Page 125 of Viking in Love

“Rafn, give orders for the hird to dismount,” Thorvald ordered. “We will not be leaving today. Adam, can you help organize a search party?”

“Where shall we look?” Drifa wanted to know.

“Somewhere with a bed would be my guess,” Thorvald said. And then he chuckled to himself. ’Twould seem that another of my daughters is going to leave the nest. “Where is Ingrith?”

“Here I am, Father.”

“Best you start arrangements for a wedding feast.”

“But I want to be married at Stoneheim,” Vana protested.

“’Tis not for you.”

It took five hours of useless searching before someone noticed that Caedmon’s children were acting strange. After another hour of intense questioning, a crowd of about twenty was heading out the back door of the keep. The children, wisely, went into deep hiding.

Thorvald had not had so much fun since Adam had drilled a hole in his head, and he had pretended to be unconscious so he could plot the marriage of one of his daughters. Suffice it to say, he was smarter than his daughters gave him credit for. Never underestimate a Viking, he always said.

Welcome to the light, son…

Caedmon and Breanne were eating their first meal of the day, manchet bread, hard cheese, and apples, when they heard the sound of many voices approaching.

“Uh-oh! We are about to be rescued.” He smiled at Breanne and helped her to her feet.

She smiled back at him.

There was no longer an ache in his chest. Instead, he was filled with a fierce joy. He was not sure what that meant, but it had to be good.

“I will take care of this,” he said, leaning down to give her a soft kiss. “Do not be afeared.”

“I am not afraid. What will be will be. How do I look?” She was smoothing her wrinkled bed rail, which she had not worn until this morn.

“Like you have made love with a sinfully handsome man six times in the past twelve hours. Mayhap seven if you count…never mind.” He reached over and ran his thumb over her lips, which were raw and swollen from his kisses. Wisps of damp hair framed her glowing face. Whisker burns marred her face and throat and chest. “How do I look?”

She gave him a saucy head-to-toe survey. He was wearing naught but braies. There were scratch marks on his chest and back. His lips were puffy. His eyes gleamed with some secret. “Like a man who has been thoroughly satisfied numerous times by a temptress of the highest order.”

The door opened, letting sunlight in.

Caedmon took her hand and led her up the steps. At first, he was blinded, but then he realized that a stunned crowd was watching them emerge. At the head was Breanne’s father, King Thorvald.

Holding a hand for silence, Thorvald studied both of them thoroughly. Then he smiled and yelled over his shoulder, “Someone get the priest.”

Surprisingly, Caedmon did not shudder or make protests of his innocence. This was inevitable. He knew that now. It had been ordained from the moment she entered his castle.

He noticed that Breanne remained silent, too. Had she come to the same conclusion?

With a surge of possessiveness, he put an arm around her shoulder and started to walk them back to the keep, the crowd following after them like ducklings.

“One thing,” he said, stopping to shout, “where are my children?”

To the surprise of everyone, Caedmon most of all, Breanne put two fingers in her mouth and let loose a shrill whistle. Even more surprising, ten children, even little Piers, came running to stand in a line in front of him.

They were all smiling.

Here comes the (Viking) bride…

They were about to be married the next afternoon in the new grape arbor at Larkspur, the trellises having been built by the bride and the grapes vines planted and arranged in an arch by her sister Drifa. Succulent smells came from the kitchen, where a wedding feast was being prepared.

Breanne had not spoken to Caedmon alone since yestermorn when they were “rescued.” She did not know what he had said to his children, but she had seen from a distance that he spoke to them seriously and at length. But at the end, they were all laughing, and he placed a fatherly arm over the shoulders of Hugh, who had been the instigator.