Chapter Thirty-Four
Quarrie spent the rest of the day striving not to think about what Hulda had suggested.
Not that she’d come right out and suggested it, but he could not mistake it, for the invitation—and the desire—had stood clear in her pale eyes.
Impossible to dismiss, no matter the tasks he performed, the people he saw, or the complaints to which he listened.
She and her request remained there in his mind.
She wanted to lie with him. He had not misunderstood that, had he?
Nay, he had not misunderstood. Her desire had not only lain stark in her eyes but vibrated in the air between them. He might mistake any number of things, and had done in the past. Not that.
When he should have been concerning himself with other matters—not the least with the camp of bloodthirsty marauders lying on his threshold—he could think only of her. Of those kisses they had shared and what it would be like to have her naked in his arms. To spend himself in her welcoming heat.
He maun make it happen.
But how? Eyes were everywhere, as he had told her, and all of them watching avidly. Were there places where he could take her to be alone? Painfully few, but having been born here, he could surely come up with somewhere.
If he thought of a place, so might his men.
Naught would prevent them following him. And if they caught him making love with the dangerous Norsewoman?
He should not take the chance. He dared not.
Yet he had made the woman another promise. What was it about her that drew promises from him?
The folk with whom he came in contact throughout that day had to repeat what they said to him and fight hard for his attention. His thoughts persisted in straying.
How would her skin feel when he got that rough clothing off her? She lived her life as a man, yet he bet she’d be soft and yielding to him as to no one else. All woman.
How would she taste? If the rest of her pleased his tongue half as much as had her kisses, he could be naught but satisfied.
Nay, he was not himself, not all that day. Rain moved in and he had no chance to get away on his own to scout likely places—or unlikely ones. Night drew down amid pounding rain and he thought he would go mad.
What if he walked along the shore and around the headland? Walked there through the rain while everyone else took shelter.
Might they slip away alone?
In the end, he did not go. He took his father’s old seat in the great hall—the first time he had done so since Da’s death—and heard the complaints that came to him. Many complaints, most of them concerning the Norse.
At last he, who considered himself by and large a patient man, wedded to his duty, had had enough of it.
When yet another clansman came complaining that his old mother could not sleep for fear the Norse would come in the night and slit her throat, he rose from his chair.
“Where are they, then? Where were they last night, that they did no’ attack? Their leader has given her word we are safe fro’ them.”
“A woman,” his applicant said nervously. “A woman wi’ a sword.”
“As if our own women ha’ no’ picked up a blade a time or two, to defend their homes.
List to me, all o’ ye.” He gazed round at his audience.
“Even if the Norse do break their word and come attacking, they are few enough in number that we can fall upon them and leave their blood on the rocks. Our rocks,” he added deliberately. “’Tis an alliance, like any other.”
“No’ like any other, chief,” one of the guardsmen said. “Our other alliances are wi’ Scotsmen, no’ our enemies.”
“Aye, Lohr, but it has no’ always been so. In the past we ha’ had alliances wi’ other Gaels who wanted to take our land, and we ha’ fought against them also. We ha’ had alliances wi’ the Pictish in the old days. Most o’ those ha’ proved advantageous. I hope this will also.”
An uneasy silence fell. They did not agree with him, but they would not push it. God help him if their Norse guests did put a foot wrong.
*
It rained for three days straight, the waves of moisture blowing in across the sea in every possible guise, from a fine mist that gathered on the hair and skin to fierce pounding.
No one heard further from the Norse. Indeed, no one would know they were still there had spies not gone stealing through the soaking gorse and bracken to take a look.
On the afternoon of the third day, Quarrie could endure it no longer. With all his immediate tasks seen to, he donned his good cloak and weapons and walked up the shore.
He would be followed, as he well knew. But the watchers would have to keep to a distance, for he made sure to glance back often in order to keep them honest.
The Norse had forsaken their longboat, which rode at anchor with mist gathered in her rigging, for a camp on the shore. It looked wet and miserable, with a number of skin tents set up in a rough circle and a fire in the middle, which smoked badly.
Hulda had indeed set a guard. Two men came loping toward Quarrie as soon as he rounded the headland, weapons on prominent display. One was fair and one darker, but they gazed at him with identical hard expressions.
“Chief Murtray?” said the fairer uncertainly.
“That is right. I would ha’ words wi’ yer leader, Hulda Elvarsdottir.” He would see her, touch her pale hair, breathe in her essence.
They exchanged glances. “Ja, come.”
By the time they reached the circle of tents, Hulda was climbing out into the rain. She wore no armor, and her slender form looked more feminine than he’d ever seen it, even if clad in a man’s tunic and leggings.
She gave him a blazing look from her pale-gray eyes.
“Chief Murtray. Is something amiss?”
“I need words wi’ ye, mistress.”
“Ja, well, come in out of the wet.” She shot a look at her men, all of whom now gathered. “Back on guard, ja?” She added words in her own tongue.
“Come,” she said to Quarrie, and ducked back into the tent.
A small space, poorly lit, that smelled of her. She would have slept here on the furs in the center of the floor. Her weapons lay close at hand, a sword and two good knives. She wore a third knife in her boot, as he saw from the corner of his eye.
She pulled the tent flap closed behind him. He expected her to invite him to sit. Instead, her task done, she stepped up to him where he stood and gazed into his face, a storm in her eyes.
Before he could draw breath to speak, she seized hold of the front of his cloak and kissed him. Her lips claimed his and her body slammed into his, all heat. All heat and desperation.
For several endless moments, he lost his mind.
He forgot where he was and who he was. A number of bright images tumbled through his head.
A golden-haired girl standing in bright sunlight leaning to him in order to kiss him just so.
A brown-haired beauty claiming him with her lips and her soul.
He had done this before, not counting those other kisses they had shared out on the longboat, on the shore.
“Hulda,” he said into her mouth.
She returned to him a word, or perhaps it was a sob. Her arms clenched him so tight it hurt. “So long,” she said against his lips. “It has been so long.”
It certainly seemed so. An age, those three days.
“I had to see ye,” he told her, failing to regain any of the sense that had flown. He cradled her head between his hands and gazed into her eyes. “I ha’ nay excuse, though.”
“You need none. No excuse to see me.” She kissed him again, so hungrily it rocked him back on his heels. “Have you thought of a place?”
“Aye. Mayhap. But ’twill no’ be easy to get there unseen, wi’out a reason.”
“Think of some reason.” She sucked one of his lips and then the other. “Soon. Now.”
“Aye. I could say I am showing ye a good hunting ground. But why would we go alone? And in the rain?”
“Because I say so?”
“Hulda, we walk dangerous ground.”
“You think I do not know it?” She narrowed her eyes on his. “I do not care. I need. You. I need to have you.”
“Aye.” He could but agree. She made him weak in the knees and at once strong enough to accomplish anything. “Put on your cloak,” he told her. “And mak’ your excuses to your men.”
She did as he bade her. But she paused first, for one more kiss.