The Wagered Wench (16 page)

“Soon,” she said softly, “if you are agreeable, we will spend a night together. The three of us. Then I shall choose the man who pleases me most.”

Silence. She took another gulp of spiced air.

“Well? Are we agreed?”

The sun was almost completely over the horizon now and she could not see their eyes, but she heard their breaths—Stryker’s were loud, short, sharp bursts; Dominic’s were slower, deeper.

Again she nodded. Under her gown, where neither man could see, she pressed her thighs tightly together and felt the warmth already flowing. She waited a moment, her heart beating thickly. Finally she said, “Very well then. The three of us. Together. Then my word will be final. You, Stryker, will withdraw your claim, or you, Dominic, will leave.”

And so it was agreed.

Part Three

Ignis

Chapter Thirteen

The waves churned, the sea unsettled today. It was fitting, she thought, standing in the water, pushing her father’s funeral raft with the tallest of the billowing crests. Gudderth would like it this way. If the sea was calm it would take his raft in a slow drift out over the horizon, but as it was, with nature’s temper stirred, he would receive a most memorable, tumultuous send off. And Elsinora organized everything just the way he’d always wanted it. The idea of being buried in the ground, devoured by earthworms and beetles had terrified her father. Now his body would be taken by fire and water. His spirit would be freed in only moments.

Alf stood by with the flaming torch, a blur of amber in the corner of her tear-filled eye.

“Goodbye Papa,” she whispered, planting a final kiss to his cold forehead and then to the rigid fingers clasped over the sword hilt laid against his chest.

Waves lapped at her thighs, pushing and pulling at her gown and at the raft. A rush of tiny pebbles moved under her feet, sucked away by power of the tide. For a moment she was almost swept away into the sea, but Dominic waded out to stand behind her, his hands on her waist.

“Be careful, Elzinora,” he urged as the waves battered her legs and still she clung to the raft, not yet ready to let her father go. “The tide is strong today.”

Did he not think she could feel it for herself? Now that her father was gone, did he think to take over her life completely? Make more rules? Treat her like his serf? She stepped on his foot and writhed out of his grasp, splashing into deeper water.

At her signal, Alf tossed the burning torch and it landed on the raft, flames leaping and fluttering. Straw rushes placed around her father’s body and soaked in mutton fat, quickly caught the shower of sparks and ignited.

Elsinora’s feet slipped again as the pebbles moved, the ground shifting under her shoes. Another tall wave almost took her, but again Dominic was there, grabbing her gown, hauling her back to shallower water.

Beside her father’s people, she stood in the sea and watched his burning raft float away, her throat tight with captured sobs. She’d kept her promise down to the last detail. Hopefully, in the end, she had done something to make him proud at last. Finally.

The sun was setting, bathing the world in copper and bronze, but there, against the bumpy horizon a beacon of fierce light now competed with the wilting sun. It glowed and clawed at the sky, sparks bursting like shooting stars.

Alf and the other men sank to their knees in the sand and watched in silent awe as Gudderth’s spirit flew free with the smoke and the darting flames.

That evening at supper the villagers came, one by one or in couples, to lay gifts at his feet, pledge fealty and—a few of them—to beg boons of their new master. Elsinora watched it all with narrowed eyes. Her father was dead for only two days and life swiftly moved on, the Norman stepping easily into his place, thanks to those months of preparation for this moment. She’d heard Alf say that bringing Dominic Coeur-du-Loup to Lyndower was the wisest thing Gudderth ever did. They were all unaware that the Norman cheated with his dice to beat Gudderth. But would they even care if they knew?

“Eat your food, Elzinora,” Dominic said to her, gesturing at her full platter.

“I cannot eat,” she muttered, sullen. “I am sick.”

He looked at her with a sudden, hopeful expression. “Mayhap you are with child?” Of course he hoped for that to solidify his place as her husband.

She sighed. “I am sick because I just lost my father.” Had he forgotten already?

“Ah.” Now he seemed crestfallen, his gaze lowered to the table. “Of course. But you must still eat.”

He was always trying to make her eat, she realized, irritated. Perhaps he preferred plump women like Aelin. Pressing her lips tightly together, she shoved her platter away, certain the taste of the food would choke her now. She saw him glance at the platter again but he made no comment. It was probably, in his eyes, just another example of her disobedience to him.

Looking across the hall she caught the woman Aelin watching her husband from a distance, bosom bursting out of her gown as usual. Dominic saw her. Elsinora knew it. In her current grieving mood, the fact that he pretended not to see the other woman struck her as sinister. Only that morning, entering the cookhouse unseen by the others, she’d overheard two of the maids discussing Aelin and her husband. Apparently Aelin had shared vivid details of several encounters with Coeur-du-Loup.

Elsinora did not confront him about it. With her father’s passing on her mind, she had no time to deal with other matters. Now she wondered if it was even worth mentioning to him. So he had once told her that when he married he would never have another woman. It was likely a lie to confuse her. A man capable of cheating with crooked dice, was certainly capable of a simple lie.

Hurt choked in her throat. Her father was gone. Everything was in flux, the ground moving beneath her, just as the sand and pebbles had shifted under her feet today. She wished the tide had taken her too.

He saw her run out of the hall, but he let her go. Her mood had been strange that day, but she mourned for her father no doubt. Let her cry her tears. Better out than held in.

The woman Aelin was watching him again, smiling in that “come hither” way through the leaping flames of the fire pit in the center of the hall. She needed something else to occupy her thoughts, he mused. Perhaps he should send her to Bloodaxe. Not much substitute for the pixie though, was she? Bloodaxe would probably be further insulted by such a gesture.

Suddenly he couldn’t eat anymore. He stood, flinging his mantle over his shoulder, and walked out after his wife.

It was cooler now in the evenings, the leaves on the trees turning brittle, edged in gold. Despite the changing seasons it had not rained for several weeks. The ground was dry, the water low in the trough as he walked by. Months had passed since he washed his wife’s maiden blood from her legs in that trough. It felt like only days.

Glancing to the left he saw her perched on a five-barred gate, watching the pigs in their sty. Was she weeping for her father? He thought so. Pondering how to deal with his wife’s grief, he hesitated, pretending to pause and examine one of the carthorses currently being groomed in the yard. He exchanged a few words with the young boy combing the horse’s mane, but in his peripheral vision he watched Elsinora. He shoulders were hunched, her head down. If he tried to comfort her, he knew she would curse at him, as she did today on the sands when he kept her from being swept away on the fierce waves.

Too afraid to approach, not knowing how best to handle her tears, he hurried in the other direction.

* * * *

The only soul who came to commiserate with her, was the little boy Nat. He too was feeling lost without her father, it seemed, and he sat with her to reminisce.

“I wish things could go back to what they were before,” he said.

Elsinora nodded. “I agree with you heartily, young Nat.” But things couldn’t to go back, could they? Her father’s spirit had flown, the Norman was building his castle on the hill, and Stryker Bloodaxe hovered like an eagle. A handsome scavenger, but a scavenger nonetheless. No one cared that she’d lost everything. They only wanted to take more from her.

Suddenly the little boy reached for her hand and held it, looking up at her with eyes big as moons. “I told you I will help you, my lady Elsinora. I will save you.”

“Yes, my dear, brave Nat, I remember what you told me. ‘Tis a pity no one else cares as you do. These men only want me for my father’s land.”

“The Norman is cruel to you, my lady?”

Before she even gave it much thought she replied, “Yes.” Through her tears she saw him walking away, his mantle fanning out behind him, caught on the evening breeze. One by one he stopped to talk to the stable lads, more interested in them than he was in his wife.

She was nothing to anyone—simply a piece of property that came with Lyndower. And not a very useful piece.

He had tricked her with his prowess in bed, made her think he liked her, but he probably said and did all the same things to any other woman he tupped. She’d been played for a fool. Besides, how did she know if he was really that good at what he did? She’d never had another man she might compare with him. He’d married her to please her father and gain his trust. Now he was fully in charge. Lyndower was his. She was surplus.

Well, tonight she’d find out the truth when he watched her make love to another man.

It was her idea, was it not? Too late to back out now. For any of them.

Chapter Fourteen

They’d agreed on the roofless hovel by the cliffs. Dominic had filled it with fleeces, hides and furs to make it comfortable. This was the best he could do—he would not let the Dane use his bed and he would not let Elsinora go to Stryker’s bed. This, therefore, was a compromise. Here he would take another gamble, one last toss of the dice to win this troublesome woman. It had to be done. She had to know that she’d made the right decision. Whichever decision that was in the end, he would abide by it.

After all, a few months ago he’d been free and easy, alone. He could be the same again, surely. If she chose Stryker Bloodaxe, he’d leave and never look back.

His rival appeared first, cantering up the hill on a plow horse. Dominic, watching him under the bright, full harvest moon, was forced to compare their looks and find himself lacking. If Elsinora based her choice on a handsome face, Stryker would win without a doubt.

That meant, of course, that he’d just have to work harder at bringing her pleasure.

As the other man dismounted and entered the hovel, ducking his head beneath the low door frame, Dominic reminded him curtly, “We are agreed, Bloodaxe—whatever the lady’s decision, we both abide by it.”

“I agreed already, did I not?”

“Just making sure.”

“Well, while we’re
making sure
, let’s agree to this—” he flung his riding gloves down and proceeded to remove his mantle. “After tonight, until she makes her decision we neither of us touch her again. No further influencing her choice or trying to outdo the other man.”

Dominic nodded slowly. “After tonight. Until she makes her decision, we’ll leave her be. Agreed.”

A few moments later the lady herself arrived on foot wearing a hooded cloak and holding a rush torch. “I knew neither of you would think to bring light,” she muttered. “Or warmth.”

“We have the moon. ‘Tis full tonight.”

“And we’ll keep you warm, Elsie.”

While they both slowly undressed, she carefully ignited each torch placed in holders around the stone walls. Dominic got the sense she delayed her own disrobing, as she did on their wedding night. Perhaps she’d lost her nerve. But when it was time to remove her cloak he discovered this was not the case at all.

She was stark naked under that cloak. And prepared. Her skin had a soft glow to it, as if she’d rubbed herself with oils and when she passed near he smelled sweet, mouthwatering herbs.

The woman need not have gone to such trouble. After all, they were there to compete for her. She hardly needed to tempt them. But apparently she had no intention of being a passive participant. Now he was worried. His pulse was unsteady.

This was the biggest gamble he’d ever played and he couldn’t cheat this time.

“Well…” She lay back on the furs, arms stretched over her head. “Who wants to go first?”

She looked directly at Dominic, but Stryker dropped to his knees beside her, still unlacing his breeches with a fumbling hand, his eyes hot with desire. Dominic watched the other man’s taut, muscular buttocks move over his wife and felt his own cock harden. He shifted around for a better view point, wanting to look at Elsinora’s pussy as she spread her legs for the other man. He couldn’t tell if she was wet or not, but he guessed she would be. The woman was full of passionate needs, denied for too long while she held marriage at bay.

He’d watched men fucking women many times. As a young man growing up in army camps, he’d seen it all and often participated. He did like to watch, although he knew his face reddened. He couldn’t help it. Eventually his needs would take over and the blush would fade. Slipping off his breeches, he knelt on the ground. He would not touch himself. But he would watch every moment, especially Elsinora’s face.