“Camelee?” he called out when he found the small outer, or sitting room, empty.
“Yes?” she called back from the bedroom. “I told you we were changing our clothes.”
“Yes, I only want to inform you that I must leave for a short while.”
She appeared from around the doorway half-dressed in nothing but a kirtle. Her thick blonde tresses tumbled around her face. His knees hurt. He suddenly felt like a boy, awkward, unsure. Where should he look?
“For how long?”
“A few days.”
She dipped her brow and pouted her enticing mouth, drawing his gaze there. “A few days isn’t exactly a short time.”
“My brother has been captured by the Saxons. I must go.”
Her enchantingly blue-gray eyes opened wider. “Oh, no! Of course! Why are you here telling me and not already gone?”
“You are…” He wasn’t ready to confess his weakness for her. “…under my protection, under the king’s protection. I will go to him before I leave and request that you are all moved to the queen’s quarters.”
He hadn’t asked the king yet, but Cnut owed him something. Wolf had helped him take England. He was still subduing the king’s enemies while the king stayed home with his new wife. “I will do my best to be quick.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
He nodded, feeling a little ill. Why had Fin foolishly gone off alone?
“Where are Genevra and Hild?” He looked over her shoulder, but the child hadn’t come out looking for him.
“Resting. Genevra is trying to get Hid to take a nap.”
He looked down into her eyes and thought of kissing her. He had the right to. She belonged to him. But he wasn’t certain how she would react, so he did nothing.
“Christmas Eve is in three days,” she reminded him softly.
Had she wanted to share the festivities with him? He wanted the same thing, and he wanted more.
“Uf.” Hild appeared at Camelee’s side, her pale blonde curls disheveled around her face. She held up her arms to him.
He truly had to stop picking her up and holding her. He would spoil her. And she was a Saxon after all.
“Uf!” she demanded, crinkling her nose.
He bent and scooped her up.
“Yes, my lady?”
“Me sweep. Aye, Uf?”
She meant to go to sleep in his arms. She’d been doing it since the second night here. The first, she’d spent crying for her mother.
If Fin was a prisoner of the Saxons, then every moment of his captivity brought him closer to death. But Wolf held Hild and did not leave her until she fell asleep. When she did, he handed her over to Camelee and watched while she laid the little girl in bed.
This…this is what he wanted. A family. A woman he came home to after a day of farming and fishing. A wife who took him, after a bath in the stream behind his longhouse, and grew with his child. It made him feel like a drunken fool—a drunken, happy, fool—thinking about it. He wanted to smile at her. Again. It seemed as if all he did now around her was smile. He controlled himself and fought back these useless notions.
His glance slipped to Genevra watching him. She was smiling as if he were as transparent as water. His resolve returned full force. He couldn’t let her see his weakness.
“So…uhm…” Camelee straightened and turned to him to find him scowling. “We are to go to the king, you say?”
For a moment, he thought she was going to defy him. He hoped not. He needed to go, and he needed to know she would be safe.
