The Tarnished Lady

  Chapter Thirteen

  As they walked back toward the keep, Eirik draped an arm casually over her shoulder.

  She glared at him.

  He winked.

  What kind of husband winks at his wife?

  Eadyth ducked and moved away defensively. "Stop teasing me," she demanded and started to walk ahead of him at a brisk pace.

  The brute called after her with seeming innocence. "Me? Teasing? I was just behaving as a husband should. By the way, Tykir was right about your hips."

  She looked back over her shoulder and saw his eyes riveted outrageously on her backside. Holy Saint Hilary, the man's mind ran on one path only. She stopped and waited for him to catch up. She was not going to display her posterior for him in her flimsy silk gown, especially since Britta had failed to bring her a chemise or any undergarments.

  "You really should accustom yourself to my touching, Eadyth," he remarked offhandedly as he tried to entwine his fingers with hers.

  She swatted his hand away. "Why?"

  "Because I intend to do a goodly amount."

  She frowned, not understanding his words at first. When she realized that he meant he would be touching her excessively, a hot flush worked itself up from her suddenly full breasts to her undoubtedly red face. "You... you... libertine," she sputtered, trying to find the words to tell him of her lack of appreciation for his playful ways. He surely did not mean them. He only goaded her to raise her ire. At least, that's what she thought until she noticed his eyes gazing appreciatively at her chest.

  She looked down and almost groaned aloud. Her nipples had grown hard. Oh, Lord. "Are you perchance a pervert?"

  Eirik laughed, and the tiny crinkles around his eyes deepened in a most delightful way. He had slicked his thick, black hair off his face, but already the sun was drying it and the vast amount of skin revealed by his short-sleeved, open-necked tunic. His freshly scrubbed, sun-bronzed skin shone with good health, vitality and raw maleness. Really, her husband was sinfully attractive. And a danger to her hard-won independence.

  "Nay, Eadyth, I am not a pervert."

  "Then why do you talk so much of touching and fornication?"

  "Mayhap because it has been so long since I have done either."

  That surprised her. She wanted to ask how long, having assumed he had visited his mistress between the time of their betrothal and his return to Ravenshire several days ago, but she could not. Asking would indicate she cared. And she did not care for him, or any man. She could not. Oh, Lord.

  "Three months," he said, as if answering her silent question.

  Her eyes widened, and, against her wishes, a little flutter of gladness rippled through her. Fighting to regain her cool demeanor, she commented in as uninterested a voice as she could manage, "Well, I suppose that is a long time for a man, but surely you place far too much significance on the coupling betwixt a man and woman."

  "A husband and a wife," he corrected her with a slight grin.

  She waved a hand dismissively. "Man, woman. Husband, wife. 'Tis just an overvalued physical act in the end. Like eating. Or yawning. Of too short a duration to merit such importance. Oh, I warrant it is pleasurable for a man. At least, they boast of it often enough, but I misdoubt it is more than a nuisance for very many women."

  Eirik gave her a sidelong look of amazement and shook his head slowly from side to side. "Yawning? Ah, Eadyth, 'twill be a joy to teach you otherwise."

  "I want none of your sinful lessons."

  "There is naught sinful about good lovemaking betwixt a husband and wife."

  "Good. Bad. Little difference it makes to me."

  "It will."

  "Hah!"

  Eirik reached forward and took a long lock of her curly hair in his fingers. Sensuously, he rubbed it 'between his thumb and forefinger, then, holding her eyes, he lifted the strand to his lips. "I suspect, my prim and proper lady, that you harbor a misconception about lovemaking. If you had your way, I wager, Would be quick and quiet, clean and cool. You would manage it very efficiently, like your household."

  She lifted her chin, stubbornly refusing to rise to his bait this time.

  He chuckled softly and continued, "Well, let me tell you, dearling, good lovesport is long... and wet... and messy... and noisy... and very, very hot."

  Hot? Wet? Oh, Lord. Eadyth could not stop her mouth from opening with incredulity. "See what I mean?" she scoffed finally. "You are constantly taunting me. All I wanted was a husband to protect my son, a legal arrangement." She closed her eyes with exasperation and gritted her teeth.

  "And I want more."

  Eirik's softly spoken words startled Eadyth, and she opened her eyes to meet the hungry fire of his burning scrutiny. Hungry? For what? Oh, nay, it cannot be... oh, surely not for me.

  She stumbled, and Eirik grasped her by the waist to help her stay aright. The mere graze of his hands against her silk-clad skin was enough to set her heart thumping and blood pounding to all her extremities. And, Sweet Mary, his touch felt so uncommonly wonderful, she wanted to catch the moment and hold it in her palm forever.

  This was the sweetness she had dreamed of as a young girl, before Steven of Gravely had shattered her illusions. Her mouth parted on a soft moan of despair at her crumbling resistance to Eirik's lure.

  Eirik inhaled sharply, apparently understanding too well her unwilling response to him.

  Before she could turn and run, as she surely should, before he burned her alive with his smoldering eyes, Eirik pulled her sharply against his hard chest. Then, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist, he lifted her body upward so her bare toes dangled in the soft grass, and he walked her to a nearby tree.

  With her back braced against the rough bark and her feet still barely touching the ground, he pressed his hips against her belly and proceeded to show her exactly what he had meant by a great deal of touching.

  "Lovely... so lovely," he murmured against her neck as his hands played havoc with her body, moving the slippery fabric of her silk gown along her thighs, across her back.

  "Do not... oh, please stop, you lusty goat," she gasped out, trying to catch his wrists, but he was too quick for her. His hands were everywhere at once.

  "I cannot stop, Eadyth... I cannot," he rasped out huskily and nipped playfully at her ear.

  "I feel shameless."

  " 'A shameless wife," he said pensively. "Hmmm. I think I like that prospect, Eadyth. Very much."

  Then, like a bursting dam, his caresses moved over her in waves, out of control, without direction or concern for her cries about the unseemliness of the intimate places he claimed. When he moved his wool-clad chest lightly, from side to side, against her silk-covered bosom, Eadyth shuddered with the pure, exquisite sensation of her breasts being abraded so enticingly.

  "I did not know," ' Eadyth said, with wonder.

  "I know," he said with maddening arrogance.

  She wanted to say more, but she was too overcome,with-the erotic tingles that were spreading like wildfire across her body.

  "I do not want to feel like this," ' she groaned.

  "Yea, you do," he asserted and moved his warm lips closer to hers. At the same time, his large palms cupped her buttocks in a scandalous manner she should have found repulsive, but did not, and pulled her even closer against his hardness.

  "Do you want me to kiss you, Eadyth?" he whispered against her lips.

  "Nay," she lied, still trying to fight the raging fire which threatened to consume her and all that she had held dear.

  "Why, then, are you trembling so?"

  "With revulsion."

  He chuckled softly at her resistance and moved his right hand to her left breast. With the heel of his palm on the underside, he flicked a callused thumb back and forth across the pebbled tip until her breast felt heavy and ached for some fulfillment she could not understand. Then he did the same with his left hand and her right breast.

  She was drowning in a pool of ecstasy.

  "Does that f
eel good?" he asked in a thickened voice.

  She could not speak, just shook her head stubbornly.

  "You lie, Eadyth," he said with a knowing grin. "Your lips swell in invitation. Your eyes, your beautiful violet eyes, are hazed with passion. And your legs have parted of their own volition for our joining."

  Horrified, Eadyth looked down to see that she had, indeed, spread her legs to accommodate the cradle of his hips.

  "Oh... oh... see what you do to me. I have become a sinful wanton."

  "Nay, not a wanton. My wife," he said thickly, with satisfaction, brushing his warm lips across hers lightly—tempting, teasing, tantalizing her hunger for more. "Tell me what you want, wife... tell me... tell me," he coaxed.

  "I want your kiss, and you well know it," she cried out finally in surrender, then pressed her lips against his.

  The surprised hiss of Eirik's breath mingled with hers. Then he turned his head slightly, shaping his firm lips to better fit against her mouth. Oh, the sheer pleasure of his deepening kiss! When his tongue slipped between her lips, she wrapped her arms around his powerful shoulders and whimpered incoherently, wanting what he gave her and so much more.

  Eadyth never knew a kiss could be so erotic, stripping away a woman's resistance petal by petal. Her mind whirled with all the delicious sensations accosting her, surrounding her, enveloping her—the taste of Eirik's mouth, a breeze carrying the scent of sweet clover, the raspy sound of their ragged breaths, the buzzing of a hornet, the feel of Eirik's long fingers tunneling in her hair, the delicious odor of her husband's sun-warmed skin, the snorting of a horse—

  The snorting of a horse! Eadyth tore her mouth from his, and her eyes fluttered open. Glancing over Eirik's shoulder, she saw, to her horror, Wilfrid and several of Eirik's men sitting astride their horses a short distance away, watching with amusement the degenerate display she and Eirik had been putting on for them.

  Mortified, she tried to shove her husband away from her, informing him in a strangled hiss, "We have company."

  Eirik's misty blue eyes had turned slumberous with desire, and his lips looked sensually swollen from their deep kiss. Oh, Sweet Mary, what must she look like? A trollop, that was what, she thought, cringing.

  "What?" Eirik asked, a violent shiver of restraint passing over him as he gently brushed some strands of hair off her face. His eyes remained unfocused with passion.

  "Your men are here, and they are ogling us," she informed him in a suffocated whisper.

  Suddenly alert, Eirik glanced over his shoulder and nodded to the men companionably, as if embracing his wife openly were an everyday happenstance. As if they were not there for some special reason.

  "I must seem a wanton in your men's eyes. Oh, I will never forgive you for embarrassing me so!"

  "Really?" he asked silkily. "Well, best you get used to being embarrassed then because I find I like the idea of a wanton wife." He winked at her and pinched her backside outrageously before starting to turn toward his men.

  She pulled him back.

  He raised his right eyebrow inquiringly. "Changed your mind already, have you?"

  "Nay, 'tis not that, you dolt. Do not turn around, or you will humiliate us both, more than you already have."

  He looked down at his braies unashamedly. "You are right."

  He pushed her along in front of him, over to where Wilfrid and the others sat atop their horses, idly flicking their reins back and forth, smirking from ear to ear.

  " 'Twould seem you have taught the bee how to make honey, after all," Sigurd, the Viking soldier, commented crudely. Another man in the background made a soft buzzing sound.

  And Eadyth wished she could sink into the very earth.

  But Eirik and his men soon forgot about her as Wilfrid informed Eirik anxiously that a cotter had just, arrived to tell of more cattle being slaughtered, this time at a farmstead new Ravenshire. Eadyth noticed Eirik's saddled destrier then, which they had brought for him.

  "I thought you would want to know immediately," Wilfrid finished explaining, looking apologetically toward Eadyth.

  "Yea, you did right in coming to me. We will go now to investigate."

  "Well, then, I will just return to the keep," Eadyth interjected with deliberate casualness, thankful to have this respite from Eirik's intoxicating presence, an opportunity to rebuild her shattered defenses.

  But her husband had different plans.

  Eirik walked back to her, leading his horse by the reins. A small, mysterious smile lifted the edges of his lips. "Nay."

  "Nay? What do you mean, 'nay'?" Her voice betrayed her by rising shrilly with dismay.

  "You will not escape me so easily from now on, wife. You will come with us. 'Twill make for a pleasant ride, in any case. But do not fear for your safety. I will protect you from any villains."

  Hah! And who will protect me from you? "I cannot ride with you," she protested, then lowered her voice so the others could not overhear. "I am wearing no undergarments."

  "I know," he said and smiled wickedly.

  He knows? Well, of course he knows with all that touching and feeling he has been doing. "I do not know how Britta could have been so careless in bringing only my outer gunna. And it is my best silk gown!"

  He grinned as if he knew exactly what Britta's intent had been. The lout! Her upper lip curled with disgust. " 'Tis scandalous."

  "I know."

  Say that again, husband, and I am going to tie your tongue in knots. "Do you not care that others will know?"

  "No one can tell you are naked beneath this wisp of fabric but me," he said smoothly, fingering the sleeve of her gown. "Do you not see? That is what is so tantalizing—knowing you are naked, just for me."

  Oh, Lord. He is doing it again. Making me feel all hot and fluttery. "I refuse."

  "I do not recall giving you a choice."

  Eadyth recognized an impasse when it hit her smack in the face. This was not the time or place to argue with her husband. He would not budge in front of his men. "Well, get my horse then," she conceded grudgingly.

  "There is no time," Eirik said, smiling ominously as he folded his arms across his chest, daring her to challenge him.

  What are you up to now, my husband?

  When she did not snap back as she sorely wanted to do, he added, "You will ride with me."

  "In a silk dress? Are you bloody daft?"

  "Tsk tsk! Such language. I will have to teach you better ways, wife."

  Yea, I definitely think he would look good with a knot in his tongue.

  Then, before she could blink, he bent down to the ground, pulled the back hem of her gown forward and upward, handing it to her at waist level. She looked down, aghast, at the billowy leggings that were formed, like a laundress' gown. Once again, before she could protest, he picked her up by the waist and lifted her astride the horse, then mounted behind her.

  Her legs were spread wide atop the huge destrier and her bare, shoeless and stockingless legs were exposed up to the calves. The horse started to move then, and Eirik wrapped his left arm tightly around her waist to hold her steady. The reins were in his right hand.

  "Oh, how could you? Everyone can see my bare skin."

  "Sigurd, get my long mantle. 'Tis hanging from a peg in the hall. My lady has taken a sudden chill." In a lower voice, he whispered in her ear, "See, Eadyth, how accommodating I can be? I think I am going to be an exemplary husband. Truly, I do."

  Mayhap two knots would be better. Eadyth started to tell him exactly what she thought of him, but she was stunned speechless by the hard ridge of his manhood pressing at her derriere and the rocking of her most private woman parts against the saddle as the massive horse ambled along.

  And once Eirik had gathered his long mantle over his shoulders and hers, covering them both from neck to ankle, she knew what a lowly ant felt like when enticed into the spider's web.

  Wilfrid guiaed his horse to Eirik's right and Sigurd to his left, the five soldiers following behind them.
r />   When Wilfrid commented, "This is the fifth case of cattle being slaughtered, without the carcasses being taken for food, in the past three months," Eirik's left hand moved to her right breast, under cover of the mantle.

  Eirik nodded, commenting, " 'Tis Steven of Gravely's work, no doubt." Meanwhile his long fingers were tantalizing her breast with expert manipulations—weighing it with his palm from the underside, making large moving circles over its whole, taking the tip between his thumb and forefinger and twisting gently. Oh, Lord.

  She glanced back at Eirik over her shoulder, but he was looking at Sigurd, listening intently as Sigurd told him, "I think we must needs implement your plan to set guards at intervals throughout your lands, for the time being."

  "Yea, you are right, Sigurd," Eirik said calmly, seemingly unaware of the havoc he was wreaking under the cloak. "I fear he will start the burnings in my lands, as he did at Hawks' Lair, and then we may have dead bodies of people to deal with, not just cattle." Meanwhile, he moved the reins to his left hand and was giving equal, seductive treatment to her right breast.

  Wilfrid and Sigurd were totally unaware of Eirik's actions.

  "Can the king or the Witan do naught?"

  "I tried when I met with Edmund, but he says I need proof of Gravely's misdeeds—not just the word of a peasant—if I want the Witan to act against him."

  "And Gravely never leaves evidence," Sigurd finished for him.

  "I have sent for some Jomsviking knights, old comrades of my father's, to help us guard the keep 'til we catch Steven. They will not arrive for several sennights, however; so the men we have now must be extra diligent."

  "And the additional men you hired in Jorvik as part of your permanent hird?"

  "They will be here in a few days, along with the Viking fighters my cousin King Haakon sends from his Norse lands."

  Eadyth was surprised by his news. He had failed to tell her of sending for troops. But she was even more surprised by the large hand now pressing against her flat belly, its long fingers creeping downward to the apex of her femininity. When he cupped her intimately, she made a small squeaking sound of protest.