who I marry. I am in charge of myself.’ His lips had hardened into a determined line, but deep in his eyes lurked the longing of the boy he had been. It nearly broke her heart, so she softened her voice. ‘I’ve dreamt of the night you would come back to me for a long time. Come...’ she tugged him gently ‘...lie down with me.’ She had more than dreamt of it. Gunnar was the only man she had ever thought to spend her life with. He was the one for her, the only one, so it seemed entirely natural that this night had finally come.
Letting him go, she moved back to her place on the bed, her fingers slowly going to the ties of her nightdress. His eyes hungrily followed her every move and his breathing became faster. Her belly fluttered as his gaze licked over her skin. She released the string so that the fabric fell down her shoulders, revealing the tops of her breasts.
He glanced to the door, but when his gaze came back to her, it was hot and fierce. She trembled with excitement when he reached up and untied the thong holding the fur cloak in place across his broad shoulders, so that it fell to the floor.
‘I’ve only ever wanted you,’ she encouraged him. ‘Come claim what is yours.’
Kadlin closed her eyes as she turned over in bed and fought the waves of nausea that rolled through her. She pressed her forehead against her arm and waited for it to pass. It had been the same every morning for the past week. Wake up to let Freyja out and then stumble back to bed, too dizzy to stand upright and fight the nausea that threatened to make her empty the contents of her stomach. Even before the nausea and vertigo, her breasts had been very sore. She had tried to attribute the strange soreness to her monthly ague, only the bleeding had never started, and now, she couldn’t deny it any longer.
It was time to admit that she was with Gunnar’s child.
The acknowledgement made her flop on to her back and stare at the ceiling. Her hand went to her belly, hoping to find some evidence of their child. It was a ritual she had repeated nightly in her chamber from the first moment she had even begun to suspect. So far, it seemed as flat as it had ever been. But that was all right, because today she could finally admit the truth to herself. Today made seven straight mornings of nausea.
When she’d invited him into her bed, she’d only thought that she’d been risking her heart, not a child. How naïve she had been. A laugh shook loose from deep in her belly and escaped past her lips as she threw her head back. Freyja scratched at the door to get in, startled by her mistress’, voice, but she ignored her. Her sweet maid, Edda, was a fool. Kadlin didn’t know the specifics behind the girl’s service to her family, but she had long suspected that Edda’s father had grown impatient with the young woman’s promiscuity and sent her away to toil under the watchful eye of Kadlin’s mother. His plan had met with little success, because the girl left a string of admirers in her wake. Thinking that Edda must be knowledgeable in the ways of men and women and child-making, some time ago Kadlin had asked her if it was possible to avoid motherhood while still enjoying a man. Even then, Kadlin’s thoughts had been of Gunnar. She’d been so certain that if she could seduce him, then he would admit his heart belonged to her. Edda had assured her that a virgin couldn’t get with child her first time with a man. That terrible logic had seemed so profound and true at the time. Now it just seemed horribly stupid and irresponsible.
She should have never listened to her. Kadlin frowned as she recalled exactly what had happened that night and realised that perhaps she was being unfair, perhaps it wasn’t entirely Edda’s fault. She had pulled Gunnar down for more kisses and had touched him until he had hardened again beneath her palm. It had been her own whispered pleas that had coaxed him to take her again...and then yet again. Perhaps it had been the second or third time with Gunnar that had done the trick and not the first.
Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t care. He wasn’t here and he would never be here. She had been so sure that once they had lain together, he would admit his love for her.
Pressing her palms to her forehead to ward off the tears that threatened, she squeezed her eyes shut tight and tried to stop the painful memory of how their night had ended. Yet it refused to be stopped and brought with it a fresh wave of pain, jagged along its edges so that it tore at her anew. She’d dozed and awakened to find him dressing, his back to her as he pulled up his trousers. Still floating in the lingering aura of bliss, she had asked him to stay.
‘I never made you any promises.’ Those words still made her wince. When he’d turned, his eyes had been flat and cold, as though he was looking at a stranger. She hadn’t thought that promises had been necessary. Deep in the marrow of her bones, she knew that Gunnar was meant to be her husband and she was meant to bear his children. It was a truth as obvious to her as her own name. There was no doubt that he felt it, too, so she hadn’t even expected him to attempt to deny it.
‘We were meant for each other.’ Her words only amused him. His lips tipped up in that infuriating smile he had perfected long ago.
‘I’m not meant for you. I’m leaving, Kadlin, and I won’t be back. Go on with your life and marry a man who wants you.’
What happened afterward remained a blur. She was sure that she had protested, had argued that he didn’t mean those words, but nothing had chipped away at the wall he had so quickly erected between them. In mere moments, he had left her life as quickly as he had returned to it.
Her face flamed with the memory and a pain-filled groan escaped her chest. She was the fool. She had been too confident that his love for her was as true as her love for him. He’d given her no reason to put her faith in him, but she’d done it anyway. And now he was gone and she would have his child. Her eyes fell closed and she imagined snuggling the babe to her breast while Gunnar looked on, his eyes bright with love and tenderness for them. She would give anything to have him there. To be his wife. To tell him the joyous news of their child and watch him smile as he drew her into his arms. There was no one else she wanted as husband and father to her children. No one. Gunnar had always been the one to fill that role in her fantasies.
Soon, she would have to tell her parents. She didn’t want to dwell on the look of disappointment sure to cross her father’s face. But she didn’t have to tell him yet, so she vowed to simply enjoy the knowledge that Gunnar’s child slept in her womb beneath her heart. Later, she would decide what to do.
* * *
But later came much sooner than she expected. Kadlin was scarcely able to savour the pregnancy for three weeks before a decision was made for her.
‘Hush, little one, Mother comes.’ Her baby brother fussed and sucked at his fist as Kadlin swayed and bounced, trying to find a rhythm that would soothe him until their mother could free herself from the children that ran around her. Kadlin smiled as she watched her four little sisters, the youngest one only three years old, chase their mother across the field. They were like beautiful miniatures of the woman as they ran in descending order of size. What had been a berry-picking excursion had quickly become a game of chase the mouse. Just last year her two brothers would have joined in the fun, but they considered themselves too old for such nonsense now, though they watched closely from their place guarding the baskets.
Kadlin laughed from the shade of the birch and cuddled the baby close, her thoughts on her own child. Though she was still happy, she was no closer to determining a solution. It would be later in the summer before a boat left so that she could send word to Gunnar, but even as she thought it, she realised it wasn’t something that she could do. He had left her and made it clear that he wouldn’t return. He wouldn’t care about a child and she was too prideful to
