an entire day and night. Too long. He’d been too weak to hide their tracks. The Danes could follow him straight to her house if they wanted. ‘Then I’ve stayed too long.’
‘Nay, you must not leave yet. You’re still not well. Your fever may well return and you shouldn’t be out there alone.’
Despite his intention to leave her at the first opportunity that presented itself, tenderness for her tugged deep within him. Who was this stranger to stir him the way she did? ‘Don’t fear for me, fair one. I’m stronger, thanks to you.’ He’d touched her the day before. He vividly remembered touching her cheek, the softness of her skin almost like silk beneath his fingertips. A light smattering of freckles swept across her nose and cheekbones and he found himself wanting to trace over them.
Her lips parted, drawing his gaze to them as she took a deep breath. ‘You need food and more rest.’
‘I’ll gladly have more food. Thank you. But I want you to release me.’ He gave a tug on his bonds for emphasis.
Her green eyes widened. ‘I cannot. If it were up to me, I would. I know you’re not a danger, but I can’t betray Cuthbert’s order.’
Something about that statement resonated with him. Perhaps it was the unwillingness to betray trust, or the structure inherent in an order. Whatever it was, it was familiar in a way that left him little doubt that he’d known them both in his past. He was a warrior, of that he was certain.
‘I’ll get your food.’
He had little choice but to watch as she moved back and walked past the hearth. As she retrieved a bowl from the table and filled it from the pot bubbling over the fire, he allowed his gaze to wander around her home. The tapestry next to him cut off most of the view, but his eyes had adjusted enough now that some of the front part of the room was visible to him. The side he could see was lined with baskets of various sizes filled with cloth and thread. A table and stools were there, too, currently littered with needles and frames for holding cloth.
‘You are a weaver?’
‘An embroideress, but I do some weaving as well.’ She smiled back at him and pride shone in her eyes. ‘I have three apprentices now. Well, two. One is still very young and she only comes in the mornings to help tend my garden.’
‘Do you have no servants?’
She shook her head. ‘I had one once. She helped with the garden and household chores so that I had more time for work. But after my husband’s death, I couldn’t afford to keep her.’
Her husband was dead. It was an awful thing, but he couldn’t find the grief that revelation should have caused. Quite the opposite, actually. Exhilaration cut through his physical pain and he knew a moment of complete desire for possession. He wanted her for his own.
The feeling was so great that he forced himself to look away and for the first time he was glad that his wrists were bound so that he couldn’t act on his nearly uncontrollable urge to touch her. His gaze landed on the blanket folded across his legs. It was faded, its colour negligible and dull, but it was hers. This was her bed. The breadth of his body in the centre of the thin mattress left very little room for her on either side, but it didn’t stop his mind from imagining her there, or the way he’d curl around her. The vision was so vivid, the phantom warmth of flesh pressed against his so real, that he knew it was a memory, but the woman’s face and body had changed into Aisly’s. If he wasn’t so certain that she saw him as a stranger, he would’ve sworn they’d been lovers.
It was a preposterous thought. Of course they’d never been lovers and they’d never be lovers. He should say that he was sorry for the loss of her husband, but it was a bloody lie and he wouldn’t lie to her any more than was necessary. So far he’d only lied about his name and he wanted to keep it that way. Instead, he asked, ‘Is the tapestry your creation, then?’ He tilted his head towards the large tapestry hanging from the ceiling next to him. The embroidery was an intricate floral design of faded pinks, yellows and mossy greens arranged in roundels and arches.
‘Aye,’ she began without looking up from stirring the pottage, ‘my mother started it. You can see how the thread is faded more near the top, but the bottom is mine. It’s not as precise as hers. I was learning.’
‘It’s lovely. You’re very skilled.’
She shrugged, but the endearing spots of pink were back to colour her pale cheeks as she stepped away from the hearth. She was very pretty. Just looking at her was mesmerising, but his stomach growled and interrupted the moment. She laughed and he couldn’t help but smile and watch her as she moved. Her small frame might have seemed delicate and fragile on some other woman, but not on her. She handled herself confidently, as if she knew just what she was capable of. He wanted to see more of her hair, but he was limited to the little bit around her face that her headscarf revealed to him. It shimmered with copper undertones at her temples.
‘Your mother must be proud.’
She frowned, a look of sadness darkening her features. ‘I hope she would be.’
He recognised that sadness. Something bitter and hollow swelled within him, some deep longing fated to go unmet. He searched for memories of his own mother, but the effort only caused his head to throb. ‘I’m sorry you lost her.’
Giving him a quick but sad smile, she said, ‘Both my parents died when I was a child. Eight winters. An ague took them within weeks of the other. I have good memories of her teaching me the skill, but I miss her dreadfully. I miss them both, but mothers are special, aren’t they?’
He met her gaze, wanting to comfort her in some way, but unsure how. ‘I’m glad you have the tapestry.’
She frowned again and looked over at the bare walls. ‘I had more, but they were taken from me. Payment.’
‘Payment? For what?’
Shaking her head, she shrugged. ‘Payment for something Godric did. It doesn’t matter.’
He frowned and opened his mouth to ask more when she continued. ‘You should know that a few men went to the stream and found the Dane. They identified him as one in a group of rebels that has been plaguing us since summer.’
‘What have the rebels done to plague you?’
‘It started small—burned crops, stolen sheep. But at the end of summer two of our young women went missing and the rebel Danes burned our wall. Some say the women were lured away by them, others believe they were murdered, sacrificed in a barbarian ritual. They simply vanished.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I don’t know. For their sake I hope they found men to care for them. But it seems unlikely. The Danes are brutes. All of them. The rebels and those from the settlement.’
‘Do you have no one to appeal to for help? No lord?’ It seemed only right that the villagers wouldn’t exist on their own in the middle of the wilderness—that they’d have someone to appeal to for help.
‘Aye, we have a lord and we did appeal to him. But Lord Oswine wasn’t very interested in dealing with any Danes. The Danes at the settlement run the region now. Though the rebels are a separate group and are even supposed enemies of those Danes, I fear there is no safety from any of them. Whatever they want is theirs for the taking. And to
