His answer started a glow inside her that she refused to acknowledge. Aware of her feelings now, she feared it was going to be even harder for her to resist his charm. Yet she had to. He was a man born to seduce women. Nothing he said could be taken seriously.
She moved back to find a spot where she could sit comfortably among the flowers. He tried once more to get her into the water before he gave up. Yet he took an inordinately long time at his “washing,” and she was growing warm, watching him.
Finally she asked him, “Will they not hold up the meal until we return?”
“Not tonight, for we eat here,” he replied. “If you are hungry, you can start without me. You will find the food in my saddle.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to argue with him. She didn’t want to stay there any longer. The place was too—romantic, the breeze warm, the scent of flowers heavy in the air, the water lapping lazily at the bank. And so private. Entirely too private.
She fetched the food just to distract herself, and the wine she found she started on right away. But it didn’t soothe her nerves as she had hoped, or rather, it did too much, because she didn’t even think to look away when Selig walked out of the water a while later.
The moon had come out by then, and it was a bright one. Before she had drunk the wine, she would have considered that unfortunate, but now all she could think was what a magnificent, pagan sight her husband was, emerging from the water, a veritable gift from the gods. She had the strangest urge to reach out and touch him, just to be sure he was real. And then the urge was to touch him for other reasons.
She jumped to her feet when she realized what was happening to her. The wineskin was grasped in her hand like a weapon, though she wasn’t even aware she held it. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t touched her, and yet she was seduced.
She swung around so she couldn’t see him. And all she could think to say was, “You will become ill, wearing those wet clothes.”
“I brought clean ones.”
“Then put them on.”
“’Tis the first time I have felt cool all day,” he replied. “You would deny me that when there is no one here to see me but you, and you are already acquainted with my body, clothed or not?”
Put like that, it would have been unreasonable of her to do so. “Aye,” she said anyway.
His chuckle was deep and sounded wickedly pleased. But no sooner did it end than his hands slipped over her breasts, pulling her back against his wet chest. Her gasp was silent. Her senses whirled.
“What is it you fear, little Dane?” was whispered at her ear. “What you make me feel, or what I make you feel?”
Both!her mind screamed, but actual words were lost to her already. His one hand stayed at her breasts, but the other had slid over her belly and somehow worked its way between her legs, despite her chainse and gown being in the way. And his mouth had fastened on her neck, was moving slowly upward…
Across the lake, Royce moved back from the bank and put a finger to his lips to caution his wife to be quiet. Those lips were grinning.
“’Tis a good thing we saw his horse,” he whispered to Kristen, who had stayed back with their own mounts at his direction. “I do not think your brother would appreciate our joining him just now.”
“You mean…?”
“Exactly.”
“So you were right. He cannot even hate a woman with any real conviction.”
He laughed at her disgruntled tone. “I did not say he was with his wife.”
“Nor did you have to, after Thorolf came by to relate what happened today—and Selig’s reaction to it. Do you ask me, my brother does not knowwhathe wants.”
“At the moment, I would say he does.”
At the end of the lake, it was Brenna who was amused, and Garrick who was annoyed that he wouldn’t be cooling off in the lake, at least not tonight. Unlike Royce and Kristen, who had been at the Wyndhurst village and thought to swim before they returned home, Garrick and Brenna had come straight from the hall. So they had each approached the lake from different directions, the reason that they had not seen one another. Yet both couples had seen Selig’s horse.
As Garrick helped Brenna back into her saddle, he wondered aloud, “Do you suppose he might be done quickly and we should wait?”
“If he is anything like you, love—”
“Never mind. And do not say, ‘I told you so.’ I would have preferred some other way of finding out that he likes his wife more than he would have us think.”
Brenna just laughed.
Chapter 41
