“Husband.”
Helga slanted a surreptitious glance at Vagn and noticed with satisfaction that he looked rather green. He squeaked out, “Marriage?”
“Father! John is too young for me.”
“He is twenty and five,” her father argued.
“And I am twenty and eight.”
“Pfff! Three years! ‘Tis nothing.”
“It is, when the woman is three years older.”
” ‘Twould be like robbing the cradle,” Vagn concurred.
She cast him a glowering look.
“On the other hand, I am thirty and one. A good age,” Vagn said.
Everyone turned to stare at Vagn. Where had that irrelevant remark come from? It was irrelevant, wasn’t it? A good age for what?
Then her father threw in more irrelevant remarks. “I understand that John has grown into quite a handsome fellow. On the down side, he’s a Saxon through and through… grim and way too serious, unlike us Vikings who enjoy a good jest.”
“I enjoy a good jest,” Vagn said.
Helga sank lower in her seat. Why was he calling attention to himself this way? Did he want people to know of their relationship?
“On the up side,” her father continued, “John has his own estate, which is said to be prosperous. What say you, Helga? Will you at least reserve judgment till you’ve had a chance to look him over?”
Before she had a chance to answer, Vagn told her father, “Actually, I think I will go to Ravenshire with you after all. Eirik is an old comrade of mine, as is his brother Tykir, who lives in the Norselands. There are sure to be other Vikings of my acquaintance there. Yea, ’twill be good to meet up with old friends. We will all have a jolly good time.”
“Lackwit!” she mouthed to him in an aside. She’d like to show him a jolly good time.
He just winked at her and pinched her buttock again.
“So, it is settled then.” Gorm raised his cup of mulled ale high in a toast. “We will leave for Ravenshire five days hence. Will that be enough time for your sewing ladies to make fine garments for us all, or refurbish the old ones?”
Helga nodded. Sewing duties were the least of her concerns. Somehow, deep down, she knew that her time with Vagn was coming to an end. And she suspected that the end would come at Ravenshire.
Why should it matter? She’d known all along that this was to be a short-lived affair. In that instant, she realized what was bothering her.
I love him. Oh, my gods! I love him.
And that was the worst thing that could have happened.
Men and their epiphanies!…
Oh, my gods, I love her!
Vagn came to this amazing revelation while buried deep inside Helga, trying to fight off his fast-coming peak. He’d stopped his long, slow strokes seconds ago in hopes of slowing himself down before starting the short, hard strokes that would bring them both crashing to ecstasy.
Helga was staring up at him adoringly. All right, she adored the things he did to her body. And he adored the things she did to his body.
But Oh, my gods, I love her!
In the midst of this mind-shattering tension, Helga asked him a most irrelevant question. “Vagn, you once mentioned that you have been celibate for a year. Why? I mean, I cannot imagine a man of your skill giving up the delights of the body.”
Vagn liked her mentioning his skills and the delights of the body, but, good gods, how could she put together so many words when engaged in the heat of coupling?
When he was able to speak above a croak, he said, “We were Jomsvikings. They lead celibate lives whilst at the island fortress. It was a bad idea, believe you me.”
“What are Jomsvikings precisely?”
“Helga, my sword is planted in your sheath up to the hilt. Your sheath is quivering around me. Can we not discuss this later?”
She laughed seductively, and he realized she was distracting him with these questions deliberately. The witch! Mayhap she was right. ‘Twas best to prolong the peaking as long as possible. In truth, there was sometimes as much ecstasy in the anticipation as the end result. And so he began to blather like an idiot.