“Well, I never thought to see the day, m’lord. Yer blessed grandmother mus’ be rollin’ in her grave to see you oglin’ an old woman like me. Not that I have any trouble gettin’ a man into my bed even yet.” Bertha sucked in her bulging stomach and thrust out her buxom breasts proudly.
Eirik’s eyes widened in disbelief. The old hag actually thought he was attracted to her gross charms.
“Actually, now that I think on it, mayhap you have developed a taste fer older meat,” Bertha added slyly, darting a meaningful look at Eadyth.
“That will be enough,” Eadyth said stonily in her best lady-of-the-manor voice. “Leave my presence at once if you value your misbegotten skin. I will come down to the kitchen as soon as I check my bees.”
Somewhat chastened, but still chuckling, Bertha headed toward the door.
“And make sure there are no weevils in the manchet bread like there were afore I left for Hawks’ Lair. Nay, do not raise your chin at me, you lazy wench. I intend to check the flour closely, and every worm I find will be put on your loose tongue with my very own fingers.”
Bertha waddled away, muttering something about ungrateful mistresses.
“And make sure you do not gossip below stairs about what you have… seen here,” Eadyth added.
Bertha clucked her tongue with disgust. “As if anyone with eyes in their heads will not be able to see fer themselves fer days ter come what you two have been about.”
Eadyth prepared to follow Bertha through the door, but Eirik halted her progress with a raised arm and closed the door.
“We will talk now.”
Eadyth turned her nose up stubbornly. “I do not wish to speak with you—now or ever.”
“That should make for a wonderful marriage.”
“No one ever promised you a wonderful marriage.”
“You pledged honesty.”
“And I have given it.”
“I asked you afore I did… what I did… ,” Eirik said, searching lamely for a polite word for his vulgar act. “I clearly asked whether you had ever deceived me, and you hesitated—”
“And you consider my mere hesitation a justification for such a vile response?”
“Nay, I do not. I am merely trying to explain.”
Eadyth’s eyes flashed angrily as she challenged him, hands on hips, chin tilted upward. Suddenly, Eirik realized why she might have been considered a beauty in her youth. With that fiery nature, and just a little natural beauty, she must have been a woman worth her weight in gold. Nay, not gold, silver, Eirik reminded himself, recalling Wilfrid’s reference to the Silver Jewel of Northumbria.
“Stop that,” Eadyth demanded, stamping her small leather shoe petulantly in the rushes.
“What?”
“Looking at me… like that.
“How?”
“Like I am one of your tarts.”
“Hardly.”
His wry observation did not sit well with her. “You make me so damned angry I could spit.”
“So? Relax some of that self-righteous self-control of yours and do it.”
“Do what?”
“Spit.”
“Argh! Talking with you is useless. Why do you not go off to Jorvik and plague one of your mistresses?”
Eirik felt his face heat at her too accurate reading of his plans. And he misliked the fact that she accepted other women in his life so easily. Not that it was not a woman’s role to be subservient to her husband, to turn her head at his sexual misdeeds. ‘Twas the nature of men to seek many partners and had been through the ages. It just rankled that she practically pushed him into another woman’s arms.
She glared at him fiercely, waiting for his reply. Armed to the teeth, no doubt, with another caustic remark, he thought. Then an odd thing happened. Her lips began to twitch, and she quickly covered them with both hands as if to hide something. Suspiciously, he leaned closer, thinking he heard a little twittering sound.
Then he knew.
The wench was laughing at him. She dared to laugh at her husband. She must have the brains of a flea to tempt his already overwrought temper thus.
“Oh, I cannot help myself,” she confessed. “You look so funny, standing there like a raging bull, but looking like a puffy mass of red-speckled dough.”