Toste’s lips twitched with mirth.
” ‘Tis not funny.”
“Yea, ’tis.” He rubbed a palm over his mouth to wipe away signs of his amusement, probably to no avail. “Are you a virgin?” he asked suddenly.
“Of course,” she replied, then added, “Your question passes the bounds of decency. It is none of your business.”
“I was just thinking—”
“Some men shouldn’t think. It strains their brains.”
“Tsk tsk tsk!” Someone needed to teach this nun-wench her proper place: beneath a man. Mayhap later he would undertake the job. “What I was saying before you rudely interrupted was that you should be more worried about being the oldest virgin in all Britain, not the oldest novice.” There! I got my jab in.
She swatted him on the face with the peacock feather.
He pretended great pain.
“I have noticed that you are an over-jestful man. Do you think everything in life is worthy of jest? Must you laugh at everything?”
“Life is hard, m’lady. Sometimes you must laugh, lest you break down and cry. That I will not do.”
Just then, a five-legged piglet ran by, being chased by Sister George, the resident animal rescuer at the nunnery. The pig’s gait was lopsided, like a drukkinn Viking after a long voyage. The nun’s gait was equally lopsided, but only because she was attempting to lift her gunna to her knees with one hand as she ran and hold on to her flying veil with the other hand.
“Oink-oink!”
“Here, piggy, here, piggy!”
“Oink-oink!”
“Here, piggy, here, piggy!”
The pig probably thought he was destined to become a ham and was not about to stop. The nun was equally determined. They disappeared into an empty cow byre beyond the honey shed.
“This is one… um, unusual nunnery,” Toste commented with a shake of his head.
“Yea, ’tis,” Lady Esme agreed. “Unusual but wonderful, in its own way.”
Toste wasn’t so sure about that.
“But we were talking about life’s hardship and the need to laugh betimes.” Her face softened. “You miss your brother, don’t you?”
“Desperately,” he admitted. To his shame, he felt tears mist his eyes. When did I turn weepish? Next I will be sobbing. Once he was able to speak over the lump in his throat, he elaborated, “In truth, I am disoriented. My life seems totally off balance. I am like a ship that lists to one side, unable to go forward or backward, just in circles.”
“Time heals, I have been told.”
He shrugged. “Mayhap.”
Just then, Bolthor limped up, aided by a long wooden staff. His thigh had been cut to the bone in the battle, and he had a deep gash in his neck where a Saxon had tried to slice his gullet but missed, thank the gods. Bolthor stared at him through his one good eye and asked, “What are you two doing down on your knees in the dirt? Praying?”
Toste looked at Esme, and she looked at him. Then they both burst out laughing. She had a lovely, dulcet-toned laugh.
“Nay, just talking,” Toste said, rising gingerly to his feet, then extending a hand to Esme to help her up. She glanced at her dirty hand, then at his clean one, then seemed to dismiss the consequences and placed her palm in his. His much larger, callused hand engulfed her smaller one. To Toste’s shock, he felt the contact of her skin on his in the most erotic fashion, like ripples of pleasure extending out from their briefly joined hands to all his extremities… and one special extremity in particular. Esme, who came only to his shoulder, was equally affected—he could tell by her heightened color and the trembling of her hand, still encased in his. She jerked her hand away as if burned, and made a great show of brushing dirt from her gunna.
Toste was well satisfied with his work this day. If he could rattle a nun’s composure, then he had not lost his knack. Or an almost-nun, he reminded himself.
“What have you been doing?” Toste inquired of Bolthor, who did not appear to be in a good mood… though it was ofttimes hard to tell. He was a giant of a man, a berserker, with a black patch over one eye, and scars from numerous battles covering most of his skin. Even when he smiled, he appeared to be scowling.