Page 59 of My Fair Viking

Then tease her with indifference,

Even if 'tis only pretense.

Touch her ofttimes in passing,

Soon her senses will be singing.

If all else fails…

Beg."

"Wait a moment, Tyra."

It was Adam who called out to her. Mortified by her behavior of the previous night, she had been avoiding him. He'd caught her now in the late afternoon as she was about to ride out with her men to survey their southern border where some scurvy Danes had been spotted eyeing a village outpost.

"What is it, Adam? I must make haste." She did not look at him as she spoke. If she did, she knew she would blush.

"Come, sit down here on this bench for a moment. I must needs speak with you about Alrek."

"Alrek?" Now, that was a surprise. She wasn't sure what she had expected Adam to say, but not this. "What has he done now?"

"Nothing. Well, he has done something… most recently, he rearranged all the pottery vials in my medical bag, and now Rashid must go through them all to decide which is which. But that is not why I beckoned you now."

Tyra looked at Adam, and that was a mistake. A big mistake. He was wearing a plain brown tunic today over plain brown braies with a plain brown leather belt, but in truth there was not an inch of this man that was plain. He was just the right height. He had just the right amount of muscle bulging at his arms and legs… and, well, other places she dared not even think about. And his face was a sculpture made by the gods. No man should be so fair of face.

But then she noticed something else. A small bite mark on his neck. From her? Well, who else?

"Alrek has an arrangement with your father whereby he trains to be a Viking and, in return, once a year he is given a silver coin."

"My father agreed to pay him for all his disasters?"

Adam shrugged. "The point is, the time has come for him to be paid. Your father is dead to the world, so to speak. And Alrek is in need of coin to support his family."

"We give him all he needs," she said with affront.

"Apparently not."

"Why did he not come to me?"

Adam shrugged again. "Pride."

"That is a lot of pride for a little boy."

"Pride knows no age, my lady… nor gender." He reached out and flicked a piece of lint off her tunic… which called to her mind other ways in which he had flicked her the night before. She fought it but could not curb the blush that heated her face again. Then, as if unaware that he had befuddled her senses once more, he went on, "I tried to give him a coin, but he would not accept it from me."

"What would you have me do?"

"Find a way to give him the coin without bruising his pride."

She nodded. She could do that. She wanted to do that. "You are a contradictory man, Adam."

"How so?"

"You are clearly annoyed by Alrek and his pestsome brood, and yet here you are, going out of your way on his behalf. You fight your fate mightily in regard to medicine, and yet you spent many hours today serving my people. You are a Saxon, and yet you have the spirit of a Viking."

"You are probably correct," he conceded, to her surprise, "but I can think of still other ways that I am riddled with contradictions. I mislike your mannish ways, and yet I like you. I do not want a permanent relationship with you, or any woman, and yet I sniff after you like a randy dog. I try my best to focus on your ill-mannered, masculine characteristics, but all I can see is the woman in you. Can you understand that?"

She could not.