Season of the Sun Read Free Page B

frustrated, which he was, yet he smiled down at her then, and it was a smile of sincerity and tenderness and it made something shift inside her, something warm and wondrous strange, something unusual and unknown. “You are a woman of importance to me. I will move more slowly, though it pains me to have to do so, but hear this, Zarabeth: I will have you as my wife and that will happen very soon. I wish to return home in ten days.”
    â€œTen days! Why, ’tis impossible! You ask me to—” She broke off, words for once in her life failing her. She waved her hands wildly around her. “This is my home, where I’ve spent the past ten years of my life! I know nothing of your Norway, save that all its people are fair and blond and brutal and vicious. They sail into towns in their long boats and they murder and ravish and take everything!”
    â€œI am not vicious.”
    â€œAh, do you not go araiding then? Do you not steal and pillage and rape and destroy?”
    â€œFrom time to time. One grows bored, and there is always need for coin and for silver and gold. It is the wanderlust too that seems to be bred in all Vikings. Undiscovered places to explore, peoples you cannot imagine living in strange ways and wearing strange clothing and speaking in gibberish tongues. I will take you with me, at least when I am trading, if you would wish to go with me.”
    â€œBut you are brutal.”
    â€œFrom time to time,” he said again, and smiled. “When it is necessary. I am not a needlessly cruelman, Zarabeth. I will protect you with my life, you will see. It is what I would owe you as your husband.”
    â€œYou seem to claim there is much owed to me, were I to accept you as my husband. But you command me now, when I scarce know you, and you expect me to obey you in all things. I owe you nothing, truly. You must—”
    He ignored her words. He clasped her hand and turned it over in his and stared down at her palm. There were calluses on the pads of her fingers, and her hands were reddened from work. “I told you that I am not a poor man. You will have servants to see to the hardest work, and you will direct them. Aye, you will sew my tunics and see that my food is prepared properly, but your hands will be white again, for me, to soothe my temples when my thoughts are harsh, to stroke my back when my muscles are knotted, to caress me when I wish to bed you.”
    She stared at him, unable to look away. She’d never met his like before. This painful boldness of his. This matter-of-factness that gave no doubts as to his thoughts or intentions. And when he spoke of bedding her, of her hands touching him . . . it was unnerving, and at the same time, she felt excitement pool deep in her belly. She felt suddenly alive, every sense awakened by his words and by his look.
    â€œI will have you, Zarabeth.”
    â€œI must speak to my stepfather,” she said, desperate now because she’d never seen this man before this afternoon, desperate at what he’d made her feel in only a few moments. He was beyond anything she’d ever before known, and he was beyond her ability to grasp, beyond her ability to deal with in her normally forthright manner. She was indecisive still, she was floundering, and it was obvious to him and to her. She looked away, feeling at once ridiculous andconfused. “I must speak to my stepfather,” she said again.
    He smiled then, for it was his triumph, his victory, and why not savor it for the moment? He had chosen her and she would come to him. He had been clear in his intentions, not mincing matters, and she’d bowed to him. He was certain of it, and quite pleased with himself. “Very well. I will be patient, Zarabeth. I will see you here on the morrow, after your Christian morning matins.”
    When she only stared up at him, unspeaking, he smiled, lightly touched his fingertips to her chin, and leaned down to swiftly