Chapter 1
“Are you all right, my dear? You sound tired.”
Eahlswith gave the old man’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Trust him to know how she was feeling, even if he could barely see. And in truth she was tired, not that she could tell Osbert the reason why. She had spent the night being thoroughly debauched by a big, hulking Norseman called Sven.
Sven.
She only knew his name because he’d told her before burying his face between her thighs with the obvious intent of making her scream it out loud—which she had, only a moment later, when his scandalous tongue had catapulted her into a place she wasn’t sure was altogether of this realm.
He’d been without a doubt the most wicked, the most generous and the most insatiable lover she had ever had but other than that, and that he looked indecently handsome, she didn’t know anything about him.
Their meeting had been completely fortuitous and what had followed, little more than folly, an indulgence she had allowed herself in a moment of madness.
As she was exiting her friend Cwenthryth’s hut after her visit to her newborn daughter and getting ready to walk back home into town, she had turned her head in time to see a man coming out of his house bare-chested.
Not just a man, but surely the human equivalent of a Norse god.
Grinding to a halt, she had stared at the most perfect example of masculine beauty she had ever seen—or was ever likely to see again.
Everything that made other men appealing had somehow been enhanced in him.
His hair was long and clean, of a stunning golden color and braided around the temples.
His eyes were of a blue as cool as the fire in them burned hot.
His chest, his arms, his hands even, every inch of him was utter perfection.
All the female parts within her had surged at the same time.
Her nipples had gone hard, her core had burst into flames, her tongue had darted out of her mouth to come lick at her suddenly too dry lips.
After a long, tension-filled moment during which their gazes had locked, he’d held out his hand to her and it had seemed the natural thing to take it, even knowing what it entailed.
She’d followed him into the hut. Doing anything else would have been unthinkable.
As soon as he had closed the door, he had taken her into his arms and whispered that his name was Sven.
Before she could reply, he’d sat her on the table and proceeded to lick her until she’d screamed the name he’d just given her in a series of shocking cries.
After that, he had not let her go until he’d finally collapsed by her side late into the night, as spent as she was.
Never had she been so well pleasured, nor for so long.
The handful of lovers she’d had in the last five years had not been as determined to ensure her total and complete satisfaction as the Norseman.
One release had not been enough for him, or even three.
Even with Edwin, she had not reached such dizzying heights.
No, she had not, and that was precisely the problem. Precisely why she felt so wretched.
A new wave of guilt sliced through her.
She did not regret giving in to her impulse, after all it was not the first time she had allowed herself to act on her desire for a man, even if, admittedly, she usually got to know them before she allowed them to take her to bed.
But she had not anticipated that this wild lovemaking would open something inside her.
How could a complete stranger threaten to force his way into her soul when the other men she had taken to her bed since Edwin’s death had not even scratched its surface?
It was frightening, and the reason why she had left the hut in the middle of the night, before Sven could stop her.
She had fled as soon as she’d been certain he was asleep, unable to deal with whatever unexpected wave of emotion had submerged her, ashamed at the sacrilegious thoughts fluttering in her mind.
“I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep, don’t worry,” she told Osbert, forcing joviality into her voice.
How could she face Edwin’s father after what she had allowed another man to do to her? Not that he did not suspect she’d had other lovers since her beloved’s death. But he also knew those men had meant little.
“What about you, Osbert? How are you?”
He didn’t look too well, and she berated herself for not having visited him in the last month. She’d been busy, but everyone was always busy. It was no excuse. She should have made more of an effort. Edwin’s father was as dear to her as her own had been, the closest thing she had to a family now.
He patted her hand. “I’ll be fine, even though a good night’s sleep is sadly a thing of the past for me. Come, there’s something I wanted to show you.”
Smiling, Eahlswith followed him into the busy street.
As soon as Sven woke up he knew that something was not as it should be. Or rather, that everything was exactly as it always was, which, on any other morning, would have been fine. But today was different… Today there should have been someone in bed next to him.
A dark-haired, wicked Saxon with curves to make a man lose his mind with lust and a smile to make him forget he’d ever found someone else attractive.
Had he dreamed her up? He reached up to his left bicep and felt the scratches she had left there when he’d pumped into her with all the determination he was capable of.
No, she’d been all too real; these proved how wild their night had been.
So where was she? It was still early, and given the intensity of their lovemaking, she should be asleep, curled up against him, dead to the world.
What made her absence even more galling was that he never let the women he bedded stay the night.
He preferred going to their place or dallying with them during the day, in the forest, at the back of the forge, or the watermill, by the smoke house or wherever else desire struck.
On the rare occasions when he’d brought a woman home at night, he’d always made the effort to walk her back home afterward.
Not last night.
Last night he had been too exhausted to do more than roll off her and gather her into his arms before succumbing to a deep, deep sleep.
He couldn’t have walked her home as she didn’t live in the village, and anyway, he wouldn’t have had the strength to leave the pallet even if she’d lived in the next hut.
He frowned. Where was she? Had she slipped outside a moment to see to her needs or had she left the village already? The pallet next to him was cold, which did not bode well. She might very well have left without saying goodbye. Shrugging on his braies and shirt, he peered outside the door.
No one. And no trace of her.
Damn. How would he find her now? He didn’t even know her name and he had no idea why she had come to the village.
His best bet was his father, Wolf the Icelander.
Since the woman had been a Saxon, it made sense to think that she had come to see him about some problem or other.
Yes, but that notion caused his chest to squeeze in fear.
Men came to him with a variety of complaints but usually women came to him for one specific reason.
They had been raped and they wanted their attackers to be punished.
They had heard that the formidable Norseman would champion their cause, no matter that they did not belong to his community.
So, had the Saxon been raped?
He wanted to believe she hadn’t. Certainly, her response to his touch had not raised his suspicion. She had behaved like a woman overwhelmed by pleasure, not dread. Having once held in his arms a lover who’d suffered at the hands of men in the past, he thought he would have seen the difference.
Well, there was only one way to know.
Hoping to have some answers, Sven went over to his parents’ hut. He found his father outside, whitling the end of a long piece of wood, sharpening it to a deadly point. Was he making a spear? It was possible. The man hated to stay idle, a trait of personality all his children had inherited.
“Good morning, son.”
“Good morning.”
Suddenly at a loss as to how to broach the topic of the Saxon woman, Sven sat down next to him and took some of the wood shavings piled at his feet in his hand.
“These would make good kindling for the fire,” he said, observing how the wood had curled into all sorts of graceful shapes. “They would catch on fire in no time.”
The image brought him back to the night before. The passion between him and the beautiful temptress had burned bright from the start.
“You came here to tell me things I already knew? I’d already planned to use them for that exact purpose.”
His father threw him a sideway glance and scoffed. Sven shook his head. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to pretend nothing was weighing on his mind. What was he doing, talking about chips of wood when he’d come with a purpose in mind?
“There was a Saxon woman yesterday in the village,” he started, clenching his fist repeatedly.
Although he was close to his father and they didn’t have any secrets from each other, he rarely talked to him about his conquests.
It had always seemed rather indelicate. “Taller than most, dark-haired, with eyes as dark as mother’s.
I was wondering if she’d come to see you? ”
His father didn’t even seem to hesitate. Evidently, the description didn’t correspond to anyone he knew. “No, I’m sorry. The last Saxon who came to see me at the village was a man and that was more than a month ago.”
There it was. His only hope, gone up in smoke.
“What did you want with her?”
More dejected than ever, Sven threw the wood shavings, which had been reduced to dust, back into the pile. “Nothing.”
There was no point answering the question because it would seem he’d had all he would ever have from the mysterious Saxon.