Page 71 of Viking in Love

Mina began to cry at that news, and Angus sniffled.

“We took a vote,” Alfred said, as if that meant she had no choice.

“You are gonna be our mother,” Aidan finished for his twin.

“You are better than the last trollop who shared our father’s bed,” Joanna remarked.

“Thank you for the compliment,” Breanne said, then sighed inwardly. Even the children knew she was behind locked door with the lout every night, engaged in bedplay.

But Joanna was not done with her observations. “Phew! ’Twas a close call, that one. Lady Anise had already buried four husbands and was looking toward Larkspur for a new acquisition.”

“She smelled funny,” Angus said.

“Perfume,” Beth replied. “She used splashes of perfume, rather than bathing.”

“Well, we got rid of her, did we not? Methinks it was the frog in her washbowl,” Kendrick observed, a mischievous gleam in his big brown eyes.

“Or the worms in her porridge,” Joanna added, a matching gleam in her brown eyes.

“I farted every time she walked by.” Oslac grinned, as if that were some great feat.

Enough was enough! Breanne was able to escape because Hugh had just come up behind her and said, “Father wants you to come up to the dais and give him counsel on a difficult case.”

“Me?”

“Yea. You may have an opinion that would help.”

She glanced up, and Caedmon was indeed looking her way, and beckoning with his fingertips.

“I will take the children outdoors,” Hugh offered.

When she sat down on the right of Caedmon behind the table, she told him, “I hate when you do that fingers-beckoning thing. It makes me feel like a pet dog.”

“I know,” he said and tugged her chair closer to his. Then, as if she had not even spoken, he whispered in her ear, “Greetings, my lady love.” For everyone else’s benefit, he said loudly, “Lady Breanne, we need a woman’s view on this particular matter.”

Since when? Suspicious of the rogue’s intent, she studied the three people before them. Two women—big-bosomed, of course—bracketed one of Caedmon’s hersirs, whose face was flushed with a combination of anger and embarrassment.

“Repeat the complaint for us, Gerard,” Caedmon said.

Even as Gerard stood up to speak, Breanne was shocked to feel Caedmon’s hand in her lap, though he appeared to be listening intently to Gerard. Or pretending to listen.

“Our bargain was only for nighttime,” she hissed at him.

“You fell asleep on me last night afore dawn. You owe me an hour.”

“Lady Breanne…” Gerard was saying.

She gave the steward her attention, or as much as she could whilst Caedmon’s wicked fingers were gathering the hem of her robe up her leg in a leisurely exploration, causing her to lose focus and setting her aflame.

When she glared at him, he bestowed one of his lazy heated smiles on her, knowing full well its effect. “Loathsome lout!” she muttered.

“Winsome wench!” he countered, staring straight ahead with the innocence of a wolf at the chicken-coop fence.

Gerard was still introducing the complaint. “Thomas of Hexham has been in Lord Caedmon’s service for nigh on ten years…” Thomas, a bull-like soldier with a crooked nose that had undoubtedly been broken more than once, raised his chin high.

Breanne grabbed at Caedmon’s meandering hand, under the table, but he merely flipped it over, his covering hers. In effect, he was moving her own hand to raise the hem, which was now thigh-high. To her dismay, as her blood thickened and pulsed in her lips, her breasts, and betwixt her legs, Breanne realized that she was becoming enslaved by her passions, under Caedmon’s tutelage. “Stop it. Stop it right now.”

“What?” Gerard asked.