Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 02] (40 page)

Ubbi was right.

Selik banged his bruised fists, then his head, against the timber walls of the barn. How could he have been so blind? How could he have been so cruel?

Because you’re human
.

Selik stormed out of the barn and turned his horse for Jorvik. He had to talk to Rain immediately.

Gyda’s house was dark and silent when he arrived, everyone already having retired for the evening. He waved aside a guard who recognized him and entered without knocking. Weaving his way through the dark in the familiar household, he made his way toward the upper guest room.

Rain lay on the small pallet, awake and staring at the ceiling. Candlelight flickered over her golden features, and Selik stopped momentarily in the doorway, frozen by his rapidly beating heart and his love for this woman from the future.

Rain jerked upright when she noticed his presence. “What are you doing here, Selik?” she asked coldly.

“Forgive me,” he said softly, stepping into the room.

“Forgive
you
? I thought you were going to forgive me,” she remarked coldly, standing and moving to the other side of the room, away from him.

“I kn-know,” he choked out. “I know what Steven did to you, and I will never forgive myself for the things I said, for my lack of trust.”

“Oh, great! One more thing to add to your load of guilt! Do me a favor, Selik, just forget the whole thing. I’m the one who was harmed by Steven. Let it go.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat, and she looked up at him bleakly. In a choked voice, she added, “Let
me
go.”

“That I can never do, heartling.
Never!
Now that I have found you, I will never let you go.”

On those words, he turned and left Rain to her sleep. But sleep eluded her the rest of the night as she pondered all he’d told her, just now and earlier that day. Imagine, little Adam stowing away on a ship. And Selik adopting him. And what about Selik pledging himself to King Athelstan?

At least, she could go home knowing she’d accomplished some good in this mission back in time.

With a troubled mind, Rain doggedly headed toward Coppergate the next afternoon, having finally fallen into a troubled sleep and not awakening until late morning. She knew that if she put off her decision to go back to the future, she might never summon the courage again.

But an odd thing happened. She couldn’t find the Coppergate site. Day after day, for the past few weeks, she’d gone to the site, finding it with no trouble. But suddenly it had disappeared. Well, not exactly disappeared. Where the abandoned building had once stood was now an eight-foot-high timber fence patrolled by two armed guards.

No! He wouldn’t have. Would he?

Rain walked up to one man and said, “I need to go inside that fence.”

“Nay. ’Tis forbidden for anyone to enter.”

“Who says so?”

“The new owner.”

Rain folded her arms across her chest and glared up at the burly guard. “And who might that be?”

“Master Selik of Godwineshire.”

“Godwine…Godwineshire?” Rain stammered out.

“Yea, ’tis the new name for my master’s lands outside Jorvik—the Land of God’s Friend. If ye want to enter this property, ye will have to discuss it with him.”

“Oh, you can be sure I will.”

Rain rode Godsend the two miles beyond the city
to Selik’s farmstead, rehearsing the entire time the tongue-lashing she would give the arrogant Viking. Plagued with painful memories, she refused to look as she passed the cow byre where Selik had told her he loved her for the first time. He had made sweet love to her on that very spot. It seemed so long ago.

As she got closer to his holdings, she noticed a lot of unusual activity. Some workers were plowing the long-dormant fields. Others were rebuilding the house and doing repairs on the barn.

Two more cows and several horses grazed in a temporarily fenced area. She even thought she heard the grunting of pigs and the quacking of ducks.

She dismounted from her horse and was immediately surrounded by children, even Adam who waved to her from the background. He was leaning lazily against the barn with a piece of straw in his mouth—probably “supervising” again.

“Where’s Selik?” she asked him.

He motioned toward the rectangular Viking-style house—a very large house—which was quickly taking shape, its sides already half erected.

She found Selik cutting timbers on the other side of the structure, wearing only low-slung braies and leather shoes.

Oh, Lord
.

He stopped working when he saw her approaching and wiped the sweat from his brow with a forearm—a beautifully muscled forearm, it was, too.

Oh, Lord
.

He smiled.

Oh, Lord
.

She forced herself to look at some point over his shoulder. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Building you a house.”

“What?” She looked quickly back at the building with surprise. That wasn’t what she’d meant. “The Coppergate site. I’m talking about that.”

“Oh, I decided to buy the land. Methinks it will be a good property to hold for future gain,” he said with bald-faced innocence. “What think you?”

“I think you’re crazy. I think your brains have turned to mush. I think you have some nerve. I think—”

“So, what day do you want to get married?”

“Argh!” she screamed, pulling at her hair.

“Do you think Bernie would perform the ceremony for us?”

“You are brain-dead. Do you hear me?”

“Methinks your screeching can be heard all the way to Jorvik, sweetling.”

“And don’t call me that name anymore.”

He grinned. “Oh, did I tell you that King Athelstan asked me an odd question afore I left Winchester? He wanted to know how to find a G-spot. Seems someone was talking to Elgiva and—”

She walked away, face flushing hotly, and didn’t hear the rest of his sentence, but it sounded very explicit.

The next day, Selik showed up at the hospitium, looking absolutely gorgeous in a gray wool tunic with black braies and mantle. His eyes sparkled almost as much as the twelve children who stood beside him in brand-new clothes and shoes, their faces spit-clean from recent baths—even Adam’s hair was slicked back wetly. She wondered how Selik had managed that. Even she had trouble luring the children to bathe.

“I threw them all in the horse trough,” he remarked dryly in answer to her unvoiced question.

“What do you want, Selik?” she asked, looking over to Bernie and Father Theodric, who were frowning in her direction, not liking all the company in the hospitium.

“You,” he said somberly, his eyes no longer glittering with mischief. “Just you.”

The following day Ubbi came, shifting uncomfortably. “Please, mistress, will ye not come home? He is driving everyone mad with all his demands.”

Rain didn’t need to ask who the “he” was.

“He finished the house, fixed up the leaks in the barn, plowed two hectares of land, took in five more orphans, is fixin’ to—”

“He took in five more orphans?” Rain asked.

“Yea. Saw ’em in the streets and said he could not resist. Next, he plans to build a house jist fer the orphans.”

“He does?”

“Yea. Plans to call it Rain’s House. Now me, I be thinkin’ of goin’ to Norway.”

“Ubbi! You would never leave Selik.”
Rain’s House?

“Yea, I would. Like a bear, he is, when he is not workin’. Cannot stand to be still. No doubt, he starts thinkin’ ’bout you and—”

“Ubbi, did Selik send you here?”

He glanced from side to side, everywhere but at her intent eyes.

“Tell the jerk I’m not coming back.”

He groaned and turned back for home with slumped shoulders.

The fourth day, Adam came alone and followed her around, grumbling, “Yer poisoning him, ye know?”

“Who?”

“Me father. Who else?”

Rain frowned, then realized that Adam was referring to Selik.

“He keeps eatin’ all them god-awful Lifesavers ye made, even when they make ’im gag. They be crampin’ his stomach somethin’ terrible, but he sez if a man loves a woman he should be willin’ to eat her cookin’.”

Rain couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Adam, you are making that up.”

“Are ye accusin’ me of lyin’?”

“Like a rug.”

The fifth day, Gyda came, complaining about Tyra and all the time she spent at the farmstead helping Selik with the children. “I fear the neighbors will begin talking of her unseemly conduct. How will she find a husband if she spends so much time alone with Selik? Can you talk to her, Rain?”

Not in a million years!

Rain shouldn’t have been jealous of Tyra. But she was.

She should have wanted Selik to find another woman to love after she was gone. But she didn’t.

The sixth day, Ella arrived with a beautiful green silk tunic with gold embroidery along the edges and sleeves.

“What’s that for?” Rain asked.

“Me weddin’ to Ubbi. I want ye to wear it fer me weddin’. Will ye be me witness?”

“Ella! How wonderful! Ubbi never told me. The stinker!”

“We are goin’ to have it outdoors at the farmstead. Will ye come?”

“Of course.”

Rain rode out to the farmstead with Gyda and Tyra the day of the wedding. Tyra looked like a combination of Sharon Stone and Julia Roberts, sitting on her white palfrey in a stunning bluesilk tunic. Rain felt more like a tall Bette Midler.

A festival atmosphere reigned at the farm. Long trestle tables set up with tons of food were being arranged by servants whom Selik must have hired; a harpist was playing in the background, and the farm was crowded with guests whom Rain recognized from Gyda’s neighborhood in the city. Even Father Bernard was there, probably to perform the ceremony.

A trellis-type apparatus had been erected before a makeshift altar decorated with hundreds of spring flowers. Gyda sat on a bench nearby weaving some of the flowers into a circlet for the bride’s head.

“What do you think?”

Rain turned to see Selik standing behind her, very close behind her. She stepped away. “Very nice, Selik. I don’t know how you managed this in such a short time.”

“Gyda and Ella helped.”

She nodded, uncomfortable under his intense gaze. He wore a black tunic over black braies and boots, the stark color set off only by his pale hair and a silver belt and armlets.

She licked her lips, desperately wanting to reach out and touch the jagged scar on his face and the word
Rage
on his arm. His eyes riveted on her mouth, intense with yearning, and Rain’s knees almost buckled under the onslaught of warmth that washed over her.

“I love you, Rain.”

“No,” she whimpered and forced herself to break eye contact. Her eyes scanned the farmyard, taking in all the improvements—the completed house, new outbuildings and fences. He must have had a great deal more money than she’d thought to do so much so quickly.

“Would you like to see your house?”

She groaned. “It’s not
my
house, Selik.”

“Athelstan gave you this property, I understand. So truly, the house is yours, even if you do not want me.”

Don’t want you? Don’t want you?
Rain felt as if she were sinking fast and sought some anchor, any anchor. Her eyes darted around the farmyard, then stopped dead. Could that be Eirik and Tykir standing there talking to Ubbi? Why hadn’t anyone told her they were coming?

She heard horses approaching the farm and turned. Guards wearing the golden dragon emblem of the House of Wessex accompanied a well-dressed woman. Elgiva! Rain’s head began to ring with confusion.

Something was not right in this picture.

Tykir and Eirik might come for Ubbi’s wedding, but not Elgiva. And the floral head circlet that Gyda was weaving—well, somehow Rain couldn’t picture Ella wearing such a frivolous hair adornment. Her eyes caught a swath of green cloth draped around the altar, and she looked down at her dress. The same fabric.

She turned on Selik angrily.

“Now, Rain, be reasonable,” he cautioned, seeing the dawning understanding on her face.

“You
didn’t
, Selik. Surely you didn’t plan all this without my consent.”

“Come, I want to show you that building over there,” he said, taking her arm firmly and pulling her along beside him before she had a chance to create a scene.

The rectangular building, much smaller than the house and barn, sat by itself near the edge of the clearing. He shoved her inside and barred the door.

Her eyes quickly scanned the large room. Benches lined one side, several pallets covered the floors, and at the end a high table and built-in shelves lined the walls. The pungent smell of new wood filled the air.

“Selik, you can’t lock me in here forever. Let me go.”

“I will, but first I want to show you this new…building.”

“Is this the orphanage Ubbi spoke of?”

Selik looked surprised. He leaned against the doorjamb, watching her every reaction like a hawk. “Nay, ’tis much too small for that, if you would look closer.”

“Then what?” she asked, puzzled.

“A clinic. For you.” He looked at her with such hope in his eyes, almost childlike in open yearning for approval. “You said once you would like to open your own small hospitium—clinic, I mean—and, well, I did not know exactly what an examination table looked like, but I figured waist-high would be sufficient. And the shelves could hold your healing herbs and receipts. And—”

“You planned my wedding
and
my clinic? Without asking me first?” She couldn’t help herself. She started to cry.

“You do not like it,” he said, clearly hurt. “Ah, well, ’tis not worth weeping over. Hush now, I only wanted to please you.”

“The clinic is wonderful. It’s you. You’re impossible.”

“I know,” he said with absolutely no guilt.

“Selik, you can’t do underhanded things like this.”

“You did.”

“What do you mean?”

“You kidnapped me when you thought ’twas for my own good. You came after me in Winchester when you thought ’twas for my own good. You even bartered your pain when you thought ’twas for my own good.” Selik said the last words bleakly, his voice full of self-recrimination.