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“Because…” Amelia rolled her eyes to the coffered ceiling, its beams glowing faintly with firelight, its depths black-dark, and tried to think of a reasonable protest. Tried rather hard, in fact.
Sensing an opening, Leda pounced on it. “Listen. I know I’ve been teasing you, and having a bit of fun, but I’m being perfectly sincere now. I’m asking: why shouldn’t you have a bit of fun as we march to war? I didn’t ever take you for the type to deny yourself.” When Amelia lifted her head far enough to meet her gaze, she found Leda’s brows lifted, and she frowned.
There was no denying that she didn’t give a damn about propriety, not when she’d been sleeping with her household guardsman for years. But something about allowing herself to have lustful thoughts for Leif felt…indulgent.Tooindulgent. Nearly sinful. As though she’d outlived Mal somehow by the gods’ graces, and she shouldn’t squander what time she had left on this earth wasting time on the pleasures of the flesh.
“I dunno,” she murmured. “It just feels wrong.”
Leda’s smile was wry. “Darling, if we avoided everythingwrong, we’d do nothing but sit here idly and sip tea.” In a businesslike tone: “I’ve seen him stealing glances at you. It doesn’t have to be a betrothal, or anything nearing love. But if you cocked your hips and invited him into a convenient thicket along the roadside, he’d come. That I can guarantee.”
It was far too easy to imagine that scenario – stomach tightening at the mere suggestion of it – that she carefully didn’t allow it to unfold in her mind. “And what of his cousin?”
“Ragnar?” Amelia didn’t think she imagined the way Leda’s voice lifted, nor the fractional lowering of her eyelids. “Now there’s another fine specimen, if your tastes run his way instead.”
“No. I mean: aren’t Leif and Ragnar…a bit…close?”
Leda grinned. “Remember what I said about the Úlfheðnar’s habits?”
“Do you think that they…?”
Leda shrugged. “They’re very close, obviously. So what if they are?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to get between them.”
“No.” Leda’s smile sharpened. “But perhaps you couldcomebetween them.”
“Ha.No.” Amelia stood, attempting to ignore the way all the blood in her body rushed south, and the way that then caused a headrush once she was on her feet. “War is quite enough of an adventure for me, thank you.” She carried her cup to the sideboard and set it down with a decisive thump. “You were right before: I should go to bed.”
Leda’s laughter followed her from the room.
With her face heated, and her pulse throbbing loudly in her ears, Amelia had nearly reached the entrance hall before she registered the echoing of male voices; more than one, overlapping, though thankfully not in alarmed tones. Amelia hung back, a few feet down the hall to the library, and waited, watching shadows and light fall across the dusty tiles of the entryway.
The candle flames bent, and flickered, and the front door shut with a solid thump. Wind – cold, still gripped by winter – funneled around the corner, brushed her hair from her face, and lifted goosebumps along her arms, where she’d pushed up the sleeves of her tunic.
She recognized Connor’s voice: “…welcome to come indoors, if they’d like. Most of the men prefer to stay in the camp.” He chuckled. “Then again, your lads might prefer the camp as well. One or two of the followers aren’t so bad to look at.”
Reggie scoffed. “As if that ever mattered to you.”
“Come now. I have an appreciation for true beauty.”
The beat of silence that followed gave her time to envision the way Reggie would blush, the pretty pink on his pretty cheeks.
Boot soles scraped at the grit that had been tracked into the hallway, and Leif’s voice – lower, rougher, less refined than the others’ – said, “I appreciate the offer, but my wolves will find a spot under the trees and keep to themselves.”
“Not social, then?” Connor asked.
“Not typically, no.”
“More’s the pity for them, but that means more liquor and women for the rest of us.”
Reggie sighed theatrically.
Leif said, “Good night. I look forward to meeting you in the training yard tomorrow.”
Oh, that could go badly. It could go very badly. Men built like Leif didn’t need precision and finesse with a blade: they could hammer their opponents to bits instead.
“Can I come tomorrow?” Liam’s small voice piped up. “Can I? Can I, Daddy, please? Can I, can I, canIcanIcan–”
“Yes, yes, be quiet,” Connor admonished.
