“You should not be standing.
You will injure yourself more.”
“I refuse to wait here for my blood-enemy to put an end to me.”
When Linnea laughed tightly, he was astonished.
She fisted her hands on her hips, giving him an enticing view of the splendid curves of her very feminine form.
He pulled his eyes from that tantalizing sight to meet her gaze when she said, “Your enemies will have no need to put an end to you if you do them a favor and kill yourself by trying to do too much too soon.
Yesterday, you were senseless, except for an apparent brain fever that drove you mad, and you...”
“I could not have destroyed that bench when I am bandaged like this.”
He frowned at his arm.
“I could not raise an ax from the floor.”
“And you shall not be able to for a long time when you risk your recovery by trying to walk across the room as if nothing had happened to you.”
“Do not treat me like a witless child.”
“Only a witless child would act so and risk recovery simply for pride’s sake.”
She turned away when her servant rushed back up the stairs and to her side, an expression of anxiety and disbelief on her face.
Nils muttered a curse under his breath.
Loki must be enjoying Linnea’s arrogance when she treated him like a witless babe.
“It is fine, Olive,” Linnea said.
“I am fine.”
“But he—”
Linnea glanced back at him, her face blank of any emotion.
“He is excitable.
Once he realizes where he is and that he is safe from his attacker, he will calm down.”
“Attackers,” Nils interjected quietly.
“Kortsson was the last.”
“More than one?” the woman named Olive asked.
Her face became as gray as his must be beneath his bruises.
“What if they come to the house, my lady?
What if—?”
Firing him a furious scowl, Linnea steered her maid back to a chair next to the window by the stairs.
“Sit here and watch for Jack to return with Mr. Bjornsson’s soup.”
“I would rather look out the window and see if anyone is approaching.”
“I doubt they will come up the road.”
Nils was surprised when a laugh tickled the back of his throat.
Linnea Sutherland had the clear eyes of a warrior, seeing the truth that others might choose to ignore in the midst of their panic.
Keeping the laugh from escaping, he wore no expression as Linnea walked back to him.
He struggled to focus his eyes on her face and not on the gentle sway of her hips.
“You should sit,” she said, her tone still taut.
“How can I sit when I am filled with questions about what has happened to me?”
“You should sit, so you can recover from what happened to you.”
She motioned toward an iron bench by an open window.
When had that been brought here?
Linnea and her servants were determined that no other bench would be shattered to kindling.
Nils hopped on his good leg to it.
When he glanced at her, she was not smiling.
Was she sympathetic or hiding another emotion?
He did not ask as he eased himself back onto the bench.
When she poured something into a goblet and brought it to him, he was pleased to sip the fragrant wine.
He never had sampled anything so dulcet.
Letting his shoulders ease back against the wall behind him, he watched as Linnea sat on a stool in front of him.
She might be sitting below him, but there was nothing subservient in her pose.
“Thank you.”
He chuckled.
“I assume that is another phrase you did not guess I knew in my language or yours.”
A lovely color brightened her cheeks.
“That was rude of me to say.”
“When did the truth become considered rude?”
“You are a guest here at
Sutherland
Park
, and it was inappropriate for me to say.”
Swirling the wine in the bright blue glass, Nils regarded her closely as he lowered his voice.
“I also recall you saying that Ethelred is no longer king of
England
.”
“Not for almost a thousand years.”
She stiffened, and he knew she was as uneasy with this turn of the conversation as he was.
“It is 1817.”
“That term means nothing to me.”
Nils looked away from the abrupt compassion on her face.
He did not want to be pitied.
He was a warrior.
Draining the goblet, he set it on the windowsill beside him.
“Ethelred was king of
England
around the year we would have called 990.”
He clenched the fingers on his right hand into a fist.
Slamming them into the arm of the bench, he ignored the shock on Linnea’s face and how her servant whirled in her seat to stare at him, her eyes wide with terror.
How could he have been so foolish?
He had spoken of his need, hoping that Freya would heed his request to be left behind to finish his search when she had taken the other fallen warriors to
Valhalla
.
She had heard him, but, for some reason he had yet to discover, had sent his plea to Loki.
That wizard of mischief must have contrived this plan to keep him from both his reward in death and his hopes in life... and sent Kortsson with him into this time.
Slowly he glanced at the window.
The very window where Loki had perched in his dream.
But had that been as real as what was around him now?
He resisted the taunting laugh that throbbed through his head.
His voice or Loki’s?
The dream may have been real, and this truly might be the nightmare he could not flee.
But he could not imagine that even a fevered dream brought on by the festering of his wounds would create such a journey to the future.
“Mr. Bjornsson, I am so sorry,” Linnea whispered.
“I know it makes no sense to you.
It makes no sense to me, but I know what year it is.
It is 1817.
Search your mind.
You will see that you know that, too.”
“I know Ethelred is king of
England
.”
“But I told you—”
He snarled a curse at her.
Heaving himself again to his feet, he hopped to where a window opened on the sea side of this building.
Ignoring the pain raging in his head, he fumbled as he tried to open the shutters on the window with a single hand.
Several of the slats hung broken.
When Linnea’s slender fingers reached to unhook the stubborn latch, he caught her wrist.
Her servant shouted a warning, but Linnea did not make a sound as he tugged her closer, keeping her from undoing the latch.
Had Olive’s warning been for Linnea or for him?
he wondered when the soft scent of whatever she used to clean her hair drifted toward him, as luscious as the first blossoms after a long winter.
Her curves pressed against him were as seductive as the allure of the sea.
His lips were on hers before she had a chance to protest.
They tasted sweet, just as he had imagined.
A tempting invitation to further pleasure that they could find when—
The sound of her hand slapping his cheek resonated through Nils’s aching head.
With a growl, he released her.
She motioned her servant away as Olive rushed to her side with a hushed cry.
“Mr. Bjornsson,” Linnea said in that cold tone she seemed delighted to assume whenever she found fault with him, “I realize you are distressed at the facts that must seem as outrageous and unbelievable to you as they are to me.”
“Facts?” asked Olive.
“What do you speak of, my lady?”
Nils tensed, waiting for her answer.
Among these English there was neither respect nor understanding of
Norrfoolk
beliefs.
He had heard during his previous forays here mocking of Odin and Loki and Freya.
Those who had dared to utter such words had no chance to repeat them, for his knife had put an end to their belittling of what he held dear.
Linnea continued to meet his gaze without flinching, but she said, “Olive, I wish to speak to Mr. Bjornsson alone.
Will you go and see what is keeping Jack from returning from the house with that soup for Mr. Bjornsson?”
“And leave you with him and his beastly manners?”
“Mr. Bjornsson will not forget himself again.”
She gave Olive a tight grin.
“Or you shall hear me slap him again.”
“Yes, my lady.”
She shot Nils a fearsome frown before going to the stairs.
At the top, she paused, her mouth moving with whatever she was mumbling.
He waited, not sure if she would obey and leave her lady with him.
She did, her head vanishing below the bannister.
“You may find,” Linnea said, her voice still rigid with rage, “that you would do better not to vex everyone you meet, Mr. Bjornsson.”
“You may find that you would do better to call me Nils, for your English tongue cannot speak my name correctly.”
“Only if you realize that such informality does not allow you
carte blanche
to—”
“What?”
“It is French.”
“French?
What is that?”
“The French are the residents of the land on the other side of the Channel.”
When he continued to frown in bafflement, she added, “Where the sea narrows between this island and the continent.”
“You speak of the Franks.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Many of the
Norrfoolk
live in the land of the Franks.”
“As a child, I learned that the Vikings gave their name to
Normandy
, the section of
France
that reaches out toward
England
.
The
Normans
won the English throne in 1066, and their descendants have held it since.”