The Warlord's Wife (7 page)

Abandoning her reservations, she rode him without thought of shame or guilt.

After waking to find his wife missing and enduring the torment of watching her on his ship, Magnus had never spent a day more uncomfortably. He needed to quench his thirst for her and be done with it. Rays of sunlight streamed through the porthole, filtering through his wife’s silk mane. Satisfied at last, he groaned.

He covered his mouth over hers, capturing her bottom lip between his teeth. Eventually he would get used to her rousing taste, the softness of her delicious mouth, this intoxicating scent of her throat. Tightening his grip around her slim waist, he increased his speed, pumping her up and down. She tossed back her head, thrusting her full, firm breasts forward. He latched on to her nipple, suckling from her deeply. Jerking his hips upward, he locked their pelvises in place and released his seed deep inside of her.

Time came to a halt, the sea silenced, all that remained in his world was Magnus and his woman. Her warm breath was on his face, panting. Their hearts hammered as one. Nothing else mattered but this moment, this connection, and the need to take her again. Pushing his fingers deeper into her silk mane, he tilted her head back. The muscles in her face softened. Was this look in her eyes surrender? He searched their blue depths for a moment longer, then releaed her, alarmed at what he found.

Her intent was obvious. She was trying to control him.

Magnus removed her from his lap, readjusted his clothing and refastening his belt and broadsword. “I would have you lay here longer. I want my seed to have time to take root.” Her face hardened in an instant; the stoic, demur woman returned, and the serene temptress retreated. “When you re-dress, leave your cloak and wear this one.” He held up a white fur cloak with a gold cloak pin that matched his own. “My furrier will alter the length when we reach Tronscar. For now, I want everyone to understand your position.”

“I do not require a new cloak. My cloak is very warm and the proper length,” she said, her voice soft yet unyielding.

He raised his voice. “If I command you to wear this cloak, you will without question do so.”

“No,” she said quietly.

Magnus blinked, momentarily rendered speechless. Had she said “no”
to him? “You will.”

“’Tis not disobedience nor a betrayal to speak my mind, respectfully.” She did not turn away but stared him coldly in the eyes. “May I rise now?”

“No.” He tore the curtain aside, leaving her half-naked on his fur, where she belonged.

Lida swallowed down her bitter disappointment. His passion, his kiss, it all meant nothing. For him, the moment they had shared was about nothing more than making his deposit into her. He felt no real affection for her, nothing more than he would feel for any slave.

Yet she was not his slave, but his wife. So why did she feel as if she was nothing more to him than his whore?

How long does he expect me to lie here?
She re-dressed and, after what she believed to be a reasonable amount of time, returned above deck to rejoin her daughter.

Katia started in with the questions immediately. “Mama, who is Mistress Helika? What is a whore? You never said, and Tero said he does not know either.”

“A whore is . . .”
Your mother, for a start.
Curse it! This was her punishment for speaking carelessly near her daughter. “You know how Uncle Peter is always pawing after Sissi and grandma swats at him to stop, telling him to go somewhere else and do that?”

Katia nodded.

“Well, some men do not have a wife to paw at or kiss or make babes with. So he gives a lady—well she is usually not a lady—though I have seen some ladies act far worse . . . but that’s not the point.” Both her daughter and Tero wrinkled their brows. Lida needed to start over. “Some men give gifts and coin to a woman to let him paw at her and kiss her and not intend to wed her. It is not a wise way of earning a living, my love. Some women have little opportunity and some are forced, but some are sometimes foolish, or brought up poorly. So they think it is easier to let men paw at them, but they should not. It is not a good life for any woman. The word ‘whore’ is nasty and I wish you never to call anyone that, ever. Do you understand?” Lida was fearful that her daughter would not, and then she would have to try and explain again.

“Oh, now I get it. A whore is someone that kisses boys she is not wed to. In that case, Mama, Aunty Tina is one.”

“Katia! Do not say such a nasty thing. You misunderstand still. Uncle Svin wed her. He is allowed to kiss her.”

“But she did not wed Ulla’s brother, Lasse.”

“What! Oh no.”

“I was chasing Mada and she ran up the tree on Ulla’s side. I climbed up and I saw Lasse kissing and wrestling with Aunty Tina in the tall grass. It is strange to wrestle and kiss at the same time, Mama.”

“Yes, my love, very strange.”

Tero started to snicker.

Lida let out a long sigh. Poor Svin—wait, not poor Svin. Svin was the reason she was on this forlorn voyage.

“The jarl’s gift did not please you?” Tero asked, changing the subject. He looked to her brown cloak.

“My cloak is in excellent repair and very warm,” Lida replied.

“In Tronscar, the white bear is the symbol of great authority, of your new, elevated position,” Tero said, his tone climbing higher with his brows. “The jarl killed that bear himself in expectation of his new bride.”

Her daughter twisted her face back and forth, listening to every word.

“Did he indeed?” Lida smiled for her daughter’s benefit. “How nice for him.”

“Mama, are you that big man’s bride?” her daughter asked, pointing over Lida’s shoulder. Chastising herself internally, Lida remembered that she had not explained anything to Katia, and her little ears were certain to be pricked by the word “bride.” She’d been more than a little obsessed with the idea of brides ever since Peter brought his wife home.

“Yes, my sweet,” Lida said, tucking her daughter’s hair behind her ear. “Last night your mama wed Jarl Magnus. He has promised to take extremely good care of us, as long as we have proper manners to him.”

Her daughter appeared confused. That made two of them. “You are not wed to my father anymore? He is in heaven so you can be a bride two times?”

“Yes, my love, that is right. It does not change my love for your father or the fact that you are his beautiful daughter. It simply means—well—that now we will make a new family with the jarl. Would you like to have a sister or brother one day?”

“Oh yes, Mama, please. Can we have a babe just like Layla? She is so pretty, Mama, and her fingers and toes are so small.” Katia wiggled with excitement.

“I will do my best, I promise you that. Are you hungry? Shall I fetch us some of the biscuits that grandma sent?” Lida’s smiled was torn from her lips when she heard a grunt and turned to see the razor-sharp glare of the jarl, who had been standing inches behind her. How much of that had he just heard? Should she offer him an apology to defuse his anger? No—she had nothing to apologize for. She had said nothing wrong. She had spoken the truth as simply as she could for her child. “Are you hungry, Jarl Magnus? I am about to fetch Katia and myself some refreshment.”

“Nay.”

Nay, he did not want refreshment, or nay, she was not permitted to feed her child?

“Mikko, your friherrinna and the girl want refreshment.” Jarl Magus growled out his words but never looked away from her. How did he even know his servant was standing behind him to hear his command? She was rapidly discovering that he was a very hard man to please.

With the white fur cloak in his hand, the jarl stared at her brown cloak. “Did your father kill this bear?” Jarl Magnus tugged at her garment.

Lida’s cloak was as much a part of her identity as her coiled braids. ’Twas not the most beautiful garment, but it was hers, and wearing it brought her comfort and security. On the other hand, the bold, opulent white fur screamed out for attention and would draw the eye of anyone within a hundred yards.

“Nay, my father has never killed a bear. He prefers to fish.”

“It was slain by one of your brothers?”

Lida swallowed. She knew where he was going with this. “Nay, it was a gift.”

“From the Lylasku boy?” The jarl’s back shielded Katia from the battle of wills taking place.

“He was not a boy,” she whispered. “He was a man. A very brave man.” Her heart raced faster as he continued to touch her cloak, a snarl on his lips. She curled her fingers into the lining, balling her hands into fists. The jarl’s hand traveled up the front to her tarnished cloak pin. She glared at him, sucking in a sharp breath. He untied the leather strap. Lida held on.

In one clean jerk, the jarl ripped the cloak from her grasp. Callously flicking his wrist, he tossed her beloved cloak over the side of the ship.

Lida lunged. Her foot went to the rail as she began to swing herself over the edge before she lost sight of it under the surface of the water—there was still time to save it. A powerful hand clamped around her, subduing her completely. The air tore from her lungs.

Her cloak was gone. She could no longer see it floating on the surface in the ship’s wake.

The crushing reality of her grave mistake in wedding the warlord overwhelmed her instantly. Tears came to her eyes, and she felt that this could not be real. Yesterday, she had worked in her mother’s root garden. Today, she sailed away, most likely never to return to her homeland. This could only be a night terror. Her barbarian slave owner had tossed her cloak into the sea without a thought. What prevented him from tossing her over when she ceased to please him, or grew old and useless to him?

The heavier, silk-lined, white cloak came down around her shoulders, suffocating her. He tugged her hair out from under the collar, freeing it to lie on top, whipping her face in the wind.

She had wedded the devil incarnate. What kind of danger had she recklessly put her daughter in?
Thoughtless, stupid, selfish cow, learning nothing from—

“Mama, it is so pretty and soft. You look like a princess.”

Nodding, Lida swallowed hard. She stroked Katia’s hair, trying to reassure her that all was well, that her mama’s heart was not at this moment ripped out of her chest and sinking to the bottom of a cold, black sea.
Ha! Cold, black sea—sounds like the perfect description of the jarl of Norrland’s heart.

“Friherrinna, your refreshment.” Mikko appeared and offered a chalice of wine.

“Gratitude, Mikko, but I am no longer thirsty.” She turned to her daughter. “Katia, would you care for some milk?” Her daughter nodded. In a daze, she returned her attention to the steward. “I believe my mother sent some goat’s milk.”

“Right away, Friherrinna.”

To keep her eyes from watering, she blinked rapidly. “Many thanks, Mikko.”

“You said you were hungry,” the jarl said from over her shoulder.

“I have lost my appetite.” Her eyes did not leave the last spot she had seen her cloak on the surface of the water. She pictured it slipping below, sliding in the current to the bottom of the murky seafloor. Would she one day share the same fate as her cloak? Would her child?

***

Magnus had not struck Lida for her defiance, though most husbands would have. The old cloak was nowhere near suitable for a jarl’s wife, dirty and matted at the fringes. It was unacceptable that she would wear another man’s pathetic offering while he offered her a far superior one.
“It does not change my love for your father.”
His wife betrayed him with a dead man.

He studied his wife and the child, distracted by Katia. The girl beamed as bright as the sun, her crown of golden hair glowing. She fidgeted back and forth in a strangely entertaining sort of way, as if her young life bubbled over with excitement. Magnus observed her with growing amusement. He was starting to believe having her aboard was not overly troublesome. Unlike her mother, Katia was well-mannered, did not make much noise, and smiled easily for all. He would ask Tero what he thought a small girl-child would desire. To start, he would have the furrier prepare a third white cloak for the child to match her mother’s.

In contrast to his forefathers, Magnus would not shamefully horde his coin, as his great grandfather Fibyter was remembered to have done. His family had fled from him because of the filth he forced them to reside in, the thin fabric he provided them with for clothing, and the generally unacceptable way in which he kept them. No, Magnus was a man who learned from his forbears’ mistakes.

Magnus’s sons and grandsons would remember him with reverence. His fortress was pristine, built for security and ruled with a strict standard of order and cleanliness. Aspects of the design of his fortress had come from the Germans and Romans. Stone and steel cost more and took longer to build, but the result was worth the added price. His stronghold would stand the test of time. Acquiring a worthy female to birth his bloodline had been the right decision, even if she held mysterious sentiment over a poorly crafted garment.

The girl-child approved of the superior cloak, wrapping herself in the bottom corner, petting the silk lining. At least one of them had some sense.

“Tero. Fix the child’s hair with Byzantine silk ribbons and place the white wildcat collar around her shoulders. Use the gold cloak pin from Darien, the one with the sapphire.”

His reliable servants moved swiftly, and in seconds the little girl was transformed from a street peddler child to a child worthy of being his daughter, a daughter of Norrland.

His wife gazed out over the rippling currents behind his fleet, further insulting him by withholding her attention.

Magnus cleared his throat loudly. “Tero has a bowl of stew for the child. You may take her to rest below. Mikko will see to anything you should need for the night.”

“Very well. Come, Katia,” his wife said.

“Thank you for my ribbons and collar, Jarl Magnus. They are the prettiest presents I ever got given,” the girl-child said in a small, keen voice.

Magnus was rooted in place, staring at the little girl. She was smiling at him, her arm stretched out, her mother tugging at her hand. He realized he was grinning and immediately stopped, reminding himself that jarls do not grin, especially at little girls. Jarls have no use for little girls.