Page 27 of The Reluctant Viking

“Yea,” Astrid said and handed her mother a pile of linen cloths and a fur bed cover. She put them on the bed beside Ruby. Another daughter carried in a wooden tray with a jug of water and a piece of flat bread. Still another put a clean chamber pot in the room and took out the old one.

With a flick of her hand, Gyda motioned all the girls to leave. Gyda’s voice and stern face spoke of broken trust and disappointment. Ruby couldn’t let her think the worst.

“Gyda, I would never deliberately hurt Tyra…or Tykir. To me, Tykir is my son. And Tyra, well, she’s just like the daughter I never had. I couldn’t love her more if she were my own.”

“Humph! Good intentions mean naught. Whether you are truly a spy and would kidnap our own, I cannot say. At the least, your carelessness put my child, and Thork’s, in jeopardy, and that we cannot tolerate. Trusted you no longer are.”

Every day after that, Gyda returned, no longer with her daughters. With silent condemnation, she would hand her a new tray of bread and water, and exchange her chamber pot for a clean one, refusing to answer her questions.

By the end of the fifth day, Ruby admitted to herself that she’d been careless, but not just in taking the children jogging without permission. She’d miscalculated the fierceness of the Vikings and the dangerous time period in which she’d landed. Because she’d seen a softer side of Thork in the panorama of Olaf’s family, she’d made the mistake of thinking of him and the other Vikings as being the same as modern man.

They were not.

Later that day, Thork stood leaning against Ruby’s doorjamb. He had been waiting for nigh on an hour for the sorry wench to awaken from her deep sleep. She lay sprawled on her stomach, the bed fur having fallen to the floor.

Thork could not believe he had delayed his trip to Ravenshire for five days, sending one missive after another to his grandfather making excuses for his absence. All he could think about was the maid he had imprisoned in this dismal room. Truly, she had bewitched him with her tearful words, “I thought you loved me.”

Thor’s blood! He loved no one, least of all a pitiful wench like her.

Still, he could no longer resist coming back to see for himself that she was well. To understand why he was so attracted to her.

He scanned her naked body. How could he have thought her a boy? Her slender waist and rounded buttocks, her deliciously long legs were definitely feminine. His fingers ached to trace the flare of her hips, the hidden shadow between her legs. Holy Freya! He had to get a grip on his reckless emotions—and the hardening evidence of his arousal.

Sensing a presence in the room, Ruby glanced up to see him leaning against the doorway, watching her intently.

“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.”