“I understand it is unwise. I could not help it.”
“Hulda.” Garik seemed to grope for words. “I like you. I admire and respect you. I would not be here on this venture if I did not. But I have to say—”
“It is madness? I know.”
“He could well have throttled you. You are strong, ja, but he is stronger.”
“He would never harm me.” Gentle, callused hands moving over her skin. Touching her everywhere.
“You cannot be certain of that. I understand the flesh wants what it wants—”
“It is not just the flesh involved, Garik, but my heart.”
“That is worse.” He gazed at her, troubled. “A woman—or a man, for that—directed by her heart may be led astray. Could this man, this stranger—for he is that—be using your feelings against you?”
“You think because I am a woman, I toss away all good sense?”
“I think anyone in your place might.”
Hulda sighed. “I do not think he takes advantage of me.”
Garik said nothing.
They had been walking as they spoke and now drew near the camp. Hulda could see everyone milling about.
“List to me,” she said. “We are in a goodly position. It is a haven here. We can go hunting today. We can go out raiding if we wish. Where is the disadvantage?”
He shook his head. “I feel trouble. In my bones.”
Trouble might well be coming, but Hulda could not feel it. Only the desire.
“I ask you, Hulda, to keep the welfare of your crew in mind.”
“Would I do aught else?”
Again, he did not answer. But ja, she felt his doubt.
They did go hunting that day, once the weather cleared. Hulda herself led a small group in order to show them the range they’d been granted, though she would have much preferred to hang back.
She wanted time to herself. A chance to sort out her thoughts and her emotions. Her body felt sore. Ja, Quarrie had been gentle with her, tender. Yet they had joined frequently and she was not accustomed to such activity.
How could she want him again so soon? It was the memory of the tenderness, she decided, that would prove her undoing. The way he kissed her. The way he suckled at her breast. The care with which he entered her.
She kept her hunting party well away from the half-ruined hut in the forest. She wanted no one to know of its exact location, save the two of them.
*
“Where were ye?”Quarrie’s mother unknowingly echoed Garik’s words to Hulda almost exactly. “I was worried half to death.”
Quarrie put aside his weapons as he entered the hall and made his way to the fire. He had already run the gamut outside—the guards down on the shore and more at the gate. Borald waylaying him with concern in his eyes.
“We were about to send out a party for ye,” Borald had said.
Aye, he had been inconsiderate. Incautious. And, given the opportunity, he would be again.
“Were ye at the Norse camp all night?” Ma asked. “We nearly went there to ask.”
“Nay.” He did not look at his mother as he replied. “I ha’ given the Norse leave to some land for hunting. ’Tis well north of our usual tract. I will tell the men—”
