Heart of Honor (21 page)

“Hanna and I were never betrothed. The gods have chosen Krista to be my wife instead.” He flicked a glance in her direction. For a moment, she looked as if she would argue, but for once she kept silent, and he was grateful.

“It is good you are here,” Runa said, still ignoring Krista’s greeting. “The Hjalmr clan has been raiding again. They began right after Father died. Mayhap Rikard the Fierce thought us weaker with only Olav to lead us.” She smiled. “They will soon learn that Leif the Dragon-hearted has returned. They will think better of mounting a raid against us now that you are here.”

Leif looked over at Krista, saw one of her blond eyebrows arch. “Leif the Dragon-hearted?” she repeated.

He shrugged. “It is what my people call me.”

“There are several names I’d like to call you,” she said to him in English, “but for now I will restrain myself.”

He felt the pull of a smile. He liked this woman he intended to make his wife. And he wanted her back in his bed.

“It is better if you speak Norse as much as you can. It will become easier that way. We will speak English when we are alone. I do not wish to forget the language I worked so hard to learn.” When she didn’t disagree, he took her hand and started leading her toward the road up to his farmstead.

As he passed through the crowd, a group of women came toward him. One he recognized as Elin, the wife of a distant cousin. “You are returned, Leif, but what of the others? Where is my son, Bodil?”

“I am sorry, Elin. The boat was not strong enough to survive the journey. The foreigners who helped us sail it, your son, Bodil, and the others, none of them survived.”

“But you are yet alive.”

His jaw clenched at the terrible memory of the storm, of dying men and the icy, treacherous sea. “It was the will of the gods.”

The woman began to keen for the loss of her son, and several other women joined in. It was sad news he brought this day, and yet the men had understood the danger they faced when they chose to leave.

He started walking again, Krista on one side, Runa on the other. “Krista will need clothing,” he said to his sister, “garments suitable for the future wife of a chieftain. I will leave the matter to you.”

She didn’t look pleased, but she nodded, her gray eyes running over the unusual garments he and Krista wore. “I shall tell Olav of your return and have your quarters prepared.” She flicked a dark look at Krista. “Where will the woman sleep?”

“Prepare a room in the longhouse next to mine,” he said. “She can stay there until we are wed.”

Runa hurried ahead of them up the hill and Krista leaned closer. “Vikings don’t force their women to wed against their will—is that not so?”

“Usually, that is so.”

“Well, I won’t agree to the marriage.”

Leif sighed. “You will wed with me. One way or another.”

“I won’t,” she said stubbornly.

And for the first time since he had decided to bring her with him, Leif began to worry.

Krista made the climb up the steep slope to the Viking settlement. Walking beside her, Leif seemed unusually quiet. Perhaps he was considering her refusal to marry him, but more likely he was thinking of his father.

“I am not certain I understood correctly,” she said to him. “Your father is dead?”

He nodded. “He died of a fever nearly a month ago. I should have been here.”

She took hold of his arm. “You had to go, Leif. You told me how important it was for you to see what lay beyond the island.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry. Truly, I am.”

He turned toward her, reached out and gently cupped her cheek. “Always you are caring of others. Even though you are still angry, you are sorry for my pain.”

Krista turned away, her heart beating oddly. Of course she cared. She was in love with him. It didn’t mean she could live the sort of life he meant for her to live.

They continued up the hill to the summit. The breeze picked up and she shivered against the wind that ruffled the legs of her trousers and blew open the front of her jacket. She drew the coat closer around her. As they topped the rise, she paused. Between the mountainous coastline and another range of mountains rising in the distance, a lush green valley spread out before her. The icy breeze lessened and a warm sun beat down on her face. Surprise must have shown in her eyes, for Leif smiled.

“You thought it would all look as it does along the coast?”

“I thought it might.” But instead, a grassy, gently sloping plain appeared, crisscrossed with irrigation channels and dykes. Herds of cattle roamed the grasslands, and great fields, recently harvested of grain, stretched farther than she could see.

“You are pleased.”

Krista sighed. “It doesn’t matter what it looks like, Leif. Draugr isn’t my home and never will be.”

“In time you will feel different.”

She bit back a reply. The island would be lovely to visit, but she was a city girl, born and raised, and this wasn’t a place she could ever be happy living in. They continued along the valley until she glimpsed a cluster of buildings surrounded by low-lying hills.

She had seen drawings in her father’s books, the remains of Viking settlements that had been discovered in the Orkneys, the Shetlands, Ireland and Scotland. She knew what such settlements looked like, and this one perfectly fit the image.

“We have ninety farms in our clan. My family’s farmstead is the largest. We raise the most cattle and grain and employ the most workers. In past times, we owned slaves, but after the priests convinced the elders that slavery was against the will of the gods, we began to pay our workers, and it has been so ever since.”

The farmstead stretched before her, larger than she would have imagined, the buildings spread out around a central longhouse that measured at least a hundred feet. The structures were fashioned of stone and turf, some of them built into the hillsides, all with turf or thatched roofs.

“There is a blacksmith shop over there, and that is the barn where we store hay and the grain we grow for bread and ale. There is a goat shed and a pigsty. A privy sits just north of the house.”

Leif pointed to the low-roofed stone building shaped like a rectangular barn, with room after room added on to it. “And that is where we will live.”

Krista bit back a groan. Though the surroundings were lovely, the place looked every bit as primitive as she had feared. She shivered, and Leif draped an arm around her shoulders.

“Come. Let us go inside where it is warm, and I will introduce you to the rest of my family.” They would all be living together, she knew. It was the Viking way.

Drawing a breath for courage, she let him guide her into the longhouse, its low thatch ceilings held in place by heavy pieces of driftwood. It was less dismal than she had feared, with an entrance hall, followed by a huge main hall with raised daises running along both sides, probably places for sleeping. Yet it was hardly the sort of accommodations she was used to.

She looked down at the floor beneath her feet, saw hard-packed earth warmed by heavy woolen carpets woven in colorful geometric designs. A massive central fireplace was built into one wall. Flames burned low in the hearth, from driftwood and animal dung, she imagined, since Draugr had no forests. But the fire gave off a good amount of heat, and she quickly warmed enough to remove her coat.

“The kitchen is near the front,” Leif said, “and there is a room for weaving off to one side, and also one for storing dairy foods. There is a room we fill with ice and use to store fish and meat.” He inclined his head toward the far end of the hall. “Come. I will show you where you will be sleeping.”

She followed him, more depressed by the moment. What would she do to keep herself occupied in such a place? Spin wool into thread or weave garments? Churn butter? Cook meals for Leif and the men?

A lump rose in her throat. She had to find a way to make him see that she could not live like this, that her mind would dull with time and that she would simply fade away.

“We will occupy my father’s rooms,” Leif said, showing her into a large chamber that looked as if it had recently been vacated, a room with its own small fireplace. “Olav and his wife must have been living in here. By rights it now belongs to me—and to my wife.”

Krista surveyed the room, which had been freshened with herbs, the huge bed on a raised platform covered by a thick pallet of furs. Whatever possessions Leif had left behind when he sailed from Draugr had been placed in the room. An ornately carved leather shield, a battle-ax and lance were propped against the wall.

“Those are yours?”

“Aye. My favorite weapons I took with me, but now, except for my sword, they lie at the bottom of the sea.”

A tunic of deep ruby-red had been spread on the bed, along with a pair of loose-fitting breeches, which were meant to be worn underneath. Fur-lined, knee-high boots of some soft animal skin sat next to the bed on the floor.

“What is in there?” Krista asked, trying not to wonder how he was going to look in true Viking garb.

“You have a bathing room in your house. Through that door lies the pool I once mentioned. It is formed of a natural volcanic spring, heated by the mountain that rises at the center of the island. There are a number of such hot springs in the valley, as well as in the hills.”

His gaze ran over the man’s shirt and trousers she wore, which outlined her feminine curves. “The night we are wed, I will bathe you and make love to you in the pool.”

Krista’s breath caught. She fought to block the image of them naked, making love in the heated water. Dear God, no wonder women were so enthralled with him!
A rare manly man,
they had called him, and truly it was so.

“Where…where am I to sleep?” she asked, desperate for a change of subject.

“Until you are my wife, you will sleep in the room joining mine.”

She turned toward a door on the opposite side of the chamber. There were no halls in a longhouse, just rooms that connected to other rooms, though the sleeping areas at this end of the house appeared to be very private.

She thought of the days and nights she would spend in the room next to his, thought of his determination to marry her and the battles she would have to fight—not just with him but with herself. She was in love with him, yet even with its minor comforts, this was not a place she could live.

She looked up at him and tears filled her eyes. “I can’t do this, Leif. Please take me home.”

For long moments his gaze searched her face. Then his jaw went hard. “You are mine. What the gods command cannot be changed.”

“What if the gods are wrong?”

“They are gods. They are never wrong.”

“Then what if
you
are wrong? You’re only a man, Leif. Men are not gods and they are very often wrong. What if you misunderstood and I was not supposed to come with you?”

Fierce blue eyes bored into her. “You belong to me—make no mistake in this. Three days hence, we will wed and you will again warm my bed. Once I am inside you again, you will know the rightness of our union.”

Taking her arm, he led her into the room next to his and urged her toward the fur-covered bed. “Rest awhile. I go in search of my brothers. My sister will bring you clothes. You may use the pool to bathe before you change. I will come for you before supper.”

Krista swallowed past the lump in her throat and simply nodded.

L
eif left the longhouse, his thoughts in turmoil. He had often imagined his return to the island. Locked in his cage, he had spent endless hours thinking what it would be like, if he lived, to again see his homeland. But nothing had prepared him for the actuality.

Mayhap it was seeing his home through the eyes of a foreigner, a woman of great wealth who had been raised with luxuries he had never imagined until he had arrived in England. Mayhap it was the months he had spent in so different a world, or all he had learned in the days that he had been gone.

He was a different man now than the one who had left, and for the first time he wondered, as Krista did, if he could ever be truly happy in this place that had once been his home.

He thought of the pleading look in her eyes as she had begged him to take her back to England, and his insides knotted. He wanted her to be happy. In his mind, he had pictured her so, seen her laughing as she played with the children he would give her, the sons and daughters he knew she wanted as much as he did.

He told himself in time it would be so. The gods had spared his life when he should have died along with the others. They had sent Krista to free him from the cruel fate he’d suffered at the hands of his captors. She was tall and strong and beautiful, made exactly to suit him. No other woman had ever fit him more perfectly, had ever made his blood burn with such unrelenting desire.

The gods had sent her to be his. He was as certain of that now as he had been almost from the moment he had first seen her.

And yet…

Leif shook his head. It was only his first day home. There was much to do, much that needed his attention. He thought of how long it had taken him to fit into a life in England, to begin to make a place for himself. Krista was a strong, capable woman. She would make a life here on the island, be the wife he needed, the woman who would warm his bed and give him strong sons.

Taking a deep breath, he crossed the open area in front of the longhouse, his mind moving from Krista to his brothers. Olav and his wife, Magda, lived in the longhouse where their father had lived, as Leif himself had done before he had sailed from the island. But Thorolf and Eirik, his two youngest brothers, had built farmsteads of their own. At the time he left, they had not yet decided to marry. He wondered if, in the year he had been gone, either had taken a wife.

Leif smiled to think of it. Both were big, strapping, lusty men, and handsome, the women seemed to think. He was eager to see them, to learn how they had fared while he was away, and hear more of what was happening with the raiding Hjalmr clan. Tonight at the longhouse, they would feast in celebration of his return, mourn their father and the men who had been lost at sea. And Leif would introduce his brothers to his future wife.

Krista prowled the room she had been given, then wandered into Leif’s room, hoping to discover more about him. On the top of a wooden bureau along one wall, she found a leather belt with an ornately carved oyster shell buckle, a leather headband trimmed with silver and a carved tortoiseshell brooch, the sort used to fasten a man’s tunic at the shoulder. There was a leather pouch and several silver armbands, one carved with the head of a dragon. An ivory amulet dangled from a leather thong in the same dragon design.

She had just picked up the amulet when she realized she was no longer alone. Krista turned door to see Runa standing in the open doorway.

“I brought you clothes.” Moving past Krista, she carried the garments over to Leif’s big bed and spread them out on top of the furs. The wooden shutter on the window was propped open, and in the sunlight, Krista noticed streaks of gold in the girl’s flame-red hair, tied back at the nape of her neck with a woven strip of cloth.

“Thank you…Runa.”

Like most of the women Krista had seen on the island, Leif’s sister was tall and fit. She was extremely pretty, with very fine features and unusual gray eyes that tilted a little at the corners.

“You speak our language,” Runa said. “Did my brother teach you?”

“My father taught me.”

Curiosity stole into her expression. “They speak our language where you come from?”

“No, but my father is a…a—” she couldn’t think of the word “—mentor,” she finally said. “He studied your culture and that is how I learned, though I have only a very basic knowledge.”

Runa moved around the bed, smoothing the gown she had brought, a long, pale-blue garment of soft-looking wool. Her gaze went over Krista’s trousers and shirt. “This is the way women dress where you come from?”

“No. These are the clothes men wear. My clothes were…I borrowed these from one of the men on the boat.”

Runa pointed at the blue woolen kirtle and the other items laid out on the bed, including a pair of oval tortoiseshell brooches linked by tiny silver beads, and a shawl of matching blue wool embroidered in patterns along the hem.

“These are for you,” Runa said. “Tonight there will be feasting. You may bathe, if you wish, before you put them on.”

“Thank you.”

Eager to enjoy the heated pool, Krista started for the bathing room, but Runa did not leave.

“My brother says the two of you are to wed.”

Krista stopped and turned. “Your brother is wrong.”

Runa frowned. “Wrong? How can that be?”

“I won’t wed him, Runa. I come from a very different world. I don’t belong here. I wish to return to my home.”

Runa’s gray eyes looked huge. “What foolishness do you speak? Half the women in Draugr wish to wed with my brother. He has chosen you. It is a very great honor.”

“If things were different, Leif is the husband I would choose. But my home is not here, it is in England, and I wish to return there.”

Runa tossed her a look of disdain. “You are a fool,” she said simply, and left the chamber, the heavy leather hinges on the door squeaking softly as she closed it behind her.

With a sigh, Krista went into the bathing room, stripped off her borrowed clothing and descended the narrow rock steps into the water. It was extremely hot, wonderfully so. At home, she never had the luxury of lingering in a bath. In a small bathing tub, the water rapidly grew cold.

Not here. The pool was large enough to hold three or four people, and there were stones beneath the water along the sides to sit on.

She ducked beneath the surface, used a chunk of some sort of soap she found near the edge of the pool to wash her hair, then rested her head back and closed her eyes, allowing the steam and the heat to soak into her bones.

She must have fallen asleep, for she dreamed that Leif was beside her in the water. He was kissing her neck, his big hands cupping her breasts, gently massaging the tips. She made a little whimpering sound as he moved lower, his skillful fingers sliding along her thighs, stroking between her legs.

Pleasure slipped through her and her eyes slowly opened. Krista jerked awake at the sight of Leif’s blond head bent over, pressing soft kisses against her bare shoulders, nibbling the side of her neck. She sat up so quickly a surge of water spilled over the rocks lining the pool.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“I am bathing, just as you are. I have missed this pool a great deal.”

“You can’t…can’t be in here. What will your family think?”

“No one can see us. We will not be disturbed while we are in here.”

She swallowed. Steam from the pool rose up in a clinging mist that dampened Leif’s golden-blond hair. Water beaded his magnificent chest and powerful arms where they showed above the surface, and in that moment, she had never wanted anything so much as for him to make love to her.

Instead, she moved through the water toward the narrow rock steps and climbed out of the pool, trying to ignore the fact that he was watching and she was naked. A stack of linen cloths sat on a rock at the edge, and she picked up one and hurriedly dried herself.

She flicked a glance at Leif and saw him lounging back against the side of the pool, his blue eyes glinting as he watched her.

“You are mine,” he said softly. “Your body knows this, even if you cannot see.”

Pleasure still throbbed in her nipples and the place between her legs. Dear God, of all the men on the earth, how could she be so foolish as to fall in love with a man who had the power to ruin her life?

Hurrying out of the bathing room, she snatched the pale-blue woolen garment off his bed, along with a linen under-garment that seemed to go with it, and made her way to the relative safety of the room adjoining his.

It was chilly in the bedchamber. Krista quickly pulled on the thin shift of finely woven linen, much like a chemise, then the loose-fitting blue woolen kirtle. The latter, she found, was actually a two-fold costume, one part of which wrapped under the right arm and came up on the left shoulder, while the other came up the opposite way. Using the pair of tortoiseshell brooches she had found earlier, she secured the kirtle in place.

A brief knock sounded and she turned to see Leif striding into the bedchamber. He was dressed in the knee-length, ruby-red tunic and loose-fitting breeches she had seen earlier, his long legs encased in the fur-trimmed boots. He looked even bigger and more powerful than he usually did, utterly and completely the Viking that he had once been. Nothing at all remained of the man she had fallen in love with, and despair settled deeper inside her.

Leif seemed not to notice. His gaze ran over her embroidered kirtle and appreciation gleamed in his brilliant blue eyes. “Your Viking blood serves you well. You look every bit the Norsewoman, as I knew you would. Come. I have built up the fire in my chamber. You can sit in front of the flames and dry your hair.”

She didn’t want to go with him. She didn’t trust this big blond Viking who stood before her, an entirely different man than the one she had known. For an instant, she closed her eyes, trying to conjure an image of Leif in his fashionable black evening clothes, of him bowing over her aunt Abby’s hand, but the image would not come.

Her fingers shook as she picked up the carved antler comb she had found among the items on the bed, and followed him into his bedchamber. Leif seated her on a wooden chair, but when she began to use the comb, he took it from her hand.

“I will do it for you.”

Wordlessly, she waited as he sat down on a three-legged stool and carefully pulled the comb through her damp, tangled hair. The act seemed nearly as intimate as the way he had touched her in the pool, and her nipples tightened beneath the simple blue kirtle. But this time, Leif scrupulously avoided any contact other than drawing the comb through her wet locks.

When he had removed all the tangles, he spread the heavy mass around her shoulders, rose from his stool and headed for the door. “I will send the girl, Birgit, to attend you. She will see to your needs from now on.”

So Krista was to have a maid, just as she had back home. But then Leif was now the clan chieftain and she was soon to become his wife.

Or so he believed.

She thought of her friends back in England, of her father and how much he needed her, of the business she had worked so hard to build into a successful enterprise, and a lump swelled in her throat. Turning away from the door, she blinked against the sting of tears and fought not to give in to the urge to weep.