“Aye, I know it. Oh, Selig, I am so happy now—”
His fingers at her lips stopped the rush of her exuberance. “Make me as happy, Kris. Tell me you suffered no ravishment by these Saxons.”
“Ravishment? Nay, I have not been ravished.” She did not give him a chance to feel relief. “But I have been well and truly bedded by Lord Royce.” Air hissed through his teeth, but she quickly put her fingers to his lips, as he had to hers. “Do not say something that will make me sorry for speaking plainly to you, Selig. I think I love the Saxon. I am more sure about wanting him. I have wanted him from the first…well, mayhap not that soon. But I was fascinated by him from the first, when he rode into the yard where we were all chained, and looked at us with such loathing. He gave the order we should all die. But he had changed his mind by the next day and came out to tell us we would be put to work building his stone wall.”
“We? He put you to such work?”
She laughed. “Aye. Thorolf and the others helped to disguise me. I was thought a boy, and that lasted for about a week. But the men could not keep it straight that I was supposed to be a boy. They kept helping me, and I think that is what gave me away, or at least it drew too much attention to me. The Saxon concluded that they protected me because I must be their leader. Anyway, that is what led to his finding out I was a woman, and I was moved into the hall then.”
“And into the Saxon’s bed?”
She hit him solidly in the belly for that. He bent over double with a loudwhoosh.
“Thor’s bones, Kristen! Have a care!”
“Then you have a care what tone you use,” she warned angrily. “I am a woman full grown. I am not answerable to you for what I do. And I did not go right to his bed.” She was not going to tell him everything she had told Thorolf. She ended more quietly, “The truth is, he resisted me.”
“What?”
His amazement made her grin despite her annoyance with him. “God’s truth. I knew he wanted me, but he fought it. No man has ever resisted me before.”
“Well I know it, for how many heads have I clobbered for their lack of resistance?”
She couldn’t help but giggle at that. “But the Saxon did fight his attraction to me, and the more he did, the more I came to want him. I deliberately tempted him, Selig.” That was hard to admit to one’s brother, but she wasn’t going to have him blaming Royce for seducing her, when it was in fact the other way around. “Two weeks ago the victory was mine—he took me to his bed. I have slept in his chamber ever since. I just came from there now.”
“You really love him, Kris?”
“I must. I do not agree with everything he does. I have been furious with him many times. But I could not hate him, not even for chaining me, when I hated those chains more than anything.”
“And what does he feel for you?”
“I do not know. I have his protection. He has shown some concern for me. But that is no more than he would give any possession of his. Yet he did naught to me when I tried to escape. And I know he did not really like chaining me. I just do not know,” she finished.
“Does he still want you?”
“Aye, that has not changed.”
“Then—”
“He will still marry someone else.”
“Aye, you did mention that,” he said, then suddenly exploded. “By Odin, nay! Hewillmarry you.”
She shook her head at him. “Selig, I am his slave. To his thinking, why should he marry me when he already has me in his possession?”
He grunted. “Father could tell him a thing or two about that.”
Laughter glittered in her eyes. “Aye, he could, but he is not here to.”
“Then I could—”
“But you will not, for Royce is not to know you are my brother, at any cost.”
“Then what do you do, Kris?”
Her chin hardened. “I will enjoy this man while I can. When he weds, I will leave here.”
“Just like that? Even though you love him?”
