Page 30 of Viking in Love

Rashid had insisted on a hearth fire so Breanne would not get a chill. As a result, the room was hot, and she was covered with only a thin linen sheet. There was no longer any question of her having caught the lung fever, she was just exhausted, according to the healer, who also promised the six remaining patients in his care would be on their feet, good as ever, within days.

With absolutely no hesitation, he lifted the sheet to stare at her nude body. She was slim but well proportioned, with small but firm breasts crowned with raspberry-tinted areolas and nipples which were turgid even when at rest. The same red hair that covered her head comprised a curly thatch over her mons. Her arms and thighs were well defined with muscle due to the ridiculously hard labor she insisted on engaging in. Her over-generous mouth was too large for her face to be beautiful, but instead, to his mind, it gave her the sensual aura of a temptress.

Pathetic sod that he was, he smiled, knowing how much she would hate that image. Was he reverting to a boyling that he got his pleasures in such small-minded ways?

Nay, there was naught boyish about him at the moment. He would have to be a monk not to be aroused by her body, and he had ne’er leaned toward priestly abstinence. He adjusted his breeches to accommodate his thickening.

Caedmon had a problem, and not just the lust rising in him like summer sap, thick and warm. The problem was that this woman and her sisters, not to mention the talented healer, were doing too much good at Larkspur, and he feared his men and his people would expect that same standard when they departed, which they would soon.

He was closing the door softly when he noticed Lady Havenshire walking toward him.

“Are you going to the great hall for dinner?” he asked.

She nodded.

He held out his arm for her.

She flinched.

What? Did she think he was going to hit her? Ah!, he thought, recalling the bruises about her face and neck which were almost gone now, though her arm was still in a sling. That is precisely what she had imagined.

Before he had a chance to ask about that, she spoke. “M’lord Caedmon, I must thank you for letting us stay here under your protection.”

“Protection?” That word again!

Her pretty face, framed by almost white Norse hair in one long braid down her back, heated with color. Vana the White, she was appropriately called in her land. “Did I say protection? I meant hospitality.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“We will only stay until word comes from my brother-by-marriage Adam of Hawkshire or his kinsman Lord Eirik of Ravenshire. They will be arranging my safe passage back to my father’s home in the Norselands.”

Safe passage? Now there was another odd choice of word. “Why did you not go to Eoforwic in the first place?”

“Eoforwic? Oh. We Norse refer to it as Jorvik.”

“Ships leave from the market town’s port almost daily.” And Larkspur is way off course on the route from Havenshire to Eoforwic.

Her blush deepened from pink to deep rose. “Ah…uh…there were matters to be resolved first.”

Caedmon had a bad feeling about these “matters.” A very bad feeling. “I have not yet offered my sympathies on the death of your husband…or disappearance.”

She nodded her acceptance of his sympathy. Not surprisingly, considering Oswald’s character, she did not appear to be in the throes of grief.

“I assume those are the matters to be resolved…matters related to your husband.”

Her throat worked with visible gulps of distress. “We did think to stay at the monastery at Lindisfarne, despite the ill feelings there toward anyone of Norse background.”

Years ago, the first Viking assaults on Britain took place at Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island. Norsemen considered church goods…gold chalices, bejeweled scepters, silver crosses…to be well-deserved plunder when taken from greedy clerics.

“But Rashid angered the monk healers when he tossed out a large pottery jar of leeches. Rashid and Adam do not believe in bloodletting.”

Caedmon had to smile, picturing the pompous monks being chastised by what they would consider a heathen healer and pagan princesses. But then he noted the continuing distress on her pretty face as she worried her bottom lip, staring up at him with fear.

He put a hand on her arm, ignoring her discomfort at his touch. “Is there aught I can do to help?”

“Nay! Just let us stay until help…I mean…”

He waved a hand dismissively. “You are welcome.” For a time. A short time. Most of all, he could not kick them out on their lovely arses without warning, since Breanne and Rashid had cared for Piers and the others inflicted with lung fever. He owed them.