“I can’t be sure. Today. This afternoon, I think. Around the time when the snow stopped falling.” He pushed back and looked into her face, brushed a stray hair from her cheek. “From there you can see clearly into the woodshed.”
She swallowed, fear chilling her, then shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone.”
“Those hunters who I spoke to yesterday, if they suspected you were here, they might have come back to see if I was lying.”
“Surely if they had known who I was they would have come to get me?”
“Perhaps only one of them waited – it is hard to tell from the prints. They may have not wanted to risk having to fight me alone and have gone for reinforcements. If they saw what we were doing they will see you as being ruined, tainted. They will say you have allowed a barbarian to sully you. Or they will say I forced you, because who would believe a woman like you would allow someone like me—”
“Stop. Perhaps no one saw. Perhaps they do not know who I am.” She took his chin in her fingers and forced him to look at her. “I will never say you forced me or that I didn’t want you, because right here, right now, I want you more than I have ever wanted any other man.”
He looked like he was about to argue, so she touched her lips to his and kissed him with the promise of far more to come. When they separated, he turned towards the door. Her heart sank as she thought he was going to walk out on her, on them. But he simply lifted the bar into place, then followed her to the bed.
“If we are going to suffer for this, we should at least take every bit of pleasure from it first,” he said, cupping her face with his hand.
She unfastened her brooches and let her apron fall, then drew her dress over her head. He stepped forward and removed her sark, before he lifted her and placed her on the bed. She watched as he pulled his shirt up and off, grateful he now trusted herenough to let her see him, even if he did quickly cover them with the blankets. She revelled in the feeling of lying together, skin to skin, and didn’t feel the cold again all through the night.
Chapter Seventeen
Arne woke with astart early the next morning. He lay enjoying the feel of the warm woman in his arms, her bare skin touching his and her hair tickling his chest. It had been so long since he had felt able to do this, and he was reluctant to give it up. They’d made love many times during the night, each time more desperate than the one before, both knowing this was most likely the end of any relationship. Sometime in the middle of the night, he had heard a steady drip, drip from the eaves as the snow began to melt.
He closed his eyes, remembering the sensations she had aroused in him. When he was on top of her and her hands came around his back, he revelled in the feel of her touch on his unscarred skin. There was no point wishing he could feel that all over, as it would never happen, but was it so wrong to take pleasure in it, or to wish his body were as it had once been?
The outcome of his capture all those years ago could have been worse. He might have bled out on the floor of that awful hut or died of fever, even after his rescue. For months, he wished he had, as he suffered through months of agony and agitation as the skin crusted and healed.
Time had healed him as much as he was ever going to heal, although part of him sometimes forgot, and when he met newpeople, particularly children, he would get an unexpected and unwelcome reminder of his appearance.
Gemma was a beautiful woman, a woman who should wield much more power than she currently did. Someone way out of his league. She was the woman who had got beyond his defences and allowed him to feel almost whole again. The woman who seemed not to care about his appearance and had been willing to be patient with him, letting him see if his body still functioned as it should without making him feel like a failure. He would never be as he once was again, and so the way she made him feel was as close to being a normal man as he was ever likely to get.
He sensed she was wakening, and smiled as she wriggled against him. He took it as an invitation as she slid a hand back and sighed as she touched him. He caught her wrist, encouraged her to roll onto her back. She smiled up at him as he moved between her legs and hooked her legs around his back, then pulled himself in towards her. He leaned forward and kissed her, then watched her face as he entered her, loving the way her eyes widened and her head tilted back as he moved inside her. She was always so responsive, as if they had been made for one another—physically, at least. But this would be their last time together.
He forced himself to go slowly, to pleasure her thoroughly, and it was a delight to hear his name on her lips as she came. Only then did he let his tight control go, burying himself deep, almost frantic in the need to be close to her, wishing she could be his and not wanting her to ever be able to forget him.
When it was over, they clung to each other, and he felt her tears on his chest. Her smooth, bare skin pressed against his rough scarred body, but he had no need to hide it from her anymore. He kissed the tears from her eyes, then let her taste the saltiness on his lips and closed his own eyes, knowing they were safe with one another.
They lay together until they heard Caelin wake and begin singing to the cubs. Gemma dressed quickly and started to cook. He sat lazily watching her until she was stirring the pot of broth over the fire. She looked over at him and he wondered how she could smile. She was not supposed to be here, not supposed to be cooking or sullying her hands with housework. Despite this, she had not complained once.
She surprised him constantly and was so very different from what he assumed the first time he had seen her. Her haughtiness was still with her, a part of her, simply who she was — but it did not seem to mean she thought herself better than others and she had never shirked anything she had been asked to do at Kirkjaster. More than once he had heard her inform his mother that she would be willing to do a task, only she did not know how to do it. Any such statement coming from Gemma contained an implicit demand for instruction. He knew his mother admired her.
Her self-satisfied smile hinted at the fact she was thinking back on what they had shared earlier that morning, and he returned it. Then he heard hoofbeats approaching and the jingling of bridles. There was definitely more than one horse. Gemma’s fear was etched on her face.
“Hide! Both of you,” Arne said. His heart pounded as he dressed, pulling on his leathers as well as his sword belt.
Gemma grabbed Caelin’s hand, but the boy was reluctant to let go of the cubs and tried to take them with him.
“I’ll look after them. Quickly!” Arne crossed the room and took the cubs, then pushed Caelin towards his mother. Gemma slid under the bed, and Caelin scrambled in beside her just as there were three loud knocks on the door.
“Who is in here?” came a voice. Ulf. “Arne? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me,” he called back as he heaved a sigh of relief. “Stay hidden,” he whispered. “It’s Ulf, but he’s not alone.”
He placed the cubs in their basket as the door rattled.
“Coming!”
He lifted the bar and pulled the door slowly open. As expected, Ulf was there, along with three other warriors. All Norsemen from Kirkjaster. Some more of the tension left him and he smiled at the fact they had an extra horse with them.
“Arne, thank the gods. We’ve been unable to search far for you until today.”
