Aaah! “Is that a bristly hair I see sprouting from your’ wart?” he asked suddenly, looking at the enticing mole near her lips. “I could pluck it out for you, if you wish. My grandmother used to get them on occasion after she had reached a certain… age.” He watched with smug delight as Eadyth’s hand shot to her mole, searching, even though she must know she had no such thing.
” ‘Tis a mole, not a wart,” she protested indignantly and shot him a look of icy disdain.
Hell! How could I have thought her eyes rheumy with age? They are sinfully beautiful. “Oh. Mayhap I was mistaken.”
Reaching out a hand, he touched a fingertip to the mole, then trailed it gently over her finely sculpted upper lip with its deep center divot. An immediate jolt of awareness struck a part of his body he would as soon ignore right now. All the boiling blood in his body, which should have been directed at her in anger, rushed to that spot far removed from his brain, and he felt himself harden involuntarily.
When he pulled his hand back, a light coating of ashes covered the fingertip. So this is why her complexion appeared gray. Does she consider me a half-wit? No doubt, she does, he decided ruefully.
He rubbed his index finger and thumb together, then dusted the ashes off with exaggerated fastidiousness. Slanting her an assessing look, he commented, “You must have stood too close to the cook fires. You should be more careful.”
Eadyth almost swallowed her tongue at his words.
“Are you angry with me?”
“Do I have cause to be angry with you, Eadyth?”
“Na… nay,” she stammered. ” ‘Tis just that we seemed to be getting along so well lately, and now you seem… well, different.”
“Yea, we have been living together congenially these past few days, now that you mention it, especially since I have been such a good, meek husband, following all your orders, doing all your assigned chores.”
“You could have refused. I never insisted on your help.”
“Nay, but you have milked my guilty conscience nigh dry. Admit the truth of my words.” If you ever ask me to clean another garderobe in all your life, dear lady, I may just turn you upside down and use your hair to mop up the filth. Better yet, I may bury you in the slops. That should bring your prideful nose down a notch or two.
“Are you upset about my climbing the tree?”
Tree? Tree? She has been deceiving me for weeks and she speaks of trees! “Yea, I do object to my wife climbing trees. Do not do it again.”
He could see his headstrong spouse start to protest, but then decide to hold her tongue for now, no doubt sensing his present bad humor. She probably had some other miserable favor she wished to ask of. him. Hah! No more!
She sipped at a cup of mead, seeming to seek reinforcement for her faltering nerve. But no, he must be mistaken. His wife had the mettle of a seasoned warrior. When she had drunk every drop in three quick gulps, she looked up.
“Eirik, I have a confession to make. There is something I have been wanting to tell you for a long time.”
Aaah, so now she chooses to make her disclosure. Well, my deceitful little witch, mayhap I do not choose to hear it just yet. “How long?”
‘ “What?”
“How long have you been wanting to tell me… this thing?” He eyed her lazily as he spoke, feeling much like a fat cat playing with a little mouse.
Suddenly, he realized with a grin of delicious anticipation that he might enjoy peeling away all the layers of his lady’s deception to discover what “jewel” he had in this wife of his. Perhaps he would be pleasantly surprised.
“For several sennights. Actually, since our betrothal,” she admitted, pale-faced and nervous.
Good. “Does it have aught to do with the letter you sent to your business agent in Jorvik yestermom, even though I told you I would handle your affairs?”
He could see alarm shoot through her as she wondered how he knew of her dealings. Eadyth had exercised great care in sending her missive by way of a passing traveler, but he had been even more cautious of every stranger approaching or leaving Ravenshire since Steven had planted the letter within his keep. Especially because there had been more evidence of the demon earl’s presence in the vicinity of late—a poisoned well, a burned-out cotter’s hut, a village maiden raped by unknown marauding villains.