“You have a bad bruise on your shoulder. Does it hurt?”
She pressed her fingertips inward, and he jerked. “God’s Bones! Of course it hurts.”
“How did it happen?”
He shrugged. “We were putting out the fires, and a smoldering tree limb fell on me. I have more than a few scratches, too, I warrant.”
“The orchard trees burned, as well?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yea, but many of them can be saved with careful pruning. Knowing your expertise in just about everything in the world, I have no doubt you will be able to revive them.”
She ignored his taunting words. “You need to put some ointment on the bruise. The skin is broken.”
“How about some of that lard from your hair?” he offered dryly.
He felt her fingers hesitate, as if questioning whether he jested or was serious.
“You did say it worked well on horses, did you not?”
“Yea, I did, and you certainly fall in the same category, though more like a mule.” She laughed, and the tenseness left her fingertips as she continued drying him with gentle, sweeping strokes that left his senses uncommonly agitated.
“Why is your skin always so hot?” she blurted out.
“What?”
He looked back over his shoulder. Eadyth was biting her bottom lip and blushing through that infernal gray film on her face.
“Your body throws off heat like an oven.”
“It does?” Eirik smiled. “Mayhap ’tis just you and your intoxicating nearness that warms me,” he teased.
“Hah! Me and every other maid from here to Jorvik.”
Eirik disregarded her insult and asked huskily, “I wonder, my lady wife, what would it take to turn you hot?”
Eadyth’s face drained bloodless, making the ash even more uncomely. She threw the drying cloth aside with disgust and stepped away from him. “Stop muddling my senses all the time.”
Eirik grinned. “I muddle your senses?” I would like to muddle a lot more than your senses right now, sweet witch. Why do you not come a little closer? Come, Eadyth, let us play a little game of… muddling.
Her senses were not the only ones muddled, Eirik realized, as he looked down ruefully at his burgeoning arousal. He started to turn, then hesitated, lest he give her another shock.
Shock be damned, he finally decided with a roguish grin, and turned anyway.
Eadyth looked down, blushed again, then looked him directly in the eye, obviously realizing that he was teasing her. “Best you don some garments, my lord, or some of those crows you mentioned below stairs may find a new roosting spot.”
It was Eirik’s turn to choke. He had to admire his wife’s quick wit, even when she turned it on him. Chuckling, he donned small clothes and a pair of faded braies, all the time watching her graceful movements as she put the cloths in a chest at the foot of the bed and proceeded to pick up his dirty garments and wet drying cloths, mopping the damp rushes near the tub into a pile for discard.
“You need to be trimmed,” she remarked behind him as he ran an ivory comb through his shoulder-length hair.
“Yea, I do,” he agreed, looking at himself in the polished metal above the washstand. “You can do it for me.”
“I am not very good at hair cutting,” she balked.
“God’s Breath, Eadyth! Have we finally uncovered something at which you are not the master?”
She did not smile at his jibe.
“Lighten up your countenance, wife. Life is too short to frown all the time.”
“Cut your own hair, lackwit. I have no time for your foolery.” She started toward the door with her bundle of laundry.
“Nay, stay and cut my hair. I cannot reach the back,” he cajoled. “Besides, I want to talk to you about Steven.”
She returned reluctantly and laid the laundry down. When he was seated on a low stool, his back to her, he handed Eadyth a pair of shears.
“How short do you want it?”
He shrugged and drew an imaginary line across the back of his neck with a forefinger. “Short enough. Just do not nip my ears.” Or any other body part.