Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Notorious in the West\Yield to the Highlander\Return of the Viking Warrior (67 page)

‘I will always wait.'

He laid his cheek on the top of her head. ‘It is good to know.'

She inhaled, breathing in his spicy scent, savouring the moment. ‘You're going away again. You need not be gentle with me.'

He loosened his arms and peered down at her. ‘Do you want me to go? Will you let me go without a fight?'

‘If it is what the king commands, who am I to say no? But you will have a fight on your hands if you don't come home. I will go and search you out.' She squared her shoulders. She had to take the risk and say the words. If she didn't say the words and he went again, he'd never know. ‘I love you, Ash the person, not Ash the hero or Ash the warrior or even Ash the farmer if you wish to be that, but they are part of you. They make you into the man I love. And I'd rather have you to love than a thousand other men.'

‘But you want me to go. You will find it easier if I'm not underfoot, making changes to your well-ordered life.'

She shook her head, smiling. ‘I prefer your chaos to my order. I would like you to stay and be a farmer, but I don't think you would enjoy it.'

He laughed. ‘Answer the question. I can always beat my sword into a plough. I'm willing to try.'

Kara sobered. ‘I want you to stay, but I saw your face in the aftermath of the attack. You live for adventure. It makes you alive. I've no wish for you to live a half-life. You would be bored at Jaarlshiem, being a farmer. I can carry the burden of the estate, knowing that you will come back to me.'

‘You are wrong there, Kara.' He smoothed her hair away from her forehead. ‘I live for you. The only reason I am alive is because of you. You are the face I fight for. I didn't realise it fully until we were attacked and I had to fight, but I have been always fighting to return to you. I am not fighting to get away from you. Quite the opposite. I need you in my life. I once selfishly loved you because you made me feel like I could be a hero. You believed in my dreams. Then when my dreams turned to dust, I couldn't face you turning away from me. I still want to be your hero, Kara, but I want to be part of your life more.'

Her heart did a crazy flip. He wanted to be with her. ‘Why were you closeted so long with the king?'

‘The king has offered me a new position as his advisor.' Ash stood a little straighter. ‘He wants someone who has knowledge of today's world. He wants someone who can inspire the younger men and who can tell them where the best markets are. But I don't need to go to those markets. I can tell the men where to go.'

‘And you are going to take it?' Kara clapped her hands. ‘It is the sort of thing you were born to do, Ash.'

‘I wanted to speak to you first before I gave the king my answer. He granted my request.'

‘Then what is the problem?' Kara withdrew her hands from his. ‘You should take it.'

‘You were wrong earlier when you said that all I was doing was trying to prove myself to my father.' He touched her cheek. ‘It ceased to be about making my father proud years ago. I wanted to be a hero in your eyes.'

She closed her eyes, silently cursing her younger self. ‘You were, Ash. You have never had to prove anything to me. You still are.'

He put his fingers over her mouth. ‘I was wrong. You are wrong. Instead of wanting to be your hero I should have wanted to be your husband. A husband is more than someone to be admired. He is someone you can count on and who is there to share life's ups and downs. I want to share my whole life with you, instead of consigning you to the outskirts. Will you let me be that husband?'

‘And that is what you want for us?' Kara stared at him, hardly daring to breathe. ‘You want to be my husband?'

‘With my whole heart.' Ash knelt down on one knee. ‘Will you stay with me always and be my wife in truth? I might not always be the perfect husband, but I will always be the husband who wants you by his side. I love you, Kara, and I'm unafraid of admitting it.'

‘I will.' She grasped his hands and raised him to standing. ‘Go and take the king's offer. We will stay in Sand for the time you need to be here. Our family will be together.'

He gathered her face between his hands. ‘I don't deserve you.'

‘I know but you have me.' She cupped his face between hers. ‘Just as I don't deserve you. I was so frightened of loving you again, Ash, that I nearly missed my second chance to be loved. I need you in my life because you complete me.'

‘As you complete me.' He put his arms about her and knew that he had truly come home.

* * * * *

Author's Historical Note

R
esearching the early Viking period is like
doing a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. The period is often
referred to as ‘the semi-legendary period' as most of the history we know about
Scandinavia at that time comes from sagas which were written down long after the
event.

The earliest history of Norwegian kings is the Morkinskinna
saga, which in its current form dates from approximately 1220 but is reputed to
have been first written down in about 1025.
‘Morkinskinna'
literally means ‘the mouldy parchment' and refers to
the condition in which it was first found. We know from that the names of
various petty kingdoms of Norway, and can make some guesses as to who was in
power then, but there are huge gaps in the historical record.

Because of various ship burials most of the artefacts date from
this period, but the exact meaning of the burials and who was actually in them
is something that historians can only guess at.

We know a bit from other sources. For example, the Lindisfarne
raid is well documented, but the true cause of the raid is a matter of
conjecture. One recent theory is that the militant Christianity of Charlemagne's
Frankish empire against the pagan Scandinavia caused the Vikings to be more
violent than they had been in the past. Certainly there is evidence of some
violent conflicts in the years immediately preceding the Lindisfarne raid.

If you are interested in the period, and want to read something
other than the Morkinskinna, I have found the following books to be very
useful:

• Ferguson, Robert.
  The Hammer and the Cross: A New
  History of the Vikings
  (2010 Penguin Books, London)
  
• Haywood, John.
  The Penguin Historical Atlas of the
  Vikings
  (1995 Penguin Books, London)
  
• Jesch, Judith.
  Women in the Viking Age
  (2005 The
  Boydell Press, Suffolk)
  
• O'Brien, Harriet.
  Queen Emma and the Vikings: The Woman
  Who Shaped the Events of 1066
  (2006 Bloomsbury, London)
  
• Magnusson, Magnus KBE.
  The Vikings
  (2008 The
  History Press, Gloucestershire)
  
• Roesdahl, Else.
  The Vikings
  revised edition
  translated by Susan Margeson and Kirsten Williams (1998 Penguin Books,
  London)
  
• Wood, Michael.
  In Search of the Dark Ages
  (2006
  BBC Books, London)
  

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Historical.

You dream of wicked rakes, gorgeous Highlanders, muscled Viking warriors and rugged Wild West cowboys from another era.
Harlequin Historical
has them all! Emotionally intense stories set across many time periods.

Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Historical every month!

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com

ISBN-13: 9781460331675

RETURN OF THE VIKING WARRIOR

Copyright © 2014 by Michelle Styles

All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,
now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.

www.Harlequin.com