Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 02] (23 page)

Gyda and the servants left.

As steam wafted up from the huge tub, Selik turned back to her. “Will you bathe first?”

Rain lifted her chin defiantly, her face flaming. “With you standing here watching like a voyeur? Not in a million years!”

“Ah, well! I will go first then,” he agreed easily, but pointed a finger at her warningly. “Do you but move one tiny bit off that pallet, you will be in this tub with me. And I swear on the blood of all the gods that you will have soap coming out of every opening in your body.”

“Bully,” Rain muttered.

“What did you say?” Selik asked, moving toward her menacingly.

“Goody. I said, ‘goody’.”

Selik laughed ruefully. “A most horrifying thought just occurred to me. I am beginning to understand your lackwit words.”

Selik dropped his braies then, preparing to sink into the tub. Despite her best intentions, Rain’s eyes caressed his wide shoulders and bunching muscles. She yearned to trace the letters, R-A-G-E, that he had carved into his forearm. Moving lower, she admired his narrow waist and hips and tightly curved buttocks.

He started to turn, and Rain forgot to breathe. She burst into a fit of choking.

Smirking, Selik sank into the hot water, taking great pleasure in taunting her with his body and with the fact that he was enjoying himself immensely while she sat there wallowing in the dirt of their day-long journey.

Not to be undone, Rain carefully reached over for her carryall on the floor, making sure she didn’t
actually move her body, since Selik’s narrowed eyes watched her like a hawk. With childish petulance, Rain pulled out a new roll of cherry Lifesavers and popped one into her mouth.

Selik’s mouth dropped open with disbelief. “You lied,” he accused her. “You said they were gone.”

“They were, but I found another package in the back pocket of my slacks.”

“Oh, you are a deceitful witch. First you break oath; then you lie.”

“Give me a break, Selik. It’s just a lousy piece of candy.” But Rain sucked loudly, pretending to take special pleasure in the flavor.

“How would you like to have a Lifesaver up your nose?”

“Don’t be so ungracious.” Rain smiled sweetly and pulled out her Rubik’s Cube. While Selik soaped his body and hair, she solved the puzzle, over and over and over and over. She thought she heard him grind his teeth once before he ducked his head under the water and stayed there for an extra long time.

Rain woke early the next morning, realizing as she scanned the little room that Selik hadn’t slept with her. Still groggy, she went over to the door. She tried it once, twice, three times, finally accepting with disbelief the fact that she was locked in. “I’ll kill the bloody barbarian,” she seethed.

Last night, after taking his bath and flaunting his nude body before her in an infuriating manner, Selik had surprisingly left her alone. When she’d completed her private ablutions and the servants removed the tub and wet linens, Selik still hadn’t returned. Tired after the long day of traveling and the emotional upheaval over Selik’s betrothal—oh, Lord, she had forgotten about
that
—Rain had lain down on the cot, just to rest for a moment, and slept through the night.

But where had Selik slept? More important, with whom? And why had he locked her in?

Despite the early hour—it couldn’t be much past daybreak—Rain began to pound on the wooden door, yelling for Selik. After a short time, Gyda answered the door with a clucking sound of disapproval at Rain’s behavior.

“Tsk, tsk! All of Jorvik surely hears your caterwauling.”

“I’m sorry, Gyda. I didn’t mean to awaken you.”

“Hah! I have long been about the day’s chores.”

“Why was I locked in this room?”

“You were confined to your bedchamber because you tried to escape yesterday. You cannot be trusted, and Selik could not spare any more men to stand at your door.”

“So, I’m a prisoner now?”

“Were you ever other than that?” Gyda asked, peering up at her through very intelligent, discerning eyes. “Methought Selik referred to you as a hostage from the first.”

Rain felt her face flush. “Yes, but I did save his life at Brunanburh and—”

Gyda let out a whooshing sound of dismay and sank down onto the bench opposite her. “You did?”

Rain explained and Gyda listened intently.

“Do you love him?” Gyda asked bluntly when she finished.

Surprised, Rain hesitated, not sure if she could even express her feelings. “I think so. But God help me, there was never a more mismatched, doomed-to-failure relationship in the world. Selik’s life is a total contradiction of everything I value. The jerk makes me so mad I could spit. He says the most hateful things to me, tears my heart apart, then puts it back together again with one simple little smile over something as stupid as a piece of cherry candy.”

Gyda studied Rain’s face intently, seeming to understand her conflicting emotions. “Yea, sounds like love to me,” Gyda finally concluded, then rubbed her hands together enthusiastically. “Now, we must needs decide what to do about it.”

Rain tilted her head questioningly, curious as to why Tyra’s mother would want to help her, but her question was halted by Gyda’s next words.

“Didst know that he intends to leave shortly for Saxon lands? Steven of Gravely has let it be known that he is in Winchester. The demon earl hopes to lure Selik into his death trap. I fear Selik’s hatred will blind him to Gravely’s devious tactics.”

Rain gasped and put a hand to her chest in dismay, recognizing the name of the vicious man responsible for the death of Selik’s wife and baby. “No!”

“Yea, and well you should be concerned. Selik may not return alive this time.”

Foreboding turned Rain cold with fear. Selik couldn’t travel endlessly on this road of revenge and remain unscathed. Someday he would surely die, and she sensed it would be soon.

“I think you may be able to stop him. I have an idea,” Gyda offered tentatively.

“Oh, Gyda, anything. I would do anything to help him.”

Gyda’s face brightened and she leaned forward, grasping Rain’s hands. “This is what I think you need to do…”

After hearing Gyda’s lengthy plot, Rain stared at her incredulously. “Are you crazy? Kidnap Selik! Restrain him for several weeks until Gravely is gone into hiding once again! Why me? Why not your daughter?”

“Hah! She is too small and fainthearted to handle such a task.”

Small!
That was all Rain needed—another reminder of her size and deficiencies.

“Were you expecting I could wrestle him to the ground and rope him up? I may be
tall
, but Selik has more than a hundred pounds on me.”

“Your sarcasm ill becomes you. Really, you should try to curb such unfeminine traits.”

Rain could barely hold back the sneer that wanted to curl her lips. “Bottom line—even if I agreed to your insane plot, I am physically incapable of kidnapping Selik.”

“Perchance you know of some herbs that could put him to sleep ’til he could be restrained,” Gyda suggested slyly.

Rain shut her eyes wearily for a second, then stared directly at the elderly woman’s questioning face. “Maybe I do, but I must be going mad to even consider such an outrageous thing. Where would he be kept, by the way? Here?”

“Oh, nay!” Gyda exclaimed, putting a hand to her cheek in horror. “’Tis dangerous for Selik to be here even now. I fear that the king’s men watch my house.”

“I’m sure you have some ideas, though, on where I could imprison him. Oh, Lord, I can’t believe I even said that.”

“Yea, I was thinking mayhap that Ella would help you.”

“Ella?”

“She was a friend of your mother’s. She is a prosperous merchant now in the city, due to your mother’s help. We shall go see her later today.”

“Tell me, Gyda, do you want me to do the dirty work so I can hand Selik over to Tyra on a silver platter?” Rain asked suspiciously, not sure she could trust the woman entirely.

“Mayhap,” Gyda said, “but then, if you love him, I think you will do whate’er you can to save him, regardless.” She eyed Rain expectantly for several long moments. “Well, what do you think?”

“I think you would have made a wonderful politician.”

For the next few hours, Rain cooled her heels under the close guard of two surly men who shadowed her every move, even when she went to the privy to relieve herself. It was that or go back to her locked bedchamber, Gyda informed her firmly.

With absolutely nothing to do, Rain solved the Rubik’s Cube twenty-seven times, walked from one end of the hall to the other sixty-three times, and recited the Hippocratic oath silently sixteen times. Bored stiff, her mood progressively worsened.

So when Selik and Tyra came sashaying merrily through the front door, laughing at some shared joke, Rain forgot all the directives Gyda had given her for the great master plan to save Selik. They looked so blasted beautiful together—Selik in a midnight-blue tunic over black leggings, his narrow waist accented by a gold-linked chain, and Tyra in a green silk, belted, pinafore-type garment worn over a cream-colored chemise that perfectly set off her luscious, wind-blown, strawberry hair.

An unreasonable fury took over, and Rain picked up the nearest object—an apple sitting in a bowl of fruit. Taking careful aim, she threw it directly at Selik’s head. But he saw her at the last moment and ducked; the apple splattered against the door directly behind him.

Incredulous, Selik looked first at her, then back to the apple which had barely missed him, then back to her again. His eyes narrowed angrily as he advanced on her.

“I do not believe you are a pacifist at all,” he snarled. “What if you had hit Tyra with that apple? She could have been hurt.”

“Or you could have ruined my new tunic,” Tyra complained, primping prettily before a square of polished metal that hung on the wall.

“Or maybe I could have hit you square in the middle of your cocky Viking face,” Rain snapped at Selik while she backed away, on the opposite side of the table from him.

His eyes glittered with anger and his fingers flexed at his sides, probably itching to strangle her. “This ‘cocky’ has a sound to it I mislike. I take it ‘cocky’ is not a compliment.” Selik continued to walk down the other side of the table in a predatory fashion, keeping exact pace with her, his alert eyes watching her every move, waiting for her first slip. “What bee flew up your arse this morn to turn you shrewish? I thought I had taught you a lesson good and well yestereve. Are you perchance taunting me into another demonstration of my mastery?”

Rain’s face flushed at his vulgarity and his reminder of the intimate manner in which he’d chosen to punish her. She didn’t think she could withstand another such demonstration of his superior skills in
that
arena. “Save it for your fiancée, Tyra.”

“Fiancée?” Tyra interrupted. “What is that?”

“Betrothed, you dumb twit,” Rain retorted. “When is the wedding anyway? Maybe I can be the maid-of-honor.” Rain couldn’t believe her loose tongue. Where was the self-control that helped her survive the awkward adolescence of ridicule, the stringent academic regimen of medical school, failed love relationships, a lifetime of insecurity?

Selik grinned.

She began to retrace her steps in the direction she’d just come.

“Me? Betrothed to Selik?” Tyra laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Rain asked, suddenly alert.

“You. Selik is like my brother,
you dumb twit
. ’Tis what you called me, is it not?”

But then Tyra’s words sunk in.
Selik and Tyra are not engaged
.

She looked at Selik.

He shrugged with an unapologetic grin.

“Stop teasing her, you lackwit,” Tyra retorted quickly. “You have no interest whatsoever in me
that way
and never have. In fact, you have bored me into a stupor these past two hours at the harbor whilst you did naught but talk of the beautiful wench from the future.”

Rain’s mouth dropped open, and she stared incredulously at the young woman—the wonderful young woman for whom she’d suddenly developed a great fondness—but her lapse in alertness gave Selik the opportunity to leap onto and over the tabletop. He grabbed her and pinned her body painfully against the wall, demanding, “Apologize.”

“I’m sorry I threw the apple at you.”
Too bad I missed
.

“Now Tyra.”

“What?”

“You will apologize to Tyra for your lack of graciousness. Do you forget you are a guest in her home?”

After a long pause, Rain said, “I’m sorry if I offended you, Tyra”
If you believe that, there’s a bridge…

“Next time, think afore you react, wench,” Selik cautioned as he released her with a swat on the behind. “’Tis a lesson any warrior knows well.”

“You shouldn’t have locked me in my room.”

“Where you are not, incidentally. Who thwarted my orders by releasing you?”

“Gyda, but she assigned these two guards to watch my every move,” she said, pointing to the two men who sat at a nearby table watching the entire, ludicrous scene with interest. “I can’t even
pee without them standing at the privy door counting every drop.”

Selik shook his head disbelievingly from side to side. “I am certainly pleased you shared that information with me.”

“I begin to see what you mean, Selik,” Tyra said. “She does spout some intriguing words. But I can hardly credit that she is a supporter of that nonviolent creed you mentioned—pac…pacifism. Why, she is surely more violent than any woman I have ever met.”

Rain groaned, beginning to think Tyra might be right.

“Will you still take the shrewish wench to the hospitium, as you had planned?” Tyra asked.

“Nay, methinks she regards herself too highly. ’Twas foolish of me to think a captive would appreciate such consideration.”

“You were going to take me to the hospitium?” she asked, totally surprised.

“Yea, ’twas a lackwit idea.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yea, I have decided I do not care to share your shrewish company this morn. My head is aching.”

“I’ll give you an aspirin.”