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‘Did you hear me ask?’ He took a spear from her and placed it back against the wall. ‘I’d half expected that you would have gone to check the supplies at the safe houses—a necessary task, but one that would take you somewhere I couldn’t find you. Yesterday…in the barn…’
‘In future try the fish pond,’ she said quickly before he could say what a mistake it had been.
She concentrated on piling the shields up. Keeping busy would stop her from looking at his fingers and thinking about the way they had played against her skin in the barn. ‘Fishing relaxes me and with this amount of mouths to feed every effort helps. However, it is just as well that I’m not hungry as the trout proved elusive.’
Her stomach grumbled, giving voice to her lie.
He held out some bread and cheese. ‘I suppose I’ll have to eat this myself. Training makes me hungry.’
‘You discovered my trail of destruction in the kitchen.’
He raised his brow. ‘No, they were eager to sing your praises. Your people love you.’
‘Why are you here, Hrolf?’ she asked, keeping her gaze firmly on the shields and spears. ‘I doubt you suddenly need another sparring partner.’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But I missed arguing with you over it.’ He placed the food on the bench beside her. ‘Go on. A peace offering.’
‘I’ve barely been home since I left in the spring.’ Sayrid eyed the bread and cheese. Hunger gnawed at her stomach. It took all of her restraint not to grab the food and wolf it down. ‘It is only natural I should be curious. With you and your warriors staying here, I’d hardly want to go short. I’m attempting to be a good wife. It is the only way I will get to travel.’
He tore off a chunk of bread and held it out to her. She grabbed it. The first bite tasted like ash, but the second was heaven. ‘You need to look after yourself better.’
She wiped her mouth. ‘I do well enough.’
‘You slept somewhere else last night.’
‘I went to where I always sleep.’ Sayrid bit her lip. She could hardly confess about hearing the sounds of merriment and feeling utterly alone. ‘Habit, and my eyes closed the instant I lay down.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘At least one of us slept.’
She waved an impatient hand. ‘It seems ridiculous to pretend that you wanted anything more than to consummate the marriage. You must have been relieved I found somewhere else to sleep.’
He put an arm around her shoulder. ‘I worried about you. I took you far too roughly.’
She shrugged him off. Her traitorous body thrummed from the touch. The evidence of his worry was less than convincing. She’d hardly hidden. ‘I know how to be a warrior. I know the way warriors think and how they treat women once they are finished with them.’
He flinched as if she had struck him.
‘But you know nothing about me.’ He enfolded her in his arms, pulling her close so she could feel the hard planes of his body. ‘A passion exists between us, Sayrid. What happened in the barns happened because we both wanted it, not because of some ill-conceived duty. My only regret is that I took you too quickly, before you were properly prepared. I wanted to apologize for that. If I’d stayed…it might have happened again and then…’
‘Do I look like some wilting flower?’ She twisted out of his arms. If she stayed there, she’d lose any capacity to think clearly. The trouble with Hrolf was that he always made her feel off balance. She was used to things being a certain way and now he had her wanting to believe that they could be different.
Her heart thumped in her ears. This was far worse than when she had faced him in the contest, but she kept her chin up. He dropped his eyes first.
‘When I saw the evidence of your virginity something inside snapped and I realized what I’d done,’ he said in a voice so low that she barely heard it. ‘Say you will forgive me. Give me a chance to show you how good it can be.’
She crumbled the remaining bits of bread between her fingers. ‘It hurt a little, but parts were exciting.’
His arms instantly came around her. ‘You mean I drank far too much last night and have nursed a bad head all morning for nothing. Next time, you will see.’
‘You deserved the bad head for leaving me,’ she mumbled, laying her head on his shoulder.
‘I left you?’ The blue in his eyes deepened. ‘You were the one who fled.’
‘You wanted me to go.’
Hrolf tightened his arms about Sayrid. Silently he thanked the gods that she had not completely turned from him. He treated her badly yesterday. Today he would make up for it. He had made himself all kinds of promises before he went looking for her—how he would be distant but kind, how he would explain that discord between a lord and his lady meant for an unhappy household…except by all the trees in Freyr’s grove, he wanted her again and his body ached to be inside her once more. And when he couldn’t find her, it had hurt.
