“. . . after we made love,” she said weakly.
“So you thought that if you seduced me in the night you could buy your freedom?”
Eadyth snapped to attention indignantly. “I did not seduce you. I mean… oh, why bother!” She shrugged. “Who started what is not the issue. I am trying to explain why I left this room—”
“—and cracked the skulls of two of my loyal servants,” he offered icily, “leaving them for dead.”
“I never did! I barely tapped them on their wooden heads, and they both know it. If they say differently, they are lying.”
“So continue with your tale. You were angry… and?”
“I was angry that you locked me in, and then Bertha said that mayhap… mayhap…”
“Why do you hesitate to speak your mind now, wife? ‘Tis not in character. Speak up in your usual shrewish manner and accuse me of my sins. Because, for a certainty, I have more than a few sins to lay on you.”
She sneered at his condemning tone. “I thought you were fornicating with your mistress,” she snapped.
“But, Eadyth,” he said with mock sweetness, sitting down beside her in a predatory fashion, “you told me on more than one occasion to take my lecherous self off to Jorvik and my mistress. Do you suddenly care whether I make love with other women?”
She closed her eyes against the tears that began to well hotly and dug her fingernails into her clenched fists. Sweet Mary, she prayed, do not let me break down in front of him. She could not speak over the huge lump in her throat.
Eirik’s fingertip traced the edges of her quivering lips, questioningly, and caught a fat tear that escaped her eyes. Then another.
“Do you? Do you care if I am with another woman?” he murmured.
Was his voice soft with gentleness or suppressed anger? Eadyth wondered. She opened her eyes and nodded.
“Why?”
“I do not know,” she wailed faintly, wringing her hands with dismay. “I wish I did. I loathe this weakness that turns me mewling and weepy-eyed.”
“I did see Asa whilst I was in Jorvik,” Eirik admitted unashamedly, twining her one hand with his and pressing hard.
She stiffened at his words and tried to pull away. “You let me sit here sputtering an apology, when you were guilty the entire time. Oh, you are a brute!” she charged, trying to slap him with her free hand.
Eirik took both her hands in his, forcing her to turn toward him. Conflicting emotions tore at him. He wanted to shake Eadyth for her willfulness. At the same time, he wanted to kiss her endlessly and forget all the problems that weighed him down.
“Do you want to know why I met with Asa? Would you hear the important message I had to give her?”
“Nay,” she said stubbornly.
He dropped her hands suddenly. ” ‘Tis just as well. I do not wish to tell you now. You do not deserve an explanation.”
“I don’t deserve an explanation! Why, you—”
With a jerk, Eirik jumped up from the bed and began to pace back and forth. He must maintain his distance from this sorry wench. Her nearness disconcerted him, the sweet mole near her luscious lips tantalized him, the smell of her lavender-scented soap drew him closer and closer.
“I am still angry with you, Eadyth.” Despite a part of my body that has forgotten why.
“Well, I am still angry with you, too.”
“Oh?” Would you like to sit on my lap and “control” me again, Eadyth?
“You imprisoned me.”
“With good reason.” Perhaps that tongue that wags at me so could be put to better use. How about…
“I can think of no good reason for imprisoning a wife, especially after… well, you know.”
He barely stifled a grin. I can. She noticed his grin, and her face suddenly flushed. Apparently, her imagination was painting the same erotic mind pictures as his. Then his mood changed as he remembered what she had done. He decided to put a stop to her harsh recriminations.
“Steven is planning to kidnap you as ransom for his son,” he announced bluntly. “And what he plans for your entertainment whilst under his ‘care’ does not bear repeating.”