Husband & Wife
Dagfinn sends Asvald to retrieve Maryam, while he, Kelda, and Euphemia head into the great hall to prepare. Both for the conversation with Maryam, but also for the town assembly that is only one day away now.
When Asvald returns a couple hours later with Maryam, she welcomes Dagfinn back to his health, and then notices the strange feeling in the air.
“What’s this about then?” she asks.
Together, Kelda and Dagfinn tell her everything as they know it to be true.
When Dagfinn directs her attention to the place in the deed where her family name is listed, the creases around her eyes deepen.
“Do you not remember any of this?” he asks with gentle caution.
Maryam frowns, her eyes glistening. “A little, I suppose. I remember being taken away from somewhere, clinging to someone’s hand I don’t even remember while she held my brother in her arms and we ran. I guess I just thought it was the war we were fleeing.”
Dagfinn and Kelda exchange a heavy look.
“What of your brother?” Euphemia asks, not knowing that she is the only person in the room who doesn’t know the answer.
A somber weight fills the great hall.
“George died of illness when I was maybe ten years old. Fever spread through the church fast. Not many survived. The nuns and friars all died. I was brought to a monastery in Thorfell shortly after. I didn’t even know I had lived here before.”
“I suppose that explains why no one knew of you,” Euphemia says.
Kelda adds, “These are times of war. Children come and go in the monasteries quite often, especially after a siege.”
Memory sweeps her away then, and they let her drift in it for a moment. A different time that likely feels like a lifetime ago.
“Regardless,” Dagfinn says, finally breaking the silence. “My family owes a debt to you. One that I intend to fulfill as best as I am able.”
A scornful laugh bubbles from the back of Maryam’s throat. She gestures around them. “You think I want all of this?”
For a brief moment, worry ripples through Dagfinn. He holds her gaze though, prepared to do what’s right. “If that is what you wish—”
Another acidic laugh. She swats at him as if he’s her own child.
“I don’t want any of this, you fool. Kelda is my friend.
You’re like a son to me. I’m not going to throw you out on the streets just so I can live in a fancy manor that once belonged to a father and mother I don’t even remember.
What would be the point in that?” She chuckles darkly to herself.
Then glances between Kelda and Dagfinn. “I like my humble life. You don’t owe me a thing. ”
A gust blows through the great hall, rocking the antlers and nearly snuffing all the candles.
Euphemia doesn’t know if anyone else notices it.
But she does.
A low moan that carries something ominous on the wind.
Euphemia made a promise.
But if Maryam is being too stubborn to accept anything, what else is there she can do?
“There must be something we can do for you,” Euphemia pleads. “Something that would settle the spirits here.”
With a mixture of terror and curiosity, Maryam looks around the room again. When she doesn’t find anything, she folds her arms over her chest. “You’ve already agreed to help me repair my cooperage and home. I think that should be enough.”
“We were already doing that though,” Dagfinn argues, a hand absentmindedly stroking his chin.
“That’s all I need,” Maryam says with some finality. She stands from the table ready to leave.
It feels wrong to let her settle for something so small comparatively, even though Euphemia knows a family business is no small thing. Her cooperage is her survival. Her life. Just as the Saint’s Hearth was once Euphemia’s.
And it’s with that reflection that she finally has an idea.
“I’d also like to help connect you with the Saint’s Hearth again. Perhaps with others in Nottinghamshire, as well. I’m sure people there are in constant need of troughs, buckets, casks, and all of that.”
Maryam gives a proud and confident nod as if to say there is no greater, more important profession in the world.
And this partnership could be perfect. A way to unite both of their communities. A way to begin to rebuild and help heal some of the damage wrought upon these lands.
Glancing to Dagfinn, Euphemia can tell he sees it too. A sense of pride forming in the way he holds himself. He doesn’t have to fill his father’s shoes. Nor his grandfather’s. His legacy will be his own to forge, one with Euphemia at his side.
“It’s not enough though,” Dagfinn says. He pushes from the table and starts pacing the room.
When the idea comes to him, he looks as luminous as the sun.
“A stewardship then. For your son, Heathcliffe.” Seeing Maryam’s dubious expression, Dagfinn continues.
“There’s a cottage and some land at the edge of the cliffs.
No one’s living there, nor tending the fields.
He would be taking nothing from us. If anything, he’d be removing a burden. ”
It takes Maryam a long time to consider, but eventually, she agrees.
It won’t erase the horrors that befell these lands when Reynar Varinsson conquered them. But it’s a step in the right direction.
That is, assuming everything goes accordingly when they confront Percival tomorrow.
The morning turns to afternoon, and the afternoon turns to evening.
They make their way into the sitting room for a cup of tea, before Asvald and Kelda offer to take Maryam back into town.
As Asvald leaves to ready the carriage, with Kelda and Maryam follow shortly after him, Dagfinn stands in the entryway, watching them don their cloaks, heading outside, and close the door behind them.
Then, Euphemia and Dagfinn are utterly alone for the first time since he’s awoken.
It’s the first time all day that Euphemia doesn’t know what to do with herself.
She knows how to act with him in the dream world, but this is new.
Being here.
Together.
In their home.
The tempo of her heart quickens.
Suddenly, all Euphemia can think about is that they are alone. Truly alone. And that they are about to spend their first night together as husband and wife.
But perhaps those are only her own selfish longings.
Dagfinn has been through quite an ordeal.
He’s only just awoken.
Perhaps he’s not ready for something so physically taxing.
However they decide to spend their time though, Euphemia realizes she’s simply grateful to have him here.
“It’s strange,” she says to him from where she sits on the settee.
He turns around, folds his arms, and leans against the entryway. “What is?”
“Being here. In this manor. With you. Does it not feel strange to you?”
He angles an eyebrow at her. “Should it?”
Euphemia can tell he’s toying with her, so she tries to sound nonchalant when she answers, “Yes and no, I suppose.”
“Yes and no?” Dagfinn parrots back.
“I only meant that it’s different.” Euphemia is losing the battle with the sense of fluster building inside her. She sighs, trying to shake it free, but it doesn’t seem to ebb. “When I first came to Thorfell, I was nervous to meet you. Frightened, really.”
Dagfinn prowls into the room then like a predator. He stops just in front of her and kneels, his chin almost resting on her knees.
The sight of him there, so close to the tender place between her thighs, sends a shiver through her. Her knees press together instinctively, but the movement only seems to make her more aware of exactly where he is.
Heat begins to gather beneath her skirts.
He brings his face closer to hers, a low rumble in his voice. “And what do you think of me now?”
If he wants to play this game, she will play back.
Euphemia leans forward until they are nose-to-nose. “Now, I know the truth. That you are a brutish beast.”
“Who, me?” he asks with feigned innocence.
“Only a beast would shove a lady over a cliff.” She places a hand on his chest and playfully shoves him to the ground.
He laughs where he lands.
Hoping to make him writhe where he lies, Euphemia stands from the settee and marches out the room. Hearing his footsteps scrambling after her brings a haughty smile to her face.
She barely makes it out of the sitting room before he catches up to her.
Dagfinn strikes his arm out, blocking her path. His fierce eyes pin her back against the wall and all the breath in Euphemia’s lungs vacates.
The strange, stupid ache in her chest slips lower, pooling like liquid fire in her belly.
She’s not sure if Dagfinn inches closer, or if it’s the weakness in her knees that is causing her to sway into the space between them. But before she knows it, Dagfinn is so close that there is barely an inch separating them.
She can feel the heat coming off him. Can smell fire and cedar and something unmistakably Dagfinn beneath it all. Her pulse beats wildly in her throat.
His gaze drops to her mouth. “Tell me, beautiful wife, what I can do to make up for my beastly behaviors.”
The headiness of his voice causes something deep inside her to awaken and twist with desire.
She can think of a dozen things she wants him to do. The thought of his mouth against her skin. His hands roaming places she has only ever imagined. The parts of him she has never seen, but has spent far too much time wondering about.
Dagfinn watches her, a challenge set in his mischievous eyes, but something else too. Something akin to hunger. Like he wants to do all of those things too.
Euphemia can resist no longer. Her body seems to make the decisions before her mind can catch up.
She throws her arms around his neck.
Before she’s able to close the loop, he’s grabbing her by the rear, hoisting her high.
The sudden and intimate movement elicits a thrilling squeal from her lips just before they crash upon his.
His mouth is warm. Real.
His breath catches against her lips. He is solid, his heartbeat hammering beneath her palm. The sheer reality of him sends a shiver all the way through her.
Kissing Dagfinn is like drinking honeyed water after a week of thirst. He is sweet. Intoxicating. And she cannot get enough.