“You are mad, wench! Put me down!”
“I am apologizing!” Kristen’s smile was brilliant. “For all your advice I did not heed. I concede you are wise beyond your years, Eda. Oh, Eda, I love you!”
Kristen twirled the old woman once more before she set her down to commence the worst grumbling and scolding Kristen had ever heard before. She smiled through it all as she hurried to collect all the scattered peas, not daring to look again across the hall.
But across the hall, Selig was also smiling. His search was indeed at an end. He had found Kristen, and she was hail and hearty and making a fool of herself to keep from racing to him. He knew her exuberance. She had knocked him flat on his back more than once when he returned from a sailing trip and she threw herself into his arms in greeting. How she contained herself now was a wonder, but it was a warning, too, of which he was already aware. He could not go to her, could not acknowledge her in any way. Throughout his search he had been tormented with the thought of her death. But she was alive. Alive!
“What do you make of that, Royce?” Alden wanted to know.
They had both watched Kristen behaving most bizarrely. “What can I say? She ceases to surprise me with the strange things she does. Nay, she still surprises me, but I am more used to it now.”
“Well, ’tis strange indeed that she should find such humor in spilling peas.”
Royce laughed at Alden’s disgruntled tone. Several feet away, Selig tensed, seeing the lords watching Kristen.
He nudged Seldon beside him. “What do they say?”
“They are speaking of the Viking wench.”
“She is a prisoner here, too?”
“Aye, but ’twould be more meet to call her Lord Royce’s personal slave, if you know what I mean.” Seldon chuckled. “That is one Viking he has tamed.”
Selig closed his eyes. Beneath the table his hands clenched into fists. He had only feared for her death. Not once had he thought of her ravishment at the hands of these Saxons.
His eyes opened slowly, a dark and violent storm gathering there. He was going to have to kill this Saxon lord.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Kristen came to Royce as soon as he stepped into his chamber, her arms going around his neck to drape loosely there, while her fingers played with the hair at his nape. His brow rose questioningly at this unusual display of welcome.
“Alden tells me you gave him a look earlier that could have smote a man to his knees, and not two hours later, you smiled at him.”
“Ah, well, milord, I let my hate pour out of me, the last of it, ere I put it to rest.” She laughed at his doubtful frown. “I took your warning to heart. Is that so strange?”
“From you, aye.”
“Time will tell.”
One finger traced circles about his ear. Her eyes were soft, inviting, yet her mind was not in tune with what she was doing. She thought if she did not show some curiosity about his new retainer, he would think that strange too.
Casually she said, “I noticed you have a new man. Is that normal, for you to retain strangers?”
Her question had the opposite effect from what she sought, arousing his suspicion instead. “You show not one whit of interest in the King of all Wessex, nor his nobles, yet you ask about this Celt. Why is that?”
“I was no more than curious, milord. All the women talk of him.”
“They can talk,” he said roughly. “’But you will stay away from him. He hates all Vikings as much as I do.”
It was time to redirect his thoughts. Her eyes half closed. Her finger came down along the edge of his jaw, then moved up to slide across his lower lip.
“Do you, Saxon?” she murmured huskily. “Do you still hateallVikings?”
His answer was to crush her to him with a groan. And Kristen no longer had other things on her mind. But her joy in her brother’s return from the dead was prevalent in all she did. Just as she had grabbed Eda earlier because she had to share her joy with someone or burst, she shared it tonight with Royce.
She was playful and passionate, shy and aggressive. By turns she was the seductress, the virgin, the wild vixen. She was everything to him, until Royce ceased to marvel at the changes. Her throaty laughter, never before heard in his bed, fired his blood to boiling. He took her again and again, and was only vaguely amazed that he could. But when she whispered that she wanted more of him, she tempted his soul. She wrung him dry, and when he finally slept, it was the sleep of the dead.
Kristen slept too. But with her emotions still so charged, for her it was a fitful sleep, from which she was able to awaken early, long before dawn.
