Page 23 of Viking in Love

Oh, my! Oh! My! She should have been outraged at his suggestive words. Instead, her heart began to race, and she felt her nipples harden and ache in the most annoying, wonderful way. She could swear there was a dampness pooling betwixt her legs. She tingled, all over, but especially in some forbidden places. Was this lust?

Just barely, she restrained herself from leaping on him, with her legs wrapped around his middle, the way she had seen Tyra do with Adam one time. How he would laugh at that!

But he was not laughing now. In fact, she sensed he was in the throes of his own attraction to her, and it was just as unwelcome.

“Do you blush, Breanne? By thunder, you do!” He seemed inordinately pleased by that discovery.

“’Tis just the sun.”

His gaze dropped to her chest, where her breasts were heaving in and out. When had she gone so breathless? And why? Even worse, at some point she must have leaned forward, still on tiptoe, and was almost breast to chest. How mortifying! As if she would want to touch him. She quickly dropped flat on her feet.

With a shake of his head, as if to clear it, he stepped back to put distance betwixt them.

And then he smirked.

The self-sure lout!

“Two days. Two days I give you and your princess brood. Then you are gone.”

She stuck out her tongue at his back as he began to stomp away, something she had not done since she was a girling.

He turned at the last moment, as if to add something else, another odious order, no doubt. His eyes widened with surprise at having caught her mid-tongue thrust. Then he chortled, “Have a caution, wench, you may find that tongue somewhere not to your liking, but definitely to mine. On the other hand, you would like it, too, methinks.” He winked. He dared to wink at her.

Which caused her to tingle some more.

Therefore, she got immense pleasure when he stepped into a pile of putrid pig waste she had raked for Drifa’s gardening, thus proving what she had said all along about the need for a pigsty fence. She thought about yelling, “I told you so,” but decided to save that for another day. There would be many opportunities that would warrant such words around such a lackbrain.

She could not wait.

As for the two-day limit of their stay, all she could say was, “Hah!”

A woo-ing they did go, a woo-ing they did go, heigh-ho the…

A widow hunt.

There was no other word for the insane journey Caedmon found himself on a short time later. He, Geoff, and Wulf were riding for Heatherby, the estate now owned by Sybil Blakeley, Lady Moreton, recent widow of Edward Blakeley, earl of Moreton. Heatherby just happened to adjoin Larkspur on the southwest, a mere one-hour ride on a good horse. Whilst Larkspur encompassed six hundred hectares of land, Heatherby was half that size. Whilst Larkspur had many fertile hides of yet-to-be-tilled land, Heatherby had a waterway leading to a seaport, albeit at some considerable distance.

Soon after he had talked with the Norse witch—and almost disgraced himself like an untried boyling by being aroused by her kissome lips—a traveling tinker arrived. Ezekial had informed them that the Earl of Moreton had passed away four days ago of a sudden heart seizure. His much younger wife, Sybil, was in deep mourning.

Caedmon wanted to make sure no other land-hungry knight nabbed her afore he had a chance to get his teeth in, so to speak. Or better yet, Geoff or Wulf’s teeth, which were far more suitable. Once Edgar, like all grab-land kings, got wind of this rich land in the hands of an “unprotected” woman, he would be sure to send her a noble bridegroom, which meant some weakling under the royal thumb.

He had no wish to wed again. In fact, he loathed the idea. But he would do most anything to protect what he already had. And a foe ruling Heatherby threatened any surrounding estates.

He had been only half-attending and realized that Wulf was addressing him. “I am suspicious of your royal visitors.”

“The princesses?” he asked.

Wulf nodded. “Them, the Arab who claims to be a healer but has the body of a warrior, and the two Norse bears.”

“I agree,” Caedmon said. “I should have kicked them out on their pretty arses the moment they crossed the moat.”

“The guardsmen have pretty arses?” Geoff inquired with mock surprise.

“You know exactly who I mean.”

“I understand your dilemma,” Wulf said. “Hard to refuse hospitality to five women in need, especially the one who has clearly been beaten.”

“’Tis exactly what I thought. I saw finger marks on her neck.” This from Geoff.