She came further into the room. “What I need is for you to relax your concern. I am not a cripple, Garrick,” she said tightly, trying to control her temper.
She knew it was pointless to argue with him when he was so damned benevolent. She hated his new attitude. He was like a forgiving father with an errant child, when forgiveness was the last thing that was needed.
“Do you doubt that I am well?” she continued.
He shook his head, still not looking at her. “Nay, but you cannot be allowed to overdo things, Brenna. You nearly died, but were granted life. Is it not reasonable that you begin that new life with a measure of caution?”
“Nay, ’tis most unreasonable!” she snapped, forgetting herself. “First you keep me confined to bed longer than necessary. Now you treat me like a fragile doll that will break if moved. I am well, I tell you!” Brenna threw up her hands in exasperation. “God’s mercy! I am not an idle person. I was ever willing to work in your stable but you said nay. If all you will allow me to do is work here, so be it. Yet I must have something to do.”
“This is not what your sister would have me believe.”
Brenna was startled out of her anger by his words. “You spoke with Cordella?”
“Yea, at length.”
Brenna clenched her fists. The thought of Garrick and Cordella talking, laughing, making love together, drove everything else from her mind. So she was right. Those many nights Garrick had come home late, making her wait up for him, he had been with Cordella!
“Brenna, come here.”
“What?” she asked without hearing him.
“Come here!” he repeated.
Still she did not move or look at him. Finally he came to her and touched her cheek.
His fingers against her skin were like a shock, and she slapped his hand and backed away from him.
“Don’t you touch me!” she cried, pain and anger in her voice. “Don’t you ever touch me again!”
Garrick stared at her in confusion. “Thor, help me! What is wrong with you, woman?”
“You—you are mad if you think I will share you with my sister! If you want her, then you can have her, but don’t you ever come near me again, or I swear I will kill you!”
A twinkle came into Garrick’s eyes and he grinned in amusement. “Why would I want your sister when I have you? And why would you even think that, when I said only that I talked to her?”
“You have not made love to her?”
“Nay, I have not. But if I had, why should this upset you, Brenna?”
She felt her face redden deeply and realized how foolish she must have sounded, almost like a jealous wife. She turned away from him, wondering at her own reaction.
“Brenna?”
“I would not mind if you take another woman,” she replied quietly, feeling that unwelcome lump rise in her throat. “If another can take care of your needs, I would be glad of it, for then you would leave me be. But ’tis not right that you should have both me and my sister. Can you not see the wrong of it?”
“Is that the only reason you will give me?”
Her eyes shot open wide. “There is no other.”
“Very well, I will not press you for it.”
She glared at him. “I tell you there is no other reason!”
Garrick grinned at her, his dimples deepening. “You take offense easily this night,” he said with humor in his voice, and moved to his coffer. “Mayhaps this will lighten your temper.”
She fixed her gaze on him, entranced for a moment at the way his golden hair fell over his forehead, making him look so boyish and harmless, not at all like the Viking warrior, ravisher and coldhearted master she knew him to be. She was loath to take her eyes from his face, but finally she looked at the box he took from his coffer and her eyes lit up with curiosity. As he came toward her, she could see that the box was a miniature chest carved in an Eastern design and inlaid with ivory. It was quite lovely.
She met his eyes as he handed the chest to her. “What is this for?”
