Daughter of Fire and Ice (33 page)

‘I hope you’ll be happy too, now, Thora,’ she whispered. We both looked at Bjorn, who was sitting very still, a troubled crease in his brow.

‘I couldn’t bring myself to be a husband to her,’ he said suddenly, sensing us both watching him. ‘But I believed there was good in her.’

‘I think she loved you,’ Asgerd told him. ‘But in a cruel and destructive way. She wanted control and she couldn’t bear others to be happy. I don’t know why,’ she added in response to Bjorn’s pained look. ‘But she went out of her way to cause mischief. She did most of it behind your back, Bjorn, and Thora was the greatest sufferer.’

With those words, Asgerd kissed me on the cheek, and went back to Erik. I sensed Bjorn looking at me and met his eyes. They were still troubled.

‘I don’t know what to think, Thora,’ he said sadly. ‘I’ll need some time. Do you see our future?’

I shook my head. ‘Not at this moment,’ I told him.

‘I hope that whatever is in store for us, that we’ll face it together,’ Bjorn told me. He took both of my hands in his. ‘Do you agree?’

‘With all my heart,’ I said, returning his clasp. A sense of relief flooded me. I didn’t mind how long Bjorn needed to spend recovering from what had happened these last months. As long as we had a future to look forward to. That was all that mattered.

I remembered our stolen kisses on the mountainside. At the time, it had seemed that would be all that we could ever share. Now suddenly a new life, a new chance had opened up for us. I would never take a single moment of it for granted.

Marie-Louise Jensen (née Chalcraft) was born in Henley-on-Thames of an English father and a Danish mother. Her early years were plagued by teachers telling her to stop reading and stop writing stories and do long division instead. Marie-Louise studied Scandinavian and German with literature at the UEA and has lived in both Denmark and Germany. After teaching English at a German university for four years, Marie-Louise returned to England to care for her children full time. She completed an MA in Writing for Young People at the Bath Spa University in 2005.

Her first novel,
Between Two Seas
, was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize (2008), the Glen Dimplex New Writers Awards (2008), the Hampshire Book Award (2009), and the Branford Boase Award (2009). Her second novel,
The Lady in the Tower
, was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize (2009), and the Wirral Paperback of the Year (2010).

Marie-Louise lives in Bath with her two sons.

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• CHAPTER ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWO
  
• CHAPTER THREE
  
• CHAPTER FOUR
  
• CHAPTER FIVE
  
• CHAPTER SIX
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER NINE
  
• CHAPTER TEN
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR