again to remove all the mud. When he finally emerged from the water, Eadyth was standing on the shore, fully clothed in
a belted gunna of soft lavender silk, combing her waist-length hair.

And she was beautiful.

Britta must not have brought undergarments for his lady wife, thank the gods, for the thin fabric of her gown molded her womanly curves. She was slender as he had originally thought, but not uncomely so. Once again, he berated himself for being such a dim-sighted fool.

His lips twitched with a grin of anticipation. He reached for a drying cloth and slowly, languorously blotted the moisture from his body, watching her the entire time.

And she was watching him, too. Warily.

He felt himself grow hard under her steady scrutiny.

She blushed and looked away.

“We are finally going to consummate our marriage. You know that, Eadyth, do you not?”

She hesitated, biting her bottom lip, then nodded grudgingly. “But do not think I will be standing on my head for you.”

Eirik’s eyes widened. “Well, mayhap it will not be necessary now that I see you do not look
quite
like the back end of a mule.”

Eadyth shot him a look that said clearly he was the one most resembling a mule’s arse. “And do not think I am going to give you one of those five-hour candles for your lusty purposes,” she added shrewishly.

“Huh?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “You know…that five-petaled lotus thing you boasted about. Oh, I know that I cannot escape the marriage bed now, but do not think you will get me to cooperate in your perversions.”

Understanding began to dawn on Eirik then, and he laughed aloud. Good Lord, Eadyth believed his outrageous tale of five-hour sexual bouts, and no doubt she expected such a performance from him on this their wedding night.

“Ah…refresh my memory, Eadyth…how many times did I say the woman in that tale
peaked
in one evening?”

“I disremember,” she said, her face flushing prettily. “Seven or eight times, methinks.”

“Sev…seven or eight?” he said, amazed at his own fantastic stories. Then he thought of something else. “And how many times did I say the man
peaked
during that five-hour session?”

“Twelve,” she said without hesitation.

Eirik made a small, choking sound deep in his throat and stepped closer. He took the comb from her hand and threw it to the ground. Then, putting his hands on her waist, which fit rather nicely into his palms, he lifted her off the ground so their bodies met—thigh to thigh, belly to belly, breast to chest.

Lowering his head, he murmured huskily against her lips, “Eadyth, I fear I will not last five minutes, let alone five hours.”

“Ah, I should have known. Men ever boast of prowess they have not.”

He put the tip of his tongue to the mole above her lips, then traced the edges of her finely sculpted mouth with mind-splintering pleasure. “Do you challenge me already, wife?”

“Nay, we are in agreement on that, at least. I care naught for any extended periods of love play. I would just as well get it over with and be done,” she said in an unconvincingly defensive tone as she leaned her head backward, trying to escape his lips. Her movement only gave him access to her smooth neck.

“Ah, that is where you are wrong, wife. We will light your blasted five-hour candle,” he said, nuzzling the warm skin, “and I promise to make your pleasure last…even if we both have to peak over and over and over ’til we get it right.”

For once, Eadyth had nothing to say. But the wildly beating pulse in her neck jumped traitorously against his lips.

As they walked back toward the keep, Eirik draped an arm casually over her shoulder.

She glared at him.

He winked.

What kind of husband winks at his wife?

Eadyth ducked and moved away defensively. “Stop teasing me,” she demanded and started to walk ahead of him at a brisk pace.

The brute called after her with seeming innocence. “Me? Teasing? I was just behaving as a husband should. By the way, Tykir was right about your hips.”

She looked back over her shoulder and saw his eyes riveted outrageously on her backside. Holy Saint Hilary, the man’s mind ran on one path only. She stopped and waited for him to catch up. She was not going to display her posterior for him in her flimsy silk gown, especially since Britta had failed to bring her a chemise or any undergarments.

“You really should accustom yourself to my touching, Eadyth,” he remarked offhandedly as he tried to entwine his fingers with hers.

She swatted his hand away. “Why?”

“Because I intend to do a goodly amount.”

She frowned, not understanding his words at first. When she realized that he meant he would be touching her excessively, a hot flush worked itself up from her suddenly full breasts to her undoubtedly red face. “You…you…libertine,” she sputtered, trying to find the words to tell him of her lack of appreciation for his playful ways. He surely did not mean them. He only goaded her to raise her ire. At least, that’s what she thought until she noticed his eyes gazing appreciatively at her chest.

She looked down and almost groaned aloud. Her nipples had grown hard.
Oh, Lord.
“Are you perchance a pervert?”

Eirik laughed, and the tiny crinkles around his eyes deepened in a most delightful way. He had slicked his thick, black hair off his face, but already the sun was drying it and the vast amount of skin revealed by his short-sleeved, open-necked tunic. His freshly scrubbed, sun-bronzed skin shone with good health, vitality and raw maleness. Really, her husband was sinfully attractive. And a danger to her hard-won independence.

“Nay, Eadyth, I am not a pervert.”

“Then why do you talk so much of touching and fornication?”

“Mayhap because it has been so long since I have done either.”

That surprised her. She wanted to ask how long, having assumed he had visited his mistress between the time of their betrothal and his return to Ravenshire several days ago, but she could not. Asking would indicate she cared. And she did not care for him, or any man. She could not.
Oh, Lord.

“Three months,” he said, as if answering her silent question.

Her eyes widened, and, against her wishes, a little flutter of gladness rippled through her. Fighting to regain her cool demeanor, she commented in as uninterested a voice as she could manage, “Well, I suppose that is a long time for a man,
but surely you place far too much significance on the coupling betwixt a man and woman.”

“A husband and a wife,” he corrected her with a slight grin.

She waved a hand dismissively. “Man, woman. Husband, wife. ’Tis just an overvalued physical act in the end. Like eating. Or yawning. Of too short a duration to merit such importance. Oh, I warrant it is pleasurable for a man. At least, they boast of it often enough, but I misdoubt it is more than a nuisance for very many women.”

Eirik gave her a sidelong look of amazement and shook his head slowly from side to side. “Yawning? Ah, Eadyth, ’twill be a joy to teach you otherwise.”

“I want none of your sinful lessons.”

“There is naught sinful about
good
lovemaking betwixt a husband and wife.”

“Good. Bad. Little difference it makes to me.”

“It will.”

“Hah!”

Eirik reached forward and took a long lock of her curly hair in his fingers. Sensuously, he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, then, holding her eyes, he lifted the strand to his lips. “I suspect, my prim and proper lady, that you harbor a misconception about lovemaking. If you had your way, I wager, ’twould be quick and quiet, clean and cool. You would manage it very efficiently, like your household.”

She lifted her chin, stubbornly refusing to rise to his bait this time.

He chuckled softly and continued, “Well, let me tell you, dearling,
good
lovesport is long…and wet…and messy…and noisy…and very, very hot.”

Hot? Wet? Oh, Lord.
Eadyth could not stop her mouth from opening with incredulity. “See what I mean?” she scoffed finally. “You are constantly taunting me. All I wanted was a husband to protect my son, a legal arrangement.” She closed her eyes with exasperation and gritted her teeth.

“And I want more.”

Eirik’s softly spoken words startled Eadyth, and she opened her eyes to meet the hungry fire of his burning scrutiny.
Hungry? For what? Oh, nay, it cannot be…oh, surely not for me.

She stumbled, and Eirik grasped her by the waist to help her stay aright. The mere graze of his hands against her silk-clad skin was enough to set her heart thumping and blood pounding to all her extremities. And, Sweet Mary, his touch felt so uncommonly wonderful, she wanted to catch the moment and hold it in her palm forever.

This was the sweetness she had dreamed of as a young girl, before Steven of Gravely had shattered her illusions. Her mouth parted on a soft moan of despair at her crumbling resistance to Eirik’s lure.

Eirik inhaled sharply, apparently understanding too well her unwilling response to him.

Before she could turn and run, as she surely should, before he burned her alive with his smoldering eyes, Eirik pulled her sharply against his hard chest. Then, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist, he lifted her body upward so her bare toes dangled in the soft grass, and he walked her to a nearby tree.

With her back braced against the rough bark and her feet still barely touching the ground, he pressed his hips against her belly and proceeded to show her exactly what he had meant by a great deal of touching.

“Lovely…so lovely,” he murmured against her neck as his hands played havoc with her body, moving the slippery fabric of her silk gown along her thighs, across her back.

“Do not…oh, please stop, you lusty goat,” she gasped out, trying to catch his wrists, but he was too quick for her. His hands were everywhere at once.

“I cannot stop, Eadyth…I cannot,” he rasped out huskily and nipped playfully at her ear.

“I feel shameless.”

“A shameless wife,” he said pensively. “Hmmm. I think
I like that prospect, Eadyth. Very much.”

Then, like a bursting dam, his caresses moved over her in waves, out of control, without direction or concern for her cries about the unseemliness of the intimate places he claimed. When he moved his wool-clad chest lightly, from side to side, against her silk-covered bosom, Eadyth shuddered with the pure, exquisite sensation of her breasts being abraded so enticingly.

“I did not know,” Eadyth said, with wonder.

“I know,” he said with maddening arrogance.

She wanted to say more, but she was too overcome with the erotic tingles that were spreading like wildfire across her body.

“I do not want to feel like this,” she groaned.

“Yea, you do,” he asserted and moved his warm lips closer to hers. At the same time, his large palms cupped her buttocks in a scandalous manner she should have found repulsive, but did not, and pulled her even closer against his hardness.

“Do you want me to kiss you, Eadyth?” he whispered against her lips.

“Nay,” she lied, still trying to fight the raging fire which threatened to consume her and all that she had held dear.

“Why, then, are you trembling so?”

“With revulsion.”

He chuckled softly at her resistance and moved his right hand to her left breast. With the heel of his palm on the underside, he flicked a callused thumb back and forth across the pebbled tip until her breast felt heavy and ached for some fulfillment she could not understand. Then he did the same with his left hand and her right breast.

She was drowning in a pool of ecstasy.

“Does that feel good?” he asked in a thickened voice.

She could not speak, just shook her head stubbornly.

“You lie, Eadyth,” he said with a knowing grin. “Your lips swell in invitation. Your eyes, your beautiful violet eyes,
are hazed with passion. And your legs have parted of their own volition for our joining.”

Horrified, Eadyth looked down to see that she had, indeed, spread her legs to accommodate the cradle of his hips.

“Oh…oh…see what you do to me. I have become a sinful wanton.”

“Nay, not a wanton. My wife,” he said thickly, with satisfaction, brushing his warm lips across hers lightly—tempting, teasing, tantalizing her hunger for more. “Tell me what you want,
wife
…tell me…tell me,” he coaxed.

“I want your kiss, and you well know it,” she cried out finally in surrender, then pressed her lips against his.

The surprised hiss of Eirik’s breath mingled with hers. Then he turned his head slightly, shaping his firm lips to better fit against her mouth. Oh, the sheer pleasure of his deepening kiss! When his tongue slipped between her lips, she wrapped her arms around his powerful shoulders and whimpered incoherently, wanting what he gave her and so much more.

Eadyth never knew a kiss could be so erotic, stripping away a woman’s resistance petal by petal. Her mind whirled with all the delicious sensations accosting her, surrounding her, enveloping her—the taste of Eirik’s mouth, a breeze carrying the scent of sweet clover, the raspy sound of their ragged breaths, the buzzing of a hornet, the feel of Eirik’s long fingers tunneling in her hair, the delicious odor of her husband’s sun-warmed skin, the snorting of a horse—

The snorting of a horse!
Eadyth tore her mouth from his, and her eyes fluttered open. Glancing over Eirik’s shoulder, she saw, to her horror, Wilfrid and several of Eirik’s men sitting astride their horses a short distance away, watching with amusement the degenerate display she and Eirik had been putting on for them.

Mortified, she tried to shove her husband away from her, informing him in a strangled hiss, “We have company.”

Eirik’s misty blue eyes had turned slumberous with desire, and his lips looked sensually swollen from their deep kiss.
Oh, Sweet Mary, what must she look like? A trollop, that was what, she thought, cringing.

“What?” Eirik asked, a violent shiver of restraint passing over him as he gently brushed some strands of hair off her face. His eyes remained unfocused with passion.

“Your men are here, and they are ogling us,” she informed him in a suffocated whisper.

Suddenly alert, Eirik glanced over his shoulder and nodded to the men companionably, as if embracing his wife openly were an everyday happenstance. As if they were not there for some special reason.

“I must seem a wanton in your men’s eyes. Oh, I will never forgive you for embarrassing me so!”

“Really?” he asked silkily. “Well, best you get used to being embarrassed then because I find I like the idea of a wanton wife.” He winked at her and pinched her backside outrageously before starting to turn toward his men.

She pulled him back.

He raised his right eyebrow inquiringly. “Changed your mind already, have you?”

“Nay, ’tis not that, you dolt. Do not turn around, or you will humiliate us both, more than you already have.”

He looked down at his braies unashamedly. “You are right.”

He pushed her along in front of him, over to where Wilfrid and the others sat atop their horses, idly flicking their reins back and forth, smirking from ear to ear.

“’Twould seem you have taught the bee how to make honey, after all,” Sigurd, the Viking soldier, commented crudely. Another man in the background made a soft buzzing sound.

And Eadyth wished she could sink into the very earth.

But Eirik and his men soon forgot about her as Wilfrid informed Eirik anxiously that a cotter had just arrived to tell of more cattle being slaughtered, this time at a farmstead near Ravenshire. Eadyth noticed Eirik’s saddled destrier then, which they had brought for him.

“I thought you would want to know immediately,” Wilfrid finished explaining, looking apologetically toward Eadyth.

“Yea, you did right in coming to me. We will go now to investigate.”

“Well, then, I will just return to the keep,” Eadyth interjected with deliberate casualness, thankful to have this respite from Eirik’s intoxicating presence, an opportunity to rebuild her shattered defenses.

But her husband had different plans.

Eirik walked back to her, leading his horse by the reins. A small, mysterious smile lifted the edges of his lips. “Nay.”

“Nay? What do you mean, ‘nay’?” Her voice betrayed her by rising shrilly with dismay.

“You will not escape me so easily from now on,
wife
. You will come with us. ’Twill make for a pleasant ride, in any case. But do not fear for your safety. I will protect you from any villains.”

Hah! And who will protect me from you?
“I cannot ride with you,” she protested, then lowered her voice so the others could not overhear. “I am wearing no undergarments.”

“I know,” he said and smiled wickedly.

He knows? Well, of course he knows with all that touching and feeling he has been doing.
“I do not know how Britta could have been so careless in bringing only my outer gunna. And it is my best silk gown!”

He grinned as if he knew exactly what Britta’s intent had been. The lout! Her upper lip curled with disgust. “’Tis scandalous.”

“I know.”

Say that again, husband, and I am going to tie your tongue in knots.
“Do you not care that others will know?”

“No one can tell you are naked beneath this wisp of fabric but me,” he said smoothly, fingering the sleeve of her gown. “Do you not see? That is what is so tantalizing—knowing you are naked, just for me.”

Oh, Lord. He is doing it again. Making me feel all hot and fluttery.
“I refuse.”

“I do not recall giving you a choice.”

Eadyth recognized an impasse when it hit her smack in the face. This was not the time or place to argue with her husband. He would not budge in front of his men. “Well, get my horse then,” she conceded grudgingly.