Page 31 of Come the Morning

“Ah! Assault you? Steal your virtue? Tell me, have you any virtue?”

Her eyes flew open. She met his crystal gaze. “You are an arrogant fool. You can bring me back to the king, and he can give you whatever reward it is you so crave, but if you touch me—”

“Ah, yes, here you are in all your perfect, naked, noble beauty! How tempted I must be!”

His mocking, dispassionate tone startled her to silence, but trying to keep her eyes locked with his, she didn’t feel assured.

“Let me up!”

“Let you up? When I’m so tempted? Could I bear to let you up, you and all your perfect noble beauty?”

“Why are you torturing me like this?” she cried, wondering if she were more afraid, or humiliated. Both made her more desperate, and more reckless. “You don’t dare harm me in any way, and we both know it. You—”

“Umm, well, that depends. As you say, there are different Vikings. Norse, Danish, Swedish. And they all enjoy a goodnegotiation. Perhaps your relatives would like you back chaste and in one piece; then again, it’s amazing what men will trade in a negotiation. There are still Scottish rebels who might pay a pretty price for you, and not care too much whether you come tarnished or not.”

“My relatives will kill you if you …”

“If I?” he inquired politely.

She felt her cheeks flooding with bloodred color. She felt the pressure of his body against hers, and the cold of the air againsther bare flesh. He stared at her, and she didn’t know what he saw. She longed to crawl beneath a blanket, to close her eyes, pretend she had never left the warmth of the castle that night. She started shaking, badly. The day was cool, the river cold. She told herself it had nothing to do with fear. She knew she was lying. She had to think carefully before speaking.

But she gasped, shivering with a greater violence as he touched her cheek, stroking her face with his knuckles. He spoke to her, his voice so deep and husky it seemed to slip beneath her skin, and touch her oddly. “Oh, so noble! Noble face, noble breasts, noble … well, everything must be noble, eh, my lady? Such a great, beautiful, noble bounty!”

Fear escalated, her temper soared, and she panicked, lashing out at him. This time, he was ready, and she didn’t land the first blow against him. He caught her wrists, and pinning them down, he stared at her again in taut anger, no longer mocking her. “I suggest you stop.”

“I suggest you go to hell!” she spat back, yet his eyes then touched her in such a way that she kept talking, quickly, else give away the depths of her fear.

“I’m freezing!” she cried. “I’ll die on you, and I won’t be worth anything.”

“You’re not going to die. Well,” he mused, “unless I lose control completely and strangle you.”

She forced herself to glare at him. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it—or let me up!” she challenged him.

“Do you know, m’lady, you’ve bargained, you’ve ordered, you’ve used all manner of words. Except one.”

“And what is that?”

“Please. Ah, but then, perhaps you’re not accustomed to using it.”

“I’m very familiar with the word.”

“Then?”

“However, I’m not accustomed to using it with a bastard mercenary who’s attacking me!”

His eyes narrowed. “Try it. What have you got to lose?”

“Let me up. Please.”

He smiled.

“Let me up,please!What are you doing now? You said that you’d let me up—”

“I said that you should try it. But you did call me a bastard mercenary.”

She gritted her teeth, then thought that she should really get a grip on her temper. No matter what he said. She needed to pretend to acquiesce to whatever foolish thing he said, if it would get her up.

“I’m freezing. Pl—”