PROLOGUE
He should have asked for her name.
As his feet pounded the sodden ground, Sigurd wondered at his surprising reserve in front of the girl.
He was not renowned for his shyness, quite the contrary, nor was he usually tongue-tied in front of women he found attractive.
With a smile and a suggestive comment he could win them around before they knew what was happening.
But this had been different. He would have felt like a boor to accost the Saxon when she was here to see his friend, Wolf.
Men sought the Icelander’s help for a variety of reasons.
They had been attacked by a mob and needed protection, they wished to prove their innocence when accused of a crime by the local Saxons, they wanted advice about the best way to fit in their new country.
But women… Women only came to Wolf for one reason.
Because they had been attacked and wanted retribution, and the last thing a woman who’d been hurt wanted was to find herself having to fend off advances from another menacing-looking Norseman.
He had not missed the way she kept glancing around the village as he led her to Wolf’s hut. She was scared. Scared she would see the man who had assaulted her. In those circumstances, Sigurd could not have acted on the desire she’d provoked in him, he would only have frightened her further.
So he’d pretended not to notice her beautiful face, or her womanly curves, and left her with Merewen without a word.
Sigurd sent a stone flying into the undergrowth with a well-placed kick.
Bloody hell, how many women would he have to rescue or see injured?
Only the other day in town he had saved his friend’s wife from a bastard intent on raping her.
The man had only escaped with his life because Sigurd’s priority had been ensuring Merewen was still breathing when she’d fainted from the shock.
Mercifully, his intervention had prevented her attacker from actually taking her.
The blonde woman had probably not been so lucky. He knew his friend asked the women he helped to inform him of the possible consequences of the rape.
Had she come to tell him she had fallen with her attacker’s child?
Another stone was sent flying against a tree. He’d make sure to ask Wolf who the bastard was. His friend had no doubt already punished him, but Sigurd could not help but feel this was personal, because this woman was… well, she was not like the others, even if he could not say why.
Her face kept floating in his mind. Heart-shaped, more delicate than a newly-unfurled flower, adorned with soulful brown eyes framed by thick gold lashes, he already knew it would haunt him for days.
Why? Why did he have to be attracted to her of all women?
Anyone else he could have pursued. Why did he have to fall for someone recovering from a rape and afraid of Norsemen?
He sighed and looked at the tree branches swaying overhead.
Damnation, as the Saxons said, he should at least have asked for her name!
Get Soothing the Beast now!