Viking's Love (39 page)

Joran came to the last room in the hallway
and eased open the door. He knew it was her when he heard her
breathing. He approached and stood over her, tracing the beautiful
lines of her face reverently.

He reached out and clamped a hand over her
mouth and eased down onto the bed to hold her thrashing form still
until her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she saw it was him. She
grew still, and he didn’t dare allow her to scream. He stuffed a
gag into her mouth before she could speak. He tied her carefully
and avoided her eyes as he finished.

He pulled her up and stared at the round
belly below her breasts, and smiled and reached out to stroke her
abdomen. He leaned down and kissed it. Before she knew it, he swung
her into his arms and carried her from the room.

She did not struggle at all. He eyed her
strangely as he carried her back the way he came. He arrived back
to find Rowan waiting with a grin on his face when he saw Allisande
in his arms.

“
I see you have found her,” he said
smiling broadly, his handsome face the last one she expected to see
from the surprise he read in her violet eyes, and gazed at her
warmly. “You are not afraid of heights, are you, Sweetface?” He
chuckled at Joran’s sudden glare for using his pet name for
her.

Allisande was glad for the gag in her mouth,
because when they trussed her up in the ropes and lowered her to
the ground, she nearly screamed on the way down as she dangled high
above the outer bailey.

She was lowered gently onto the cold hard
ground where she waited for them to come down.

She cursed under the gag as Joran slid down
alongside her, and Rowan joined him. She did not struggle as Joran
hefted her light weight into his arms, and they fled the courtyard.
She gasped as Joran ran through the woods with her in his arms,
Rowan at his side. They must have run nearly a mile before they
stopped to walk.

Joran hardly looked winded. She wondered if
she could indeed beat him at a footrace. It was another mile until
they reached the ship. She found herself leaning back into his
strong arms as he carried her.

“
She does not appear to mind being
abducted, my friend,” Rowan remarked with an amused chuckle.
“Perhaps her new husband does not please her as her Viking lovers
did, eh?” He laughed uproariously as both heads swiveled to glare
at his jest. “You could at least appear to struggle, Girl, you make
us look bad! We come to steal you, and you are far too willing, and
it takes all of the fun out of it!”

Joran laughed at Rowan’s words, but he was
too distracted by the feel of her in his arms to tell the man to be
quiet. Allisande hadn’t fought him, he realized, and once aboard
his ship he would hear why.

They arrived at the long ship. The Vikings on
board relaxed as they heard their approach. They boarded and he
carried her to a soft fur bed in the corner of the deck, and left
her there as they made ready to sail.

She leaned back against the deck and sighed.
Her God answered her this night. She smiled as they rowed out to
sea. She was happy to be leaving, but frowned when she realized how
distraught Collin would be when she was discovered missing. She
started making noises. Joran came forward and pulled the gag out of
her mouth.

“
Please, you must leave some sign of
where I have gone for Collin,” she whispered hoarsely. “He will
worry. With Ulsted’s threats against me, he will doubtless think it
was he who took me.”

Joran stared down at her and shook his head
with a grin curving his lips, relief in his eyes. He pulled the
helmet off of a Viking standing near him and threw it upon the
shore where it landed upon the ground with a soft thump. “Is that
as good as a note, Wench?” he asked with a grin, and she smiled and
snuggled under the furs.

“
It is good enough, Viking.” She sighed
as she closed her eyes, sleeping with more peace than she had since
arriving home. Joran let her sleep. He approached and stared down
at her in the moonlight.

His anger over her recent marriage diminished
with her words. It was as he thought. Ulsted had forced her to
marry him. He sat down beside her and got under the furs with her.
She shivered as he pulled her close. He closed his eyes as he
buried his face into her hair, breathing in her scent like a man
starved.

His hand slid over her belly. He was
delighted when he felt a small movement under his hand. His child
stirred within her, he thought with a rush of pleasure and worry.
He held her for a long time before he rose to help man the
ship.

Rowan was taking his rest, and he took over
navigating the ship out to sea. The skirted the coast and were well
under way when the first light came into the sky. Joran was busily
staring at the sky when she awoke. He looked down at her and
smiled.

“
Rowan is right, Allisande. For all the
trouble we had scaling that new wall of your brother’s, the least
you could have done is put up a struggle.” He chuckled as she
kicked him in the leg and sat up. She pushed the hair out of her
eyes. He never saw a more beautiful sight as her in the first hours
of dawn, wrapped in his furs, and looking decidedly pleased for
once.

“
I asked my God to bring you to me and
he did,” Allisande said with a smile and rose. “That is not how you
show thanks to God, Viking.”

“
How does one show thanks to your God,
Wench?” Joran asked softly as she came nearer. Her answer was to
pull him down to meet her lips with a lusty kiss that took his
breath away. The howling Vikings and cheers that erupted made them
break apart as quickly as they came together.

“
I think I like your God, Woman,” Joran
whispered and smiled as she drew away to seek the enclosure to see
to her morning absolutions.

“
Do I get a kiss as well?” Rowan called
out with mock hopefulness, and earned a quelling look from Joran as
she went behind the enclosure. She sighed as she saw to her needs
and returned to the deck.

Joran was consulting a map on an animal skin
and distracted when she approached Rowan in the rear of the ship.
He grinned at her when she drew near, though his green eyes were
sad as they took in her growing belly. “I told him nothing happened
between us, Sweetface,” he reassured her quietly, seeing her relax
in relief at his words. “I have no wish to cause you further pain.
We both know you belong with him.”

“
I thank you, Rowan.” She gazed up at
him in gratitude, her eyes misting with undisguised
pleasure.

“
In another life, I might have dragged
you away, lady, but I can see you love him.” Rowan’s eyes caressed
her face, marveling at the pain he felt as she walked back to
Joran. He turned away, his dispassionate gaze reflecting none of
his jealousy to see her with the man she loved. Rowan contemplated
the one woman in his life that turned him down with a rueful
grin.

Allisande approached Joran and he looked down
at her and smiled, taking her breath away with how handsome he
looked in the early light of dawn. “We are going to York?” she
asked, her delighted smile filling him with renewed hope.

“
Rowan has business there, and I don’t
have my ship. We have little choice but to await him until we sail
to Oslo. Are you in such a hurry to get back to my home,
Allisande?” She looked out over the water and leaned over the rail,
enjoying the cool blast of fresh air.

“
I shouldn’t have left,” she admitted
reluctantly and looked away. “I know I caused you pain, but I felt
I had no choice. I didn’t give you a chance to learn the truth
about the child. I let you believe what you would. I feared what
would happen. When you sent me away, I came home and found myself
being forced into a marriage, and found worse problems here as a
result.”

Joran absorbed her words. She didn’t exactly
apologize for her actions, but she was making more of an effort to
admit she was wrong than he ever saw her do before. “Did anyone
ever tell you that you were a horrible slave?” Joran asked in such
a serious manner, she swiveled her head and scowled at him. “The
worst any man ever had! You don’t do what you are bid, and the
insolence! When I think of how peaceful my household will be now
that I have no angry slave skulking about in chains; it gives me
great pleasure.”

“
What am I to be if not your slave,
Viking?” Allisande’s violet eyes met his with a gleam of hope
within their fringed depths. “You can hardly be a husband to me,
for I already have one of those. What shall be my new position in
your household?”

“
You shall be my heart, Wench.” Joran
reached out to touch her cheek. “It should not be a difficult
task.”

Allisande could only stare at him and was for
once speechless. The dam that built up around her heart ran over at
his words. Before she could tell him of her own feelings, Rowan
approached. She would tell him later, she thought, and smiled at
the intruder.

“
What is this business you have in
York?” Allisande complained sourly as she eyed the handsome Viking
disdainfully. “It had better not take too long, for I am not giving
birth aboard your ship!”

“
Good morn to you, too, Sweetface,”
Rowan said in amusement and shook his head at the girl’s shrewish
temper, made even more pronounced with her advancing condition. “It
will not take long. I have to pick up some property I recently
acquired during the taking of York. You will not be having your
child aboard my ship, so do not worry.”

Allisande nodded and returned to looking out
over the waves, content they would leave these shores as soon as
possible, before Ulsted could rally the king’s army in pursuit.
Allisande knew he feared the child was his only hope against
Ivar.

She hoped it caused him no end of distress
when he discovered her gone. Her appearance in York would doubtless
alert Ivar his grandson wasn’t being held hostage by Ulsted. She
dearly hoped she was widowed before her child was born. She
wrinkled her nose in distaste when she thought of her son bearing
Robert’s title when that happened. The future wasn’t set as yet,
and she would not dwell upon the fate of her husband.

****

Collin stared at the Viking helmet found near
the shore by one of the guards. He let out an oath as he tossed it
across the room. There was little doubt who had taken his sister
once more, and he was incensed the Viking penetrated his stronghold
undetected. His mother was weeping and Meghera looked livid.

He winced hoping she didn’t start the room on
fire in a tantrum. He paused when he recalled Allisande’s feelings
for the Viking. His return for her could only mean he felt the
same. He was disgusted with himself for thinking it, but perhaps
Joran Ivarsson was the better of the two men in his sister’s life
now.

Her husband would be enraged when he
discovered Ivarsson had taken his only means of protection away. He
chuckled when he thought of the earls’ rage. Meghera gasped at his
reaction, and fumed silently, but he drew her forward to speak to
her privately away from his mother who wept incessantly over this
newest development.

“
Do not fear for Allisande, Meghera,”
Collin whispered as he ruffled her curls. “She is where she wants
to be at last.”

****

The Earl of Ulsted was enraged when he
received the baron’s messenger in the king’s great hall to discover
Ivarsson abducted his wife. Alfred looked outraged, and demanded a
party be sent to Lockwraithe to give pursuit. Robert gazed into
space without hearing him, knowing it was too late.

Ivar and his brothers had York. He despaired
of finding any means of fending off the ruthless Viking leader now.
Thinking of how this change in circumstance must please his
shrewish wife made him angrier. He was incredibly aware of her
beauty during the wedding ceremony.

He intended on taking his rights with his
wife that night on their journey back to Alfred’s court, despite
her condition, for it excited him to no end. If she hadn’t fended
him off with her blade and refused to leave with him, he would have
had her.

He could hardly wait until the child was born
to force the issue, and bring his bride to heel, and now the Viking
stole her back. He held up a hand when Alfred demanded a party of
soldiers accompany him to Lockwraithe.

“
There is little we will find there. We
must get to York. Ivarsson will join his father there, and we will
get my wife back at once.”

Alfred nodded and it was done. Twenty of his
soldiers would accompany Lord Ulsted to York to find Lady Ulsted.
He gazed at his favorite courtier with a tight smile. “Your wife
has proven more trouble than she is worth, Robert.” He chuckled at
his look of rage. “You should have taken the Lancaster girl
instead, as I intended for you. What matter that she is still a
child? When has that ever stopped you?”

Robert eyed his sire, and held his rage in
check. Alfred’s hall tittered at the king’s jest, and Ulsted was
livid to be the butt of their joke. He could do nothing but endure
their amusement as the party of soldiers arrived to accompany him
to York. They would be taking one of the king’s fastest ships. They
were nearly two days behind the Viking.

Ulsted watched as the horses were loaded
aboard the ship. He glared at his retainers as they hurried aboard.
The soldiers appeared to be amused as he boarded. He grumbled under
his breath. York was the last place he wanted to go, but Alfred
would not allow him to remain behind.

He feared he went into a trap and as the ship
slid away from its birth. He cursed his wife with every foul word
he knew, his cruel blue eyes brightening when he thought of what he
would do to her once he reclaimed her. He would lock her in a tower
at his home, and she would know the meaning of cruelty
firsthand.