“There must be.”
“—where eyes will no’ see.” She said nothing, but he must have sensed her agony, for he hurried on, “Gi’ me some time to think on it. ’Twill no’ be today.”
She strove to master her disappointment. “But it will be?”
“It will be.”
“You do promise?”
He did not hesitate. “I do.”
And she trusted in his promises, did she not?
She took the sack from him and shouldered it with hers.
“Do not follow from here,” she told him, and trudged off to the camp.
Obedient, he did not follow.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Quarrie spent therest of the day striving not to think about what Hulda had suggested. Not that she’d come right out and suggested it, but he could not mistake it, for the invitation—and the desire—had stood clear in her pale eyes. Impossible to dismiss, no matter the tasks he performed, the people he saw, or the complaints to which he listened. She and her request remained there in his mind.
She wanted to lie with him. He had not misunderstood that, had he?
Nay, he had not misunderstood. Her desire had not only lain stark in her eyes but vibrated in the air between them. He might mistake any number of things, and had done in the past. Not that.
When he should have been concerning himself with other matters—not the least with the camp of bloodthirsty marauders lying on his threshold—he could think only of her. Of those kisses they had shared and what it would be like to have her naked in his arms. To spend himself in her welcoming heat.
He maun make it happen.
But how? Eyes were everywhere, as he had told her, and all of them watching avidly. Were there places where he could take her to be alone? Painfully few, but having been born here, he could surely come up with somewhere.
If he thought of a place, so might his men.
Naught would prevent them following him. And if they caught him making love with the dangerous Norsewoman?
He should not take the chance. He dared not.
Yet he had made the woman another promise. What was it about her that drew promises from him?
The folk with whom he came in contact throughout that day had to repeat what they said to him and fight hard for his attention. His thoughts persisted in straying.
How would her skin feel when he got that rough clothing off her? She lived her life as a man, yet he bet she’d be soft and yielding to him as to no one else. All woman.
How would she taste? If the rest of her pleased his tongue half as much as had her kisses, he could be naught but satisfied.
Nay, he was not himself, not all that day. Rain moved in and he had no chance to get away on his own to scout likely places—or unlikely ones. Night drew down amid pounding rain and he thought he would go mad.
What if he walked along the shore and around the headland? Walked there through the rain while everyone else took shelter.
Might they slip away alone?
In the end, he did not go. He took his father’s old seat in the great hall—the first time he had done so since Da’s death—and heard the complaints that came to him. Many complaints, most of them concerning the Norse.
At last he, who considered himself by and large a patient man, wedded to his duty, had had enough of it.
When yet another clansman came complaining that his old mother could not sleep for fear the Norse would come in the night and slit her throat, he rose from his chair.
