“Is it in the middle?”
This was another advantage of having someone with her. Haakon could make sure she pierced the right place. She had once seen a woman whose holes had been a hair’s breadth away from the edge of the lobe. It had hurt Gytha every time she had looked at her earrings and imagined her getting them caught by mistake while the woman got dressed. One tug and the flesh would rip. She didn’t want that.
“Yes. Perfect,” Haakon confirmed before smiling at her.
There was no excuse to delay any longer. Holding the lobe taut Gytha pushed the needle through with decision—and stifled a cry when pain tore through her. That had hurt more than she had imagined.
A tear escaped her eye when she withdrew the needle slowly. She wiped it down, appalled. It wasn’t over. There was still the other ear to do. Would she be brave enough, now that she knew what was coming? She would have to, as she could not remain with only one ear pierced.
“Perhaps I can do the second one for you?” Haakon offered.
Everything within her melted. He had seen her distress and wanted to help. “Please,” she whispered, handing him the needle.
“Let me get a piece of linen to wipe the blood off first.”
Blood. Oh. Gytha was glad she was sitting down.
Haakon walked over to the table and nodded at the cloth she had used this morning to wash her face. It was still damp. “Can I use this?”
“Yes.”
He dipped it in the basin of water and wrung it dry. Then he walked back to her and took the needle she was still holding. The tip was tinged red, she suddenly saw. Haakon took it, swiftly wiped it clean and bent down on one knee on her right side, the one she had not pierced yet.
“I will do my best not to hurt you but I fear I will.”
“I know.” But at least then it would be over.
She swallowed and turned her head, indicating her readiness. When his fingers closed on her ear and she felt the lightest caress from the knuckles at her throat, Gytha closed her eyes. Could he not stroke her instead of poking a hole through her? Wrap the fingers of his left hand, the one with the ring, around her nape, and pull her into a kiss? She would?—
The pain was sudden and just as bad as the first had been. This time she did cry out.
“I’m sorry.”
Haakon sounded distraught. When another tear escaped her eye, he was the one wiping it down, lingering over the gesture, making sure to stroke her cheek at the same time, as if to erase the last traces of the bruise inflicted by Oswald. Then he took the piece of linen and held it in place at her earlobe while she waited for the throbbing to subside. The coolness of the water was wonderfully soothing. How had she not thought to do that with the other one?
“There. All done. All you need to do now is put the earrings on. Shall I help you?”
“Yes.”
It would be better, as he could see what he was doing. The last thing she wanted was fumble around to find the holes and hurt herself further in the process. She reached to the earrings, admiring them one last time, before handing them to him.
He was so quick and gentle that she didn’t even feel the metal going through the still stinging holes. Finally, it was done.
“How do I look?” she asked feeling rather shy.
The gleam in Haakon’s eyes was the best answer he could have given her but he spoke nonetheless. “Beautiful.”
And in that moment she knew she wasn’t imagining things. He wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him too. But she didn’t lean in, didn’t do anything to provoke him further. One kiss, in the wake of a fright, brought on by gratitude and confusion might be excusable. A second one motivated by tenderness and desire would not be.
He stood back up and Gytha followed. The earrings fluttered against her neck when she moved, an odd but very pleasant sensation. She had finally done it.
“I will have to thank your father for the earrings the next time I go to the village,” she said, brushing them with a light finger. Or… A thought suddenly crossed her mind. Perhaps he didn’t know. “Did you tell him who they were for?”
The earrings could not have been for himself, they were evidently a gift for a woman. What had the goldsmith thought when he’d been asked to make them? That his son had a sweetheart? Did he? She had mistaken Rowena for his lover and she knew that Edita, despite her efforts, had never shared his bed, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have anyone special in his life and in his heart, someone she had not yet met.
“I told him they were for someone in town.”
Vague, if not a lie. Had Caedmon been satisfied by that answer? She was not. “What will he think if he sees me wearing them?” she persisted, replacing the needle in the sewing box, a neat way of avoiding having to look at him.
