He scanned her naked body. How could he have thought her a boy? Her slender waist and rounded buttocks, her deliciously long legs were definitely feminine. His fingers ached to trace the flare of her hips, the hidden shadow between her legs. Holy Freya! He had to get a grip on his reckless emotions—and the hardening evidence of his arousal.
Sensing a presence in the room, Ruby glanced up to see him leaning against the doorway, watching her intently.
“How long have you been there?” she asked sleepily before the memory of his ordering her imprisonment jolted her wide awake. Suddenly aware of her nakedness, Ruby jumped, reaching for the bed linen at the foot of the bed. She pulled the linen sheet up over her bare breasts before turning angrily back to him.
Thork couldn’t help but grin at her embarrassment. And, Odin’s eyeballs, covering herself now was a wasted exercise. He had already got an eyeful.
“What do you want?”
“I have come to release you, to take you back to Olaf’s house.”
“Why? Did you decide you were wrong?”
Thork’s face heated with chagrin. The wench should have been grateful for her release. “Nay. You deserved all you got and more. I was lenient with you.”
“Hah! And how about Gudrod?”
Thork could have told her that he had relented and sent the slave to work in his grandfather’s fields, but he refused to explain himself. Especially when he was right.
He straightened to his full height and rolled his cramped shoulders wearily. “If ’twere not for the king’s uncertainty about your ties with Hrolf, you would have been sold, as well,” he lied testily.
Ruby made a small wounded sound of dismay, then modestly pulled the sheet even higher over her body, slanting a condemning look at his appreciative eyes.
Ah, well! he shrugged. He had seen enough—for now.
Still, he could not reconcile his conflicting emotions concerning the odd wench. Something about the sorry female pulled at him. Some strange, unwelcome bond tied his stomach in knots and set his blood racing. He shook his head in disgust at his lackwit behavior. Bloody hell! He was dawdling like a moonstruck calf in the maid’s room. Mystified, Thork studied her face and shroud-wrapped body, looking for answers she refused to give.
I thought you loved me, Ruby had cried, thinking he was her husband. Somewhere deep inside, Thork envied the man.
Thinking to soften her anger, Thork commented in a light, bantering tone, “Mayhap when your hair grows a bit and your body fattens on good Viking food, you will not be as uncomely as I first thought.”
Immediately, Thork saw his mistake in teasing her. Her wide, greenish-gray eyes flickered with umbrage.
“I don’t think you’re funny,” Ruby spit out.
“Don’t get your hackles up, little cat.” He stepped closer to the bed and ran a gentle finger along the edge of the sheet near the bottom of her neck where a pulse beat frantically. “Leastways, your feeble attempts at modesty are ill-timed,” he said thickly. “You didst not do as much to cover yourself when you stood near bare-arsed afore the entire court.”
“I was not naked,” Ruby said indignantly. “I wore the lingerie I designed for my own company. My models wear it in fashion shows all the time. I was not naked.”
“Fashion shows? Lingerie? Be that what you call those flimsy undergarments you wear? And your own business! By the saints and all the Norse gods, your stories get more and more far-fetched.”
Ruby raised her head proudly and informed Thork, “My company is called Sweet Nothings. We sell custom lingerie in seventeen countries. USA Tomorrow magazine listed me among the top twenty up-and-coming businesswomen last year.”
“I give you this, wench, you tell a fine tale. I could almost believe you. Almost!”
“I don’t care what you believe anymore. All I want to do is go home.”
“Nay! That you will not!” Thork barked. The thought of Ruby leaving caused him sudden inexplicable pain. At first he could not speak over the lump in his throat. Finally he ground out, “Never are you to leave this house without guard again. You are to do nothing without permission, not so much as a walk to the river at the end of Olaf’s property. Is that understood?”