Sandra Hill (3 page)

“My lady,
hvar er ég
?” he growled peevishly. “Where am I?”

That question seemed to disarm her, and her wide eyes quickly took in his many bruises, softening with sympathy.
Hmpfh!
he thought.
’Tis past time the lady thought of offering hospitality to a wayfarer in her land. And an injured one, at that
.

“Were you hit on the head?” she inquired.

He curled his lips with disgust. She obviously considered him a half-wit. “Answer, wench. Where am I?”

“Maine.”

“Maine. I have ne’er heard of such place. Is it in Greenland—that new world discovered by Eirik the Red?”

“Are you for real? Maine is in the northeast portion of the United States. Greenland is about fifteen hundred miles north of here.”

“Hmmm. My ship went farther off course than I realized.”

“Off course? More like off the globe.”

“’Tis my brother Jorund’s fault. He’s the mapmaker in our family.”

“Jared? My brother Jared sent you here?” The frown on her face—the one he would have wagered was permanently implanted there—melted away, and before he could correct her false assumption, she homed in on his other words. “Your ship?”

“Thor’s toenails! You sound like a parrot Jorund brought back once from the eastern lands. Squawk, squawk, squawk. And always repeating words.” He took greet delight in the snarl that barb drew from the
testy wench. “And, yea, my dragonship,
Fierce Wolf,
drifted for days, ever since the battle with Storr Grimmsson a sennight ago. Finally, it sank. I will miss
Fierce Wolf
mightily. ’Twas one of the finest ships I ever built.”

Merry-Death’s face brightened. “You’re a shipbuilder? So that’s why Jared sent you. Or was it Mike?”

He ignored her puzzling words. “Yea, I am the finest shipbuilder in the world,” he boasted, “and Grimmsson will pay with his life for the loss of my crew, as well as my ship. Ah, well, I can easily build other ships.”
Like that one outside this keep, which will carry me back to my homeland. But best I not disclose my plans to you yet
. “Unlike men’s lives, a boat can be replaced.”

“But…but…how did you get here?”

“My ship sank,” he repeated with deliberate patience, “and I swam ashore this morn.”

Merry-Death gasped. “You’ve been in a shipwreck?”

It took her a long time to grasp the meaning of his words, even though the talisman was doing a fair job of translating. Mayhap she was slow-witted, as he’d originally thought.

“No wonder you look like you’ve been beaten. Why didn’t you say so earlier? My God, did you climb up that cliffside?”

Finally, he would get a little blessed compassion for all his ordeals. “Yea, and I assure you, ’twas no easy task, carrying Ingrid.”

“Ingrid?” she squeaked out. “You have a woman with you?”

“A woman?” He laughed. “You could call her that.”

A flush of rage suffused Merry-Death’s pale cheeks. Obviously, the wench had no sense of humor. But she had other attributes he was beginning to notice. Her hair had sprung free from the unbecoming knot at the back of her neck and spilled out over her silky, pale brown
shert
, like burnished walnut. With hands on hips, she called attention to the loose, brown men’s
braies
she wore over her thin frame, and tapped her brown leather slippers.

So much brown, he mused idly. Does she try to hide her womanliness, to appear like a drab tree? Nay, not a tree, with that abundance of reddish-brown hair, and those witchy green eyes.

Oh, she was certainly not to his tastes. But she was not as barley-faced as he’d originally thought, either.

And the foolhardiness of the woman! Demanding answers of him, a high-born karl of Norway!

Hah! I’ll soon put her in her proper place
. “Yea, Ingrid is outside near your moat, drying out from our long swim.”

“Moat?”

Her eyes didn’t look quite so beauteous now that they crossed with frustration. He was convinced, the woman was feckless. “Yea, that stone ditch with the blue water.”

“The swimming pool? Did you take the cover off of Gramps’s pool? Oh, I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I can’t believe you left a woman outside—probably injured—while you broke into my home to mumble incantations over a poor animal, and assault me.”

Ignoring his snort of incredulity at her accusations,
Merry-Death turned toward the strange glass doors and inhaled sharply at her first glimpse of Ingrid, lying breasts skyward, huge red nipples highlighted by the rays of the full moon.

“Mike Johnson, I’m going to kill you. I warned you about a bimbo figurehead,” the wench mumbled; then she turned angrily, striding back toward him, about to spout more of her sharp words, no doubt. But she stopped mid-stride. “Wh-what are you doing?”

He was unbuckling the clasp at his mid-section, about to remove his belt and tunic. Tilting his head in bafflement at her panic, he tried to reassure her, “You have no reason to be fearful. I intend you no harm…unless you gainsay me.”

“Gainsay?”

“By acting hastily.”

“Hastily?”

He shrugged. “Yea, my shrewish parrot. Do not try to attack me. Or escape. Then I might be forced to lop off your head, or thrust you over the cliff.”

The woman clicked her gaping mouth shut and made a gurgling sound, but apparently not at his words. Her eyes were riveted on his body as he raised his tunic over his head. Wearing only a breechcloat and his ankle boots. he watched the wench back away from him in fright. Holy Thor! Surely, she had seen a naked man afore. Especially since she claimed to have no maidenhead.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she stammered out.

“I’m going to bathe all this salt from my skin in your moat. Then I’m going to eat my rabbit. After that, I intend to sleep for a long time. Where are your bed
furs, by the by? I couldn’t find them when I explored your keep earlier.”

“Put your clothes on,” she directed, averting her face like a shy maiden.

Lord, he was tired of the wench’s caterwauling, and her false modesty.

“Nay, I will not. And mayhap you should remove your own garments, as well.” He was discovering he had another appetite besides his hunger for rabbit. In the delayed rush of exhilaration at his miraculous escape from death’s talons, he felt the need to celebrate life…in the way of battle-weary warriors throughout time.

The wench’s green eyes widened with astonishment.

“Despite your bony body and sharp tongue,” he informed her, adding a smile to show the great honor he bestowed, “I’ve decided to take you as my bedmate whilst I am visiting in your lands.”

Geirolf dropped his loincloth.

Merry-Death’s green eyes just about popped out of her head. She made a low strangling sound in her throat.

He chuckled with satisfaction. ’Twas the reaction of most women on first viewing his man parts. The gods had been generous with him in that regard.

“You…you…” she sputtered as he swaggered past her and through the open door.

He kept his pace deliberately slow, shoulders thrown back, so she could get a good look. Mayhap now she would appreciate the honor he bestowed in taking her as bedmate.

“Come back here,” she shrieked like a banshee. “And put your clothes back on.”

“Nay, in my lands we do not bathe wearing garments.”

“We don’t wear clothes when we bathe here, either, you idiot, but the pool heater hasn’t been turned on yet. The water’s freezing.”

“Hah! ’Tis obvious you have ne’er taken a winter bath in a fjord in my homeland. The water is cold enough to turn a man’s cock into an icicle. This can be no worse.”

“But…but why not use the warm shower inside the house?”

He halted at the edge of the moat and dipped his big toe in. A shiver rippled upward, all the way to his scalp, raising skin bumps in its wake. His proud staff shriveled with dread.
The coward
. Bloody hell, the water
was
freezing. “What is this ‘shower’?” he inquired casually, not wanting her to think him too weak-sapped for a frigid bath.

“Come on. I’ll show you. But cover yourself, for God’s sake. Where did Jared and Mike find you anyhow? Some jungle?”

He halted suddenly. “I just realized something. I’m not wearing my belt.”

“No kidding!”

“Your sarcasm ill-becomes you, my lady. I meant, I’m not wearing the belt, and I can understand your strange tongue.”

“You’re right,” she agreed, looking as baffled as he felt. Her eyes skimmed downward as she spoke and then immediately jerked back up. Scarlet flames bloomed on her cheeks.

“Do you blush, wench? Odin’s breath, you do!” He liked it when she looked at him
there
. And
there
liked her scrutiny, too.

In truth, her timidity was rather endearing for a woman of her advanced years. “You’ll lose your shy
ness once you become accustomed to me,” he assured her, being in a magnanimous mood.

“No, no, no, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not becoming accustomed to anything. You are going to play by
my
rules.”

“Hah!”

Glaring at him ferociously, she failed to watch her step and tripped over Ingrid, letting loose a vile expletive. He was reasonably confident he knew what the exclamation meant, even without the talisman translator.

“Tsk-tsk,” he said sweetly, repeating a favorite sound of his mother’s, which fit this occasion perfectly. “Do you have a creaking of the bones that causes you to be so clumsy?”

She straightened in affront.

“Or perchance it is your overlarge feet?”

She gurgled with outrage.

Good. ’Tis best to put a woman in her place from the start
. “And where can we put Ingrid so she will remain safe from your stumbling ways till I attach her to the prow of my longship?”

“What longship?” Merry-Death asked, rushing to keep up with his long strides.

He waved a hand in the direction of the field next to her keep.

Her green eyes shot up with surprise when she saw that he referred to the half-completed vessel. “You are
not
putting breasts on the prow of my ship. I already told Mike that. Apparently he didn’t relay the message to you.” She sniffed with indignation, and then his other words seemed to register. “
Your
longship? Are you serious? That boat belongs to the Trondheim Foundation and Oxley College.”

“And a poor specimen it is, too. But, ne’er fear, I will right all the mistakes made thus far. ’Twill be the finest ship to sail the seas.”

“You will? You can?” she asked with breathless expectation. “Are you saying that you have the skill to build a Viking longship?”

“For a certainty. I’ve done so many times. My ships are the most favored in the world. Kings from distant lands have come a-begging for my skill. In fact, just last year, King Aethelred of Britain requisitioned one of my
knorrs
…that’s a larger trading longship.”

“King who?” She put a hand on his arm to halt his progress. When her eyes inadvertently dropped lower to his man parts, she snapped, “Can’t you at least cover yourself while I talk to you?”

With what?”

“I don’t know. Your hand.”

“’Tis too small.” He grinned.

“Your hand or your…your…?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Which do you think?”

“Aaarrgh! You keep changing the subject. Who is this King Aethelred you mentioned?”

“Aethelred the Unready is the king of Britain,” he explained with measured patience. “Dost recall I mentioned his wife Aelfgifu to you earlier?”

The woman put a hand to her forehead as if she suffered a megrim. “Queen Elizabeth is the queen of England. There is no king. Aethelred was king at the end of the tenth century.”

“I know naught of this Elizabeth, and, yea, you are correct, Aethelred was king at the end of the tenth century…which this is…and he still is.” He started to walk into the keep.

“Hold it. Are you telling me you think this is the tenth century?”

Now it was his turn to be puzzled. What an odd question! But then, she’d been asking many odd questions. “Yea. This is the year 997. That would be the tenth century.”

Merry-Death burst out laughing. He saw no humor in his words. So, he could only conclude that she must be mad, as well as half-witted.

When she finally wiped the tears from her face with the back of a hand, she informed him, “I’ve got news for you, buddy. This is the year 1997. Not only did your boat go off course, but it went through time. Ha, ha, ha! Lordy, wait till I get hold of Mike and Jared. They knew I was desperate, but did they have to send me a crackpot shipbuilder?”

“Nineteen-ninety-seven? Ha, ha, ha!” He mimicked her forced laughter. “My lady, have you suffered a blow to the head of late?”

“No, but I’d like to give you one.”

“Have a caution with your loose tongue, Merry-Death. I sorely resent your referring to me as a cracked pot. In my country, I am a chieftain—a karl—and best you show respect for my high estate.” He raised his head haughtily as he stalked past her. “And Ingrid will adorn the prow of that ship, or there will be no ship.”

Geirolf was having one of the most sensual, self-indulgent experiences of his life. A shower, Merry-Death had called it.

Standing in a cubicle with square pottery tiles on three sides and a foggy glass door on the fourth side, he allowed endless streams of hot water to wash over
his body while he soaped himself with a fragrant bar and lathered his hair with a thick liquid.

Truly, the woman gave more and more evidence of being a sorceress. As she’d walked him down the corridor to her bathing chamber, she’d flicked one lever after another on the walls, which immediately set strange candles alight throughout the rooms and on the ceilings. Then she’d explained to him how the bathing room and the kitchen had running water coming into the house out of “spigots.”

Well, that wasn’t so remarkable. The ancient Romans with their engineering marvels had done much the same centuries ago, except that Merry-Death’s spigots also emitted hot water.

And another thing passed all bounds of logic…a toilet. Blessed Thor! The people here had no garderobes, except in the country, Merry-Death had told him, where they called them privies, or outhouses. In this land, people relieved themselves in porcelain bowls filled with water that flushed away, miraculously, at the touch of a silver handle. It seemed a waste to him when bushes abounded outside.

Yea, Geirolf concluded, Merry-Death was, indeed, a sorceress, but everyone knew there were good witches and bad witches. She must be a good witch, he decided, because thus far he’d seen no evidence that she used her arts for evil gain.

Still, he would watch her carefully for signs. It would not do for her to cast a spell on him. Once a Black Witch had cursed his older brother for spurning her favors, and Magnus’s male parts had turned purple and broke out in boils for a fortnight. His mother had claimed ’twas caused by Magnus’s putting his parts
where he should not have, but Magnus blamed the witch’s curse.

Geirolf was so clean now that he nigh squeaked, but he poured another handful of the golden liquid into his palm and lathered up again. Then he yelled to high Valhalla for the witch’s help.

Meredith was about to drop some pasta into a pot of boiling water when she heard Rolf’s cry.

“
Merry-Death! Help!
”

Geez, the guy was loud. Lowering the heat, Meredith hurried down the hall. On the way, she cast a disdainful glance at Rolf’s cooked rabbit, which lay on the kitchen table where he’d put it before going for a shower. No way was Meredith going to eat a little bunny.

“
Merry-Death!
”

“Hold your horses,” she complained, opening the bathroom door a tiny crack, wanting to make sure he was decent before she entered. Not that the immodest brute had cared about being decent before.

He was still in the shower, groaning like crazy. Oh. no! Maybe he’d scalded himself.

She rushed over and slid the glass doors open a little bit, making sure to keep her eyes averted. “What’s the matter?”

“I got drek in my eyes and I can’t get rid of all these soap suds. Balder’s balls! My eyes are burning. No matter how much rinsing I do, the white foam won’t go away. I think I’m going blind. Did you put a curse on me?”

Meredith tried to understand his long-winded, panicky explanation. “First of all, it’s Breck, not drek. That’s shampoo. It belonged to my grandfather. I don’t
think they even make the stuff anymore. How much did you use?”

He shrugged, his eyes still closed, his face raised under the showerhead. And, criminey, he
was
covered with an ungodly amount of lather.

“Half a flask,” he replied, spitting out a mouthful of soap.

“You fool, you’re only supposed to use a capful. Breck is concentrated.”

“How was I supposed to know this?” he grunted, combing his fingertips through his long hair, trying to blink his eyes. “Am I blind?”

“No, you’re not blind. You’re…oh, what do you think you’re doing? You beast!”

Rolf had grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her into the shower, clothes and all.

“Stop blathering like a magpie and remove the poison from my body. Now! And best you make sure I can see again or I will wring your scrawny neck, witch or no witch. Especially if my cock turns purple.”

Witch? Purple? Shipbuilder or not, this guy is weird
. With a harrumphing sound of disgust, Meredith soon helped him rinse off and, using a washcloth, cleaned his eyes, which were bloodshot, but not blind.

Instead of being grateful, Rolf cursed her name under his breath. That was when she noticed his eyes were riveted on her wet blouse. The silky fabric had become plastered to her body, the pale beige color practically transparent. To her horror, she saw her pink aureoles and pointed nipples were clearly visible. He cursed again, and she realized that his expletive was one of male frustration, not anger.

With a swift movement, Rolf placed his hands on her waist and braced her up against the far wall. As he
molded his hips to hers with erotic insistence, his mouth lowered. “What else do men and women do in these magical showers?” he breathed against her lips.

Meredith should have braced her hands against his hairy chest and shoved him away with indignation. She was a college professor. She had a doctorate degree in medieval studies. She was a principled woman of the nineties, not a brainless bimbo.

The logical side of her brain said,
Stop!
The other side of her brain said,
Hmmmm
. For once in her empty life, Meredith decided to take the illogical path. Raising her chin under the still-steaming shower, she met his lips and opened for his kiss. And Meredith was glad, glad, glad that she’d done so.

The Viking—whoever he was—played her mouth with finesse. Back and forth he rubbed his firm lips against hers until she was pliant and whimpering. Only then did he deepen his kiss, devouring her with a wild hunger.

“Three months has it been since I’ve had a woman,” he murmured when he came up for air.

“It’s been three years since I’ve had a man,” she countered, nipping at his bottom lip.
Oh, my God! Is this really me, nipping at a man’s lips
?

He grinned down at her. “Then our mating should prove spectacular.”

Before she had a chance to digest that remarkable pronouncement, or say something really stupid, like “Let the games begin,” he plunged his tongue into her mouth and used both hands to palm her breasts.

Her knees buckled.

His hardened penis, pressed against the vee of her thighs, held her up.

They both moaned…into each other’s mouths.

“What is that ringing noise?” he gritted out.

Despite her passion-induced haze, Meredith recognized the telephone. For a second, she just stared blankly at the gorgeous man who stood before her, his kiss-swollen lips parted and panting. His Jack Daniels eyes were glowing with passion. His nude body ground against hers with intimate persuasion.

A stranger. She was about to have hot sex with a stranger. Had she lost her mind?

Meredith blinked at him, belatedly coming to her senses.

He blinked back at her in confusion, and she used that opportunity to shove him away and jump out of the shower. She heard him shouting after her as she ran down the hall, leaving puddles of water, but she didn’t wait to hear what he said. Grabbing the cordless phone in the living room, she gasped out, “Hello.”

“Mer, is that you?” her sister Jillian asked. “You sound funny.”

“I just came from the shower.”
Boy, did I just come from the shower! More like I almost came in the shower. Whew!

“Oh, sorry. What’s new?”