What a fool she’d been!
“Do you weep for want of me or for your sorry fate?”
Huh? Jack hadn’t said that.
Ruby’s eyes shot open to the sight of Jack—no, Thork—leaning against the open doorway of her tower room, arms and legs crossed. She hadn’t even heard the door open.
Standing up, she asked him huffily, “How long have you been standing there ogling me? Why aren’t you off sucking up to the tarantula?”
“Sucking up?” Thork questioned on a laugh. “Can I assume ‘tarantula’ is a spider?”
“You got it!”
“Your manner of speaking—’tis ever a puzzle.” Thork shook his head quizzically.
“You think my language is odd. I’ve heard enough ’twas-es and ’tis-es and ‘twoulds to last me a lifetime.”
Thork laughed easily.
Ruby narrowed her eyes. What was up now? A short time ago the brute had shook her and almost slapped her face. Now he stood here laughing as if nothing were wrong. He was just like Jack in that regard. A short fuse, quick outburst, and then an equally rapid recovery.
“So, is the torture going to begin now? Will you do it here, or should we move out into the bailey so everyone can watch? If we had more time, we could serve popcorn and slurpees. Hey, why not give the whip to your spider friend? I’ll bet she could do a good job of skinning me alive.”
Thork looked appalled at her words.
“Halt thy wicked tongue, woman. Linette is not as you think.”
“Hah!”
Thork still hadn’t moved from his nonchalant stance near the door. He gazed at her intently, seeming to look for answers to some great mystery.
“Why are you watching me so strangely? What am I being accused of now?”
Thork shrugged uncomfortably. “Naught do I accuse you of,” he started to explain, then seemed to shift course, “but I wonder what you dreamt of before you started weeping. You were making love in your dreams, were you not? Was it your husband, Jack?”
Ruby felt her face flush and pressed her fingertips to her cheek, wondering if the finger welts from Dar’s slap were still there.
“The tips of your breasts swelled with passion even as you slept,” Thork continued relentlessly. “You arched your womanhood and spread your thighs wantonly. You even moaned.”
Involuntarily, Ruby looked down, then crossed her arms across her chest in embarrassment. The tips of her swollen breasts were, indeed, clearly outlined under her thin T-shirt.
“By the faith! Surely you do not turn shy on me now—after all the outrageous things you have said and done.”
An insufferable grin spread across Thork’s lips.
“All right, what’s going on here?” Ruby demanded to know. “Something has definitely happened. First you run hot, then cold. One day, angry. The next, teasing. Tell me. Do I die or do I go free?”
Thork studied her, as if weighing his words carefully. “Neither. We have discovered the traitor in our midst. One of the hesirs who traveled with us from Jorvik was Ivar’s man. ‘Twould seem was him, not you, who sought to entrap Dar.”
It took several moments for Thork’s words to sink in.
Then, shrieking loudly, Ruby sprang at him, pounding his chest, trying to scrape her nails across his face, biting his shoulder when he lifted her by the upper arms off the floor. When she hit his groin with her kicking legs, Thork twisted his body and lost his footing. They both fell to the pallet, which broke with a loud crash under the impact of his weight and the force of their combined fall.
“You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! You bucket of slime! Let me up. I’m going to cut out your stinking heart. Ouch!”
“Leave off, wench. Your voice—’tis shrill as a sea gull. Oh! Your nails are sharp.”
Thork pinned her down with his hard body, her arms above her head, her legs encased in his thighs. They lay in the midst of the broken bed on the floor, straw floating in the air above them from the torn mattress cover. Ruby tried to heave him off her and realized her mistake immediately.
“Oh!” she exclaimed on a whisper as the juncture of her thighs pushed against Thork’s manhood, arousing him instantly. She tried to correct her error by dropping back and turning her face away.