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Chapter 2

“My lady!”

Arno. Good, reliable Arno. With a dizzy sense of relief Rose broke eye contact with the mercenary and turned to her knight. She must have held out her hand, although she didn’t remember it, for she felt his fingers on hers as he bent to press his lips to her skin. Struggling with the inappropriateness of her feelings, she forced herself to pay attention.

“Lady Rose, these are the mercenaries.”

“So I see, Sir Arno. Are they…that is, do they speak—”

“Captain Olafson!”

Arno was frowning up at the mercenary leader. “Dismount and show some respect. This is Lady Rose of Somerford!”

He spoke as if to a recalcitrant child who needed a lesson in manners. The hush, that had already fallen about them deepened markedly. Clearly everyone was wondering whether the handsome mercenary would respond to Arno’s reprimand…or slit his throat.

Rose’s own heart began a labored bumping, but from what cause she couldn’t say for certain. It might have been Arno’s tone, or it might have been the fact that she was once more staring up into those sea-blue eyes. Only this time she was aware, shockingly aware, that despite their pretty color they were the coldest, the most emotionless eyes she had ever encountered.

Captain Olafson clearly wasn’t angered by Arno’s words. They were nothing to him. With a shrug, he swung down from his gray horse—superbly graceful for a big, strong man—and stood before them.

Too close, she thought instantly, moving to step back. And catching herself in time. No, it would not be a good idea to show this man she was afraid of him. If he were even half as savage as he looked, he would enjoy her fear.

Even Arno appeared momentarily taken aback by the mercenary captain’s size, and now the rest of them were dismounting with a muted rattling of harness and clink of wood and steel. They stood in the castle yard like a pack of wild and shaggy beasts. A child cried out, a woman hushed it. Rose realized that her people were afraid to make a sound in case it drew the mercenaries’ attention to them, and their wrath down on them.

She also realized that, for the first time in a long time, she had to look up to see into men’s faces.

Not an entirely comforting sensation.

Again she asked herself whether they would slaughter the occupants of Somerford while they slept. Would the promise of payment truly fix their loyalty? Indeed, were such men as these inclined to take orders from anyone, apart from whatever pagan gods they worshipped?

Rose drew a deep, sustaining breath. Well, it was up to her to see that they did! She was the lady of this manor, she had fought hard to retain her title, and while they were there they would listen to what she had to say.

She held her head high, cold dignity in place, and before she could think twice stretched out a hand that trembled only the merest hint. “I am Lady Rose,”

she informed them calmly. “Somerford Manor is mine, and while you are here I shall tell you what you can and can’t do. Is that understood?”

Captain Olafson looked down at her hand as if he had never seen one before. Rose had a shocking thought that perhaps there was a reason that women did not trust him with their limbs, but before she could change her mind and withdraw the hand, he had swallowed it up in his own.

His fingers were startlingly warm.

Why had she thought they would be cold?

Again she would have pulled away, but by then it was too late and he held her fingers captive in his. He felt her slight tug—the knowledge registered in his eyes—but he did not release her; if anything his grip tightened. Apart from indulging in an undignified struggle, Rose could do nothing but stand and allow him his will.

The big, dark man behind him was smiling, though attempting to hide it. Did they find this amusing? Were good manners so foreign to them that they found them laughable?

Rose flushed angrily and tugged again, but it was too late. There was the sensation of firm, dry lips pressed to her fingertips, the soft brush of his long hair against her skin. Unwillingly she looked down as Captain Olafson unbent his big body, his narrow braids swinging back into place, the fair stubble on his jaw glinting in the sunlight, and his teeth white as he gave a satisfied smile.

“You are more than welcome to tell me what I can and can’t do…my lady,”

he murmured in perfect French.

Anger shot through her, hot and satisfying. He had just humiliated her, made fun of her for his and his men’s amusement, and she no longer cared whether he read the emotion in her eyes.

Sir Arno made a sound very like a growl. “Your manners, Captain!”

The mercenary barely glanced at him. Quite suddenly Rose’s anger cooled. These men might kill her loyal Arno without a second thought, and she could not allow that. She placed her hand on the knight’s sleeve, to press a warning. Captain Olafson’s eyes followed the gesture and, if it was possible, hardened even more. As they slid to her face, she read the scorn in them.

Does he think less of Arno for taking his orders from me?

He had already turned away from her, back to Sir Arno, who was still glowering.

“You have the makings of a fine harvest,”

the mercenary said briskly, suddenly all business.

Rose noted Arno’s confusion—what did the knight know of harvests?—but he bluffed his way through it, nodding importantly and agreeing that it was the best he had seen for many years.

“That is good,”

the mercenary went on, still ignoring Rose, “because the money you are offering is not enough.”

“Not enough?”

Arno repeated.

Captain Olafson nodded. “Ten marks or we leave. There is plenty of work to be had elsewhere.”

“Ten marks!”

Rose’s anger left her before this new challenge. Ten marks was a fortune. “That is too much.”

Captain Olafson’s eyes flicked toward her but only briefly, and he did not turn and face her, keeping his attention on Arno, as if it were his decision that counted. Rose seethed.

“We are neither serfs nor slaves,”

he went on, his voice pleasantly deep but very chilly. “We do not have to agree to conditions that do not please us.”

Arno released an impatient breath. Rose could see he did not like this any more than she, but she also knew he felt it beneath his dignity to haggle. “I am sure that we can come to some—” he began.

Rose stepped around him, planting herself squarely in Captain Olafson’s line of sight. The blue eyes narrowed and there was actually a hint of some feeling in them—she didn’t have time to try and read what it was. Certainly he was a fearsome sight in his tunic of chain mail, the pagan-looking shield at his back, a vicious sword strapped low on his hip, his Viking hair reaching past his shoulders. Rose was used to men who looked more civilized, but there was much at stake here and she dared not back down. Those five extra marks would ruin Somerford Manor.

“Sir Arno has already offered you payment for one month’s work,”

she said in a brittle voice. “Five marks, with food and lodging. I thought the deal was struck. Are you going to go back on your word now, Captain?”

He stared down at her—yes, down. Rose tried not to show her unease. “I am not negotiating with you, my lady. I am telling you what I want. There was no deal struck.”

He sounded cool and controlled, and completely inflexible. Rose narrowed her eyes, just as determined. “I do not like your answer, Captain. You have been offered a fair price. I will not be bullied into making you another.”

The big, dark-haired man in the wolf-pelt cloak tapped him on the shoulder with a hand gloved in a black leather gauntlet. Without taking his eyes from hers, the mercenary captain listened to what his man murmured into his ear. Judging by the frown that creased his brow, he didn’t appear to like it. Rose glared back, while her heart was threatening to batter its way out from inside her chest. Slowly his frown smoothed away and the emotion leached from his eyes, leaving them once more cold and dead.

He nodded sharply, once, and the other man stepped back.

“Very well. Six marks.”

Rose would not have allowed even that concession, but before she could intervene Arno quickly said, “Done!”

and then avoided her eyes. “It is a good bargain, lady,” he added in a falsely jovial voice.

Rose bit her lip. Maybe it was a reasonable bargain in the circumstances. One they could afford, anyway, if the harvest was a good one. But that did not explain Arno’s unusual forbearance—was he so desperate to have the mercenaries there? Was he more worried than he had allowed her to see? It seemed the only possibility.

The mercenary said nothing to her, treating the matter as concluded. Arrogant, Rose told herself, as he looked again to Arno. The sort of man who could take orders only from another man. But what could one expect from a Viking savage?

“How many men-at-arms do you keep here?”

he was asking. “I saw one, maybe two. Are there others elsewhere?”

His questions were peremptory. Sir Arno shifted uneasily, not prepared to answer him. That was because he felt the answer reflected badly on him, thought Rose, but the mercenary had a right to know.

She swallowed her own indignation and, her cheeks burning but her voice strong, gave him his reply. “We have three men who belong to the keep and are able-bodied, but they are presently working in the fields.”

“You set your soldiers to work in the fields, lady?”

Astonishment shone clear in his eyes, before he quenched it.

“There are crops to be grown, Captain, or we will all starve. Soldiers have to eat, too. I myself helped during sowing time. Somerford Manor supports us all, so we must all work.”

He nodded indifferently, conceding the point. “Where are the rest of your garrison, lady? Shearing the sheep?”

Rose felt her back stiffen in response to his cool sarcasm, but refused to rise to it. Instead she told him the bald truth. “The rest of our garrison went off to Lord Fitzmorton.”

As she had expected, he wanted more—the lift of his eyebrow told her so.

“Lord Fitzmorton and Lord Wolfson are both powerful men, but they are always squabbling over who is the more powerful. At Christmas they clashed, and some of their men were killed. They were then both short of fighting men and sought to replace them. They do not care where they recruit…they turned their eyes in the direction of Somerford, and I could not pay as well as they. This is not the only manor to suffer—others also lost soldiers from their garrisons.

“However,”

she went on briskly, “we do have twenty villeins who perform two days’ duty once a week.” Honesty made her add, not so briskly, “Although most of them are either very old or very young, and one is crippled.”

His mouth, already firm, tightened. “And why do you depend upon old and crippled villeins to guard Somerford Manor?”

he asked in a deceptively calm voice. “Have your able-bodied villeins also gone to Fitzmorton?”

Rose was starting to feel like a child making feeble excuses to her guardian for some misdemeanor. Ridiculous, she told herself. You are lady here, and he is nothing but a hired soldier. A peasant in chain mail. A Viking savage with neither manners nor courtesy. Her voice lifted, growing in haughtiness as it always did when she was nervous, but in the circumstances this seemed no bad thing.

“Our able-bodied villeins are dead, Captain. Before I came to Somerford there was an English uprising against the king. My husband, Edric, stood with Lord Radulf against it, and many of our men went to fight. Lord Radulf won the day, but very few of Somerford Manor’s men returned. He presented Edric with a gold goblet in remembrance of his loyalty and sacrifice.”

She remained emotionless for the mercenary’s benefit, pretending indifference she didn’t feel—death was always a waste. “Sir Arno has begun training some of the younger boys, though it will be some years yet before they are ready to fight. I have suggested to Sir Arno that the women might take up guard duty, until their sons are grown. Many of them are widows of the villeins who died in the uprising, and they are more than willing to take over their dead husbands’ duties.”

Eartha, the cook at Somerford Keep, had been particularly keen to don armor and stand guard, even to fight. Why could women not fight as well as men if the need was there? she had declared, and Rose had agreed there was no reason. Arno had thought differently.

“Sir Arno finds the idea of women garrisoning Somerford…”

Unacceptable? Repugnant? Threatening? Rose wondered just how to put into words the expression on Arno’s face at the time. In any case, she didn’t have to find the right words because the mercenary cut her short.

“A garrison of women.”

He said it straight-faced, but with a twist to his voice that was almost a smile. His men laughed. “There are better things to do with women than kill them.”

“Captain!”

Rose’s anger was near boiling point; in a moment she would say something to put them all in danger.

“Better to send the boys to fight.”

Rose felt her anger fly out of her head. Briefly she struggled with his meaning, but there was really only one conclusion she could draw. Despite herself her reply was strained. “I don’t care what you do where you come from, Captain, but at Somerford we do not send our children out to die.”

The blue eyes narrowed, and then he shrugged as if such histrionics were of no interest to him. “You’d rather send out your women?”

he asked with cool curiosity.

“If they want to go. It is for their homes and their children’s lives that they would fight.”

“Maybe that is so, lady.”

His agreement pleased her, but his next words froze any pleasure. “Sometimes it is necessary for women and children to fight. And to die.”

There was something uncivilized in those eyes, thought Rose. Something wholly savage. Something soulless. Had she really felt desire for such a creature? Perhaps she had confused lust with fear.

He is not like us.

How could she think to control such a man? A man who would let children die in the wars of men? A shiver ran through her. Surely they would be better off facing their problems on their own, or begging Lord Radulf for help, whatever he might think of her for doing so? Even if he takes Somerford from you and sends you back to your father? Yes, even then! Rose looked toward Arno, sure that he, too, must have come to this conclusion, but to her consternation he refused to meet her glance.

“Women do not understand war,”

he said, but in such a fond, patronizing voice Rose longed to scream. As it was she gritted her teeth and turned back to the mercenary. With a curt gesture of her hand she drew his attention to their surroundings.

“Our defenses are strong—after the English uprising, Lord Radulf helped my husband to increase our strength. If there is an attack, everyone will come and shelter inside. If there is a siege, we have a deep well for water and, after the harvest, we will have food enough to keep us for many months. Although I have no doubt that long before we ran out Lord Radulf would have heard of our plight and sent us help.”

“That may be so, Lady Rose, but—”

“Sir Arno should have explained to you that you are here for show, Captain Olafson. Nothing else. The people from the Mere have been stealing from the village, but they are more of a nuisance than a serious threat. At the moment they think us easy pickings, but when they have seen you and your men they will go elsewhere. That is all we require of you, Captain. To scare the merefolk away. And indeed, you are well qualified for that!”

He let that pass, replying dismissively, “If these merefolk are allowed to steal from your village then you have let your people grow fat and lazy.”

Once again Rose felt the color come stinging into her cheeks. It was an insult. As if he could do better. Despite her resolution to be calm, her dark eyes flashed up at him. “Somerford has been at peace for four years, and if we have used that time to remember what it is like not to guard our backs at every waking moment, then I say that is a good thing.”

“It is never a good thing to be unprepared. Death awaits at every man’s shoulder.”

“Mayhap death awaits at some shoulders more than others!”

she retorted. “You have it wrong, Captain. You are mistaken. The merefolk are not vicious raiders. They have hurt no one”—well, apart from a pig—“and once they hear of your arrival, they will leave us be.”

Captain Olafson smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “If they are clever they will leave, if they are not they will die.”

A murmur of agreement rose from the creatures behind him. Like a pack of wolves barely held in check, they shuffled closer.

Rose wanted to tell them to leave; she wanted to declare that such men were not welcome at Somerford Manor. This was a peaceful place; there would be no fighting or slaughter. But they were here now, and however different she might wish things to be, in her heart she knew she needed them. So, instead of sending them on their way as she longed to do, Rose said quietly, “This is not war, Captain.”

He looked thoughtful, his gaze fixed on some point far beyond her. “Your gate was open.”

Frowning, Rose glanced to Arno and back again. “Open?”

she repeated, puzzled. “But…the merefolk have been causing problems. It was necessary to leave the gate open in case the villagers needed to seek protection. There is no danger in it, surely?”

Arno had told her that and given the order, yet now, when she looked to him for confirmation, he carefully avoided her eye, uneasy again.

“If I am to stay here and protect you, lady, the gate will remain closed unless I give orders for it to be opened. Is that clear?”

“I don’t see—”

“If we had been enemies of Somerford you would all be dead now. We would have ridden in at a gallop with no one to stop us, my men would have killed everyone here in the bailey, Ivo would have taken care of Sir Arno before he could draw his sword, and I would have come for you…lady. Now do you see?”

Arno was blustering, but no one paid him any heed. The Viking savage was staring at her fixedly now, and as if he had placed it there, Rose saw the scene he described in unrelenting detail. People running, screaming…She, alone in her solar, hearing his approach up the stone stairs, the door crashing open…He filled the doorway, dazzling her frightened eyes with the vivid colors of his hair and eyes. And then he strode forward toward her, drawing that wicked sword from its sheath…

Although—and now confusion replaced fear—the sword part didn’t seem quite right. She could imagine him striding toward her, but after that it seemed much more natural that he should leave the sword where it was and pull her into his arms, claiming her mouth with his.

Rose found her head nodding of its own volition. She felt dizzy, every bit of her tingling…some bits more than others. Stop this, stop it now! She forced her voice out, forced it to obey her.

“Very well, Captain Olafson. The gate stays closed.”

Her reply was his cue to turn his back on her.

Again.

At least, thought Gunnar, he had won that point, although it was clearly difficult for her to concede to him. She had nearly choked on the words, but the gate would remain safely shut from now on. There were other questions he needed to ask, other points to be made, but he decided it was better to leave it there, since he had the advantage.

Standing face-to-face with her, staring into her eyes, Gunnar had found himself imagining things that had more to do with satisfaction than safety. Even with his back turned, he could smell her sweet scent. Almost, he could taste her on his tongue. Quite suddenly he did not trust his normally reliable self-control.

“My men and their beasts have traveled far and need to rest. Show us where to stable our horses, Sir Arno,”

he said, forgetting in his haste to be away to make it sound more like a request and less like an order.

Arno’s dark eyes narrowed, but thankfully he did not quibble.

Gunnar could feel her staring at his back as he walked away. Shivering like an angry kitten with needle claws. If she flew at him she would do about as much damage, but he did not think that would stop her from making the attempt. There had been passion in her dark eyes. Women like the Lady Rose were not easily subdued, and she alone had held the reins of Somerford Manor for over a year now. She would not give them up easily.

She was not what he had expected.

Gunnar had imagined the Lady Rose to be like other Norman ladies. In his experience they were either cold, haughty creatures, quivering with good breeding and reluctant to get too close to him in case they were soiled by his lowly presence, or else they were weak and clinging, unable to stand, it seemed, without the assistance of a stronger will. Get too close to them and they were liable to faint or swoon about his person.

In general, Norman ladies knew little to nothing of the practical details of guarding their property; they did not send their soldiers into the fields to work alongside the serfs and villeins, nor did they work alongside them; they did not dress their women up as men and order them to stand guard! In Gunnar’s opinion, this Norman lady’s ideas were quite remarkable, and although he did not agree with them, he found them…admirable? No. He did not want to admire her—that was not his mission.

His mission was to destroy her.

And yet from the first moment she walked—a simple word for such a heavenly movement—across the bailey toward him, he had sensed a serious breach in his defenses. An open gate in his wall. Maybe his men had sensed it, too, this ripple in his normally imperturbable calm, for he had felt them move instinctively closer, as if to cover his back.

She had been afraid of him—of them all, but of him in particular. Why else would she have stared at him when they first met as if she had been struck by a bolt loosed from a longbow? But fear had not stopped her from arguing over a few paltry marks. Why had he antagonized her? So that she would know from the first you are not one of her serfs, or a tame Norman knight like Sir Arno d’Alan.

And she had refused to pay—as if he were not worth the silver! He had felt his temper slip, surprising himself and Ivo—he never lost his temper. Ivo had had to remind him, quietly, the real reason they were there. Money was not the object—they would be well paid.

So you lost your temper over five marks?

No, not for that…Unwillingly, Gunnar recalled how she had grasped Arno’s arm, the familiar intimacy of the gesture, and jealousy twisted in his gut. He, Gunnar Olafson, was jealous! He was never jealous; he had no reason to be. Women came to him; it was they who were jealous—of one another! But now he pictured dark eyes so large and beautiful, skin so fine and soft, a mouth so moist and ripe, and a firm, full body. The possibility of another man possessing all that…He clenched his jaw, hard. It was as if, he thought in disgust, he had never had a woman before.

In other circumstances he would have wooed her with his considerable charm, won her over, and taken her until he had rid himself of his need for her. But he was there for a reason other than to serve her, a secret reason, and rumor had it that she was sharing her favors with the knight.

So it is good that she is afraid of you? Did you enjoy persuading her you would allow children to be slaughtered in battle?

No, Gunnar told himself. It was said for d’Alan’s benefit, to further convince him of our brutality. If it drove the beautiful lady further from me, then that is good, too. Except she hadn’t fluttered her hands and turned faint. Oh, she had paled, but then she had argued the point with him.

Gunnar smiled wryly at the memory. This was no weak and feeble lady. Strong, yet—he remembered the nibbled nails on her slender hand—vulnerable. He found the combination very appealing.

And then his smile died. He had been thinking as if Lady Rose were an innocent party in all this. He knew better than that. If there was a plot at work at Somerford Manor, then Lady Rose must surely be in the thick of it. It was she who had asked for mercenaries; d’Alan was only the messenger. The letter intercepted by Radulf’s men had definitely come from her, for it was she who had sealed the incriminating missive with the Somerford seal—no one but the lord or lady of the manor could use the seal. That letter was the reason Gunnar was there. No, Rose was no innocent victim, and next time he imagined bedding her he should remember that.

“One thing.”

It was Arno speaking, and Gunnar turned his head to look down at d’Alan’s thinning pate, wondering what the knight wanted now.

“The Lady Rose,”

Arno said, as if he had read Gunnar’s mind. “She is a sweet lady, but she has no head for…practical matters. She does not understand the ways of men and the world, so she leaves such things to me. It is I who give the orders, Captain Olafson, no matter what she believes. Is that clear?”

There was implacability in his stare, a cold belligerence beneath the gruff, knightly veneer. Gunnar stared back and knew Arno was lying. The woman he had just faced was unlikely to appreciate Arno’s counter instructions one little bit. But if Arno was her lover, perhaps this was his way of concealing her treason? Protecting her?

Or himself.

“I understand you,”

Gunnar said quietly.

Arno moved closer, until Gunnar smelled the sharp, sour sweat beneath his fine clothes. The knight’s voice was tinged with mockery. “Of course you do. We both seek the same end, after all.”

Satisfied, Arno strode on ahead, leading the way. The mercenaries followed, playing the game, grinning at one another, pretending docility totally foreign to their natures. Sweyn said, loudly, “Women fighting wars? It will never happen.”

Ivo stepped up beside Gunnar. “What did he mean?”

he asked softly, dark eyes watchful. “Which ‘end’ does he speak of?”

Gunnar shook his head. They had gone from Radulf to Fitzmorton and there played their part well. Now Fitzmorton had sent them to Somerford. No one seemed to be making matters much clearer.

Ivo shifted restlessly. “Do you think there is a plot afoot here?”

Gunnar’s voice remained calm. “Time will tell.”

Behind them Sweyn told a joke, and the others laughed. Ivo leaned closer still. “How is your sword, Gunnar?”

Puzzled, Gunnar turned to his friend and saw the sparkle of wicked laughter in his eyes.

“Back there you were so hot for the lady, I thought it might have melted in its sheath. I have never seen you so struck by a woman—usually ’tis the other way around.”

Gunnar’s smile was grim—had it been so obvious? “I would that my sword had melted, Ivo. Then my problem would be solved.”

Ivo snorted a laugh. “And disappoint so many wenches? Their wailing would be heard throughout the land.”

He gave Gunnar a considering look. “It would be amusing if this one did not fall into your hand as easily as all the others.”

Amusing for you, thought Gunnar. “Women are a pleasant diversion. But I am working, Ivo; even if she is as sweet and innocent as the flower she is called after, I would have no time for the Lady Rose.”

He spoke the words so confidently, even he believed them.

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