Page 105 of A Tale of Two Vikings

They looked at each other and smiled.

When women get ideas, duck…

Tykir was panting for breath in his bedchamber later that night.

Really, sometimes his wife forgot that he was forty-and-seven years old and that he had trouble keeping up with her ten-years-younger body. Well, actually, he had no trouble keeping up, being a lusty Viking and all that, but she did make him pant more these days.

“I have a wonderful idea,” Alinor said, snuggling up to him and placing a hand lovingly over his limp manpart.

“Uh-oh!” Anytime Alinor mentioned “a wonderful idea,” especially when holding his cock, he knew he was in for trouble.

“I think Toste should marry Esme.”

Where that ludicrous idea had come from, he had no clue. Women’s minds flitted here and there like hummingbirds. Flit, flit, flit. “No matchmaking, Alinor. Toste asked us not to interfere. Remember?”

“It wouldn’t exactly be matchmaking.”

“It would be exactly matchmaking if you are involved.”

“Toste needs someone to love now that Vagn is gone.”

“A man does not need someone to love.”

She removed her hand from his nether region and smacked him on the chest.

“Not all men need someone to love,” he amended, not being a total lackwit.

She moved her hand back where it belonged, so she apparently forgave his loose tongue. Smart wife! “Toste has a hole in his life.”

“Which you intend to fill?”

“Mayhap.”

“Alinor, do you not have enough to do helping Eadyth prepare for this grand feast?”

“Everything is arranged. All the plans are made. Eadyth has more than enough servants to carry through once the guests arrive. In the meantime…”

“How about our sons? Dost know what Thork did today?” Their eleven-year-old son was a handful—a rogue in the true spirit of Viking males. Their other three sons, Starri, nine, Guthrom, six, and Selik, two, showed signs of following the same mischievous path.

Alinor sighed. “What did Thork do today?”

“He pinched a chambermaid on the arse.”

She giggled. “Did you reprimand him?”

“Of course I did.” Actually, I couldn’t stop laughing, especially when he told me this particular chambermaid had a huge arse which begged to be pinched.

“Now that you bring up your son’s misdeeds…” Alinor began.

Why was it that they were his sons when they did something bad, but her sons when they proved angelic?

“…Starri and Guthrom had a spitting contest over the parapet, some of which hit a milkmaid passing by, which caused her to lose the contents of her stomach.”

Tykir didn’t want to tell her, but he was the one who had taught them about spitting contests. On the other hand, she probably already knew that.

“Back to Toste…” she said.

Holy Thor! She is like a dog with a bone once she gets started on something. She never lets go.