Page 78 of A Tale of Two Vikings

“Nay!” she said without thinking. Then immediately amended, “It depends on the final prize, and whether the rules are fair.”

“You want a babe.”

“You do not.”

“I want your body.”

He saw her eyes light up and her lips part at that disclosure. He guessed that now her nipples were engorged or he was not the man he knew himself to be.

“But I am willing to give my body only if a babe will result. You have told me that is out of the question.”

“I’m thinking of another alternative.”

“The game of chance you mentioned.”

Quick-thinking lady! He had to admire that. “The very same,” he agreed. “There are ways for a man to prevent conception, Helga. Ways known all the way back to the beginning of time. ’Tis known as spilling one’s seed upon the ground.”

Her face flushed as she comprehended his meaning. “And why would I agree to that?”

“Because it is not a certain method.”

“Are you asking me to make love with you on the mere chance that I might conceive?”

He shrugged. “Even under the best of circumstances, conception seems to be in the hands of the gods. I know men and women who have been swiving their entire lives and never had children, whilst with others the quickening happens after only one poke.”

“My father would have a fit to know that some rogue was defiling his daughter under his very roof.” On the other hand, if it fit his purposes in creating a grandbabe, he probably wouldn’t mind that much.

“Defiling? You make sex sound dirty. Well, actually, good lovemaking can be dirty…in a nice-dirty way.” His lips twitched with mirth but only for a second. He was not in the mood for laughter just yet.

He could tell that she had no idea what he meant by “nice-dirty,” but she wasn’t about to ask. Good. In his present mood, he would probably tell her in very precise detail.

“Your father would not have to know…if we were discreet. ’Tis not my intent to shame you, Helga. In fact, I would insist that no one know of our arrangement or our doings, including your carnal mentor, the ill-famed Rona, or that peacock Finn.”

Her lips twitched with mirth then, too, at his accurate description of Finn.

Vagn gave her a level somber gaze. He was taking this all very seriously, and he wanted her to know that.

“It all seems so secretive…as if it were dishonorable.”

“I prefer the word ‘private’ to ‘secretive.’”

“I understand how the game would work if I do not conceive, but suppose your seed did manage to find my womb. What then?”

His own face flushed now. “I would not abandon my son.”

“And if it were a daughter?”

“I would not abandon my daughter, either.”

“Explain yourself.”

“I would wed you.”

She threw her hands in the air with exasperation. “Then I gain naught. If I were willing to wed to gain a child, I would have done so long ago.”

He would like naught more than to reach across the table and shake the willful wench. Why must she always be at cross purposes with him? Why could she not be biddable for once? He counted to ten silently, then offered, “A compromise, then.”

She tilted her head in question.