“And you promise not to tell anyone about this?”
“Are ye barmy, mistress? I’d be kicked out of Ravenshire on me arse if anyone found out.”
“All right. Now go to Toste and give him my message.”
After Bertha left, Esme picked up a bundle she’d prepared, put on a cloak and made her way toward the woodcutter’s hut, which she hoped was far enough away from the keep that no one would suspect what was going on.
“Dear God,” she prayed, “please help me, and I will say a paternoster every day for the rest of my life.”
She thought she heard a voice in her head, presumably God’s, say, “You are on your own.”
So be it.
Even tricksters get tricked betimes…
“The lady Esme wishes ye to attend her out at the woodcutter’s hut.”
“Huh?” Toste said. He was alone in the solar and nodding off to sleep, having drunk many more horns of mead than he should have. “Why does she want me? And why at the woodcutter’s hut? And how in Thor’s name would I know where that is?”
The old slattern blinked at him in what was supposed to be a sexual way, he supposed. “I be thinkin’ that a virile Viking like you would know what she wants.”
“Huh?” he said again.
“Are ye comin’ or not? It’s past my bedtime, and Lars is waitin’ fer me in the furs. Expectin’ a second swive, I ‘spect.”
He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting even a first swive with her. “Yea, I am coming,” he said. He was too intrigued by the possibility—remote as it was—that Esme wanted something more from him. After all, her last words to him had been, “You will pay.” But it was understandable, really. He had always had a way with women. She wanted him, pure and simple. It was the only explanation.
He couldn’t wait.
Caught in the spider’s web…
Toste made his way clumsily down the path, lit only by the torch the old crone carried before him. He shouldn’t have drunk so much mead, especially on the eve of a journey.
If he’d known the woodcutter’s hut was this far from the keep, he never would have come. Well, actually, he would have. His curiosity had always been stronger than his good sense.
When they finally arrived and he saw light seeping through the shuttered window openings and smoke coming through a hole in the roof, he breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t one of Tykir’s jokes, as he’d begun to suspect.
The slattern opened the door for him, shoved him inside, then slammed the door after him. He could swear he heard a lock click into place, but he was probably mistaken.
The single room was dark, except for the hearth fire. When he accustomed himself to the dim light, he saw Esme, and he relaxed with a grin.
She wore a gossamer-thin bed rail. Backlit by the fire, the outline of her nude body underneath the rail could be seen as clear as day.
He stepped forward and began to reach for her.
She danced away. “Nay, Toste. Do not be so anxious. Take off your clothing first.”
Take off my clothing? Whoa! We are moving a bit fast here, aren’t we, my lady? But Toste was not dumb enough to speak those words of caution. “I thought you were angry with me,” he said even as he began to disrobe.
“I am, but I find that other emotions inside me are even stronger.” She put a palm against her stomach as if to indicate where those stronger emotions were located.
His cock, which had already raised its head with interest at the vision of Esme in the see-through garment, now came to full attention. He’d treated her badly earlier tonight, when he’d implied that if she would do such and such he would not leave. Mayhap he would be able to make it up to her now.
When he was fully naked and she gawked at him as if a trifle frightened—as well she should be—she said something that entirely destroyed the impression of naèveté.
“Toste… uhm… would you mind if I tied you to the bed?”