The Wagered Wench (3 page)

“You are Gudderth’s
only
daughter?” He had fully prepared himself for something with warts and horns, since her father’s praise of the girl was so fulsome and suspiciously overexcited. Usually a man who spoke that highly of a daughter he could not be rid of, sought to hide something unfortunate.

It seemed as if she thought he should have heard of her. In truth he was surprised he hadn’t. Seldom had he seen a woman so fair. And haughty. One glance from her heavily-lashed, painfully-blue eyes made him conscious of the scar that marked his face. At thirty he should be accustomed to the frightened looks of young maids when they beheld his ugliness. He thought he was, until that moment.

It was not a question, just a statement thickly spread with a layer of disgust. Dominic nodded again, thrusting more stew into his mouth, thick gravy dropping to his beard.

“You may stay the night if you wish,” she muttered reluctantly. “I owe you that much for bringing him home to us. I’m sure a pallet can be spared for you among my father’s serfs.”

He scraped the thing she called a “spoon” around his plate, chasing a lump of meat. When he failed to capture it, he tossed the spoon aside and ate with his fingers in the custom more familiar to him. She passed him a bowl of bread to mop up the gravy and he grabbed a lump in his fist. Crumbs sneezed across the table as he crushed it between his fingers. “Any ale?”

“Gives me a headache,” he added, gesturing with the bread, tapping it to his forehead. “Saxons should stick to brewing ale.”

She considered for a moment, eyes burning into his. He could almost see his shape reflected in the great aquamarine whirlpools that sucked him in and spat him out. Apparently she held her temper. Just. She turned and summoned the stout woman standing in the shadows. “Fetch the ale jug, Bertha.” She lowered her voice. “But don’t fill it all the way. And not my father’s best brew.”

Dominic slowly picked meat out of his teeth with one finger. After going hungry so long his stomach let out a mighty grumble of content.

The woman across the table pushed her plate away, her food uneaten. “Drunk a lot of pee have you, Norman?”

He looked at her through the fat, sputtering tallow candles, measuring every bony inch of her shoulders, noting the slight dent in her petulant lower lip, the superior angle of her nostrils and the fine arch of her brows.

“If you are so familiar with the taste,” she added smugly, apparently thinking him too stupid to understand her comment.

With one bite he devoured the bread in his hand and chewed hard. She was a devastatingly handsome woman, he thought, but she needed a few good meals to put some flesh on her bones. As she was now, a strong gust of wind might carry her off over a cliff edge and into the sea, just when a man had invested time and patience in her guidance.

Each time her gaze traveled to the scar on his face she almost flinched, but put on a brave front. Only the rapid rise and fall of her breasts—a mere hint of a swell under that shapeless, unflattering woolen gown—betrayed her anxiety.

“And we are not Saxons here,” she exclaimed. “We are of Dane blood.”

Some generations passed, he thought dismissively, just as he was of Viking ancestry, but now considered himself Norman.

He glanced around the hall. There were only a few servants in attendance, a motley group of individuals, frightened looking wenches and knock-kneed boys. No wonder the old man, Gudderth, was so desperate for someone to take the place in hand and protect it. He’d traveled with the old man slung over the rump of his horse, no signs of other settlements along the road for miles. This must be the end of the world, he mused, a fleeting spark of whimsy passing through his mind. And here before him sat the pixie princess, ready to use her spells upon him.

Her eyes gleamed angrily through the misty aura of candlelight. She wore a circlet of white sea shells around her head and her hair, the color of sun-ripened wheat, was tied back in a long, plump braid. He would like very much to see that hair loose.

A strangely intense charge of excitement heated his groin. He was unsettled by it and his next words shot out too loudly, with more boldness than he would usually have in the presence of an attractive woman. “Yes, my lady, I’ve drunk my share of piss. In some of the places I’ve been sent to fight, it was the lesser of two evils.”

“It is fortunate for you,” he added, “that I found him when I did, or else you could have found yourself at the mercy of much worse than me.”

A scornful laugh shadowed her reply, “Much worse than you? What can you mean?”

The candle flames ducked violently in a draft as the main doors opened again to readmit the woman with the ale jug. Dominic lost his courage, looked at his plate and thought of finishing his supper quickly, then leaving this place. But suddenly he caught sight of Elsinora’s hands resting on the table. She had small, slender fingers that might break as easily as twigs and her nails were bitten down almost to the quick. This woman, however proud, would never survive alone—and her father was sick and frail. The next soldiers that came there may not be like him. They would not be shy to take.

It was no good; he could not leave her there unprotected. He would never forget that prim little face peering at him through the candles and those fingers, curled as they were now, to hide her bitten nails. She was just a girl. What did he have to fear? Of course, she thought him ugly, a hideous monster, but there was naught he could do about that. He shouldn’t be afraid to tell her the truth about his presence there. What would she do, spit at him? He took a quick survey of the table and saw no sharp implements within her reach.

Time to tell her why he was there.

“Your father made a bet with his lands and his property,” said Dominic slowly, uneasily. “He lost. I won.”

She licked her lips. That extra color in her face had faded. “I cannot imagine any knight of honor, even a Norman, would hold a man to his wager, if it was clearly given when his judgment was clouded by bad ale.”

He gave no answer. In truth he had not taken Gudderth’s bet seriously in the beginning. He had only brought the old man home as a charitable deed, certain he would otherwise be robbed and left for dead on the side of the road.

But charitable thoughts turned to other things when he laid eyes on Elsinora and took quick measure of her plight.

“I can assure you, Norman, there is no place for you here, so you can take your dice and find another man to cheat. No law in the land will support such a claim.”

He signaled for the ale jug and the other woman brought it, pouring some in a fresh cup. “But your father is most anxious to have me here for the protection of his fief. He tells me the place is in need of strong, new blood.”

“My father is drunk and does not know his own mind.” She stood abruptly, fists clenched at her sides. “Tomorrow when he is sober he will send you on your way.”

“I think not.” He took a swig of ale and smacked his lips. “I think tomorrow he will slap me on the back and call me son.”

She stared, eyes widened even further.

Well, he was one foot in now, no point hanging back with the other, like a timid fool. “And since he raised the wager to include
everything
he owns, that includes his daughter.” He held out his cup for more ale and winced with as much apology as he could summon for the skinny wench. “You, my lady, are now my property, too.”

Chapter Three

Gudderth lay on the bed, snoring with his mouth open, still fully clothed, his boots hanging off the bed, remnants of a previous meal clinging to his graying beard.

“Father, wake up!”

He smacked his lips, smiled and nestled his head further into the bolster. Elsinora dipped her hand in the water ewer beside his bed and impatiently flicked cold drops onto his face.

“Wake up at once! What have you done, father?”

He blinked, sputtered, and sat up. Only to immediately fall back again. “Speak soft, Elsie. I have Roman centurions marching through my head and the one in the rear drags a drum along the ground on a broken strap.” His brow wrinkled. “And several empty wooden bowls on a string. I can’t think why he does not pick them up.”

“Father, is this true? Have you given me away like a fat sow to pay a wagered debt?” She was so angry she could barely get the words out.

“I’ve found you a good, strong husband. At last my duty is done. Now the devil can take me.”

Elsinora felt the horror sinking in—a nightmare becoming cold, stark reality. She’d dreaded something like this would come to pass, that her father would give up waiting for her to marry Stryker, or for Count Robert to send a gallant knight to marry her. Gudderth was convinced, for some time now, of his own impending death, making the marriage of his daughter even more urgent. But never could she have imagined he would grow this desperate and bring her a beast like that one currently sitting in the Eaorl’s chair in the great hall, eating everything in sight and criticizing the wine she made herself. If she must marry, she would have preferred a handsome man, educated and well-mannered. Clean.

“How could you do this to me, father?” She sought desperately for a way out. “I would rather wed Stryker Bloodaxe than this man I do not know.”

Gudderth snorted into his bolster, eyes closed again. “Nonsense. You and I both know you would never accept Bloodaxe. You only say you’d marry him now because he’s gone off to lick his wounds after your last quarrel and no one knows when he’ll return.”

Elsinora groaned, seeing clearly now what had happened and how the soldier currently gobbling Bertha’s stew, as if it was his last meal, had taken advantage of her father’s drunken state.

“I will not marry that filthy monster. He can go back from whence he came.” She folded her arms grandly, flicking her braid over her shoulder with a proud toss of her head. “If he imagines he can scare me into defeat, that I would stand idly by and let him take everything that should be mine, he can think again.” She couldn’t get over the way he looked at her. Elsinora had known admiring glances from men ever since she turned sixteen and her curves blossomed, but never before had she felt herself stripped naked and held down by a pair of fierce eyes so dark they were almost black. He had not merely admired her; he had branded her with his crest, marked her as bought and sold.

“He has no manners, no graces. He is rough, filthy and crude. My skin crawls at the very thought of being touched by him.” It was true that something new happened to her skin at the thought of his hands on her, and this was the best way she could describe it. “Yet you think you have found me a suitable husband. This is all I am worth to you, father? Your devoted only daughter to be given away on a roll of the dice?”

“Don’t whine, Elsie. I’m sure you’ll manage. You’re the last in a long line of explorers and adventurers. Your ancestors sailed here in a longboat through a thick fog, not knowing where they would end up. They survived and so will you.”

There was no reasoning with her father in his current state. She knew that before she confronted him, but her temper ran away with her and she’d needed some excuse to leave the hall rather than sit any longer with that foul man who’d come to ruin everything for her, take everything from her—even her own choice.

“Now be a good girl for once and leave me in peace while I draw my last breath.”

With a gasp of fury, she ran out of his chamber before she might feel inclined to empty that ewer over his head.

If she could not talk sense to her inebriated father, perhaps she could attempt it with the monster. He would not understand reason, of course, being a simple brute, built and trained for battle, but he might be bribed.

She took her mother’s broach, her rings, and her circlet of amber stones and offered them all to him. He lingered at the table, still filling his belly on her hospitality.

Leaning his arms on the table, he explained to her in a low, condescending tone, that since he now possessed all her father’s property those “baubles” were already his too. “Besides,” he added, “it is not true that this is all you have to give me.” The left corner of his lip jerked upward.