“I must needs depart on the morrow. I will take Sister Margaret to Jorvik with me where she will sell her mead, then travel back to the abbey with a priest from the minster. I will stay in the city, alone, and try to get information on Vagn’s murderer. I have some contacts there who should be able to help me.”
“Take me with you.” She was as surprised by her request as Toste. Too obvious, Esme. Try to be more subtle.
“What? Nay! I’m going alone. Even Bolthor will stay at Ravenshire. I must travel alone.”
“You won’t come back.” Why should you? You have no ties here. Nay, I will not let you escape so easily, Viking. I still have use for you.
“Yea, I will. I have no place else to go, for now. Once I have avenged my brother, I will return.” He spoke to her in a patronizing manner, as if she were a child in distress. The only thing missing was the pat on the head. Bungling oaf!
“Not if you’re dead. ‘Tis a fool’s errand. Your brother would not want you to put your life in peril for him. Revenge will not bring him back,” she nigh screamed at him.
“Stop it, Esme. Stop it right now. You have no idea what my brother would or would not want. It is a Viking’s way. It is a man’s way.”
“It is a lackwit’s way!”
“Mayhap, but it is what I must do.”
She punched him in the chest and pretended to sob.
He was immovable in more ways than one.
“See what you have done. You have made me cry, and I never cry. Loathsome lout. Slimy cur. Bloody bastard. Odious oaf.” She was pounding his chest now to the beat of her epithets.
He wrapped his arms around her and trapped her flailing hands against his body. Against her ear, he said, “Leave off, dearling. Leave off.”
Dearling? He called me dearling. Whoa, that is definitely a woman-weakening tactic. I like it way too much. I cannot let the rogue distract me with sweet talk. “You are going to abandon me. I should have known better than to trust a man.”
“I am not abandoning you. There will be plenty of men here at Ravenshire to protect you whilst I’m gone.”
“Can you guarantee that you will come back?”
“Of course not.”
“See? You are abandoning me.”
“Because I might die?”
“I might just kill you myself if you keep this up. Mayhap Alinor and Eadyth are right. I should choose a husband myself and be done with it. At least that way I would have some control over my own life.” Let us see how you like that possibility, Northman. Let us see how you accept a woman taking fate in her own hands. Let us see how you like a woman disagreeing with your “superior” intellect.
He went stiff, even though he still held her arms imprisoned. “That, you will not do.”
Just as I thought. A typical man who thinks women are the weaker sex, unable to control their own destinies. “You have no say in what I do, especially since you are abandoning me.” Esme was not wise in the ways of men and women, but one thing she did know: Guilt was one of women’s best tools when dealing with men… especially clueless ones. Eve had probably guilted Adam into biting the apple, way back at the beginning of time.
“Must you always be at cross-wills with me? Can you not accept that sometimes I might know what is best for you?” he said.
Ooooh, wrong thing for you to say in my present mood, my lord Know-It-All Viking. Be careful, or you may trip over that runaway tongue of yours. “Nay, I do not accept orders easily. That is why I had to go to confession so many times back at the abbey. But you are not to worry anymore. Release me. Begone. Go fly off to Jorvik or the Norselands or hell, for all I care. I am off to find me a husband.” Esme had no inclination to accept Alinor and Eadyth’s plan for finding her a husband, but if it annoyed Toste, then she would damn well let him think otherwise. She was discovering there was great fun in needling the bothersome boor. “Yea, methinks I will pick a homely man, one who is not so full of his own conceit, like someone I know. Strong in body, of course, but not so pretty in face. Definitely not a Viking. A Saxon would be best; they do not jest so much.”