Brodir, your jarl,” he began. “Rika is…” How had Ingolf put it? “She belongs to him?”
“Who told you that?”
George shrugged. Lawmaker knew exactly who had told him.
“Rika belongs to no man. Not yet,” the old man added, and shot him a wry look.
He took Lawmaker’s meaning, and the presumption annoyed him. “Why me? There are plenty of men here. If all she wants is her coin, why no wed one of her own? Someone who’s willing?”
“Nay, that would be too…complicated. You are the perfect choice. You have no interest in the dowry or her. Am I right?”
He snorted. “Too right.”
“Well then. What say you?”
George rose from the bench and kicked at the thin veil of snow under his boots. What choice did he have? He shook his head, unwilling to give in. There must be another way.
“Do not answer yet,” Lawmaker said, and stood.
“You’re tense, and still angered over your situation. Angry men make poor choices.”
The old man had a point.
“Go,” Lawmaker said. “Have a soak in the bathhouse.” He pushed George toward the small hut at the end of the courtyard. A fire was lit within, and a warm glow spilled from under the closed door.
Aye, mayhap a hot soak would do him some good. At least ’twould warm his icy flesh. “Ye shall have my answer later,” he called back over his shoulder, and tripped the bathhouse door latch.
’Twas hot and close inside. Steam curled from under the inner door leading to what the islanders called a sauna. George had never seen such a thing before. He noticed that the bathing tubs in the outer chamber were empty. Strange. Lawmaker had said a soak would be good for him.
No matter. He would try this sauna. George peeled off his garments and laid them on a bench next to a coarsely woven cloak. Someone else was within. One of the other men, by the look of the garment. He sought solitude, but there was damned little of it to be had anywhere in the village.
To hell with it. The heat felt good. Already he could feel the tension drain from his body. He pulled open the inner door, stepped into the cloud of steam, and drew a cleansing breath of moist air tinged with herbs.
Ah, heavenly.
There would be a bench somewhere. A place to rest. Cautiously he took a step. Another. The heat grew intense, and a healthy sweat broke across his skin. Christ, he couldn’t see a thing. Where was the bench? It should be right—
A vision materialized in the vapor. A woman. She sat with her back to him, long damp hair clinging to her nude body.
George swallowed hard. How long since he’d had a woman? Too long. In one languid motion, the vision drew a ladle of water from a bucket at her feet and poured it over her head.
She turned, and the rise of one perfect breast came into view. Water sluiced over her skin. One shimmering droplet clung like honey to the pebbled tip of her breast.
He wet his lips.
As the vapor cleared, their eyes met.
“Rika.”
She gasped, but did not cover herself, nor did she look away.
He was aware of his heart dancing in his chest, of the heat, and the closeness of her. He fisted his hands at his sides because he didn’t know what else to do.
Her eyes roved over him in an entirely different manner than they had that first day when she’d stripped him naked like a beast in the courtyard. Finally she turned away.
He breathed at last.
Seconds later he was dressed and stumbling out the door into the courtyard. The cold air hit him like a hundredweight stone. He felt drugged, hungover. Not himself at all.
A shape stepped out of the shadows and Lawmaker’s peppered beard glistened in the starlight. “What say you, Scotsman? Will you wed her?”
Time stood still for a moment, a day, a lifetime, as the sound of the sea filled his ears.
“Aye,” he heard himself say. “I will.”
A sliver of moon rose over the water, and in the pearly light Lawmaker smiled.
Chapter Four
She didn’t feel like a bride.
Rika stood naked before Sitryg, the woman who had been her mother’s closest friend, and frowned.
“Come now.” Sitryg slipped a light woolen shift over Rika’s head. “Is this not what you yourself wished? To wed the Scot?”
“Ja,” she said, but would not meet the older woman’s eyes.
“I will say this much for him,” Sitryg said, then pushed Rika down onto a stool and began to work a tortoiseshell comb through her hair. “He’s fair handsome, and canny as any man I’ve known.”
“Hmph. That’s not saying much. Who have you known?”
Sitryg clicked her tongue. “Enough, girl. In a few hours he shall take you to his bed. If you’re half as smart as I think you are, you’ll change your mood before then.”
“Why should I?” The comb pulled harder. “Ow!”
“Because it will go easier for you if you do. A man expects a compliant bedmate, not a sharp-tongued serpent in women’s clothes.”
At least she’d agreed to wear women’s clothes. She would have preferred Gunnar’s hauberk and helm. It seemed, somehow, more fitting to the occasion.
Rika crossed her arms over her chest and ground her teeth. Ja, compliant she’d be for as long as it took. And if her experience with Brodir was any indication, it wouldn’t take long.
She’d do it for Gunnar. Nothing else mattered. After all, how much worse could it be than what she’d already experienced in Brodir’s bed? Rika toyed with the wide hammered bracelets circling her wrists.
“I suggest you remove those,” Sitryg said. “They don’t belong with your gown.”
Rika ignored her. She never removed the bracelets. Not ever, except in the bathhouse, and only when she was alone. A shiver ran up her spine as she recalled Grant’s eyes on her in the sauna last eve.
He could have taken her then, in the heat, on the birch-strewn floor. Brodir would have. But Grant hadn’t, and she knew why. She repulsed him. Disgusted him. Her size and plain features, her scars—Thor’s blood, had he seen her with her bracelets off?
He’d stood not an arm’s length from her and had said not a word save her name—yet she’d felt his contempt. Oh, she knew well that sensation. Her father had taught her young that she was less than nothing. She and
