Tormod said something to her. She just stared at him, unable to make sense of the words. He stood and pulled her up beside him, held her close. She leaned into his strength, grateful for his support, given how badly her legs were trembling. A thrall filled his horn with mead. The noise in the hall quieted as he spoke.
“I thank you for your attendance on my wedding day and for the welcome you have given my wife.” There were cheers and some applause. “But I believe she is tired, so we will take our leave of you for tonight. Please, continue to eat, drink and enjoy yourselves.”
Chapter Nine
The shouts and whistlesgrew in volume as they made their way through the hall to the door leading to Tormod’s room and many comments were hurled towards them. Most she couldn’t understand, although she could guess at what they referred.
Aoife took a deep breath as they stepped through the door, hand in hand. The wedding celebrations were over and her duties as a wife were about to begin. She shivered. As her eyes swept the room, she noticed the barrel she’d bathed in had been emptied and there was no sign of her old robes. When her gaze came to rest on the large bed strewn with an assortment of furs, she took an involuntary step back.
Tormod took her arm before firmly walking her further into the room and kicking the door shut. She blushed at the sound of raucous whooping from the room behind them and pulled away from him. Studiously avoiding looking at him, she hurried across to where a knot in the wood had been pushed out and she could peer out. Dawn had already broken and the silvery sky tinged with peach was beautiful.
Was it only two mornings since she had looked out into such a pale morning light and heard the horsemen approach? Now that life was over and a new, strange one beginning, and yet the morning was just the same. The sound of the waves of the sea-lochlapping, the mountains rising jaggedly from the sea all along the coastline—all that was the same.
“It looks very much like my father’s land,” Tormod said, startling her. He’d moved to stand right beside her and she hadn’t noticed. How could such a large man move so quietly, or had she blocked out his presence from her awareness on purpose? She couldn’t do so anymore. Heat radiated out from him and the leather scent of his clothing reached her nostrils. Under that was her husband’s own unique smell. She breathed it in, then closed her eyes, and yet still couldn’t escape his presence.
“Help me,” he said.
She opened her eyes and turned to see what he needed help with and froze as she realised he wanted her to help undress him. She stared at the fastenings on his clothing, unable to move. She tried to swallow, her mouth dry. She had some idea of what was about to happen, knew as a wife she couldn’t refuse her husband. She was, however, afraid of the pain her stepmother had warned her about when cautioning her to remain chaste.
A single tear slid out the side of her eye. She tried to turn away from him, and he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. The backs of his fingers gently brushed her face. “There is no need to weep,” he said softly. “Tell me what you fear.”
She was shocked he was asking, but touched that he even cared enough to ask. “This,” she said, indicating the bed. “Will it hurt?”
He cupped her face and shrugged. “Perhaps a little, and only at first. I will try not to hurt you. It can be good, you know, between a man and his wife. Pleasurable. It shouldn’t be a duty or something to be feared. I do not intend to hurt you or force you.”
“My stepmother said even with my husband it would hurt, and I wasn’t to cry out or you would beat me or cast me off. And the priests… They talk about sin and the evils of the flesh and…”
Tormod smiled, then slid his hand around to cradle the back of her head. He angled her face towards him, placed a gentle kiss on her lips, then drew back. “Do not listen to them.”
After a long moment, he tipped her chin up with his finger and smiled. “What they have not been telling you is about the pleasure. It is a feeling like no other, and even your god does not disapprove of married couples bedding.” He leaned in, kissed her again. This time his lips lingered on hers, moving gently and sensuously. His tongue parted her lips, and he groaned as he began to explore her mouth.
Slowly she began to respond, terrified of making a mistake, but this was more care and attention than she’d ever been shown before. She would be a fool not to respond to his gentleness.
He swept his hands down her shoulders and pulled her against him. As he deepened the kiss, she spread her hands across his chest, feeling the solid muscle underneath, the warmth of him. She found his belt and started to unfasten it.
He pulled back from her, smiling. She stilled. What was she doing, helping him with this? Her stepmother’s warning came flooding back as Tormod let the belt fall to the ground, then pulled his kirtle and shirt over his head, leaving him dressed only in his breeks. His skin glowed with a golden tinge in the firelight.
Tormod loosened her belt, allowing it to drop onto the floor. He ran his hands up her sides and took a step closer. As he kissed her thoroughly, his hands moved to undo the brooches that fastened the heavily embroidered apron at each shoulder. Before she could grab hold of it, her apron slithered down her body onto the floor, leaving her only in her dress. He didn’t try to remove that yet, though. Instead, he ran his hands through the length of her red hair. She shivered at the feeling.
“You didn’t get this from your father,” Tormod remarked, separating out a handful of strands and allowing them to flow over his palm.
“My mother was a Pict.”
“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful,” he murmured. “This marriage can be more than just a political union. Your presence here will safeguard us from your father’s men and his allies in Strath Clut, and maybe also from the Picts?”
She swallowed. Should she tell him now not to trust that her father would not attack the village just because of her presence here? No, she should wait until the marriage was consummated.
She realised the impact of the trick her father and stepmother had played. Not only had they rid themselves of an unwanted daughter, but they had also lulled the Norsemen into a false sense of security.
“Your mother’s people?” he prompted. “They won’t seek to harm you?”
“No,” she managed to say. “My mother’s people wish me no harm.” That at least was true. As for the other… If she told him the truth, he might reject her and send her back to her father. Her punishment for failing in this would surely be far worse than being sent to the abbey. She’d never make it back home alive—murdered along the way, or even on her arrival—her death blamed on the Norsemen.
No, she would find a way to tell him, to warn him of the danger—but not now. Once her place here was more secure. If she did everything possible to make herself necessary, do everything he asked of her, then maybe, just maybe, she could have a value to him that wasn’t built on her father’s lies.
“I would like to kiss you again,” he said.
For a moment she froze, then nodded. She tilted her head up to meet his. Their breath mingled and the heat of his body warmed her. His arms encircled her as their lips touched, and she gasped as he lifted her and carried her to the bed. Without taking his eyes off her face, he placed her carefully down and smoothed his hands down the length of her dress. She stared atthe expanse of well-muscled chest beside her. The scars which crisscrossed it seemed to add to his masculinity rather than detract from his beauty. Could a man be beautiful? She’d never considered it before.
