“True.” She sighed. “Very well.” And to Eda: “Have the bath brought here. He will need it on the morrow anyway.”
They were ignoring Erika, had not asked her if she wanted a bath, much less where she would have it. She would certainly not have it here and said so. “I cannot bathe with him watching, Lady Brenna.”
Gray eyes just like his came back to her. “You do not have a choice.”
Erika’s chin shifted upward. “I do. I will keep the stink.”
“Nay, you will not. My daughter does not abide slovenliness in her hall, nor do I intend to smell it each time I enter this chamber. You may take the bath yourself, or I will summon the women back to give it to you.”
At which point Selig made his own wishes known. “Not the women. They will be all over me again. Send Ivarr and two other of my men—”
Erika could not interrupt quickly enough. “I will bathe here!”
“I thought you might.”
The smugness in his tone grated on Erika’s already distraught nerves, but she refused to say another word. Stating her preference only got her the exact opposite. Obviously, he had decided to toy with her some more.
Brenna returned to the bed long enough to grumble, low-voiced, “I cannot see what you hope to accomplish in your insistence, Selig. ’Tis not as if you are in any condition to—take advantage.”
“You mistake the situation, Mother,” he said just as low. “She will never know my touch. What I will accomplish is exactly what I mean to, her discomfort.”
“I hope not at the expense of your own,” she remarked with meaning.
“You worry for naught. The only thing she tempts me to do is strangle her, which would not be nearly as satisfying as what I intend doing.”
“Which is?”
He grinned at her. “None of your business, Mother.”
At any other time she would have boxed his ears for that answer and he knew it, which was why she laughed and ruffled his hair instead. “Your father and brothers will be up to see you later. After you have finished ‘discomfiting’ the prisoner, get some rest. I will not be gainsaid on what is needful for your recovery.”
“Somehow, I knew that.”
Chapter 19
ERIKA STARED AT the large wooden bath with baleful eyes. Steam rose from it. It looked deliriously inviting. But it was set in the center of the room, with the bed not so many feet distant. And Selig might be lying there with his eyes closed, still on his stomach, but she didn’t for a moment believe him sleeping this time.
The servant Eda had untied her. Clean clothes, along with washing and drying cloths, waited atop a stool for her use. Beside it were shoes, not hers. Someone had noticed she was lacking.
Erika hadn’t moved from her position in the corner, except to rub her limbs when the ropes had come off. She still couldn’t bring herself to move. She had said she would bathe here. The alternative was unthinkable. Yet she couldn’t garner the nerve required to actually do it, now that the time was at hand.
She could run. She wasn’t restrained. No one else was in the room except Selig, and he could never rise quickly enough to stop her. But the stairs led to the hall below, and the only exit she had seen was across that long length of hall. She had nowhere to run to that she wouldn’t be brought back from and subjected to worse than this. But this…
“Ivarr can still be summoned.”
As she thought; not sleeping, waiting. And what he waited for was to experience her humiliation. If she had not hated him before, she did now.
“You are despicable!”
“A matter of opinion, and yours is irrelevant. Do I summon Ivarr?”
He rolled onto his side, facing her, to hear her answer. Those gray eyes rested on her without mercy. It would be pointless to ask for some. This was part of his revenge, a minor part to him, but not so minor to her. Yet he would have it with or without her cooperation, and the indifference in his tone said he really didn’t care which way it was to be.
Erika got slowly to her feet. She could have wished for concealing night, for candles, instead of the bright light of late afternoon coming in through the open window. No such luck for her. The most she could do was keep her back to him and pretend he was not there. Enjoy the bath. Deny him her blushes. Think of other things.
All she managed was to keep her back to him as she disrobed.
The tub was large in its roundness, not its depth. It came only to her knees. A short bathing stool had been set in the center of it, just barely covered by the foot of water she had been allowed. She disdained the use of it, preferring to bury herself as deep in the tub as she could. He permitted that for only a few minutes.
“Wash your hair.”
She was so rattled by the entire situation, she wouldn’t have thought to do that. But she hated being told to. Ordered was more like it. What would happen if she refused? Ivarr, of course. Selig was going to hold that damn Viking over her head like a whip.
It took a while to get her braids undone, after so many days and so much dirt matting them. She had to sit up to do it, but once her hair was loose, she dropped down to her back to submerge her head, briskly rubbing her itching scalp under the water before she came up to cover it with the soft soap.
There had been only one bucket of water left for her to rinse with, so she had to save it until she was done. But three times she soaped her hair, until she was satisfied it was clean, so three times she had to dunk her head to rinse it. By the time she finished, a layer of soap scum floated on the water, but she had yet to wash herself.
Ordinarily she would have stood up to finish. Sitting in water turned dirty was distasteful at any time, and this time was no different. The reason for the stool. But she refused to sit or stand, which meant she had to wrap her hair in a towel to keep it out of the dirty water. She had to get up on her knees to do that, and was bright pink again before she was able to duck back down below the rim of the tub.
“You will not get clean in that filthy water.”
He was guessing. He couldn’t see it. “The water is clear enough,” she said, but needn’t have bothered. He had decided on further torment for her, and nothing she said would deter him from it.
“Stand up,” he commanded. “Should you ever have the opportunity for a private bath, I need to be assured you know how to wash yourself properly. I will not have my mother’s nose offended again.”
She wondered if giving her these ridiculous excuses was part of his game. Was she supposed to argue with him, remind him that she was not a Saxon, many of whom superstitiously thought bathing an unhealthy practice? His excuses were worth arguing over. Even “offending” his mother with her stench, which he was ultimately responsible for. They had crossed rivers, camped near creeks, but she had not been allowed to wash in them as everyone else had.
His excuses begged for argument. She could at least deny him that.
She stood up, carefully keeping her back to him. The hot color came anyway. She couldn’t help that. But she was actually feeling somewhat triumphant. She had thwarted him. She wasn’t sure what his true goal had been, probably no more than a further demonstration of his power over her. But she had defeated his purpose.
He laughed softly, which unnerved her, told her he didn’t really care about her temporary triumph, that he had other avenues to reach the same goal available to him. She braced herself, expecting the hatchet to fall immediately. It did.
“Turn around, wench. You have a nice ass, but I want to see what else my new slave possesses.”
“I am not a slave,” Erika whispered fiercely to herself.
“What was that?”
“I am not a slave!”
“As I said, your opinion is irrelevant. You will still do as you are told. Protests on your part will be dealt with, and not to your liking.”
Whatever he meant by that, she didn’t care to find out. She knew his game now, and his ultimate goal. Humiliation at every opportunity, and utter devastation of her prid
e. Crushing it will be one of my priorities. She should have remembered that promise.
His staring at her nakedness now was done just to shame her, not because he was actually curious about what she looked like. He didn’t do it for his pleasure, or even in anticipation of having her. His sister had said that was something she wouldn’t have to fear. He had told her nearly the same thing. Normal emotions didn’t apply to this. Just her shame, her discomfort, her helplessness.
Erika got angry.
Fear had been controlling her, fear of what the sight of her nakedness could do to a man, and what that man would then want. But she had forgotten that Selig was no ordinary man. He was her enemy, and that particular fear didn’t apply to him. He wasn’t even capable of coupling just now, if for some reason he should desire it, and even if he was, he wouldn’t act on that desire. Coupling would mean he wanted her, and he would never give her something like that to throw up in his face afterward.
The anger came, and with it, an abrupt change in her demeanor as well as her thinking. He wanted to shame her? How could he, when she had wanted this bath more than he wanted her to have it, when his presence presented no actual danger to her, when she had it within her power to make him regret toying with her this time? He wanted to watch? She would give him something to watch. Perhaps she had no power as a lady, but she still had her power as a woman.
Erika had never in her life deliberately tried to entice a man, but some things were instinctive. She turned around to face him. She reached for the soap and spread it on her hands instead of the washcloth. Slowly, with ancient challenge in the sky-blue eyes she locked to his, she rubbed her hands over her breasts, smoothed them over her belly and hips, down the side of her legs to her knees, then, even slower, up the inside of her thighs. He followed those hands with his own bright grey eyes, and she knew the very second that he forgot who she was, and was just watching a woman at her bath.
“Will you wash my back, Viking?”
“Vixen,” he hissed.
She wanted to laugh, but didn’t. She had never imagined she could salvage her pride this way.
And then, somehow, he turned the tables on her.
It was the way his expression suddenly became sensual. The way his lips softened and curved just so. The way his eyes gleamed more silver than gray as they caressed the intimate parts of her. He was a man who knew how to make love with his eyes, and he was giving her a demonstration of that skill.
Uncertainty returned with a vengeance, making Erika distinctly uncomfortable again. It had been unbelievably stupid of her to provoke this reaction in him. After all, the conclusions she had drawn were not writ in blood. Lust could destroy the strongest resolve.
He still wasn’t capable of doing anything about it just now, but that and only that kept her from running, screaming, from the room. She looked away from him instead, and finished her bath with all speed. But she knew he hadn’t closed his own eyes.
He watched, and she trembled. She also began to feel something else, something unexpected and not unpleasant that hummed in her core. Was lust contagious? Odin help her if it was, because he could see to his with any one of a dozen women in the hall below, but who would see to hers? Nay, fanciful was what she was. She wouldn’t know lust if it bit her. And for him to stir it with just a look? Impossible. Her stomach had merely reacted to such swift changes in emotions, no more than that.
He said no other words to her, and she didn’t look his way again. But she had learned a lesson. She was no good at his game.
Chapter 20
“YOU WILL FIND a comb in the coffer next to you,” Selig said.
The offer was so unexpected, and so generous, Erika distrusted it, coming from him. That she had been trying to work the tangles from her hair with her fingers for the past half hour was beside the point. Selig wouldn’t give her something she might be grateful for. So why had he?
She opened the coffer warily, expecting some sort of trap to spring, knives to drop from the ceiling, the floor to open and swallow her, rodents to leap out of the trunk itself. Nothing happened. It was an ordinary trunk. And the comb was there, next to an oval looking glass, both set atop a deep pile of male clothes.
The looking glass she simply couldn’t resist using, but staring into it brought bemusement. She didn’t look as awful as she had expected. In fact, freshly scrubbed, she showed not a sign of hardship on her face. No more than a slight tinge of yellow was on her cheek where she had been struck, telling her she had bruised, but not badly. The swelling was also gone from that area. Her sky-blue eyes were bright, surprise reflected in them. Even the sun had treated her kindly, merely darkening the golden tan she had already begun acquiring since summer had come to the land.
She looked, actually, quite lovely, making her doubt what she was seeing. It had to be the candlelight, glowing throughout the room since a servant had come to light the many tapers at the first signs of approaching dusk. Candlelight could be deceiving…
“You thought to see something different?”
The blasted man could read minds. “Nay, I—”
“Give me time, wench,” he interrupted. There was distinct laughter in his tone. “I will put the suffering there you expect.”
“Bastard,” she hissed beneath her breath.
She began yanking the comb through her hair. The tears that sprang forth from her stinging scalp forced her to ease up and use the comb properly.
They had both already eaten. The food given her had not been what one might expect for a prisoner, but instead, of surprisingly rich variety and quite tasty. The inside of her mouth was still sore, though had healed enough that she no longer had to be careful in her chewing. But she would have enjoyed the meal better if she didn’t have to listen and watch the love-play going on across the room.
The girl, Edith, who had come with the food, did more touching and caressing of Selig than feeding him, and spent a full hour at it. Shameless slut, and he enjoyed every moment of it, exuding more charm and sexual appeal than Erika had ever been witness to. It was obvious they were well “acquainted,” and just as obvious they would be again as soon as Selig’s strength returned.
The hour was, in fact, grown quite late now, yet no one had come to extinguish the lights or retie her. The water had been emptied from the tub. Lady Brenna had come again, to assure herself that Selig was taking the potions the healer had made for him. Lady Kristen had merely poked her head around the door, to inquire if he needed anything. The most disquieting visit, however, had come from Selig’s father and brothers.
The three men dominated the room with their height and brawn, and each had gazed quietly at Erika at different times during their visit, though none addressed her or even asked Selig about her. Kristen had probably told them all there was to know, her version at least. Erika sensed varying degrees of curiosity from them, distaste, perplexity, and anger, but surprisingly, no actual hate. Likely they just hid it better than Selig did.
The younger brothers, Eric and Thorall, were neither one as handsome as Selig, which didn’t say they weren’t very handsome men. They were each a score in years, Eric mayhap a few years more than that, and they both took after their father as Kristen did, with tawny golden manes, eyes a distinct shade of aqua, and his extreme height.
Erika tried to ignore their presence, but it was next to impossible, especially when what was most interesting was Selig’s behavior. To see him with them was to see a different man, one who laughed and teased and bore teasing in return with more laughter. This, on top of the sensual charm he had displayed earlier with the pretty Edith, led her to revise her opinion of him somewhat.
There were certainly more facets to his character than she had thought, though this did not relieve her mind in any way. Rather, it was disconcerting to find that a man who appeared to have such an easy nature could also harbor such a deeply rooted streak of cruelty.
She finished with her hair. Selig had watched her work with it. Most times through the even
ing, when she had glanced his way, he had been looking elsewhere, deep in his thoughts. Not since she had begun with her hair. And his eyes were still on her, without expression, telling her nothing of what was running through his mind.
His steady gaze was making her edgy. She wanted to sleep. The hour was late enough for it. And a blanket had been left for her earlier, when her own clothes had been taken away. Those she wore now were of the coarsest variety, but no more than she had expected.
She also expected to be retied, and wondered why no one had come to do so. Not for a moment did she think she would be left free for the night. And she wondered why no one had come to put out the lights. Should she offer to do it? Nay, she would offer nothing, would do nothing she wasn’t forced to do. She wasn’t here to be helpful and wouldn’t be, not if she could do otherwise.
The question came from her edginess, her tiredness, anything to break the nerve-racking silence. “The coffer is yours?”
“Aye.”
“You live here, then?”
“I have my own hall a short ways west from here. ’Tis newly built, though, and certainly not as comfortable as Wyndhurst. This is my chamber, however, whenever I stay with my sister.”
“How long do you intend to stay here?”
His expression turned wry. “I doubt me I will have much say in my leaving. Kristen feels the few slaves I have will not take care of me properly. Unfortunately, my mother is like to agree with her.”
The mention of his “slaves” ended the brief conversation for Erika and brought her temper rising. She shook out her blanket, wrapped herself tightly in it, and lay down to face the wall.
But what she had started, he meant to finish. “Mayhap you know how to care for an invalid?”
“You are not an invalid,” she gritted out. “There is naught wrong with you that food and rest will not fix right quickly.”
“Were that the case, my pain would be gone,” he replied. “It is not.”
Erika squeezed her eyes shut tight against the guilt those words brought back. She had ordered an injured and innocent man lashed. She had added pain to considerable pain. He deserved his full wergild price. He deserved an apology, which she had yet to offer. He deserved her understanding for what he was putting her through—Nay. She had only to recall how much pleasure he got in humiliating her to decide all he would get from her was the wergild.