My Lord Viking (41 page)

     
Nils opened his mouth to answer, but the call of her name interrupted him.
 
He watched as Linnea turned and walked to where Tuthill held out his hand to assist her into the carriage.
 

     
Vows and obligations.
 
Once they had guided his life.
 
Once he had taken pride in taking on both.
 
Once he had sought any opportunity to make them his.

     
Now all he wanted was Linnea.

     
“Hurry up!” Martin shouted.
 

     
“Go ahead,” he called back.
 
“I will walk and give my clothes a chance to dry.”

     
If Martin yelled something to him, the breeze and the sound of the waves carried it away.
 
Nils watched as the carriages were turned to make their way to where they could be driven to the house.
 

     
“It is not as you thought it would be, is it?” growled a voice behind him.
 
“
Daari
!
 
Fool and traitor to your oath.”

     
Nils turned, his hand reaching for the blade hidden beneath his coat.
 
He drew his fingers away when he stared at the form materializing out of the brilliant sunlight.
 
“Loki, I thought you had given up finding amusement with me.”

     
“You speak boldly for a mortal.”
 
For the first time, Nils realized the god was shorter than Linnea, for his head did not reach Nils’s shoulder.
 
Loki walked around him as if appraising him from every side.

     
Spinning to match the wizard’s steps so that his back was not to Loki, whom he could not trust, Nils said, “I see no reason not to speak the truth, for you shall discern it one way or the other.”

     
“But a mortal should not speak to a god as if they are equals.”

     
“I did not mean that.”
 
Nils bowed his head, but kept his eyes focused on Loki.
 
“You know I hold all the gods in the greatest respect.”

     
Loki laughed.
 
“You are wise to do so, and you are right.
 
I no longer find you amusing.”

     
“Then...”
 
He was not sure why Loki was here.
 
The god who delighted in twisting words until the truth was impossible to recognize would not have come here simply to bid him farewell.
 
To say that might enrage Loki.
 

     
“Then I must find someone else to amuse me.
 
Maybe I will be amused by the woman who has amused you so much.”

     
“No!”

     
Loki’s smile vanished, his eyes becoming twin storms.
 
“You dare to tell me what I cannot do?”

     
“Linnea does not even believe in you.”

     
“She will believe in me by the time this is over.”
 
Loki released a wild laugh.
 
“Believe in me and fear me.”

Twenty-One

     
As she walked along the twilight-dusted hallway, Linnea heard laughter from Papa’s favorite sitting room.
 
He and Mama and Martin and Minnie must be playing cards tonight.
 
She envied them their simple entertainments, because nothing seemed simple for her any longer.

     
Randolph
had called again this afternoon to ask her once more to reconsider announcing their betrothal on Saturday.
 
She had demurred.
 
She suspected he would call tomorrow again and the day after and on Saturday.
 
Every effort she had made to avoid hurting him had been for naught.
 

     
Going down the stairs, she drew her crocheted shawl over her shoulders.
 
She slipped out a side door.
 
If she was seen, someone might send Olive after her.
 

     
Or Nils.

     
She needed to be alone, so she could think.
 
Everything was a complete muddle.
 
She could not blame any of this on Nils because she had been simply letting life sweep her toward this inevitable clash between
Randolph
’s plans and hers.
 
She should have been honest with him right from the start.

     
With Randolph or with Nils?

     
Pulling the shawl more tightly about her, although the night was mild, she walked toward the water garden.
 
She had not been there since Nils had come to the house during Dinah’s wedding.
 

     
She went down the steps, taking care that she did not miss one in the thickening darkness.
 
This place had been her haven as it had been Nils’s.
 
Could she find that sanctuary again while she tried to sort through her thoughts?
 

     
The sounds of the night creatures were loud among the flower bushes.
 
When a wisp of night breeze rippled across the pool, the light of the rising moon danced to its silent song.
 
A plop and a widening circle was all that remained of the wake of a frog slipping into the water.
 

     
Linnea looked up at the pavilion.
 
The shutters covered the windows, except for the ones that would have given Nils a view of the road and the house.
 
She had known that he watched the comings and goings at
Sutherland
Park
to make the hours pass more quickly and to learn more about life in this time.
 
He had learned so much, but the one thing he needed to know still eluded him.

     
He needed to find that knife.
 
A knife with a dragon crawling from its haft down onto the blade.
 
She had seen it.
 
She knew she had.
 
Why couldn’t she remember where?

     
“Mayhap because you do not want to,” she whispered as she looked again at the pavilion.
 
When she had first brought Nils here, she could not wait for the moment when he would leave
Sutherland
Park
.
 
Now she dreaded it, knowing he would take her heart with him.
 

     
Sitting on the bench, Linnea clasped her hands in her lap and tried to clear her mind.
 
She had promised to help him, so she must try.
 
So much whirled through her brain, she could believe a storm had erupted within her head.
 
She wondered when she last had sat alone like this to sort out her thoughts.

     
She stared at the pool, which had become as smooth as the looking glass in her room.
 
Not even a leaf moved on any of the bushes or the trees.
 
The night sounds were evaporating into silence.
 
She stared about her.
 
Nothing seemed amiss, but why was everything so still?

     
A hand settled on her shoulder, and she jumped to her feet.
 
Whirling, she saw a woman standing behind the bench.
 
The woman’s hair was the silver of a newly minted coin.
 
Not even the moonlight could dim its rich sheen.
 
Dressed in loose robes that were more suited for private chambers than a garden, she was smiling.
 
In her hand, she held a round crystal globe.
 
She let it roll over her fingers and back and forth.
 

     
“Who are you?” Linnea asked.

     
“Do not be fearful.
 
I mean you no harm.”
 
She balanced the clear ball on her fingertips as she held up her hands, which were a ghostly white in the moon’s glow.
 
“I was walking this way and saw you sitting here.
 
I thought I might stop to speak with you.”

     
“Are you lost?”
 
It would be beyond ironic that Linnea had created the story of Nils being set upon by highwaymen and wandering—lost and seeking help—onto Sutherland Park’s lands when this woman might have suffered the very same in truth.

     
“No, I am not lost, although this is far from my home.”
 
She smiled.
 
“You need not fear me, because I wish you no harm.”

     
“I did not mean to suggest that.
 
I only meant to offer you a place to rest and food to eat if you are lost and in need of shelter.”

     
“Your kindness to another stranger is laudable.”

     
“Another stranger?” Linnea asked with studied caution.

     
The woman’s smile broadened.
 
“It is well known that you asked your father to open his home to a wayfarer who had lost more than his way.”
 

     
Linnea nodded.
 
That fact was probably known in every household throughout the shire by this time.
 
Every guest who had ever come to
Sutherland
Park
was the source of much interest among their tenants.
 
“It has long been a tradition that
Sutherland
Park
opens its doors to those in need.”

     
“But it has been far longer that your guest has been lost.”

     
Linnea stiffened.
 
This woman’s words were vague, but too close to the truth that no one knew, save she and Nils.
 
“If you are not lost—”

     
The woman smiled.
 
“There are many ways to be lost.
 
One can lose one’s way on a path or upon the sea or in the journey of life.
 
The stranger who has come to you is not the only one lost.”

     
“I do not understand you.
 
You are making no sense.”

     
“No?”
 
She laughed.
 
“Maybe I do not, but I do know one thing.
 
You love him.”

     
Linnea stared at the woman, whose hair glowed more brightly silver in the moonlight as she came around the end of the bench.
 
Somehow, Linnea must have betrayed herself when someone was watching.
 
Somehow?
 
She almost laughed.
 
Minnie had seen her affection for Nils.
 
Randolph
had, too, she feared.
 
And Nils...Had he seen it?
 
She closed her eyes and recreated the intensity on his face when he had asked her to come back in time with him.
 
He must know as well.
 

     
Yet she could not speak of the truth in her heart to this woman.
 
“How can you think that you know?”

     
“I know it as you know it.”
 
The woman smiled and put her hand in the center of her chest.
 
“You know within you.
 
Here.”

     
“Even if I did love him, what does it matter?
 
I cannot tell him.”

     
“Because he must be free to seek what brought him here?”

     
Linnea took a step away from the pool.
 
“Who are you that you have so much knowledge that no one else should have?”

     
“I am someone who wishes to see the pain within two hearts eased.”

     
“Thank you, but...”
 
She backed away another step.
 
“If you are hungry, go to the kitchen door, and someone will be there to give you something to eat.
 
I bid you a good night.”

     
Linnea whirled and bumped into a hard form.
 
Nils put his arm around her to steady her.
 
When he asked if she was all right, she nodded.
 
She started to ask him what he was doing out here in the garden, then saw he was staring past her at the woman with the wondrous silver hair.
 

     
“Sit here, and I will be right back,” Nils said, seating her on the bench.

     
“But—”

     
“Wait here,
unnasta
.
 
I will...I will be right back.”
 
He went to where the woman was still standing by the shore of the pool.
 

     
The woman said something, but the only thing Linnea could understand was, “Nils Bjornsson.”
 

     
Linnea gasped, horrified at the sound of his real name on someone else’s lips.
 
Both Jack and Olive had been careful not to use it when others might hear.
 
How did this stranger know it?

     
Nils continued to stare at the woman before him.
 
He had left the house, hoping to find a place to be alone.
 
Something had drawn him to this garden by the pavilion that once he had despised as a prison.
 
Then he had seen Linnea here, and he had guessed she was the reason he had found himself summoned here...until he saw she was not alone.

     
“Vjofn?” he asked.

     
“You recognize me, which bespeaks well of your knowledge of the ways that were yours.”
 
She held up the crystal globe, which reflected his face back to him.
 
“I see your questions.
 
I will answer one by telling you that I am here because it is as you have feared.”

     
He bowed his head toward Vjofn as he asked, “Do you speak of Loki?”

     
“He is very angry that you have tried to gainsay him,” she replied.
 

     
“I know that, for he has told me so himself.”

     
“Loki is a
daari
, but a powerful one.
 
Take care what you do, Nils Bjornsson.
 
He believes that a mistake was made when Freya allowed you to survive.
 
He has stated openly in
Asgard
that such a mistake must be rectified.”

     
“Odin has spoken to me of—”
 

     
“There are ways that Loki can outsmart even Odin himself. You know well the old tales.
 
You know Loki’s vengeance is as horrific as his arrogance.
 
He has been playing with you for his own enjoyment.”