Chapter Seventeen
Arne woke with a start early the next morning.
He lay enjoying the feel of the warm woman in his arms, her bare skin touching his and her hair tickling his chest. It had been so long since he had felt able to do this, and he was reluctant to give it up.
They’d made love many times during the night, each time more desperate than the one before, both knowing this was most likely the end of any relationship.
Sometime in the middle of the night, he had heard a steady drip, drip from the eaves as the snow began to melt.
He closed his eyes, remembering the sensations she had aroused in him.
When he was on top of her and her hands came around his back, he revelled in the feel of her touch on his unscarred skin.
There was no point wishing he could feel that all over, as it would never happen, but was it so wrong to take pleasure in it, or to wish his body were as it had once been?
The outcome of his capture all those years ago could have been worse. He might have bled out on the floor of that awful hut or died of fever, even after his rescue. For months, he wished he had, as he suffered through months of agony and agitation as the skin crusted and healed.
Time had healed him as much as he was ever going to heal, although part of him sometimes forgot, and when he met new people, particularly children, he would get an unexpected and unwelcome reminder of his appearance.
Gemma was a beautiful woman, a woman who should wield much more power than she currently did.
Someone way out of his league. She was the woman who had got beyond his defences and allowed him to feel almost whole again.
The woman who seemed not to care about his appearance and had been willing to be patient with him, letting him see if his body still functioned as it should without making him feel like a failure.
He would never be as he once was again, and so the way she made him feel was as close to being a normal man as he was ever likely to get.
He sensed she was wakening, and smiled as she wriggled against him.
He took it as an invitation as she slid a hand back and sighed as she touched him.
He caught her wrist, encouraged her to roll onto her back.
She smiled up at him as he moved between her legs and hooked her legs around his back, then pulled himself in towards her.
He leaned forward and kissed her, then watched her face as he entered her, loving the way her eyes widened and her head tilted back as he moved inside her.
She was always so responsive, as if they had been made for one another—physically, at least. But this would be their last time together.
He forced himself to go slowly, to pleasure her thoroughly, and it was a delight to hear his name on her lips as she came.
Only then did he let his tight control go, burying himself deep, almost frantic in the need to be close to her, wishing she could be his and not wanting her to ever be able to forget him.
When it was over, they clung to each other, and he felt her tears on his chest. Her smooth, bare skin pressed against his rough scarred body, but he had no need to hide it from her anymore.
He kissed the tears from her eyes, then let her taste the saltiness on his lips and closed his own eyes, knowing they were safe with one another.
They lay together until they heard Caelin wake and begin singing to the cubs.
Gemma dressed quickly and started to cook.
He sat lazily watching her until she was stirring the pot of broth over the fire.
She looked over at him and he wondered how she could smile.
She was not supposed to be here, not supposed to be cooking or sullying her hands with housework.
Despite this, she had not complained once.
She surprised him constantly and was so very different from what he assumed the first time he had seen her.
Her haughtiness was still with her, a part of her, simply who she was — but it did not seem to mean she thought herself better than others and she had never shirked anything she had been asked to do at Kirkjaster.
More than once he had heard her inform his mother that she would be willing to do a task, only she did not know how to do it.
Any such statement coming from Gemma contained an implicit demand for instruction. He knew his mother admired her.
Her self-satisfied smile hinted at the fact she was thinking back on what they had shared earlier that morning, and he returned it. Then he heard hoofbeats approaching and the jingling of bridles. There was definitely more than one horse. Gemma’s fear was etched on her face.
“Hide! Both of you,” Arne said. His heart pounded as he dressed, pulling on his leathers as well as his sword belt.
Gemma grabbed Caelin’s hand, but the boy was reluctant to let go of the cubs and tried to take them with him.
“I’ll look after them. Quickly!” Arne crossed the room and took the cubs, then pushed Caelin towards his mother. Gemma slid under the bed, and Caelin scrambled in beside her just as there were three loud knocks on the door.
“Who is in here?” came a voice. Ulf. “Arne? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me,” he called back as he heaved a sigh of relief. “Stay hidden,” he whispered. “It’s Ulf, but he’s not alone.”
He placed the cubs in their basket as the door rattled.
“Coming!”
He lifted the bar and pulled the door slowly open. As expected, Ulf was there, along with three other warriors. All Norsemen from Kirkjaster. Some more of the tension left him and he smiled at the fact they had an extra horse with them.
“Arne, thank the gods. We’ve been unable to search far for you until today.”
“I have been here for the past few nights. Safe and sound.”
“Have you found Gemma and her son? We have seen no sign of them and… men came looking for them.”
“Britons?”
Ulf nodded. “Soldiers.”
“Who sent them?”
“They said King Rhun, but Tormod didn’t believe them. We think they might have been Marcant’s men.”
“And what did Tormod tell them?”
“That she had visited Aoife, then left Kirkjaster. She must have been seen by those fishermen.”
“Or by others.”
“Perhaps.”
“There was not much time between the fishermen’s arrival and the arrival of these men.”
“No.” Ulf sighed. “And it was impossible to know whether they came from the north or the east.”
“Did you recognise any of them?”
“No, why?”
“I met Njal. He was here, looking for them. With a Gael, and another Norseman who was there when I was tortured.”
Arne watched Ulf’s face as that sank in. He lifted a hand, opening his mouth as if to speak, then closed it, his hand curling into a fist as his lips pressed into a grim line. “That is impossible! We killed them all.”
“No. He was there. His name is Orm and he… he knew things.”
“What?” Ulf asked.
Arne shook his head.
Ulf continued, “Do you wish to return to Kirkjaster, or will you come with us to search for them? Although in this weather, I am concerned about their safety. But if she chose to leave us, then who are we to force her to return?”
“There is no need to search. She is here, as is Caelin.”
In other circumstances, Arne would have been amused by the expression of total disbelief on his younger brother’s face.
“Where are they?” Ulf tried to look around him into the shieling, so Arne stepped back.
“Come in, although there is not room for all of you. Are you sure you were not followed?” Arne asked as Ulf followed him inside.
“Brynjarr and Egill are on guard. They would alert us if they had seen anyone else.”
“Gemma. It is safe,” Arne said softly, and both she and Caelin crawled out from underneath the bed. Gemma dusted off her clothing and hair, while Caelin just smiled at Ulf and ran towards him.
“Ulf! I have cubs!”
“Shh, Caelin,” Gemma warned him, stepping to stand beside Arne.
Caelin hurried over to the basket, but Ulf did not follow him. He wasn’t even looking at him. Instead, his gaze went between Arne and Gemma and back again.
“Look at the cubs, Ulf. This is Lycka and this is Loki. I have been looking after them. I sleep next to them by the fire to keep them warm, and feed them if they wake during the night.”
“Wolf cubs, indeed. A dangerous choice.” Ulf smiled at Caelin, then his gaze returned to Arne and Gemma, his expression tense. He pulled the shieling door closed behind him.
“So…” Ulf looked pointedly at Arne. “If Caelin was sleeping by the fire—”
“That is none of your concern,” said Gemma, glaring at him, but it would take more than a woman, even a princess, to distract Ulf.
He strode over to Arne and put his mouth close to his ear. “What game are you playing? Please tell me I am wrong, that what it looks like happened here never happened. She’s a princess — if the Britons discover you have sullied her—”
“He has done no such thing,” Gemma said, stepping around Arne, pulling herself to her full height and squaring her shoulders even though she reached only to Ulf’s chin.
She glared at Ulf, every bit the princess she was, and while Arne’s admiration for her grew and his heart swelled with pride, their time here, removed from reality, was now at an end.
The impossibility of the two of them was clear and his realisation it was truly over slid into place and fixed in that moment.
They needed to put this behind them and move on with the lives they should have, not one imagined trapped in the snow.
“Gemma, we owe him no explanation—”
“There is nothing to explain—”
She didn’t look at him, but kept her gaze on Ulf, defying him to challenge her.
Instead, Ulf grabbed him by the arm and held it fast. “If the Britons find out about this, they will kill you. Tormod may have asked you to bring her back, but you would have followed her here anyway, because you didn’t trust her and now she holds your life in her hands. One word from her—”
Arne pulled his arm out of his brother’s grasp.