Unable to refute his last statement, she attacked on another front instead, one she had a legitimate grievance over. “The next time you decide to sweep us back in time, Thorn, kindly inform me about it beforehand. Waking up in strange places has a way of putting me in a really rotten mood.”
“So I have noticed.”
“No you haven’t,” she corrected him. “You didn’t get to see that mood, because you weren’t here when I woke up. The mood you’re seeing now is a result of your not having been here to see the other. ‘He is conferring with the duke,’ I was told. Why the hell couldn’t you have waited for me?”
“Because ’twas not even dawn when I left, and you needed your rest—after last night.”
She gave him another glare, because he’d managed to make her blush with that pointed reminder of what had passed between them last night. What a rotten tactic, she thought, to stir up soft, mellow, sensual memories in the middle of an argument. She wasn’t going to let it work, and pushed those warm feelings away, telling her awakening body to cut it out. Quickly, she turned around to march away from Thorn.
Unfortunately, she forgot to kick her long skirts out of the way. Stepping on them sent her toppling to the floor, facedown, in a heap of skirts and acute embarrassment. How could she be so clumsy when she’d been doing so well at getting her complaints on record? She wasn’t going to move, ever—at least not until he left.
Thorn had other ideas. With one hand, he turned her over. His other hand took hers and was about to pull her up when he must have changed his mind. His knees hit the floor beside her. His chest was suddenly pressing against hers. And his mouth, well, his mouth was reminding her that she really did love the way he kissed.
So much for complaints and high tempers, she thought. That easily, he made her forget what they’d been scolding each other about. And it was quite some time before Roseleen was capable of any coherent thoughts. By then, she really didn’t care.
23
“You do that very well,” Roseleen said, her fingers drawing circles around the hard nub of Thorn’s nipple.
She didn’t need to be more explicit. He knew she was referring to his lovemaking. That the remark produced a blush in him made her smile. He wouldn’t be used to twentieth-century frankness. She wasn’t used to it either, for that matter, but for some reason, she felt she could say just about anything to him.
“It’s true, you know,” she continued. “Not that I’ve had much experience at this sort of thing, mind you”—that with a grin. “But when you manage to bring me to climax twice in a matter of minutes, well, I can guarantee you the average Joe can’t boast of such a rare accomplishment—at least not truthfully anyway.”
“’Tis unseemly, of what you speak,” he grumbled.
Was his blush a little darker? She almost laughed. It really was amusing to see this big, fearless, battle-hardened Viking getting embarrassed by her talking about sex.
So she asked him, “How can anything that was that beautiful be unseemly?”
“’Tis for doing, not discussing.”
“Why?”
He started to get up, his way of avoiding the subject. They were still lying on the floor where that beautiful experience had taken place. She leaned over him to keep him there. He let her have her way, but his expression was quite disgruntled now.
She did laugh this time, unable to help it. “Go ahead, call me brazen. I know you’re dying to.”
“Aye, you are that.” He snorted.
“You still haven’t told me why.”
“Such loose talk is for prostitutes and…”
He thought better of finishing. Wise of him, but too late, since it was easy enough for her to complete the statement for him. “Lemans?” she said, and was amazed that she felt no anger as she said the word this time. She was even able to ask, “What we just did, doesn’t that make me your leman—to your way of thinking?”
“It makes you my woman.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Aye.”
That had her brow shooting up at a skeptical slant, “Oh, and what would that be?”
“A man does not take his leman to wed.”
Roseleen became very still upon hearing that. A sort of panic set in, but with it, and contradicting it, was a warm feeling similar to joy—which she had to be mistaken about. Marry Thorn Blooddrinker? Of course she couldn’t. He was a thousand years old. He could disappear on her at will. And she was probably certifiably crazy, and imagining this whole experience and him.
Yet nothing in the world would have kept her from asking, “You’re saying you would wed me?”
“Aye.”
And then hesitantly, with bated breath, “Are you asking me to wed?”
“When ’tis time for asking, you will not be in doubt, Roseleen.”
Her expression turned abruptly to chagrin at that point. “So you aren’t asking?”
“There needs be some taming done, ere you will make a good wife,” he informed her matter-of-factly.
She reared up until she was kneeling beside him. Her chocolate-brown eyes sparked with rancor. “Taming? Taming! I’m not a damn animal that you can snap your fingers at. I thought I’d made that perfectly clear in previous discussions. And I wouldn’t marry you if you were—!”
She didn’t get a chance to finish telling him the facts of liberated life. In no more time than it would have taken to snap her own fingers, she was flat on her back again with his body half covering hers. It was a sensual way for him to remind her that they were both still naked.
But more lovemaking wasn’t on his mind, complaining was, and he didn’t hesitate one little bit. “You do need taming, wench. You are a veritable shrew.”
She gasped. “I am not!”
“Are you not?” he countered. “Do you not yell at the least provocation? Do you not rail at me for what only you perceive as faults? Verily, you are more oft in a temper than not.”
Roseleen just passed from simmering to boiling, but managed somehow to say in a moderately level tone, “Get off me, you jerk.”
At which point the big jerk grinned down at her. “Nay, I am most comfortable at present. Such close proximity allows for swift quieting, do you think to yell again.”
He was talking about kissing her to shut her up. It had worked for him before. He probably thought it would work every time. He was in for a rude awakening if he tried it now. But she wanted up and away from him, pronto. She was fairly choking on the insults she had just received. However, she found that getting that big, heavy body to move was an impossible task unless he cooperated with her, and at the moment, it didn’t look as if he would.
“All right, what’s it going to take to get you to back off?”
His finger brushed her cheek as he said, “Is this what you really want?”
“Right now? Damn right.”
He moved, but not to let her up. He covered her completely instead, and let his weight settle slowly against her. His head came to rest against her breast. For some unfathomable reason known only to him, he hadn’t believed her. Either that, or the man was going to have his way regardless of her feelings on the matter, and she sincerely hoped he wasn’t that high-handed.
“Did I make mention, Roseleen, of how fetching you looked in these clothes you wore?”
She knew he was changing the subject in an attempt to defuse her anger. And it even worked for a moment, the mention of clothes reminding her that Thorn had been wearing new ones himself, not those that had been left in her shower last night. And he certainly hadn’t borrowed his long brown tunic and cross-gartered leggings from her brother’s closet.
“Did you go to Valhalla for a change of clothes?” she asked without thinking.
He leaned up to show her that he was still amused, his grin proving it. “How, then, could I have returned here, without your summoning me?”
She really hated stupid questions, especially when they were hers. “All right, so where did you get su
ch perfect-fitting clothes on such short notice? You’re not exactly an average medieval size, easy to accommodate.”
“The clothes are mine from my previous time here. There are more in yonder trunk.”
She recalled then what she had suspected earlier, and all the questions she had wanted to ask him. She wasn’t exactly in an information-gathering mood, but some of those questions were too pertinent to put aside until she was, particularly…
“You aren’t in danger of running into yourself here, are you?”
“Nay.”
“But the boy Guy spoke as if he’s known you for a long time.”
“So he has.”
“Okay, let’s say my mind isn’t functioning with a full load today, because I don’t understand.”
He recognized the sarcasm in her tone, but he had some definite trouble with the content of that sarcasm. “Neither do I understand your meaning.”
She sighed and tried to clarify. “If I were thinking properly, I could probably figure this out for myself, but since I’m not, why don’t you explain it to me. You were here previously. Guy knows you. So why aren’t you going to run into yourself?”
“Because I had already departed from this time. I have brought you and me here to the very day that the possessor of my sword ceased to exit, thus was I released from your world’s time and returned to mine on that day.”
“Ceased to exit? You mean she died?”
“So I assumed. That has always been the means that allowed my release from this world ere you received Blooddrinker’s Curse. You are the only one of all the possessors who has seen fit to send me away. The others readily accepted the power of the sword and kept me in their times. Nor would they part with the sword, giving or selling it to another, which could have released me if that other were not a woman. Thus was I bound to them until each of them ceased to exit.”
“But you don’t really know for certain if the woman here died. You didn’t see it happen, right?”
“Nay, she resided in Anjou.”
She remembered what the boy had said, about being given to Thorn for training. “It was Guy’s sister, wasn’t it?” she asked. “Blythe?”
“He made mention of her?”
“Yes, this morning.”
Thorn nodded. “Aye. She and her brother are both wards of Lord William. Her loyalty to her liege lord was admirable. I was here at her bidding, to guard William’s back and support his cause.”
“Why did you agree to that? It certainly wasn’t your cause—no, don’t answer that,” she said with mild disgust. “Dumb question. Any upcoming battle is exactly where you’d want to be.”
His grin turned into an outright laugh. “Think you, you know me so well, do you?”
“When it comes to fighting?” she snorted. “Yes, I’ve got you pegged squarely.” His confused frown had her correcting before he asked, “That is, I know your sentiments on the subject exactly.”
“Mayhap,” he allowed. “Yet in this instance, the cause was a good one. William is the rightful king of England. The English will be made to regret the choosing of the usurper, Harold Godwineson, in his stead.”
Hearing that, she felt like laughing. Offhand, she could name a dozen scholarly sources who disagreed with the Norman’s right to the English crown. William the Bastard was simply an ambitious man of his times. Yet history was history and couldn’t be refuted. The man did become the first Norman king of England and tied up that country in a pretty ribbon for his descendants. And yes, the English had been made to regret resisting his rule.
She wasn’t going to argue with Thorn about it, though. She knew the facts that supported both sides of the argument, whereas he didn’t, so she had an unfair advantage over him on that score. Besides, the subject reminded her that she wanted to know how much time they had before the Normans set sail for England.
So she asked, “What day is this?”
“A day for celebration.” He grinned. “The fleet that has been gathering all summer is finally large enough to accommodate the entire army in one crossing. All is in readiness now, and we have news that Harold Godwineson has abandoned his vigil of the southern coast. We sail on the morrow.”
“You mean William actually found out that Harold was forced to disband his army due to lack of provisions?” she questioned excitedly. “This is incredible! It was documented, of course, that Harold had to disband because the bulk of his army, which was composed of peasants, couldn’t be contained once harvest time approached. But nowhere is it written that William was aware of this.”
Thorn shrugged. “It matters not.”
“Of course it matters. This is the kind of unknown information I had hoped I would learn in coming here.” And then she grinned, glad that he hadn’t done what she was about to point out. “But you know, you could have just answered my first question and told me the date, and I would have known exactly what is going on. So how did William learn about Harold’s return to London?”
“That news came from an English spy during his interrogation.”
She winced, imagining the degree of torture the poor fellow had to have undergone, to divulge something that important to his enemies. “Amazing. And of course, that would explain why William was so impatient and frustrated with that north wind that prevented him from sailing from Saint-Valery for a whole two weeks.”
“Saint-Valery? We sail from the mouth of the Dives, where the fleet has assembled.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, her knowledge of what was going to happen making her tone slightly condescending. “But the fleet moves to Saint-Valery on the Somme in order to be within closer striking distance.”
“Nay, why would you think so? For what reason would we not sail directly for the southern coast of England when we know it is presently unprotected?”
“Because on a shorter crossing there will be less chance of encountering the English fleet…Wait a minute!” She frowned. “If William knows that Harold returned to London, does he also know that the English fleet dispersed? Is that why he would sail directly to—no, it doesn’t matter. It’s on record that he moves his fleet to Saint-Valery on the twelfth of September, regardless of whatever he found out about the English armies’ movements.”
“Best you change that record,” Thorn told her, “because this day is the first of September, and the fleet will sail on the morrow—for England.”
Roseleen paled. “But it can’t. That isn’t the way it happened.”
24
Before Roseleen panicked for no reason, she wanted to verify the facts. “You could be mistaken about the date, couldn’t you?” she demanded of Thorn. “You could have brought us here to the wrong day, and that means that your other self is still running around here somewhere and could walk in on us at any moment.”
“Nay, the day is correct.”
“But it can’t be,” she said, panic creeping up on her despite her resolve. “Did you ask someone around here? Did someone tell you specifically that today is September first?”
“Lord William made mention of it himself,” he answered, “when he informed his barons that we would depart with the morning tide.”
She shook her head, searching desperately for a way to contradict that alarming statement, and it came to her after several agonizing moments. “A false start! Of course, that has to be it. Maybe the duke did intend to sail for England tomorrow, but something will happen to prevent it. And none of this was ever documented. He’ll sail on the twelfth as he’s supposed to, and—don’t shake your head at me. That is what’s going to happen.”
“What could prevent our sailing, when the time is ripe to attack, and the ships are stocked and ready?”
“Another north wind, for one thing,” she told him. “That’s what stops the fleet from sailing from Saint-Valery on the twelfth, and—”
She didn’t finish. That couldn’t be right. If one north wind was documented, why not the other? It would have been just as important. And so was that spy. There had
been mention of another spy who had been captured and sent back to King Harold with William’s boasting message that if he didn’t get to England within a year’s time, then Harold could stop worrying about him. So why was there no mention of this one, whose confession nearly—?
“Wait a minute,” she said, frowning. “If this is only the first of September, the information obtained from that spy can’t be true. Harold Godwineson doesn’t abandon the south of England until the eighth of September. If you sail tomorrow, you’d be sailing into an ambush that could cost William the crown of England.”
“The spy—”
“Could have been sent here purposely to get caught and convey that false information.”
“And to die?”
She winced, but she should have known that would have been the spy’s fate. “Don’t sound so skeptical. Such sacrifices have been made many times before, for any number of reasons. Sometimes a man will volunteer out of simple loyalty, but more likely it’s a man who’s going to die anyway, either for his crimes or because of some disease, a man who has family and is promised by the powers-that-be that his loved ones will be taken care of.”
“You know this for certain?”
She sighed. “No, of course not, but I do know for certain that Harold would just love for the Normans to arrive now, while he still has all his resources handy, including a much bigger army than William’s, because he hasn’t yet been called north to fight his brother, Tostig, and the Norwegian threat.”
“The Norwegian threat? Harold Hardrada of Norway finally attacks?”
It surprised her for a moment that he didn’t know that, when that battle had been the last great Viking attack, and the last great triumph of an Old English army. But she was forgetting that Thorn had left this time today, on the first of September, and that battle took place later in the month, just days before William finally sailed for England. In fact most scholars agreed that if the Viking king, at Tostig’s urging, hadn’t attacked England at that time, Duke William wouldn’t have won at Hastings.