Page 67 of The Caged Viking

“The idea of you being a matchmaker.”

He shrugged. “I misdoubt she would accept any hersirs I might offer anyhow. None of them have enough coin or lands.”

“So, Zoya has meekly agreed to your plans?”

“Not so meekly,” he admitted with a shrug, “but she has to realize that she has no choice.”

Men! Clueless, whether eleventh century Vikings or twenty-first century Vikings. “So where is Zoya now?”

“You should ask! She has planted her pretty arse in the middle of the high table, waiting to be served.”

Just as I suspected would happen. “She has a pretty ass and you want to send her away?”

“M’lady, all my bed partners have pretty arses. Even you.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

The man was charming and hard to resist. Kirstin had to steel herself against him. “So, you want me to come to dinner and sit next to my…what? Enemy? Rival?”

“Rival would be good. That would mean that you want me. But, nay, I don’t expect you to sit next to Zoya. She might try to scratch your eyes out, or so she has threatened. I will sit between the two of you.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Well, I could ask for food to be brought to this bedchamber so that we can dine after…” More waggling of his eyebrows as he attempted to pull her into a tighter embrace.

She shrugged away and scolded, “Behave!” Then, she observed, “You’re in an awfully jolly mood. You must have had a good day.”

“Pfff! I have had an awful day, not awfully jolly in any way. Halfdan is gone, by the by. When he realized that I was beginning to uncover his misdeeds, he stole a horse and rode away, probably to Jarl Ingolf’s estate.”

“Will you chase after him?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. Too many things more important at the moment.”

“Like what?” she asked and sat up, propping another smaller bed fur behind her for a pillow behind her for support.

He leaned on one elbow, trailing a fingertip along her arm from her elbow to her wrist, smiling at the fine hairs that stood up in its wake.

She repeated, “Like what?”

His face went serious then, and he sat up as well, propping himself against another fur pillow. “I feel so guilty.”

“For kidnapping me?”

“Nay, never that, my wife.” He put an arm around her shoulders and forced her to accept the embrace. “I should not have stayed away so long. It was selfish of me. ’Tis a burden on my heart that I thought only of myself, and forgot there are people here who depend on me. Many of them have been living in squalor, their homes barely habitable. The storerooms are almost depleted. Gods know, but there might have been starvation this winter if I had not returned. With the longships not being sea ready, the people couldn’t have escaped if they wanted to.”

“Couldn’t they go to a neighboring estate for help?”

“The only one approachable by land is Ingolf’s Stormstead, and he would have used that as an opportunity to take over Haukshire.”

“Then it’s good you returned when you did.”

“It is.” He squeezed her shoulder. “And I appreciate all you did today.”

“I didn’t think you noticed.”

“I noticed,” he said and leaned over to give her a quick kiss, drawing back before she could smack him away. “Does that mean you want to bonk now?”

She suspected he deliberately mispronounced the word. “No,” she said, emphatically. “Besides, I stink. I was about to go to the bathhouse before I made the mistake of lying down on the bed for a moment.”

He pretended to sniff her hair, then pronounced, “Phew! You do stink. Methinks we both need to visit the bath hut.”