He told himself that asleep, she no longer needed him, that he should get up, concede the folly of this night, and move away from her. He had no right to hold her, to take such pleasure from her weight in his arms and the warmth of her cheek against his breast.
He should get up . . . but he might wake her. Or she might catch a chill, or a nightmare might find her.
He gave himself one excuse after another to keep holding her, until finally he simply admitted to himself he didn’t want to let her go and pulled her closer. She murmured something and burrowed against him, and as the night sky spun outside the cave, he whispered his gratitude to Freya for letting him have her in his arms once more.
Even for just this brief while.
Even knowing she wasn’t his to keep.
CHAPTER 18
BETWEEN THE EXHAUSTION,
the wine, and the blessed sanctuary of Gunnar’s arms, Eleanor slept long and hard. By the time she found her boots and crept out of the cave, eyes gritty and mouth tasting like the inside of a witch’s stewpot, the day was well along.
“Stirring at last, are we?”
The unexpected voice made her jump, then wince as her brain rattled inside her skull. Shading her eyes with one hand, she squinted around trying to find the speaker. “Hello? Where are you?”
“Over here, my lady, beneath the tree. Good day to you.”
She got her bearing and spotted him at last, a lean, dark man on the far side of the stream. The hand he raised held a shuttle-like net needle, and across his knees lay a fishnet he was mending. He looked like he desperately needed to get it fixed so he could have himself a good meal.
“I know you. You are J- . . . J- . . .” She shrugged helplessly, unable to get to his name through the haze. “You are his friend from Alnwick.”
“Jafri,” he said. “I suspected you knew who I was that day when you fled so quickly. But how?”
“I recalled you had been at Richmond. One of the Alnwick men confirmed you were his friend.”
“Mmm.” His grunt said nothing, but the tiny shake of his head reeked of disapproval. “Are you hungry, my lady?”
“I have more thirst than hunger.” She started to kneel by the stream.
“Don’t drink there. If you will let me finish this knot, I will pour you some ale. Or if you truly want water, I’ll fetch a pail from the burn down the way. It runs pure and sweet.”
“What’s wrong with this water?”
“Usually nothing, but Ari’s up at the pool. He is, er,
bathing
.”
The way he said it made it sound like far more than bathing. Eleanor wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I shall wait for ale, then. Or better yet, tell me where to find it, and then I can pour for myself and you can keep at that net.”
“Inside, to your sword hand. There’s a skin in the nook.”
She found the ale and a bowl that looked clean enough and carried them out into the light. As she wrestled the unwieldy skin up to pour, she asked, “Why do you sit there, Sir Jafri?”
“To watch over you, m’lady.”
“I mean, why
there
, so far off?”
“Ari said it would be better if you did not wake to find a strange man skulking over you.”
“It was a kind thought.” She sealed the skin and laid it aside, then took a tentative sip from the bowl. The ale was thin, but not bad. She’d certainly had worse, even at her father’s table. She took a deeper drink, then carried her bowl over to sit on a weather-bleached log from which she could see Sir Jafri easily. “Who else is here, besides you and this Ari?”
“Today, just us. Tonight there will be two besides Gunnar.”
“The horsemen.” Images from the previous night crystallized along the border between nightmare and dream. “The thin, pale knight who came to Burwash.”
“Torvald.”
“And a big man I have not seen before. Even bigger than Gunnar.”
“That would be Brand.”
“They saved me. They and Gunnar.”
“Aye, they did that, and they did it three against ten.” A begrudging grin twisted his mouth. “I wish I could have seen it.”
“I wish I had not,” she murmured as an unattached head tumbled past her mind’s eye.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. I am only thinking to myself. Are all of you . . .” She hesitated, not knowing how to ask. “Gunnar told me there were others who change like he does.”
His smile faded, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Aye. We change.”
“Ah.” His chariness warned her against the next, most obvious question, about what sort of beast he was. She filled the awkward silence by taking another draught of ale, then looked to the slim strip of cloudy sky visible overhead. Was that the glow of the sun upstream? But if the stream flowed east to the sea . . . A sudden sense of disorientation swamped her. “What hour is it?”
“Well past halfway-Nones.”
“What? I thought it was yet morning.” She shook her head in denial. “No. I cannot have slept the whole day through.”
“You did. If you were up top, you might hear the Vesper bells at Monk Hesledon anon.”
“A whole day . . . I have never slept through a day when I was not ill. You should have woken me.”
“Why? After yesterday, you needed the rest, and you’ll want to be awake for Gunnar anyway. And he’ll most assuredly want
you
awake,” he added, bringing heat to her cheeks.
She finished her ale in silence, then searched out a willow for a twig to rid her teeth of the fur and the stewpot. By the time she’d finished, Sir Jafri had tied the final knot in his net. He trimmed the line and stood up to stretch the net wide to inspect his work.
“There. Even Ari can’t complain about that. He’s the best fisherman amongst us,” he explained as he collected his things and came hopping stone to stone across the stream. “But he’s particular about his casting net.”
“You would be, too, if you had to fish for Brand.” A golden-haired man came strolling around a bend upstream, looking like a misplaced young god from one of old Carolus’s tales except that he was dressed all in red. He gave Eleanor a wink and a pretty bow. “He gulps herrings down like a great whale, dozens at a time. Good day, Lady Eleanor. Are you well?”
“Well enough. You must be Sir Ari.”
“I have often thought that I would prefer to be elsewise, but if such a fair lady says I
must
be Sir Ari, then how can I not?”
“Oh, shut up.” Jafri tossed the casting net over Ari’s head and gave the draw cord a pull, trapping his friend like a crayfish.
“Hey!”
Jafri said something Eleanor didn’t understand. Ari answered with a laugh, but as he fought his way free, she noticed him favoring his left hand. She looked closer and spied a bloodstained strip of linen peeping out from the edge of that glove. He started gathering the net into proper folds, and the tone of their conversation grew more serious.
“She just now awoke,” said Jafri, shifting back to English. “You see to it. I’m heading out.”
Ari raised a brow. “So early?”
“I must go farther tonight.” He nodded to Eleanor. “Good night, my lady.”
“Good night, sir. Will I see you on the morrow?”
“If you are awake, you will. But whether you are or not, I will be here to watch over you.” He looked at Ari and spoke in their language again, some kind of warning, by the sound of it. Ari rolled his eyes and waved him off. With a final look of caution, Jafri recrossed the burn, trotted a few yards upstream, then cut between the rocks, following a barely visible trail up the steep side.
“I thought I heard horses neighing downstream earlier,” said Eleanor.
“You did.”
“Then why doesn’t he—”
“Because he goes on foot. Are you hungry?”
So, he wasn’t going to tell her anything either. Fine, then, she would deal with something less interesting but far more pressing. “No. But I do have need of your garderobe.”
Ari snorted back a laugh. “
Garderobe
is far too fine a word, my lady. We have a pit. Come, I’ll show you.”
She fell in beside Ari as he started downstream. “When we come back, perhaps I could tend to that hand for you?”
He glanced down, frowned, and poked the bloody bit of linen up into his glove so it didn’t show. “My hand is fine. However, if you wish to make yourself useful—”
“I do. I need distraction,” she admitted.
“Then I will find you some small chore to do.”
“Good. Do you think you could you find me a comb as well?”
“I’m sure I can. This patch of moss is slick. Watch your step.”
“I always do,
monsire
.”
IT WAS THE
most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Gunnar crouched behind a rock on the slope of the dene, staring at Eleanor across the way. She sat on his three-legged stool at the lip of the cave, her black hair spread around her like a mantle, the rose of sunset mixing with the fire behind her to set the wisps at her temple a-glint with ruddy bronze. She held an ivory comb he had never seen before—probably Ari’s, popinjay that he was—and she worked it through her hair one long strand at a time, seven strokes each before moving on to the next.
Seven. Seven. He counted with her, his pulse slowing to match the rhythm of her comb, as even and steady as a monk’s chant. Seven.
She surely hadn’t meant for anyone to see her like this, head uncovered, hair unbound. She’d waited until dusk, after all, when she could expect to be alone for a time. But the bull hadn’t wandered far afield today, and Gunnar had thrown on his clothes and all but run back, anxious to see that she was safe and well.
It was when he’d paused to retrieve the gown he’d left lying on a rock to dry that he’d seen her there combing. He’d ducked down before she’d spotted him, wanting to watch.
He was glad he had. She’d seemed so fragile last night, so broken, but tonight . . . Perhaps it was the power of this simple ritual, but she did not seem broken after all. Sad, yes, of course, but whole, both body and spirit intact despite that bastard Tunstall and his men. Fury bubbled within him at the thought of them laying hands on her, then faded as she continued to comb. Seven. Seven.
She finished at last and laid aside the comb to braid her hair, her fingers catching the hanks and weaving them into the sort of simple, fat plait women often wore when they had no maids to attend them. She tied off the end and dropped it over her shoulder, then folded her hands in her lap and sat, waiting.
For him.
How many times had he imagined coming down the path to find her waiting there like that? Even after Alnwick, even having seen for himself how content she was with her husband, a part of him had clung to the dream that she would someday come back to him, that she would lie with him, not in lust but in love, and heal him after all. Perhaps that was why she was here, a hopeful voice whispered in the back of his skull, and the idea of losing himself in her had him hardening in an instant.
Shite.
He couldn’t go down there like this, so full of desire. It had been difficult enough to hold her without demand last night, and still worse to leave her this morning, but now . . . Now it would be impossible even to be near her. Torturous. He would just have to stay here and wait for Brand and Torvald to return. They could watch over her in his stead tonight, and Jafri and Ari could carry her to safety tomorrow. He should have told them to take her back today before he’d had to face her again. He didn’t need this torment.
Wings ruffled the air above, and the raven swooped down and landed on the rock in front of him. Gunnar reached up to snap the bird’s beak shut. Too slow.
The raven’s kaugh echoed through the gorge.
Below, Eleanor jumped to her feet. “Gunnar?”
Shite
. Now he had no choice.
And a part of him—the foolish, hopeful part—was far happier about that than he should be.
Shite, shite, and shite.
“I’m going to pluck you and roast you for dinner,” he muttered as he flapped his hand to send the raven soaring off into the evening sky. Shoving his dream of deliverance and lovemaking down deep where it belonged, next to childhood fantasies of killing a fireworm, he straightened.
“Aye, my lady. It is only I. Be at ease.” He slid the last few paces down to the bottom, yanking his gown over his head, making sure it covered his swollen tarse before he stepped out where she could see him clearly.
The wariness left her in a sigh and she took a tentative step forward. For a heartbeat he thought she was going to run into his arms the way she had that night in the solar, and he willed her not to, knowing that once he touched her, what little control he had left would turn to mist.
To his relief and his agony, she only stood there, staring at him. “It
is
you.”