A single giggle escaped her before she cut it off, yet the laughter remained in her eyes. “If I ever have the urge to, I will remember that I have your permission.”
He sighed with dramatic disappointment. “Then I suppose I will have to do it for now.”
He bent over and up she went, firmly planted on his shoulder. She didn’t shriek or pound as he started up the stairs with her, said merely, “This is not necessary.”
His hand came to give her backside a gentle caress. “But I am enjoying it.”
So was Erika, truth be known, so she said no more about it. There was something very…romantic…about being carried off to a bedchamber, even if it was over her husband’s shoulder rather than cradled in his arms. As they passed Turgeis’s chamber, they heard laughter, both a man’s and a woman’s. Erika made no comment, but she smiled to herself, so very pleased for her friend.
In their own chamber, when Selig set her on her feet, he was immediate in demonstrating what he had in mind to do. Her own intentions were forgotten momentarily as she savored the taste and feel of him pressed along her length, and returned his kiss wholeheartedly. But when he reached to lift her gown, she put a hand over his to stop him.
One of his dark brows arched in question, but she was suddenly shy of beginning. She had to discuss his mistaken beliefs with him and try, somehow, to convince him that hewasmistaken. But what she was most interested in was what she was sure she had heard him say after he had pulled her out of that pit. She wasn’t positive he had said it. She had been too frenzied at the time because of those damned bugs and not paying attention. But a single question would clarify the matter for her.
She asked it. “Did you—say you loved me today?”
“Did I? I do not recall.”
“Then mayhap I am mistaken.”
His finger ran along her cheek. “Mayhap you are fishing to hear it again.”
A bit of stiffness. “If ’tis not so, then I certainly do not want to hear it.”
“And if it is so?”
“If you continue to tease me about this,” she growled, “it will not matter if it is so or not. I will—”
“Throw some more salt at me?”
She burst out laughing. The man was absolutely impossible, could not even be serious about what was so very important to her. She didn’t notice how still Selig went, though, hearing her laughter, but she saw his confused frown, which ended her amusement abruptly.
“What is it?”
“’Tis not the same, your laughter. ’Tis not as I remember it. Let me hear you laugh again.”
She understood. They were going to discuss the other first, after all, whether she wanted to or not. “I cannot laugh at will, but—”
He was suddenly gripping her shoulders. “Please, Erika, you do not understand.”
“I do. ’Tis not the same, because you never heard me laugh before. It was your fever, Selig, that made you imagine it. I was not there for your lashing. I meant to stop it, but I was called away. Ask Turgeis.”
She saw his stricken look just before he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her legs. He was groaning as he buried his face against her belly, and the sound tore at her heart.
“Nay, get up,” she beseeched him. “You are not to blame for what the fever made you believe.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“I never knew what you thought. Your sister told me only yesterday.”
“But how can you ever forgive me for what I tried to do to you?”
She had to smile at that. “Tried, Selig. You never actually managed to get your revenge. You simply could not hurt me.”
“I put you in chains!”
“My own guilt allowed it, or be assured, I would have protested more than I did.”
“I tried to humiliate you.”
