“We will meet again, sweetling. I love you.”
I love you, too, Thork, Ruby thought, but the words clogged in her throat as he kissed her briefly, then set her down and rode off.
* * *
Hrolf and Poppa looked on her with pity, but would disclose nothing when she hugged them tightly before boarding one of Dar’s three ships the next day. They told her she would always be welcome in Normandy.
The two-week trip back to Jorvik was horrible. Ruby lay on her back most of the time, racked with seasickness in the troubled waters. Despite her protests and wild weeping, Dar’s hard face turned away from her when she demanded explanations for Thork’s hasty actions. Back in Northumbria finally, she fell into Aud’s welcoming arms on a sob and kissed Tykir until he pulled away in childlike embarrassment.
For weeks, Ruby alternately pitied herself and raged at Thork for his actions, meanwhile waiting desolately for word from him. When it finally came, the message was for Dar, not her. Dar closeted himself in a chamber with Olaf, who’d delivered the missive. When Olaf left, he took one hundred men with him, leaving Dar with only a hundred to guard his keep. Still, Dar wouldn’t answer her questions about Thork’s whereabouts.
“He will let you know when the time is right.”
Finally Ruby buried herself in work. She talked Dar into giving her one of the wool sheds for her lingerie business. Enlisting the help of six village women, Ruby was aided by Ella, who turned out to be a born administrator, bullying the women into extra work, making them laugh while they did it. They cut the bolts of silk and laces brought to them by Aud, who insisted on being a partner in the enterprise.
Within weeks, the business was a resounding success. Making the lingerie in all sizes, Ruby sent her first fifty sets into Jorvik one day with Dar. He delivered them to a merchant who agreed to sell them on consignment. They sold out in two days, thus launching Ruby’s lingerie company.
Ruby purchased extra materials with the profits, hired six more women, and built a large hearth so they could work during the winter months.
Ella turned into a blooming entrepreneur, planning how much money she could save over what period of time, how she could buy her freedom and perhaps get a small house in the village. Her dreams transformed her into a new person.
” ‘Tis amazing!” Aud said as they sat down to dinner one night. “At first, I only gave you the fabrics and encouraged your work to ease your mind over Thork. Now it appears I will be a wealthy merchant. What think you of that, Dar?”
“Huh? Oh, yea,” he answered distractedly. There had been no word from Thork since that first message, and he worried constantly.
Ruby was torn between anger over Dar and Aud cutting her off from their great mystery and concern for whatever was troubling them. She thought she had a way to make them feel better. “Dar, Aud, I have some news that should make you happy.”
They both looked at her as if nothing could cheer them up, and Ruby wondered once again what they hid from her.
She smiled at them both and disclosed softly, “I’m pregnant!”
A stunned silence greeted her words.
Their failure to respond hurt Ruby. “What? You’re not pleased to have a new baby here?”
“Oh, nay, ’tis not so!” Aud declared and jumped up belatedly. She hugged Ruby warmly.
“Yea, ’twill be wonderful to have… another great-grandchild,” Dar choked out and left the hall abruptly.
Puzzled, Ruby turned to Aud.
“Do not mind him. He has much to think on these days. But what about Thork? I thought he did not want more children.”
“He doesn’t. I’m not sure how it happened. He was always so cautious,” Ruby said, trying to think when he might have been careless. Was it their wedding night, with the honey, or was it the day in the autumn leaves? She hoped it was the latter. Then it would seem almost like Jack’s child, too.
“I’m sure Thork will be pleased once he gets used to the idea,” Ruby went on. “I hope it’s a girl, with blond hair and blue eyes.”