The Reluctant Viking

  "How long have you been there?" she asked sleepily before the memory of his ordering her imprisonment jolted her wide awake. Suddenly aware of her nakedness, Ruby jumped, reaching for the bed linen at the foot of the bed. She pulled the linen sheet up over her bare breasts before turning angrily back to him.

  Thork couldn't help but grin at her embarrassment. And, Odin's eyeballs, covering herself now was a wasted exercise. He had already got an eyeful.

  "What do you want?"

  "I have come to release you, to take you back to Olaf's house."

  "Why? Did you decide you were wrong?"

  Thork's face heated with chagrin. The wench should have been grateful for her release. "Nay. You deserved all you got and more. I was lenient with you."

  "Hah! And how about Gudrod?"

  Thork could have told her that he had relented and sent the slave to work in his grandfather's fields, but he refused to explain himself. Especially when he was right.

  He straightened to his full height and rolled his cramped shoulders wearily. "If 'twere not for the king's uncertainty about your ties with Hrolf, you would have been sold, as well," he lied testily.

  Ruby made a small wounded sound of dismay, then modestly pulled the sheet even higher over her body, slanting a condemning look at his appreciative eyes.

  Ah, well! he shrugged. He had seen enough—for now.

  Still, he could not reconcile his conflicting emotions concerning the odd wench. Something about the sorry female pulled at him. Some strange, unwelcome bond tied his stomach in knots and set his blood racing. He shook his head in disgust at his lackwit behavior. Bloody hell! He was dawdling like a moonstruck calf in the maid's room. Mystified, Thork studied her face and shroud-wrapped body, looking for answers she refused to give.

  I thought you loved me, Ruby had cried, thinking he was her husband. Somewhere deep inside, Thork envied the man.

  Thinking to soften her anger, Thork commented in a light, bantering tone, "Mayhap when your hair grows a bit and your body fattens on good Viking food, you will not be as uncomely as I first thought."

  Immediately, Thork saw his mistake in teasing her. Her wide, greenish-gray eyes flickered with umbrage.

  "I don't think you're funny," Ruby spit out.

  "Don't get your hackles up, little cat." He stepped closer to the bed and ran a gentle finger along the edge of the sheet near the bottom of her neck where a pulse beat frantically. "Leastways, your feeble attempts at modesty are ill-timed," he said thickly. "You didst not do as much to cover yourself when you stood near bare-arsed afore the entire court."

  "I was not naked," Ruby said indignantly. "I wore the lingerie I designed for my own company. My models wear it in fashion shows all the time. I was not naked."

  "Fashion shows? Lingerie? Be that what you call those flimsy undergarments you wear? And your own business! By the saints and all the Norse gods, your stories get more and more far-fetched."

  Ruby raised her head proudly and informed Thork, "My company is called Sweet Nothings. We sell custom lingerie in seventeen countries. USA Tomorrow magazine listed me among the top twenty up-and-coming businesswomen last year."

  "I give you this, wench, you tell a fine tale. I could almost believe you. Almost!"

  "I don't care what you believe anymore. All I want to do is go home."

  "Nay! That you will not!" Thork barked. The thought of Ruby leaving caused him sudden inexplicable pain. At first he could not speak over the lump in his throat. Finally he ground out, "Never are you to leave this house without guard again. You are to do nothing without permission, not so much as a walk to the river at the end of Olaf's property. Is that understood?"

  He grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her for emphasis, stopping only when the sheet slipped perilously close to the tips of her breasts. He jerked his hands back as if scalded and turned away to get his harsh breathing under control while Ruby adjusted herself once again.

  "I understand, all right, but let me tell you something," Ruby asserted, rubbing her arms peevishly. "In my country, and in my time, we don't punish people unjustly. The only thing Gudrod and I were guilty of was carelessness. The crime didn't warrant the punishment."

  Thork stiffened and his face flushed.

  Suddenly weary of the whole sorry mess, Thork sat on the bed next to Ruby. She scuttled clumsily away from him toward the wall, clutching her sheet awkwardly. He took her right hand in his and would not let her pull it away. He twined her fingers with his, and closed his eyes briefly at the rightness and perfect fit of her small hand in his. When he opened his eyes, he gazed at her pale, apprehensive face. She no longer tried to pull her hand from his grasp. Could she feel their two pulses beating a perfect counterpoint in their embracing palms?

  "I did not want to hurt you, sweetling," Thork explained softly, "but I will not apologize for my anger where my son's endangerment is concerned. Know this, though, I take no pleasure in the punishment of women, especially not you, even though your treatment was not cruel."

  Thork felt her pulse jump at the words especially not you, but instead of treading the dangerous waters of questioning his warm phrasing, she chose to jump on his other words. "Not cruel? Why, you bastard! You can't even apologize without being arrogant."

  Thork released her fingers before he stood, but not before giving the inside of her wrist a light kiss, which caused her to inhale sharply. " 'Twas not an apology I was giving you, but an explanation. If you had obeyed orders, there would have been no problem."

  "Well, I'll tell you one thing, buddy, when the time is right, I will be returning to my home—and gladly."

  The prospect of Ruby leaving—before he'd had a chance to unravel her mystery and the seductive web she'd woven around him—was untenable. But enough of attempting to placate her! "Try you to escape and ropes will bind you till my return. And keep this in mind, as well—questionable guest you may consider yourself, but 'tis more my prisoner you are. You would do best not to rile me further."

  He took her back to Gyda's house then and determined to leave the city immediately and put the foolish wench from his mind.

  * * *

  Ruby slept that night in her own bedchamber in Gyda's house, where she was treated coolly, but with the respect due an unwelcome guest. When she woke the next morning, everyone was up, busily performing their assigned chores when Ruby walked down the steps.

  "Help yourself," Gyda offered, indicating cold food laid out on a side table. Ruby put a thick slice of rare roast beef on a hunk of unleavened white bread and sipped a cup of watered mead handed her by the servant, Adeleve.

  Ruby pulled a stool over to watch as Gyda and Adeleve, worked over the bubbling cauldrons on the cooking fires. Sweet aromas of peaches and strawberries and elderberries permeated the room. They would fill the flaky pastry dough being rolled by Bodhil, the other servant, on a nearby board.

  Ruby commented dryly, "Knowing Thork's sweet tooth, it's too bad you couldn't put a bunch of these peach things on board ship when he goes a-Viking."

  "How did you know he likes peaches?" Gyda asked in surprise.

  Ruby shrugged. "He's my husband."

  Gyda and Adeleve stopped working and gaped at her.

  "Nay," Gyda finally said. "How could it be so?"

  "No one believes me. I won't even try with you, but, I assure you, in my time we are married, and we have two sons who look identical to Eirik and Tykir."

  "Your time?" a wide-eyed Gyda inquired.

  "The king and Thork warned me not to talk about it anymore."

  Gyda laid her wood ladle down and looked Ruby directly in the eye. "What did they tell you not to discuss?" It seemed Gyda was not quite the obedient wife she would have everyone believe.

  "That I come from the future, the year nineteen hundred and ninety-four."

  "Sweet Jesus!" Gyda exclaimed and made the sign of the cross three times.

  Ruby smiled. "I know it's hard to believe. It's hard for me to accept. Even harder to belie
ve is the fact that I'm twenty years older in my other life, and Jack—that's Thork's other name—and I have been married for twenty years. Well, until he left me yesterday."

  Ruby blinked away the pain that that thought caused.

  Gyda placed a hand on her arm and drew her to a private spot on the other side of the room. "Tell me," Gyda encouraged.

  When Ruby was done, Gyda pulled back. Of course, she didn't believe her. How could she? But she loved a good gossip, and the story Ruby told her must have beat them all.

  "Where is everyone anyhow?" Ruby asked, noticing the unusual quiet in the hall.

  "Tyra and Tykir muck the horse and cow stalls in the barn. Astrid and Gunnha went with their father to the harbor where he takes care of Thork's business. The others are picking vegetables and fruit with Tostig at the farm. Thork left last night." She tilted her head quizzically. "Thork stayed until he was sure you were settled in." Gyda was obviously surprised by his concern.

  "Gyda, I don't think I will ever be able to forgive Thork for locking me up the way he did."

  " 'Twas deserved."

  "What? How can you, a woman, say such cruelty is fair?"

  Gyda shook her head sadly. "You still do not understand, do you? Being man or woman has naught to do with Viking law. Or with a father protecting his own. 'Tis the way of things."

  "Humph! Well, how about the way Olaf and Thork sold Gudrod?"

  Gyda slanted a look of surprise at her. "Sold? Nay, the stupid thrall was given a second chance. He was sent to Ravenshire, though he deserved to be sold, if you ask me."

  "He wasn't sold?" Ruby asked with amazement. "I wonder why Thork didn't tell me." Ruby thought of something else then. "Gyda, you didn't beat Tyra and Tykir for going with me, did you?" Ruby asked with concern.

  "Nay. At least not with a whip. But their bottoms I warmed with the palm of my hand, and I can wield a heavy arm when need be. They did not sit comfortably for a day."

  Gyda raised her chin defiantly, daring Ruby to challenge her punishment, then added, "Viking children do not misbehave without suffering the consequences. Surrounded we are by enemies. We cannot watch our young constantly. They must learn at a young age to obey all orders without question."

  Ruby bit her bottom lip guiltily, realizing that her carelessness had somehow endangered the children. How would she have felt if some stranger had taken her children off without permission when they were only five and eight years old? Ruby decided that she had much to ponder.

  "Can I help you?" Ruby asked then, and spent the rest of the morning in pleasant domestic duties, finally ending in the cold cellar under the house which they entered by a slanted wood door outside. Gyda displayed well-earned pride as she showed Ruby her neatly arranged shelves fairly creaking with crocks and covered wooden vats filled with pickles, vegetables, jams, honey, mead and wine. Onions and apples filled several of the bins. Salted and dried meats and vegetables hung from hooks in the ceiling.

  Gyda told of her busy schedule coming up when the remainder of the summer vegetable garden and the orchard would be harvested and preserved for the coming winter.

  "I get great gratification from performing these homely tasks," Gyda confided shyly, checking one of the vats of cheese for mold. "I like knowing the things I do help my family to survive, just as Olaf provides for our other needs."

  Ruby smiled, trying to remember when she'd last felt like that. She was proud of her career, but this was a different kind of immediate self-satisfaction that Gyda referred to.

  "It must be something like I felt when my boys were young and dependent on me to fulfill all their needs—like the way Jack and I worked together in the early years when we struggled just to make ends meet."

  Gyda nodded, although she probably didn't understand half of what Ruby said.

  Ruby paced her little room restlessly that night, unable to fall asleep in the chamber's claustrophobic heat. If only she could walk along the river until her energy burned out, she would fall into bed exhausted, too tired to dream, or worry, or think about all her problems.

  Ruby felt more lonely and depressed than she had since this whole escapade started. There was no one—no one at all—she could turn to for help. And she couldn't run away from the problem, either, as she'd been escaping in her work the last two years.

  Where did that thought come from? Ruby wondered.

  It was true, Ruby admitted suddenly, dropping once again onto her bed. Jack may have just left her days before, but it should have been no surprise. If she were truly honest with herself, she would have to admit that she'd known for more than a year that they had serious problems. And she'd done nothing about it, except bury herself in her new company.

  Ruby's sudden insight troubled her. She grimaced. How could she have been so dense? Why hadn't she done something earlier to prevent the breakup of her marriage?

  The answer was all too clear. She'd wanted it all—marriage, children, a career—without conceding anything. The unrealistic ideal that women of her time raced to achieve was a myth, Ruby realized. Modern women were running in place. It was impossible for a woman—or man, for that matter—to give one hundred percent to career, marriage and family without one of them suffering.

  In her selfishness, she hadn't wanted to give up any of it. She'd pretended the problems didn't exist. Then look what happened. She'd lost it all.

  Ruby put her face in her hands, but the thoughts wouldn't go away. Was Jack having these same self-recriminations? Was he sitting on the back-porch swing at the lake house missing her, remembering how good their marriage had been before it started splintering apart, bit by precious bit?

  "Is something troubling you?" Gyda asked from the doorway, interrupting Ruby's painful reminiscence. "Olaf and I heard you moving around."

  "Do Vikings allow divorce?" Ruby asked suddenly.

  Gyda looked surprised at her question but answered, "Certainly. 'Tis not a common occurrence, but, yea, 'tis permitted."

  Ruby motioned her to sit on the chair. In the dim candlelight, Gyda looked much younger with her unplaited hair hanging thick and straight down to the waist of her loose nightdress. Gyda sat silently, apparently sensing Ruby's troubled mind, waiting patiently for her to speak.

  "My husband has left me. He wants a divorce," Ruby confided miserably.

  Gyda's shoulders sagged wearily, and she put a hand to her forehead. "Which husband? Thork? Or the other one?"

  "Jack. After twenty years of marriage, Jack left me. Well, actually, Thork left, too, in a way, when he locked me up, and now again in abandoning me here to go to his grandfather's."

  "Do you really believe all these things you say?"

  "Of course. Do you doubt that Jack wants a divorce?"

  "No-o-o," Gyda drawled out hesitantly. "Why did this Jack leave you?"

  "He said I neglected him and my sons, that I loved my career more than I loved him."

  "Was he right?"

  Ruby sat looking at Gyda dolefully before she whispered, "Yes. Yes, I think he was right."

  Gyda took Ruby into her arms then. Ruby cried out her pain on the Viking woman's shoulder.

  Chapter Six

  Three days later Thork and his companions rode their horses into the side yard of Olaf's home.

  Thork's brows shot up at the sight of Ruby sitting like a bloody queen in the shade of a tree near the river. A dozen giggling children surrounded her adoringly, like loyal subjects pleading for "just one more story." Ulf stood watchfully off to the side.

  After dismounting, Thork handed his reins to Selik, who annoyed him with a pointed smirk in Ruby's direction before riding toward the barn. He'd already warned the hot-blooded youth to stay away from Astrid if he valued his neck. Cnut followed close behind, barely stifling a laugh.

  His friends knew that Thork chafed at the abrupt interruption of a pleasant visit at his grandfather's manor and had been rubbing it in at every turn on the way back to Jorvik. The forced celibacy of his lengthy sea voyage had fueled his appre
ciation for the insatiable appetite of a Viking widow, Linette, who lived there, but, more than that, she'd helped him forget the troublesome wench awaiting him in Jorvik. Little did he relish being summoned back to attend a feast at Sigtrygg's court, especially when he hadn't yet tired of Linette's charms.

  Hell and Valhalla! It wasn't so much the absence of Linette that rankled. There were plenty of women in Jorvik. One was much the same as the other to him and ever had been. It was the fawning atmosphere of the Norse court he abhorred.

  As he approached the group of children in Olaf's yard, unnoticed thus far, Thork observed Ruby arranging the children in a line with two of the children standing in front, facing each other with linked, upraised hands. Thork's heart ached when he saw Tykir at the end of the line, watching him longingly, unable to rush to him in normal childish greeting. He followed his father's instructions well.

  "I know you children will love this game because it's based on a famous Viking battle..."

  What Viking battle? Thork wondered, furrowing his forehead.

  "Anyhow, in this battle," Ruby went on with her amazing tale, "these fierce Vikings not only captured the city of London but they tore down the London Bridge to keep the Saxons from recapturing the city. Wasn't that clever?"

  London Bridge? A Viking occupation of London? What mischief did the witch brew? Thork's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. The woman truly was an enigma. To Thork's mind, women were ever simple creatures, like cats. Selfish. Little intellect. Definitely lacking in honor and loyalty. This mysterious woman did not fit the mold, and that bothered him sorely.

  And she certainly looked different than she had that day he'd first seen her at the harbor. Her hair was still abysmally short and boyish, but it shone like burnished mahogany in the summer sun, accenting a flawless, creamy complexion, high cheekbones, a straight, slightly upturned nose and full, sensual lips.

  Gone were the offensive shirt and braies, replaced by a soft, clinging green tunic, probably Astrid's if he was any judge of women's sizes. Every time she moved to straighten a child's arm or to position the youngsters in line, a different part of her tall, slim body was outlined—long, nay, extremely long legs, a waist his two hands itched to span, high, firm breasts, and a round bottom that invited the palm of a man's hand.