Page 81 of The Blue Viking

He tilted his head in question. “Let me dress whilst you talk, then. I really do need to go soon. I would like to arrive at the MacNabs afore it is full dark.”

She nodded and moved aside so that he could rise. Almost immediately, she covered a good part of her body with the bed linen. Still visible above the cloth were her bare shoulders and the amber necklet, which suited her so well. How could he have ever thought of giving it to anyone but her?

While he drew on his garments, Maire tried several times to tell him something that was apparently bothering her, if her wringing hands and stammered speech were any sign.

“I should have told you long ago …,” she began and halted. Then she tried another route, “I hope you will control your temper till I get to the last because …” She abandoned that pathway as well. “It’s about Jamie, you see, and how …”

“Jamie! All this nervousness is about Jamie! What has he done now?”

“It’s not what he has done. It’s what I…”

“I know… you found out about him watching through a peephole in the scullery as Dora took a bath.”

Maire’s jaw dropped open. “He did that? Oooh, I do not need you to warm his bottom. I will do it myself.”

Hmmm. If it wasn’t that incident, what could it be? “Oh. Surely you’re not this distressed because he and his friends spread honey on the garderobe seat?”

He could tell by the angry glint in her green eyes that she hadn’t been aware of that misdeed either. Jamie’s arse was going to be hot, not warm, Rurik would warrant.

“I am not the one who brought up the subject of his dinky,” he asserted, refusing to take the blame for that foolishness.

“His … his dinky?” Maire sputtered.

So, it was not that either. “Well, the only other thing I can think of that might have you this upset is his asking me if he could go a-Viking with me.”

The anger quickly disappeared from her expressive eyes and was replaced with hurt. Why hurt? “My Wee-Jamie asked to go away with you?” Her voice was barely a whisper and carried myriad emotions, mostly pain.

“Yea, he did … the rascal… but, of course, I told him it was out of the question.”

She breathed a visible sigh of relief, which struck Rurik as rather odd. Why would she think he’d even consider taking her young son away from his homeland and his mother?

Maire inhaled and exhaled several times, as if to calm herself. “Rurik, you might not come back from this mission tomorrow. I cannot let you go into danger without telling you … something. You need to know.”

He was already fully garbed and putting his sword in its scabbard. “Is this news something that will upset me?”

“Possibly.”

“Cause me to lose my concentration?”

“Probably.”

“Change my life in any way?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Rurik couldn’t imagine anything involving her son that would affect him so. The scamp must have done a deed that was really, really bad for his mother to be so distressed.

She was about to say more, but Rurik put up a halting hand. “Nay, save it till I get back. Bad news going into battle means bad news coming back.”

“But—”

“Nay, Maire. Leave be, for now.” He leaned down to give her a good-bye kiss. When he was done, he murmured against her mouth, “When I come back, I promise to reciprocate for you the events of today. Mayhap I will demonstrate what I can do with a piece of chain mail.”

She nodded, not really hearing his words, he could tell. He made for the door, opened it, and was about to leave her chamber when she called out, “Rurik, there is one thought I would have you take with you … something I never would have believed just a few days ago. I don’t think this will upset you.” She paused briefly, then said, ever so softly, “I love you.”

He just nodded at her words, and left. Oh, he knew she’d wanted him to say the same phrase back to her. He could not.

Maire was wrong about the effect her declaration would have on him. Rurik was upset.