Chapter 3 #2
The two men glared at each other. Then Steinar decided he’d had enough.
He’d done what he had come to accomplish, there was no need to prolong the moment.
It was not worth staying at the risk of hearing any more ludicrous and painful accusations, or worse, ending up killing a man in a fit of rage too longer contained.
Astrid’s parents now knew that their only daughter, the daughter they had never loved, was dead. It was all that mattered.
“Well. I’d better go. Both your grandsons are fine, by the way.”
Not that the old man or his wife had asked. Not that either of them cared.
There was no answer.
Steinar slammed the door behind him and strode over to the clearing where he’d tethered Fáfnir earlier.
He sat down a moment before setting off.
The poor beast did not deserve to have an irate rider on his back, urging him into a reckless gallop that would do little to ease his frustration.
Before he climbed into the saddle he needed to calm down.
This visit had been even worse than he’d expected it to be.
He’d all but been accused of killing his wife.
How could he have ended up in such a situation? How could his life have become such a nightmare?
The answer was simple: by allowing Astrid to appeal to his sense of honor, and play on his sensibilities.
When she had explained that her parents had never cared about her, and had chosen for her a husband she feared, he had taken pity on her.
Having been raised in a loving family, Steinar had been horrified to hear that anyone could treat their child thus.
Was she not exaggerating? But after a visit to her aggressive father and greedy mother, he had seen that she was absolutely right.
Her parents felt nothing for her. They only wanted to marry her off to the blacksmith because he was the richest man in the village, which meant he would provide for them in their old age, nothing more.
They did not care about her happiness or wonder if that was what she wanted.
The only problem was, this generous instinct had proven to be the mistake of his life.
Because of it, he’d denied his sons the love of half their grandparents, and he’d endured years of misery and humiliation.
He should have enquired about the kind of person she was before welcoming her into his life and into his heart.
There would have been other ways to help her escape the fate her parents had in store for her; he didn’t have to marry her himself.
Well, it had been a lesson hard learned, and he would not make the same mistake a second time.
But fate seemed determined to make him her pawn.
Mere days after Astrid’s death, Cwenthryth had burst into his life, asking for help, dazzling him with her beauty just like his late wife had done all those years ago.
History was repeating itself, but things had changed.
He was not the same man, no longer a gullible, inexperienced youth but an older, wiser man.
Besides, it was not just about him anymore.
He now had his children to worry about, he owed it to them to be sensible.
He would not be trapped again, especially not by black-haired Saxons who smelled of liquorice.
While he was steeling his resolve, footsteps in the undergrowth made him turn his head. Who had followed him? He hardly knew anyone in that village, but it was possible someone recognized him for Astrid’s husband and wanted news of her.
The tall, slightly mannish figure appearing though the bushes was Astrid’s mother.
Steinar barely repressed a sigh. The woman hadn’t said a word during the confrontation with her husband, but it seemed she had something to tell him before he left.
He braced himself for more insults, because he knew how unpleasant she could get.
The day he and Astrid had come to tell them of their wedding, her father had been too stunned to do much more than glare.
Her mother had been the one asking if they’d already slept together and getting herself in a state when her daughter had confirmed that they had, and that was the reason they had gotten married.
She had seemed to take it as a personal slight.
“What do you want?”
Taking him by surprise, she sat next to him like a friend would. He waited, unsure what to do or say. He’d been expecting a tongue-lashing and she seemed poised on the edge of a confidence.
“You know, Steinar…” She shuffled closer to him, so close that he realized that she, unlike Cwenthryth, smelled of boiled cabbage.
His stomach started to churn. Please let her just say what she had come here to say and leave.
“My husband is a fool. But I’m not. I never wondered what had possessed my daughter to leave her village and abandon everyone, go against her father’s wishes to marry Leif. ”
“Oh?”
This was not the impression she’d given him at the time, but he did not comment further. He didn’t actually care about what she thought. Now that his mission had been accomplished, he just wanted to leave and return home as soon as possible, His sons who would be waiting for him.
“Yes. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t want a man like you?
So strong, so virile, so…” Instead of finishing her sentence, she groaned, a sound of feminine desire that sent ice down his spine.
This was not a sound any man wanted to hear in his mother-in-law’s mouth.
“I have spent years wondering what Astrid was getting in your bed, dreaming about it. But perhaps now that she is gone, I don’t have to wonder. Perhaps you could just show me.”
A hand landed on his thigh. Gave a squeeze. Started to creep higher.
Bile flooded Steinar’s throat. Was this really happening? Was the woman who had given birth to his late wife really suggesting what he thought she was? To think he’d dreaded the confrontation because he’d thought to have to deal with insults.
This was far, far worse.
“Take your hand off me,” he rasped, fighting the urge to push her away, “before I snap your wrist off when I do it myself.” She liked virile men, did she? He would get positively feral if she didn’t run away right this instant. But she might not like it as much as she thought.
The hand retreated. The woman stood up, her face purple with rage—or was it mortification?
“No need to react in that way. As if you didn’t know what effect you have on women. One look at you and they want you. Why should I feel any different? I’m a woman, aren’t I? Astrid was lucky to get you, but now she’s dead. There will be no harm in you and I—”
He stood up so fast he nearly sent her tumbling to the ground. “I’m leaving.”
With those words, he vaulted onto Fáfnir’s back, determined to escape this nightmare. Why had he come? He should have sent a message to Astrid’s parents with Magnus, who regularly traveled between the Norse villages. It would have been enough, and more courtesy than they deserved.
“Go back to your husband, or whoever else you want to bed,” he told the woman, not looking at her. “You and I will never meet again.”
As he galloped away, her words kept playing in his mind.
She’d claimed women wanted him as soon as they saw him.
Was this really true? He had no idea. Married very young, in love with his wife, at least at first, then wholly set on making his marriage work and being a good father in spite of less than ideal circumstances, he had not worried himself about what women thought when they saw him, or even noticed.
Out of nowhere, an image of Cwenthryth flashed through his mind. Had he had the same effect on her? Was that why she had decided to convince him to let her stay? Did she want him in her bed, or rather, to be welcomed in his?
The thought sat ill with him, because he wanted to be more than a strong, virile body women lusted after.
And why was he constantly thinking about Cwenthryth anyway? He’d barely known her three days.
He still had to go to town to enquire about the man she was supposedly fleeing from, that had to be why. Until he had put this to rest, he would likely obsess about her. Gritting his teeth, he urged his horse toward the walls crowning the hill in the distance.
It was high time he found out who the Saxon really was.