Chapter 8 #4
The tub was rich, with hammered-silver trim.
The tapestries that hung on the walls, warming the room, were crafted with care; they depicted hunting scenes, and she thought that they had probably come from the Continent, Flanders, perhaps Bruges.
His bed was huge, piled with furs, bear, deer, beaver, more.
There were numerous trunks about, and pieces of his dress armor leaned against the walls, or lay upon the trunks.
A coat of shining mail was stretched over a rack not far from the fire, and she imagined a page had recently polished the mail to its shining glow.
Laird Lion. Strangely enough, his standard was a bird, a falcon, she thought, very similar to her father’s.
She closed her eyes. Admittedly, he was not what she had expected.
She’d heard of Laird Lion before the king had announced her disposal to him, all of Scotland knew of the king’s champion, though he was a ruler with many strong knights loyally indebted to him.
Still, she had heard that Waryk, Laird Lion, had ridden in with the Normans who had accompanied the king to Scotland when he had come with pageantry and strength to take his throne.
She had thought him old, at least as old as the king.
His feats in battle and tournament were beyond distinguished; he was, in fact, annoyingly perfect, according to the king’s seneschal and the balladeers who entertained from great house to great house, through the Lowlands, Highlands, islands, and beyond.
She had assumed that he would speak only the Norman French, that he would be …
Easier to escape, she thought woefully. He was not nearly so horrible in his person as she had imagined, but that didn’t change the fact that he would take over her life, take her island, take her place.
Destroy her happiness. She closed her eyes, remembering how she had assured Ewan she would love him forever.
And what now? What mockery did this make of the tenderness and the friendship they had shared?
She heard the bolt sliding and sat up, hands gripped on the rim of the tub. If it were Angus, she had learned, he would politely inquire if he could enter.
And if it were not …?
It wasn’t Angus. The door was opening, and no one was asking her permission to enter.
She sprang from the water like lightning, sweeping a towel around her. In the corner of the room, with his armor, was a handsomely engraved claymore. She raced across the room, seized the claymore, held it in one hand and her towel in the other, as the door opened.
Waryk had returned.
She stared at him, cold despite the heat of the fire that burned to her back, plagued by hot tremors deep inside despite the cold that had seized her.
He looked at her, noting the bath, the towel, the claymore. He walked toward her with such a silent menace she felt a new fear.
Had the king been furious enough to tell him to kill her?
“Come no closer!” she warned, dropping the towel to wield the sword in both hands.
But he ignored her. Blue ice eyes on hers, he strode toward her, despite the second warning she whispered as he came before her.
She didn’t move, and he grabbed the blade of the sword, putting it flat against his heart. “Do it. Kill me.”
“Stop it! I can, you know. I have the strength—”
“Then try it, if your hatred is so great—”
“I don’t hate you! I don’t want to hurt you, I—”
He thrust the blade away from his heart, then wrenched it from her hands and sent the heavy weapon spinning across the room. She felt her nudity keenly, but he didn’t even seem to notice it.
“The king knows that you have returned, and you are in my keeping,” he said. “And I am tired. Exhausted.”
She didn’t know what he was telling her, but she could feel her flesh breaking out in chills, her nipples were hardening to little peaks, her limbs quaking.
She inched down to sweep up her towel again, so anxious for its cover that she quickly interrupted him, “Sleep, please, I don’t wish to disturb you—”
“You won’t. You may remain here, my lady. We’ll talk later.”
He strode to the door and paused, his back still to her. “Don’t take a weapon against me again, Mellyora. If you do, you had best use it.”
The door opened and closed. She heard the bolt scrape across it.
She slipped to the floor, huddled in the towel, shaking.
He hated her. Loathed her. Her future seemed more dire than ever.
There just had to be some kind of escape!
Not just because of her. Because of him.
Because of his strength. His eyes. The way he looked at her.
Because she could not wield a weapon against him, and because she was still shaking, so cold, and still, on fire …
Sleep was not easy to come by. He was exhausted. He tossed, turned. Dozed. Dreamed.
He allowed himself to dream of Eleanora. Gentle, a balm, a soothing ointment, she wrapped herself around him with her warmth, her whisper, her words. She lay beneath him, she rode him, hair teasing his chest …
Blond hair, golden blond hair. Long, thick, rich, luxurious, sweeping around him, entangling him.
Her hair was dark. Her eyes were sable …
Nay, they were blue. And in his dreams, he no longer lay with the mistress who so entranced him, but with the Viking’s daughter, and she had risen above him, naked, a child of Wodin, her sword raised against him.
He seized the weapon from her, struggling with her, and she lay beneath him.
Huge, sky-blue eyes upon his, and he wanted to throttle her, take the sword to her throat, and he wanted …
He wanted to touch her.
Wanted … her.
Once again, she haunted his dreams. Only now, he knew her face, and her eyes, and she was tangible within his dreams, far too easy to touch …