Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

"Thanks, Bj?rn. What would you like?"

Bj?rn looked at Sigurd in incomprehension. His brain seemed to have stopped working the moment Dunne had said she was widowed. In other words, free.

"What would I like?" he repeated dumbly.

He had not expected the question, but the answer was simple. What he would have liked was for Dunne to see him as a man who could be part of her life now that she was not accountable to anyone. She was not a married woman anymore, but a widow, and that changed everything. A single woman who knew his name was not an unattainable goddess. Now she might consent to mingle with mere mortals such as he.

Now he finally had a chance to woo her.

"What do I owe you as payment for the ale?" The Dane looked at him oddly, which was no wonder. Bj?rn probably looked like a blurry-eyed fool right now. But how was he supposed to think when Dunne was looking so lovely in the background?

Today she had donned a deep green dress that made her eyes glow and it was taking all his concentration not to stare at her.

"Don't worry about payment," he mumbled. His friend had already repaid him a hundred-fold by sending Dunne to get the cask. It had given them a chance to get properly introduced, away from mingling daughters, protective cats, and suspicious sisters. "Although…There's one thing you might do for me."

"What is that?"

"Not you, but your wife rather. Ingrid would like to improve her sewing and learn to make clothes. Perhaps Frigyth could teach her?"

Sigurd twisted his lips while his wife shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry," the Saxon said. "I'm afraid what little I could show her, Ingrid will already know. I'm not the best seamstress."

In truth, Bj?rn knew she had little talent for sewing, which was exactly why he had asked. With luck, Dunne would be volunteered in her place. If, of course, she knew how to sew. He was taking a gamble but there was little risk. If she did not know how to handle a needle, he would have lost nothing.

He didn't have to wait long to find out. Frigyth stole a glance toward her sister, who had retreated in the distance during their discussion. "Dunne. You're good with a needle. Would you agree to show Bj?rn's sister what you know?"

She seemed to hesitate then she nodded. "Of course. It will be my pleasure."

Bj?rn's chest expanded in relief. He'd gambled—and won the most perfect prize he could imagine. Time with the woman of his dreams. Now he would have to utilize it well.

"Perfect. I'll see you tomorrow then?"

Dunne watched Bj?rn walk away pensively. Before leaving his hut earlier, he had donned a shirt and, as he moved, his gait predator-like, she tried to imagine the muscles rippling over his back.

"Come. Let us break our fasts."

Tearing her gaze from him, she followed Frigyth back inside the hut. They got the food ready while Sigurd tapped the cask and poured everyone a drink.

Frigyth took a long draught of ale and sighed. "Mm. Still as good as ever. Be careful, sister. If you stay at the village too long, you might well acquire a taste for Bj?rn's ale."

"I'm not too worried," Dunne replied, accepting the cup Sigurd was handing her. As far as she was concerned, ale was ale, one was much the same as another. But she might well acquire a taste for the brewer, she reflected, which was little wonder considering the way his body was sculpted and how his eyes burned when he looked at her.

She placed her lips on the brim of the cup and inhaled. The smell, yeasty, fresh and floral, reminded her of Bj?rn. To hide her unease, she drank—and felt her eyes widen when ambrosia hit her tongue.

Damn it, she'd been wrong. Ale was not ale after all. It seemed that some could be the best thing she had ever put in her mouth.

"What did I tell you?" Frigyth had not missed her reaction and sounded very pleased to have been proved right.

"Yes. It's delicious," she said honestly. "To think he didn't even want any payment for it. It makes no sense."

"Well, you'll be able to repay his generosity by helping his sister. Their parents died in the spring and Ingrid will be glad of the help. She is still young and I think she misses the guidance from her mother."

"Yes."

Though that comment made her feel like she was nearing fifty rather than thirty summers, Dunne was glad she would not need to make up an excuse to see Bj?rn. Because she did want to meet the enigmatic Norseman again.

She spent the whole day thinking about their next encounter.

Finally, the morning came, bitterly cold for the season. Wrapping herself in her cloak, Dunne made her way to Ingrid and Bj?rn's hut alone. She had wanted to take Dawn with her as protection against any unwise impulses, but the little girl had understandably preferred to stay behind and play with her cousins. In any case, she reflected as she rounded the well, it was unlikely Bj?rn would be bare-chested in this weather and anyway, surely he could not be as appealing as she remembered? She had only been overwhelmed yesterday because she had never seen a man's chest before, other than Toland's, and the contrast with her husband could only have played in Bj?rn's favor. Yes, that had to be it.

Except…

Except that it was not only his chest that had captured her attention. It was his face, his voice, his hands, the way he moved, the way he laughed, the way he?—

She came to a skidding halt. She had to stop this before she was in front of him. Bj?rn was not for her, he was only a boy. Sigurd had told her this morning he was nineteen, in other words a whole decade younger than her. She'd been married, she was a widow, and she had a child. His sister was looking for someone to teach her what their mother had not had time to teach her. In such circumstances, he would never see her as someone he could take an interest in.

Comforted in her resolve to act with composure, she knocked on the door. A young woman opened. Dunne's heart fluttered. Who was she? His sister or his sweetheart? Before now she had not even considered the possibility that he could have one but, now that she thought of it, she could not imagine how he would not. Before she could start imagining the worst, the girl beckoned her inside.

"You must be Dunne." She smiled. "Come in. I'm Bj?rn's sister, Ingrid."

"This is hopeless!"

With a sigh, Ingrid placed the shirt on the table. Dunne picked it up to examine it.

"It's not that bad," she said carefully, not wanting to discourage the girl even if, in truth, the stitches along the hem were not only uneven but too tight, causing the fabric to pucker at odd intervals. It was quite an achievement, really. Even at the age of eight, Dunne could not remember being so clumsy with a needle. But then someone who had never been shown properly could not accomplish miracles. "I expected worse."

Ingrid stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Oh, you really don't know how to lie! I defy you or anyone to want to be seen in such an awful garment and I wouldn't blame them!" She gestured at the shirt she had attempted to make for herself from one of Bj?rn's old ones. "This is awful."

"Yes, it is, rather," Dunne agreed. There was no point in lying, they could both see the hem was not right. "But that is why I'm here, to show you. With practice you are going to improve."

"Let's hope so."

By the end of the afternoon Ingrid had made noticeable progress. Her stitching was painfully slow but at least the result was acceptable.

"Well, now all I have to do is repeat this a thousand times and I should be fine." Ingrid made a grimace, clearly not excited by the prospect. "Thank you for your patience, Dunne. Do you have time to come again in the next few days?"

"Yes, of course. I don't have much to do in the village, anyway." The smile budding on her lips vanished because at that moment Bj?rn entered the hut. She had refused to acknowledge until then that this was precisely what she had been waiting for all day.

"Good afternoon. How is the sewing going?"

Ingrid gave a big sigh. "Not as well as I would like. I can already tell that sewing will never be a favorite activity of mine."

"Ah, sister." He leaned in to place a kiss on the top of her head. The gesture was so natural, so tender, that something within Dunne melted. Not one used to witnessing gestures of intimacy, much less being on the receiving end of them, she could not help but envy the easy affection between brother and sister. "You will improve, I'm sure."

"Yes. And Dunne has agreed to help me. She's really very good."

Two pairs of blue eyes turned to her, one framed by long lashes, one ablaze with a secret fire.

"I thank you for your help," Bj?rn said, his voice deep with gratitude.

"It's not a problem. I like to be useful."

It wasn't a lie. It felt good to help someone else—and more to the point, it felt good to be appreciated for it. Nothing she had ever done had been good enough for Toland. It was a nice change to be considered skilled at something.

The following day Dunne was back, as promised, but when she knocked on the door, it opened on Bj?rn.

"Ingrid is abed I'm afraid," he said when he saw her surprise.

"Oh? Nothing too bad I hope?"

He gave her a slanted smile that set her heart aflutter. "No. Only she suffers badly on the first day of her woman's cycles. It's been like that for years and there's not much we can do, unfortunately. She just needs to sleep it off."

The ease with which he talked about this most feminine of afflictions took Dunne by surprise. Most men didn't want to hear as much as a word about the phenomenon. Toland had forbidden her to ever mention it, demanding she only indicated she was unavailable to be bedded. She could tell the mere idea of her bleeding, though perfectly natural, disgusted him.

Bj?rn did not appear disgusted. On the contrary he seemed sorry not to be able to bring his sister comfort. He really was unlike anyone she knew, at ease with all things associated with women.

"Oh," she said again, not quite sure what to say. Mercifully, she had always been the very picture of health, and never suffered during her womanly flux, so she didn't have any advice to offer poor Ingrid.

"Listen, seeing as you're here…" He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, the gesture betraying intense embarrassment. She couldn't help a smile. Surely what he was about to say could not be more personal than what he had just revealed about his sister. "Would you do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"My shirt caught on a nail this morning and it ripped. I was wondering if you could see to it?"

She nodded and allowed her eyes to wander up and down his chest, wondering where the rip could be. "I don't see any tears?"

He cleared his throat. "No, it's at the back. But come on in, don't stand in the door thus. Ingrid will be pleased to see you, even if she won't feel up to sewing today."

While Dunne knelt next to Ingrid's pallet, Bj?rn hastily went to the back of the hut, away from the two women. There, he hooked the back of his shirt on a nail that was sticking out of the wall and took a step forward. The fabric tore with a worrying sound. Damnation, he'd meant to ensure Dunne stayed a while longer, not to make her labor all day over his ruined garment. Still, there was no helping it now, it was done.

He went back to the hut and found her standing by the table, a needle and thread at the ready.

"Would you mind going outside to sew?" Ingrid moaned. "I would like to try and sleep in the dark if I may."

"No, of course not. You just get the rest you need."

Bj?rn placed the wooden panel he'd made for that express purpose over the window and led Dunne to the bench outside.

"Let's see this tear then," she said, placing her ball of thread on the seat.

Bj?rn turned around and heard her inhale sharply. "Is it that bad?" he asked with an inward wince. "I thought it might be, considering the noise it made."

She gave a small laugh. "Well, let me put it this way. I'm amazed I didn't see anything wrong with your shirt before."

Bj?rn was glad to have his back to her because his face might well have given the truth away otherwise. She hadn't seen anything wrong because there hadn't been anything wrong. It had been a spur of the moment thing to pretend he had something to repair. Had she guessed as much? Was that why she was laughing? He dearly hoped not.

"Do you think you can repair the damage?"

"Yes. But you'll have to take you shirt off."

Even better. Bj?rn had not missed the way Dunne had ogled his bare chest the other day. She seemed to find his body to her liking. Presumably her husband had not been as muscular as he was. He liked the idea. Anything that could play in his favor, he would shamelessly use. Without waiting for further instructions he grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head. There was another inhale of breath behind him and Bj?rn could not help teasing her.

"Don't tell me the nail scratched my skin also?" he asked in mock concern, placing a hand over the small of his back to force Dunne's gaze to land on it. Not that he didn't think she wasn't already ogling him. "Could you check please? Is it bleeding?"

There was a silence and then she whispered, "N-no, your skin is just...perfect."

Perfect, hey? That was promising. He turned around—and almost knocked her over in the process. In her bid to check the imaginary scratches on his back, she had apparently bent over and so was a lot closer than he'd anticipated.

"Forgive me," he said, straightening her.

"No. It's me. I…" She took a step backward, cheeks flushed. "I will see to your shirt now."

Bj?rn nodded and watched as she settled herself on the bench to thread her needle. When she started working, he leaned a shoulder on the wall of the hut.

"I might as well watch how you do it and learn some tricks. I'm not too gifted at sewing myself," he said to justify his staying here. The way her fingers moved was mesmerizing.

"You can't be good at everything."

He arched a brow at her unexpected answer. "What am I good at, in your opinion?"

The rhythm in her stitching faltered ever so slightly as if she'd realized she'd revealed too much. "The ale you make is very good," she finally said, not looking at him.

"I'm glad you think so." He'd received compliments for the drink countless times, but he had always brushed them off as nothing. Dunne's approval warmed his chest in an unprecedented way. It was another step in the right direction.

She liked his chest, she liked his ale. What next?

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then two male voices reached them from just beyond the hedge.

"Do you understand what they're saying?" Dunne whispered, leaning in toward him. His heartbeat picked up, as it always did when she was near.

"Yes. But I'm afraid it's not terribly interesting," he added, picking up on her curiosity. "They are saying they need a new rope to replace the one at the well which is frayed."

"Oh. Indeed it's not very interesting." She made a grimace he found adorable. "It sounded more exciting in Norse."

"Do you think so?"

She nodded as if she could not believe he did not. But he was so used to the language that it held no special appeal to him.

"So you understand Norse. Can you speak it as well?" she asked.

In that moment he dearly wished he could speak the language with ease, because he could tell she wanted to ask him to say something. But he knew he was far from fluent and the last thing he wanted was to appear ridiculous in front of her when he stuttered and hesitated. Although she would not understand the mistakes he made, she would hear the difference between his halted speech and the other Norsemen's ease. Perhaps he should ask Sigurd to teach him to speak better.

"I don't speak it as well as the other villagers," he answered gruffly. "Unlike them, I was born here and my parents encouraged me to use the language of their new home, as they wanted me to blend with the local Saxons as much as possible."

Dunne nodded. "I understand. Unfortunately, it can be difficult for foreigners to be accepted. Still, it's a pity. You could have learned both languages. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to criticize your p-parents," she stammered, as if fearing she had offended him. He gave her a reassuring smile. She had not. "Frigyth told me they died in the spring."

"Yes. An awful accident. Their horse took fright when a dog shot between its legs and bolted, overturning their cart while they visited the market in town. At least they died together. It was better that way. Better for them, at any rate," he said in a low voice.

The whole village had been hit hard by the sudden, shocking loss. The two of them had set off at dawn, hale and hearty as usual and before dusk had been reduced to a mangled, bloody mess. His sister had spent weeks prostrate in bed, staring at the ceiling. He was only just now starting to hope she would recover from the grief.

"Thank you for helping Ingrid. She misses our parents dreadfully, and feels she didn't have time to learn all our mother would have taught her. I know she thinks herself a failure for it."

"She's not a failure!"

"No, she's not, and with the support of someone like you, I'm sure she will see that."

Something tightened in Dunne's chest. Ingrid, who was barely seventeen, was seeing her as a mother figure. Did Bj?rn feel the same? He was only two years older than his sister and he had just asked her to mend his shirt. Hardly what a man would do to woo a woman into bed…

She started. Men trying to woo her into bed? Since when was that something she worried about? Her decision had been made at Toland's death. She wouldn't let anyone try to entice her into bed, since it could never lead anywhere. She was determined never to marry again. Unexpectedly, she had been given a chance at a satisfactory life, and she would live it without a husband lording over her.

She resumed her stitching, glad to have something to focus her attention on other than Bj?rn's bare chest. When he had removed his shirt so casually, only inches away from her, she had almost passed out. There had been such grace in his movements, it had felt so intimate to witness such an act, so evocative…

And then he had handed her the shirt, still warm from his body and smelling of dried flowers and herbs. She had barely resisted the urge to bring it to her nose and inhale.

"I think I should go back to my hut soon, see what's to be done about it."

It was only when Bj?rn sat down next to her that Dunne realized she had spoken out loud. "You don't sound so sure. Perhaps you should wait another few weeks."

"Oh, I don't mean go back to live," she said. "I don't even want to see the place anymore. But arrangements will have to be made. With the price I can get from the sale I will be able to buy something else and start anew."

Something tightened in her chest at the idea of leaving the Norsemen village, but she could not stay here forever. It was not her home. Sigurd's Icelander friend Wolf had found her a hut to stay in momentarily, but she had no reason to outstay her welcome.

"When are you going?"

"The sooner the better. I want to put it all behind me, build a new, happy life for Dawn and me."

"A happy life," Bj?rn repeated slowly. "Were you unhappy with your?—"

"There you are. All finished," Dunne jumped on the opportunity to cut the personal question short. She did not want to talk about her marriage to anyone. Conversations with Frigyth were taxing in the extreme; with anyone else they were unthinkable. Mercifully, Bj?rn seemed to take the hint. Instead of insisting, he took the shirt she was handing out to him.

"This is incredible work," he said as he examined it.

She shrugged. Her skill with a needle was not incredible, only a consequence of her misery. During her marriage to Toland, she had done little other than mend his awful-smelling shirts and create pretty clothes for Dawn, the only source of joy in her life. She was barely allowed out of the hut and, anyway, she had no appetite for anything else. Dealing with her husband seemed to suck all of the energy out of her. In those circumstances, it was little wonder she had become proficient at sewing. Yes, she was skilled, but only because she had been so dreadfully unhappy. Instead of living her life, she had sewn the tedium of her days away so it was hardly a cause for congratulation. Except...except that it now allowed her to spend some time with a man who intrigued her more with each passing moment.

The irony was not lost on her.

"Thank you."

With a nod, Bj?rn slipped the shirt back on, hiding his bare chest from view. She could not help but think she should have lingered over the task some more.

"I will accompany you when you go to the hut."

Dunne started at the unexpected declaration. Bj?rn wanted to accompany her? Why? "You don't have to?—"

"No, I know, but I want to. It will be my way of thanking you for what you're doing for Ingrid."

"There's no need. I'm enjoying it. Besides, I'm doing it to repay you for the ale, as you well know."

"Sigurd and Frigyth should have been the ones repaying me for the cask. You don't live with them."

"I've been drinking the ale as well, so it?—"

"Listen, we can argue the matter over until dusk and still not agree." He crossed his arms over his chest, looking every inch the determined male. She should have bristled. Instead she shivered. "If you don't want me to accompany you, then I won't. Just tell me as much."

What was she doing? Why was she hesitating? It should have been simple. Did she want to go to the hut alone? No. Did she want to spend a day with Bj?rn? Yes.

"No please, come with me," she said eventually.

He nodded as if he'd not doubted this issue for a moment. "I will come to you at dawn tomorrow. Be ready for me."

Dunne's heart skipped a beat. The words sounded more evocative than he probably intended. Or perhaps it was just her. "I will."