How could she face Edwin’s father after what she had allowed another man to do to her? Not that he did not suspect she’d had other lovers since her beloved’s death. But he also knew those men had meant little.
“What about you, Osbert? How are you?”
He didn’t look too well, and she berated herself for not having visited him in the last month. She’d been busy, but everyone was always busy. It was no excuse. She should have made more of an effort. Edwin’s father was as dear to her as her own had been, the closest thing she had to a family now.
He patted her hand. “I’ll be fine, even though a good night’s sleep is sadly a thing of the past for me. Come, there’s something I wanted to show you.”
Smiling, Eahlswith followed him into the busy street.
As soon asSven woke up he knew that something was not as it should be. Or rather, that everything was exactly as it always was, which, on any other morning, would have been fine. But today was different… Today there should have been someone in bed next to him.
A dark-haired, wicked Saxon with curves to make a man lose his mind with lust and a smile to make him forget he’d ever found someone else attractive.
Had he dreamed her up? He reached up to his left bicep and felt the scratches she had left there when he’d pumped into her with all the determination he was capable of. No, she’d been all too real; these proved how wild their night had been. So where was she? It was still early, and given the intensity of their lovemaking, she should be asleep, curled up against him, dead to the world.
What made her absence even more galling was that he never let the women he bedded stay the night. He preferred going to their place or dallying with them during the day, in the forest, at the back of the forge, or the watermill, by the smoke house or wherever else desire struck. On the rare occasions when he’d brought a woman home at night, he’d always made the effort to walk her back home afterward.
Not last night.
Last night he had been too exhausted to do more than roll off her and gather her into his arms before succumbing to a deep, deep sleep. He couldn’t have walked her home as she didn’t live in the village, and anyway, he wouldn’t have had the strength to leave the pallet even if she’d lived in the next hut.
He frowned. Where was she? Had she slipped outside a moment to see to her needs or had she left the village already? The pallet next to him was cold, which did not bode well. She might very well have left without saying goodbye. Shrugging on his braies and shirt, he peered outside the door.
No one. And no trace of her.
Damn. How would he find her now? He didn’t even know her name and he had no idea why she had come to the village.
His best bet was his father, Wolf the Icelander. Since the woman had been a Saxon, it made sense to think that she had come to see him about some problem or other. Yes, but that notion caused his chest to squeeze in fear. Men came to him with a variety of complaints but usually women came to him for one specific reason. They had been raped and they wanted their attackers to be punished. They had heard that the formidable Norseman would champion their cause, no matter that they did not belong to his community.
So, had the Saxon been raped?
He wanted to believe she hadn’t. Certainly, her response to his touch had not raised his suspicion. She had behaved like a woman overwhelmed by pleasure, not dread. Having once held in his arms a lover who’d suffered at the hands of men in the past, he thought he would have seen the difference.
Well, there was only one way to know.
Hoping to have some answers, Sven went over to his parents’ hut. He found his father outside, whitling the end of a long piece of wood, sharpening it to a deadly point. Was he making a spear? It was possible. The man hated to stay idle, a trait of personality all his children had inherited.
“Good morning, son.”
“Good morning.”
Suddenly at a loss as to how to broach the topic of the Saxon woman, Sven sat down next to him and took some of the wood shavings piled at his feet in his hand.
“These would make good kindling for the fire,” he said, observing how the wood had curled into all sorts of graceful shapes. “They would catch on fire in no time.”
The image brought him back to the night before. The passion between him and the beautiful temptress had burned bright from the start.
“You came here to tell me things I already knew? I’d already planned to use them for that exact purpose.”
His father threw him a sideway glance and scoffed. Sven shook his head. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to pretend nothing was weighing on his mind. What was he doing, talking about chips of wood when he’d come with a purpose in mind?
“There was a Saxon woman yesterday in the village,” he started, clenching his fist repeatedly. Although he was close to his father and they didn’t have any secrets from each other, he rarely talked to him about his conquests. It had always seemed rather indelicate. “Taller than most, dark-haired, with eyes as dark as mother’s. I was wondering if she’d come to see you?”
His father didn’t even seem to hesitate. Evidently, the description didn’t correspond to anyone he knew. “No, I’m sorry. The last Saxon who came to see me at the village was a man and that was more than a month ago.”
There it was. His only hope, gone up in smoke.
“What did you want with her?”
