Chapter 2 #2
Mm. Why was he not surprised? That was precisely what a woman about to be thrown out of his house would have said to garner his sympathy.
But perhaps it was the truth. His gaze flew to the faded bruise at her temple.
Whatever he thought of her explanation she had been hurt. “You didn’t walk into a pillar then?”
“No.”
“Was the man in question the one who hit you?”
“Yes.”
He did not even try to contain his annoyance. Why should he, when she was making no effort whatsoever? “Do you really intend to tell your story one word at a time? I’d better warn you now that I will not have the patience for it. Start talking.”
Finally she did, tripping over her own words in her nervousness.
“I live with a man who terrifies me. I left in a moment of panic, not sure where I could go. That is why I traveled at night and I don’t have any bag.
I cannot go back to my house while he is there.
But perhaps if he thinks I’ve gone for good, he will leave.
If I’m not there, he will have no reason to stay. ”
Steinar wasn’t sure what to think. The story did make sense.
The only problem was that it was drastically different to the one she had told him at first. It also seemed too convenient, an afterthought destined to shame him into helping her, something a woman might say to play on a man’s protective instinct.
He should know, as Astrid had once done the same and he had not taken the time to think about the implications of his decision to rescue her.
Granted, this was different, and Cwenthryth was not asking for marriage, but he couldn’t help but be wary.
She’d had the whole night to think about her situation, and she’d realized she wouldn’t be able to settle in the village, contrary to what Astrid told her, because Steinar didn’t need or want her.
What if, seeing her chances slip away, she was doing all she could to persuade him to let her stay anyway?
He could not ignore it was a possibility.
She knew she would have to go sometime today, and she was trying what she could to be allowed to stay a bit longer.
“Are you married? Is that your husband we’re talking about?
” Regardless of her intentions, she was sporting a bruise.
It was one thing pointing to her telling the truth.
But it didn’t necessarily mean that it had been inflicted by a tormentor.
She could have walked into a pillar, as she’d said, or taken a tumble down the stairs, or fought with a cantankerous old woman wanting to sell her rotten meat, or whatever else people did to get injured.
His sister Eyja had an impressive scar on the temple, the trace of an unlikely fall in a crevice. Anything was possible.
“I’m not married.”
“Is that man your lover then?”
“N-no.” She seemed to hesitate. Well, was he or was he not? She’d just said she lived with him. Why would he live with her if he was not her husband or lover? This was getting more and more suspicious.
“If this is the real reason you’re here, why did not you say? Why pretend you came here because you wanted to look after Astrid’s supposed nephews? Why not tell the truth from the start?”
“I-I… I did not say I had come because I wanted to look after the boys, merely that my discussion with Astrid had made me think that perhaps I could come to the Norsemen village. Besides, I didn’t think my story would move you to help me. It is far too common, unfortunately, and you don’t know me.”
“And now you think I will want to help you?”
“No. But you left me no choice. You made me tell you.”
Yes, he had. That was the problem. She might well have come up with that story as a last resort, and he was done with believing women’s lies.
After years of struggle with Astrid, he yearned for peace of mind.
This Saxon woman, with her eyes too big for her face and her convenient tales, was more trouble than he could bear at the moment.
He should have sent her on her way as soon as he’d set eyes on her.
He had, in fact, told her to go, twice. And yet, somehow she was still here.
Why had he asked her why she was here instead of reminding her he had only agreed to let her spend the night under his roof?
What difference would it make why she had come when she was to leave anyway? Why was he so confused?
Silence stretched between them. Cwenthryth was looking up from her place on the bench, waiting for him to talk, was probably already bracing herself for his request that she leave. He opened his mouth, then closed it when she licked her bottom lip in an innocent gesture.
“I need to go see my father,” he said, turning away abruptly.
Apparently, he was a coward as well as a fool.
Heart still thudding from their conversation, Cwenthryth watched Steinar walk away and then collapsed against the wall at her back when he disappeared round the hut.
What had just happened?
In just a few moments, he had made her admit what she had sworn to keep secret.
But how could she have done otherwise? The man was far too commanding, his gaze far too intense for her to have a chance at ignoring his orders.
Though it was nothing but the truth, he had not believed her story about having come to be with Astrid’s brother and help look after his sons.
Why? It didn’t seem so far-fetched to her, and it was, if not the reason she had decided to leave her home, at least the reason why she had chosen to seek refuge here in preference to anywhere else.
But because he’d not thought it a satisfactory explanation, she’d had to reveal what—who—had pushed her out of her home.
Godfrid.
The hated name sent shivers down her spine, and she did her best to chase the memory of his touch away.
It had been hard, humiliating to reveal her ordeal to an unsympathetic stranger, and the worst of it was, it had been in vain.
She could tell that Steinar didn’t believe she was fleeing a man any more than he believed she had genuinely come to the village to help the boys’ uncle.
Pensively, she touched the bruise on her temple.
If he’d seen she’d been hurt, and yet still doubted her, how could she convince him she was telling the truth?
She had no proof of what Astrid had told her, or even that she was fleeing a tormentor.
Did it even matter what he thought? He was not who she’d thought to find, and in all probability, he would ask her to go as soon as he was back from seeing his father.
It was already a miracle he had not done it as soon as he’d seen she was awake.
Slowly, she made her way back to the hut.
At least she could eat and drink something before she had to go into the unknown.
“You will have to go see Astrid’s parents,” Wolf said, washing his hands in the basin of water.
He’d been butterflying trout fillets ready for smoking, but had decided it could wait until after his conversation with his son.
“They need to be told of Astrid’s death, and it should come from you. It’s been four days already.”
“I know.”
Steinar rubbed a hand at the back of his neck.
His parents-in-law lived in one of the three villages of Norsemen spread along the coast. At the time of his birth, thirty-three years ago, there had been only one such settlement in the area, the majority of Norsemen having elected to live further north, around the town of Jorvik, in the heart of what was called Danelaw.
But little by little, other villages had sprouted around the harbor, where merchants’ ships regularly arrived from Denmark or Iceland.
Drawn by the promise of abundant crops, many had decided to settle in this fertile land, and the community was growing fast.
Astrid had been raised in the village farthest away from here, and the two of them had only met as adults.
To say that it had been love at first sight would be an exaggeration, but there had been an immediate physical attraction between them, attraction they had not tried to resist. After a night of feasting and drinking more than usual, Steinar had answered her unspoken invitation to follow her into the forest.
Still, he was not sure their night of passion would have ended up in marriage if Astrid had not come back a week later, saying she was afraid of what would happen to her.
But she had come back, claiming that her father was going to make her pay for bedding a man who was not the one he’d intended for her to marry, and he had not shirked his responsibility.
They had gotten married the following day, then gone together to announce the news to her family.
In choosing him, a stranger from another village, she had gone against her father’s wishes and neither he nor her mother had forgiven the slight.
She had been sent away in disgrace and over the next thirteen years, had only seen her family a handful of times.
Her parents would not take the news of her sudden death well, and Steinar guessed they would somehow find a way to blame him for it, which was why he had put off the trip for as long as he had, using the excuse that his sons needed him at this difficult time to avoid going.
Taking them with him to the village would have been the obvious solution but he didn’t think Astrid’s parents deserved to meet their grandsons when they had treated him and their daughter so appallingly.
Even more to the point, he didn’t want the boys to hear any unpleasant comments, as they were bound to do.
No. As far as Ulf and Rothgar were concerned, they only had two grandparents, Wolf and Merewen, and it would remain that way.