“No?
I have closely watched those within your house and those who attended your sister’s wedding.
I have seen how wives and husbands act toward one another.
They often treat each other with contempt.”
“Not all of them.
My parents have a happy life together, and Martin and Minnie...”
She did not want to speak of Minnie now, because that reminded her too clearly about the truth she was hiding from Nils.
“They seem to be the exception, from what I have observed. It seems wrong to spend one’s life being unhappy.”
“Why are we arguing?
I agree with you.”
“Do you?
With all your heart?
Most women in my time had a voice in deciding which man they would wed.”
“That was
your
time.”
“And you think the ways of this time are right?” he asked as they went back to the path.
“These ways are the only ones I know.”
“But do you think they are right?”
Linnea walked back to the edge of the cliff and looked out toward the sea.
Perching on a rock, she said, “I think everyone should have the right to be happy, as long as their happiness does not cause pain to another.”
“You are not answering my question.”
He sat beside her.
His hand leaned on the rock behind her.
All she needed to do was rest back against his arm, which would be only slightly less unyielding than the boulder.
Then his fingers would sweep up her as he pulled her up against his muscular chest.
His mouth would brush hers with the question that became more intense each time they were together alone.
Beneath her fingers, the soft hair curling along his arm kept her from severing all connection with him.
Then she wondered if that was even possible.
All her thoughts centered on him, all her dreams included him, all her longings were for him.
“I cannot answer your question,” she said as his arm curved around her.
“I am thinking of your blood-enemy and how he might be watching us even now.”
“No, he is not here.”
“How do you know?”
“I would have seen him.
I will deal with him when he is brave enough to show his face to me.
Do not think of such a dreary subject on such a nice day.”
She smiled.
“You call this day merely nice?
What could be more beautiful than a day that is sunny and warm?”
“A day that is sunny and warm upon the waves.
Nothing is like being on the sea.”
She bit her lip when she saw the longing in his eyes.
There was a sadness she had never seen before.
The intensity of it ached through her as if it were her own.
Putting her hand on his shoulder, she remained as silent as he was.
Tears burned in her eyes when he put his hand over hers.
His gaze remained on the distant horizon where the sky fell into the water.
“If you were to go on one of the ships that are currently sailing,” she whispered, then faltered for she did not want him to leave.
He looked at her.
“
Unnasta
, I have seen pictures of the ships the English sail now.
They are grand and glorious and separate a man almost completely from the sea.
I want to feel the spray scouring my face and know that the stars are hanging above me when I sleep.”
“On the main deck—”
“Which is twice a man’s height above the waterline, mayhap even more.”
He sighed as his gaze turned back to the sea.
“I need to feel the water only a board’s breadth beneath my feet so that my ship and I are a part of the waves’ mighty dance.
Maybe I will change my mind when I step aboard one of the ships in the harbor in
London
.”
“Nils, about
London
...I must tell you,” she said quietly, unable to be dishonest with him a moment longer and let him hope for something that had become unlikely, “that I asked Minnie, and she cannot go to
London
at the week’s end with us.”
Nils’s arm clenched beneath her fingertips, but his voice remained tranquil.
“If Minnie is unable to go after Tuthill’s gathering, maybe your brother—”
“No, Martin will not be able to go, either.”
She blinked back tears.
She did not want to hurt Nils like this, but she could not risk Minnie’s baby, either.
“Have you spoken to him of this?”
She shook her head.
“I do not need to.
I know what his answer will be.”
“You seemed so certain Minnie would be interested in paying calls on her friends.”
“I thought she would be, but she cannot go now.”
“Did she give you a good reason why not?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Taking a deep breath, she met his gaze evenly.
“I cannot explain further.
I promised.”
His brow furrowed as he stood.
“You promised what?”
“To say nothing of why Minnie cannot go.”
“You are talking in circles.”
Linnea reached out to take his hand.
“I know it sounds that way, but I must ask you to trust me yet again.
Let me talk to Mama and Papa and—”
He swore viciously in English, then with words she could not understand.
“Nils, it is not a frivolous reason that keeps Minnie from being able to travel with us.”
She reached for his hands again, but he locked them behind his back as he strode away along the cliff.
She jumped down, running after him.
“Why are you angry at me?
I have done the best I can.”
Nils fought his need to go back to Linnea and accept what he knew was her heartfelt apology.
He could not.
Because of some silly vow she had given her sister-in-law, she was preventing him—
again
—from satisfying the blood-oath he had given his chieftain.
“I have wasted weeks waiting for you to help me.”
“Help you?”
She caught up with him and grabbed his arm.
Fury honed her voice and snapped in her eyes.
“Nils Bjornsson, all I have done for the past month has been in an attempt to help you!
I have made certain you had food and were tended to and learned what you needed to in order to survive here and—”
Seizing her shoulders, he pulled her to him, his mouth covering hers.
He was hungry for every bit of her.
That hunger threatened to make him forget everything but her.
He must not.
But as he feasted on her beauty, he longed to loosen her silken hair and let it flow against him as he tasted her mouth’s sweetness until he was sated.
Along her slender curves, outlined by the modest style of her lavender gown, his gaze wandered with the eagerness of a winter-weary man emerging to embrace the sun.
The whisper of his name in her beguiling voice resonated in his heart.
Her fingers steered his hungry lips back over hers, and he tightened his arms around her.
His hands reacquainted themselves with her supple body as he sampled the dulcet textures of her face—her brows, her eyelids, her nose, her cheek—before finding her welcoming mouth again.
When he raised his head to look down into her glazed eyes, he stroked her cheek.
How often these eyes sought his in his dreams!
His fingertips tingled as the rest of him reacted to the fantasy of her skin against his.
“
That
is what would help me now,
unnasta
.
Having you and finding my knife.”
“And then what?” she demanded.
“You will take the knife back to your time and your chieftain.”
“If I can.”
He smiled.
“Come with me,
unnasta
.”
“Back to the time of the
Norrfoolk
?”
“Why not?
I have seen your time.
Come with me, and live with me in mine.”
“As what?
Your
traell
?”
“You would not be my slave.”
“Then what would I be?
You know there is no place for me in your life in that time.
Then we would be enemies.”
His fingers curved along her face.
“You can never be my enemy.”
“And your allies?
Will they accept me as one of them?”
Pulling out of his arms, Linnea ran down the path.
She could not endure seeing the pain on Nils’s face.
As she reached the bottom, she realized she was in the cove on the far side of the rocks from where the others were sitting on the blanket beneath the trees.
She whirled to return up the path and on to the other cove.
Nils stood a half dozen paces behind her.
He said nothing as he edged toward her like a hunter sneaking up on his quarry.
When she smiled, his stern expression did not change.
Her laugh had a nervous edge as she backed away from him.
She could imagine him prowling these shores, sending fear into every heart.
“Nils, what are you up to?” she asked with another uneasy laugh.
He burst into a run toward her.
She fled in the opposite direction.
She could not outrun him.
Dodging his fingers, she sped across the beach.
She reached the boulders, then spun and raced away.
He caught her.
She yanked herself away.
He jumped forward.
With a shriek, she fell backward into the water.
She started to rise, but his arms around her waist tugged her back into the waves.