“No need? Alone? What does that mean?” Torsten stilled, his fingers tightening around her elbow. “I think you should explain yourself,” he warned when she remained silent.
Aife started to tremble. The moment to explain why she had kissed him the other day had come, and it was every bit as frightening as she had imagined. How would he react?
“I kissed you now because I wanted to thank you, and seeing as we already kissed once it didn’t seem so odd to do it a second time.” She paused, knowing he wasn’t really asking about today’s chaste kiss but about the decadent one they had shared by theforge. “And, as for the other day, I kissed you because I thought it would help…”
Her voice trailed. Lost to her shame and unable to be honest, she wasn’t making much sense, but somehow Torsten understood the situation better than if she had given him a lengthy explanation.
“I see. You didn’t kiss me out of desire for me. You used me, having a purpose in mind.”
“I…” What could Aife say? Shehadused him. Should she deny it? Would he even believe her? Wasn’t it better to try and be honest? “Being a friend, I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Mind?” He blinked at her, incredulity on his face, and she kicked herself for sounding so callous, so blunt, so stupid. She hadn’t meant it like this.
“What I mean,” she hurried to specify before he stormed away in outrage, “is that I know you don’t have feelings for me so I didn’t think you would mind helping me.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I wouldn’t mind helping you. In what way?” He had not stormed away, but neither did he seem ready to relent. She would have to be clearer.
Aife bit her bottom lip because this was the difficult part. He might not mind helping her in principle, but the man she was trying to seduce and stir into action was his own brother. He might mind that. Perhaps she had better come up with another, more acceptable explanation.
“I had seen my cousin, Edita, walk by the forge when I kissed you,” she improvised. “She’s visiting from Mercia.”
“Yes, I know.” He still didn’t see what this had to do with anything.
“Well, the truth is, I cannot stand her!” Aife exploded, as years of resentment and restrained feelings burst out of her. “For years she’s been flaunting the appeal she exerts over men, belittling me in the process. She never misses an opportunityto mock me for being too small, too slender, unable to get any man interested in me, and I’m tired of it, do you hear? Tired of hearing her tell me she already has another husband in mind, someone who’s been in love with her for years, while I’m nine-and-twenty and still unwed. I saw her walk past, arch a supercilious brow at me, and I snapped. I’m not proud of it, but I snapped. I did the first thing that came to my mind to show her that I, too, could appeal to men. I thought that if she saw us kissing, if she saw me in a man’s arms, she might finally cease her mocking.”
It was not a complete lie. Shehadwanted someone to see them, and Edita’s boasts did make her feel awful and insecure. Torsten did not need to know that the two were unrelated. And now that she thought of it, she wished Edita had truly seen them kiss. It might put an end to the hurtful taunts about her inability to ensnare a man.
Heart beating hard, breathing labored, Aife waited. Torsten was still looking at her, jaw clenched, eyes glowing, as if trying to decide what to make of her explanation. Would he think her ridiculous? Think she was lying? Demand they went to confront Edita there and then? She had no idea how she would react in his place. Anger seemed a safe guess.
“You should have told me why you kissed me,” he said eventually, an odd expression on his face. Was he…disappointed? At least he didn’t appear angry, which was a relief. “Instead, you made me believe that you… Forget it, it doesn’t matter.”
Make him believe what? For the first time Aife considered the possibility that she might not have been the only one affected by their unexpected kiss. What if, like her, Torsten had been overwhelmed by the heat flaring between them? What if he’d hoped she had kissed him because she’d been moved by an excess of desire for him? If this were the case, it would be a blowto find out she had only meant to placate a bothersome cousin. But she could not change her version of the story now.
The truth would hurt him even worse.
Suddenly the tension between them became unbearable. Torsten was looking at her with naked, masculine hunger. He was no longer the trusted, harmless friend who knew her inside out—he was an impossibly alluring, potent male, able to unlock her deepest yearnings and make her body quiver with desire. Aife had no idea how to deal with that man.
“I see that it was stupid of me,” she blurted out, ashamed, and angry at herself for ruining everything between them. “I’m sorry. I swear it won’t happen again. Please, forgive me.”
Before Torsten could say anything, she turned around and fled.
“Wulfric wants toplant a plum tree next to our house when we get married, because he knows the fruit is my favorite,” Edita announced, with the air of someone who’d just been told she would be the next queen of Mercia. “He says he wants to pick a plum every day for me to break my fast.”
“I’m not sure how he’s going to manage that in winter,” Aife mumbled under her breath—and in Norse, like her father often did in his niece’s presence. Though in reality, she could probably not have bothered switching languages. There was little risk her cousin would hear her while she was extolling the man’s qualities, so at least she could safely let out some of her frustration.
As the days progressed, it was becoming harder and harder to hide her irritation. Really, was her future husband’s supposed fascination for her all Edita could talk about? Didn’t she havea life outside of him? The two women had gone mushroom gathering that afternoon, and inevitably, after a bland start involving the differences in weather between here and Mercia, the conversation had turned to her cousin’s future husband.
Wulfric says my eyes are the color of the sea. Wulfric has bought me the most beautiful ring, look. Wulfric loves to hear me sing, he says I have the voice of an angel. Wulfric, Wulfric, Wulfric.
Aife didn’t know how long she was going to stand it, today less than ever. Since her conversation with Torsten two days ago, she’d been unusually tense, which was little wonder. She had hurt a friend’s feelings, all because she couldn’t accept that she didn’t have what it took to capture a man’s attention, never mind his heart. She was not even sure Sven had seen the kiss. He probably hadn’t, because if he had, she had a suspicion he would have delighted in mentioning it to her. This was precisely the sort of things he would delight in doing.
Yes, she had used Torsten, for her sole benefit, and in vain. As if that were not enough, she had then lied to him, claiming she had done so to put Edita back in her place. The whole thing sat ill with her and she didn’t know how to make amends. What if Torsten was too hurt to consider forgiving her? What would she do then?
“What about you?” Edita asked, as they came to a halt near the bridge.
“What about me? You want to know if I like plums? Yes, I do.”
Edita’s laugh crawled under Aife’s skin. Did Wulfric like the irritating sound as much as he liked the angelic singing, she wondered? It had not yet been mentioned, which might be a clue.
