Page 41 of Viking in Love

Well! Breanne thought. Just, Well!

“Mayhap you could get us some of those powders,” Amicia said.

“I will ask Rashid,” Drifa promised. “If there are such plants here, we could grow them in the kitchen garden. Make our own powders.”

“Women would come from far and wide to purchase such wares,” Amicia said.

“Why not just set up a stall in Jorvik’s trading center?” Breanne suggested.

“Yea, that is a good idea,” Drifa said with excitement, having missed her sarcasm.

Breanne covered her eyes with one hand and groaned. She was certainly not going to gain the favor of Caedmon by setting up a baby-stopping operation in his keep. Why do things always get out of control with my sisters? “Be careful. Men do not like women tampering with their virility.”

“’Tis not their virility that would be hindered, but a woman’s fertility,” Ingrith pointed out.

“Men would not see it that way. Leastways, some men measure their manhood by the number of whelps they can produce.” Breanne had to snip this half-brained talk in the bud.

“Not all men. The master is not like that,” Amicia contended. At the look of skepticism on Breanne’s face, she went on, “I know it looks that way with all the children about, but they are not all his. And he is a good man to care for them.”

“A lot of the children are his,” Breanne argued.

Amicia shrugged. “He is four and thirty. And a man. What would you expect?”

Mary came in then and carefully took the sleeping Piers from her. “I will put him in his cot,” she whispered.

“Back to the serious business at hand. Breanne’s seduction of Caedmon. Dost have any other advice?” Ingrith asked Amicia.

“I think I have had enough advice for one day.” Breanne started to rise. “Methinks ’tis time I fixed that leak in the roof. The puddles are getting larger and larger.”

“Ah, well, I kin tell ya ’bout the candles later, and how they can be used fer teachin’ ya ’bout lovemakin’.”

Breanne plopped back down again with a long sigh of surrender.

“I used ta work in a convent,” Amicia began with a sly grin. “We had a sayin’ there. Lights out at ten. Candles out at eleven.”

Thus Breanne learned more about candles than she ever wanted to know.

CHAPTER NINE

The highs and lows of love…

Caedmon was in a foul mood.

The trip back from the borderlands should have taken less than a day, even with the stop for Rashid and a check on the injured man. To no one’s surprise, the father of the Scottish lass’s bairn-to-be was nowhere to be found. Which meant that Maire traveled back to Larkspur with them. At a sloooow pace. They must have stopped two dozen times for her to relieve her bladder.

“I wish I had never brought her with us,” he muttered more than once.

Rashid told him, “Wishing does not make a poor man rich.”

I am going to kill the man, or cut off his always-blathering tongue.

As they crossed the moat to the lower bailey of his keep, Caedmon’s temper calmed a bit. Peace seemed to have settled over the place, and he could not dispute that it was tidier than it had been on his first arrival home. And, yea, the rosebushes added a nice touch.

Once their horses made their slow plodding way up the incline to the upper bailey, the smell of honey permeated the air.

Wulf sniffed the air and smiled. “Three guesses who is stirring the honey pot.”

“Ingrith does have a way with honey,” Rashid agreed. “No doubt you will have a goodly supply of honey and candle wax from this harvest.”