Page 77 of A Tale of Two Vikings

“What scandalous proposal?” Finn wanted to know.

“Yea, what scandalous proposal?” her father wanted to know. She hadn’t realized her father had entered the solar on the heels of Vagn. Her father had probably been drawn by the raised voices…as had a dozen or so soldiers and housecarls who were gaping at the spectacle.

She would have groaned if there were time, but she had to act quickly before Vagn did something rash, like tell her father she’d asked for his seed.

“I offered to make Vagn a cloak of bright red wool to match his eyes on a drukkinn night, embroidered along the edges with pink tongues. He considered the garment a scandal. Ha ha ha!”

Tongues? Vagn mouthed at her, then gave her a cold look, obviously trying to decide whether to embarrass her in front of one and all by telling the truth. “Notice that I am not amused, m’lady,” he said finally. Fortunately, though, his anger seemed to have dissolved.

Finn left the solar chuckling, and her father remarked to Vagn, “You do not think a tongue cloak is mirthsome?”

“Nay, I much prefer a cloak embroidered with…oh, let us say, candles,” he answered to the bewilderment of all who remained.

Except Helga.

Who discovered she was suddenly left alone in the solar with Vagn.

And he was not smiling at all.

Let’s make a deal…

“Sit down, Helga. We are going to talk.”

Her eyes darted right and left, as if she were considering a run for freedom. When she realized that he blocked any escape route and there was no one left in the room to help her, she sighed in surrender and perched herself atop a high stool. She made sure that a table separated them, though it would offer little protection if he chose to attack. But that would come later. For now, he sat on a high stool on his side of the table, tented his fingers before his mouth and pondered the troublesome wench.

How anyone could have called her homely was beyond him. Today Helga wore a plain blue gunna with a gold braid belt, covered by a sleeveless surcoat of a darker blue. Her golden blond hair was braided intricately into one thick braid that hung down to her waist. Her blue eyes were wide with embarrassment she tried to hide with fluttering brown lashes. Her lips, large and luscious, parted as if in invitation. If Helga only knew the power of those lips!

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said of a sudden.

“You should be.”

She raised her chin defiantly.

“I am a man full-grown, not a youthling whose strings you can pull like a puppeteer. For days you have been teasing me like a dockside tart. I have allowed you to think you can manipulate me, just to see how far you would go, and truth to tell, you shocked the spit out of me. No more games.”

“I did not play any games.”

He raised a halting hand. “Please! Helga the Gamester could be your new name.”

“Well, you forced me to use underhanded tactics when you would not agree outright.”

He laughed. The woman never gave up. “That is the most backhanded apology I have e’er heard.”

“I was not apologizing.”

“You should.”

She inhaled deeply, which caused him to look at her chest area…and wonder irrelevantly if her nipples were large underneath her clothes.

She saw the direction of his gaze and folded her arms over her chest.

Little good that did when his lustsome imagination was involved.

“Are you a gambler, Helga?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. This sex-dance you have been playing with me is like a game of chance. ’Tis time to even the odds. Are you willing to play?”