Gytha forced a smile. Though, normally, she would have loved to hear the story—her father’s friend did have a knack for getting into all sorts of unlikely trouble—today she felt despondent. She sighed inwardly.
It would be a long day.
12
“Haakon?”
Gytha stilled in shock when the open door revealed the tall Norseman. Every time someone had knocked on the door in the last few days she had hoped it would be him. After a series of disillusions she had stopped hoping. Except that here he was. To think she had been about to go see Agnes at her market stall! Had she not taken more time than usual to braid her hair, she would have missed him.
What was he doing here, looking just as perfect as in her memory? His hair was falling in soft coils over his muscular shoulders. She remembered wondering if he ever wore it braided the last time he’d been in her house. She still had no idea and was more curious than ever.
“Do you ever wear your hair braided?” she blurted out before thinking the better of the question.
He arched a brow and ran a hand through the silken strands as if to check whether his hair was braided or not. “I do, actually, on occasion. But aren’t you supposed to say hello or ask what had brought me to your door?”
She was, of course, and he had not let her blunder pass unnoticed. But then again, why should he?
“Hello. What are you doing here?”
The smile he gave her showed that the attempt at breeziness was lost on him. Nevertheless, he didn’t insist and instead answered the question. “I had business in town and I thought I would come to see how you were faring while I was here.”
His gaze fluttered to her left cheek, the one that had been bruised by Oswald the other day. Gytha was very touched that he should have gone to the trouble of enquiring after her.
“I’m well, as you can see, thank you.”
His blue eyes hardened. “No, I don’t see that. You do look better, I will admit.” He brought a hand to her cheek and gave a light stroke. “But the bruise has not completely faded yet.”
Stop touching me like this, she prayed silently,or I might rip my own clothes off and impale myself on your cock.
Lord, oh Lord, what was wrong with her? Haakon had been here for mere moments and here she was, already entertaining lewd thoughts and thinking in the crudest of terms.
“Here,” he said, taking his hand away from her cheek. “I brought these for you.”
With those words he deposited a leather pouch in her hand.
“What is it?”
His eyes sparkled in what was obviously mischief. “Look, and you will find out.”
She did find out. When she emptied the contents of the pouch into her palm, Gytha found herself staring at the most beautiful earrings she had ever seen.
“What is this?” she repeated. She knew what it was, but notwhyit was in her hand, which seemed to be the important bit of information.
Haakon’s mouth twitched. “Earrings,” he said, lowering his face to hers. She was instantly reminded of the heated kiss theyhad shared the other day. Not that she had not thought about it a hundred times since then. “In the shape of flowers.”
Well, yes, this much she could see. “I mean…”
He laughed. “I know what you mean. I asked my father to make these for you the day you told me you wanted to pierce your ears.”
She understood then that he had not just made a detour to come see her, he had come to town with the intention of seeing her and giving the earrings to her. If he had not, he would not have brought them along with him. Her mind started to reel with the realization that he had asked his father to do this days ago, just for the pleasure of surprising her.
“But you…you shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.”
“It was not trouble. He was more than happy for the opportunity to do a dog rose, his favorite thing to do.”
Gytha took one earring to examine it, remembering the brooches pinned on Eadhild’s dress on her wedding day. They had been beautiful but by necessity rather sturdy, as they’d had to fulfil a function and hold heavy fabric in place. There had been no such constraints here. The smallness of the earrings had allowed Caedmon to beat the metal as thinly as possible and exploit his creativity to the full.
“This is exquisite work.” She was truly awed. “But I cannot accept?—”
