Chapter 9 A Kiss Offered as a Shield
The camp follower’s cry tore across the dunes.
Maeve seized Leif’s wrist and ran.
Cold sand slid beneath her boots, filling the seams of her stockings. Behind them, feet struck the hard-packed shore, and a man shouted in Norse. The wind snatched half the words away, but not the meaning. They had been seen. The woman knew them - or knew enough.
“Left,” Leif said. “The field.”
“I see it.”
A low stone wall rose ahead, black with wet, its far side buried beneath windblown snow.
Maeve gathered her torn cloak against her throat and climbed.
Leif followed close, one hand braced at her waist when her boot slipped.
His touch steadied her, but it also sent a dangerous warmth through the chill lodged in her bones.
They dropped into the field together. Stubble scratched her skirts. Beyond it stood a peat byre, its roof hunched beneath frost, its door hanging crookedly from one leather hinge.
Leif shoved Maeve toward it. “Inside.”
He entered first, knife drawn. Maeve crossed the threshold after him, and he pulled the door shut with care.
The byre smelled of damp earth, smoke, and old cattle.
Peat bricks were stacked along one wall; a shallow trough lay empty beneath the far window.
Through a gap in the boards, gray daylight showed the dunes and the moving figures below.
Leif pressed his back to the door, listening.
Maeve’s breath came harshly. She bent over, palms on her knees, while the blood beat in her ears. The crescent birthmark below her left collarbone prickled beneath the wool where the cold had found its way in.
“They will search the field,” she whispered.
“They will search the byre if they saw us enter.”
“Then we cannot be found as ourselves.”
His amber eyes fixed on her. Snowmelt darkened his ash-brown hair, and the notch through his left eyebrow made his expression seem harder than it was. Or perhaps she had only begun to see the difference.
“Your plan?” he asked.
Maeve straightened. “You are the protected man. I am the widow.”
His mouth tightened. “That was a disguise for the raider camp. It will not withstand questions.”
“It need not withstand many. Only enough to make them hesitate.”
“You mean to let them believe you have taken me captive?”
“No.” She stepped close, lowering her voice. “I mean to let them believe you are mine to command.”
A faint, incredulous breath escaped him. “Maeve.”
“Do not say my name as if I have suggested we set the byre alight.”
“Your last bold notion involved hiding our marriage.”
“And it kept us alive.”
“It also put a knife beneath my ribs.”
“You survived.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, then rose again. The movement was swift, but she felt it like a hand.
Outside, a shout carried over the field. Men were spreading out.
Maeve caught the front of his damp tunic. “If they see a Norse captain guarding an Irish noblewoman, they will call for others. If they see a widow keeping a foreign man close, they may decide we are no threat worth the trouble.”
“And how will you persuade them?”
Her fear had a shape now: the rough hands of strangers, the cold gleam of the knife at Leif’s belt, the knowledge that every choice could be twisted against her.
Beneath it lay another fear, more private and more treacherous - the memory of Leif’s body beside hers in the wreckage, his heat shared without demand, his hands careful when her own had trembled.
She had spent too long being used as a piece on other men’s boards. Eamon had made her marriage, her name, even the blood of her kin into weapons. She would not offer herself merely because danger required a convincing lie.
But desire was not surrender. Choice was not submission.
Maeve placed both hands against Leif’s chest. His breath changed beneath her palms.
“I will kiss you,” she said. “If you agree.”
The hard line of his jaw eased, though tension remained in his shoulders. “You would do that to save us?”
“I would do it because I choose the moment and the purpose. I will not be made into a shield by fear - or by you.”
His eyes held hers. “And if I want it for no purpose at all?”
The question struck deeper than it should have. She could smell salt and smoke on him, feel the heat gathered under his wet wool. The byre seemed suddenly too small for the distance between them.
“Then tell me,” she said.
“I want it,” he answered. “But I will not take it unless you offer.”
For one breath, the pursuit outside vanished.
Maeve slid her fingers to the back of his neck. “I offer.”
She kissed him.
Leif went still, as though her mouth had been a blow.
Then his hands came to her waist, not gripping, only holding her where she had chosen to stand.
His lips were cold from the wind and warm beneath it, roughened by salt.
Maeve pressed closer, opening her mouth against his, and a shiver moved through him.
The kiss deepened with a hunger neither of them could pretend was only feigned. His thumb brushed the edge of her cloak, finding the bare skin above her collar. Maeve felt the touch all the way to her knees.
A boot struck the byre wall.
Leif’s hand tightened at once. Maeve drew back, breathless, and put one finger to his mouth.
Voices passed outside.
“She went this way.”
“Search the sheds.”
Leif bent his head until his brow rested against hers. His breath warmed her cheek. “Still wish to command me?”
“More than ever.”
A smile touched his mouth, brief and dangerous. “Then command.”
Maeve turned toward the door. She loosened her cloak and let one shoulder show, arranging the torn wool so it appeared carelessly thrown about her. Leif understood without being told. He stood behind her, close enough that his chest brushed her back, his knife hidden beneath the fold of her cloak.
The latch lifted.
Maeve opened the door before the searcher could force it.
A young raider stood outside with a spear in hand. He looked from her bare shoulder to Leif’s face, then back again. Snow clung to his beard. Behind him, two more men waited near the wall.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded in Norse.
Maeve answered in the same tongue, her voice sharp. “What does it seem?”
The man’s gaze flicked to Leif. “He is one of Eirik’s.”
“He is mine.”
Leif’s fingers settled lightly against her hip. The touch was part of the performance, but the heat of it was not. Maeve leaned into him, making the claim visible.
The raider frowned. “He is a captain.”
“Not here.” Maeve drew Leif around her, forcing him to face her. “He is under my protection until I reach the road.”
The man barked a laugh. “An Irish widow protects a Norse captain?”
“A widow protects what she has bought.”
That silenced him.
Maeve lifted her hand to Leif’s face. His amber eyes sharpened with understanding. She stroked the notch in his brow, then drew him down by the nape.
This kiss had to be seen.
She made it convincing.
His arms came around her, firm now, his body shielding hers from the doorway.
His mouth met hers with controlled force, and she felt the instant he stopped performing.
His lips moved against hers as though the raiders were not there, as though the wreck, the blood feud, and the winter road had narrowed to this one chosen breath.
Maeve’s fingers curled in his hair. She tasted salt and smoke. His hand spread over her back, careful of the torn cloak, while his other remained visible at his side.
The raider muttered something crude.
Maeve broke the kiss and turned her head toward him. “Have you finished staring?”
The man flushed. “The captain is wanted.”
“Then tell Eirik he was here and found under my hand.” She let her gaze travel over the spear. “If Eirik wants him, he may come and ask me himself.”
It was a reckless challenge. Leif’s body went taut behind her.
The raider studied her face. Perhaps he saw only a widow with ruined clothes and a foreign lover. Perhaps he saw the authority she had once wielded in her own hall, before men decided grief made her weak.
At last he spat into the snow. “The field is empty.”
“Then leave it empty.”
He backed away, still uncertain. “We saw two figures come this way.”
“Then you saw poorly.”
The men withdrew. Their boots receded toward the dunes.
Maeve waited until the sound thinned into the wind. Only then did she shut the door.
Leif did not release her.
“You threatened Eirik with me at your side,” he said.
“I threatened him with the inconvenience of finding us.”
“You kissed me as though you meant to ruin my judgment.”
“I needed them to believe us.”
His gaze lowered to her mouth. “Did you?”
Maeve should have stepped away. Instead she placed her palm over his heart. It beat hard beneath the wool.
“I meant the first kiss,” she said. “The second was for them.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.” She swallowed. “It is what I can answer.”
The honesty wounded him; she saw it in the brief shadow crossing his face. Yet he did not turn cold. He only lifted his hand and touched the edge of her cloak, where it exposed the crescent mark below her collarbone.
“Do you fear I will use what you offer?”
“I fear everyone uses what I offer.”
His thumb stopped.
Maeve looked toward the narrow window. Across the field, the raiders moved along the wall, their shapes dark against the snow. One pointed toward the far hedgerow.
“They are not fools,” she said. “They will follow our tracks.”
Leif came beside her. Through the gap, he watched the men turn toward the byre route.
“You saved us time,” he said.
“Only time.”
“Time is often the difference between a grave and a road.”
She faced him. “And what am I to you now? A wife before witnesses? A shield? A woman convenient to keep close until the feud is ended?”
His expression hardened with something like pain. “You are the reason I did not leave you in the dunes.”
“You could not have left me.”
“I could have tried.”
That answer held no sweetness. It held the truth of him: a man accustomed to choosing survival, now refusing the easiest path because she stood upon it.
Leif took her hand. His palm was scarred, warm despite the cold.
“You led those men away from the door,” he said. “You kept your voice steady while deciding whether to put a knife in the first throat through it. That was not performance.”
Maeve’s chin lifted. “I was afraid.”
“I know.”
The words undid her more than praise would have. He had seen the fear and followed her anyway.
He raised her hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “You were afraid, and you led us.”
Outside, a shout rose. The pursuers had found the tracks beyond the byre.
Maeve looked at the door. “We must go.”
“Yes.”
Neither moved.
Leif’s gaze returned to hers. “May I kiss you again?”
The question was quiet, stripped of strategy.
Maeve stepped into him. “Yes.”
This time she reached for him first. His mouth met hers, and the kiss burned through the cold, through suspicion, through every careful boundary she had built around her widowhood.
He held her as a partner, not a possession.
When she pulled him down by his tunic, he followed.
When she turned her face, he stopped. When she returned, he kissed her until her knees weakened and his breath broke against her throat.
The byre door shuddered in the wind.
Maeve pressed her forehead to his. “If we live through this, you will not pretend it was only a bargain.”
“I will not.”
“Nor will I.”
He drew her cloak around both of them, hiding their joined hands. Together they slipped through the rear opening into the field’s stubbled dark.
They had taken ten steps toward the stone wall when a cry rose from the dunes.
“There! They went east!”
Maeve glanced back. The raiders stood on the ridge, pointing toward the byre’s far side.
Leif caught her hand.
Their fingers locked, and they ran - not apart, not as captor and captive, but together into the snow.