The Captive - By Joanne Rock Page 0,38

not spent his life making war to be beaten by a filth-faced second son who dared to take a woman under his protection. “You have not heard of the stealth of the Danes, I see. While your life blood leaks beneath my blade, your men will have their first taste of the axe at the hands of my followers who blanket these hills in silence.”

The falsehood played into the strong Saxon fears and painstakingly perpetuated Norse myth. Warfare by scare tactic could be as potent as any waged with steel.

Their gazes locked. The prickly silence of eighteen men waiting for someone else to blink first was the kind of quiet that always preceded battle. Wulf had experienced it innumerable times.

But when a soft, feminine yelp sounded nearby, he realized Gwendolyn had not. By Odin’s hairy beard, the foolish woman rose from her hiding place like a child-size warrior with a death wish. Striding toward him with sharp, determined steps, she cast them both headlong out of the pot and into the flames.

“I am here. I will go with you,” she told the drooling, sweating boar pig on horseback. “I pray you, there is no need to shed blood on my account.”

A vein in Wulf’s temple pounded so hard he thought it would burst. Did she not understand blood would be shed either way? And that her arrival had just made matters infinitely worse?

For the first time, Wulf understood what it felt like to be caught flat-footed on the battlefield. And even as he gripped his weapons, prepared to go out of this world in a haze of bloodshed the like of which these Saxons had never seen, he could not help the wryest of grins.

It seemed the fickle widow of Wessex had developed an affection for her captor. Right now, he could think of no regret he’d leave the world with so great as not getting to take full advantage of that knowledge for just one more night.

9

GWENDOLYN COULD NOT imagine what that hard-headed Dane had to look so smug about.

Fear made her fingers shake like new leaves in a spring gale, her heart pounding so fast she could scarcely catch her breath. Gerald’s odious brother, Godric, was a fate even worse than her husband had been. He had been away at wars on the continent when Gerald had died, which had been a blessing since she knew he would have married her within the week. As a second son, Godric had coveted her wealth from the moment Gerald brought her home.

But she could not allow Wulf to face nearly twenty armed and mounted men for the sake of avoiding Godric. To do anything else but give herself to their keeping would be a sure death sentence for the Dane. Seeing him there—ready to protect her to the death—had touched her deeply. She knew instantly she could not live with herself if she did not prevent it.

Now, her gaze lingered on Wulf as she wondered what would happen to him. Would he be free to find his men and live to raid another day? Or would Godric still demand Wulf’s life?

She looked from Wulf—cursedly unaffected and gazing upon her with more amusement than remorse for her sacrifice—to Godric, whose eyes traveled her greedily.

She shivered in repulsion, certain the sweating pig would be no more gentle than his cruel brother.

“Release the Dane,” she demanded, hoping Godric could not see her fear as she reached the center of the men. “He has not harmed me. I am ready to return to my home in Fanleigh.”

The unnerving stillness in the clearing had not been broken. She had the sudden sense that what she’d done had made no difference to the men whatsoever. They waged their battle of wills as intently as before she’d arrived.

Had she put Wulf in an even worse position? How strange to realize that she would regret any harm done to the man who’d captured her by force.

“I will have safe passage for the Dane or I will not attend you.” She hated that her voice shook. But by now, she was so scared for Wulf she did not stand a chance of disguising it.

“Gwendolyn.” Wulf wielded his axe and his sword as easily as eating knives, yet he spoke her name with the same accented seriousness he’d always used when addressing her. “Thank you.”

The words pierced her heart, sounding in her ears like a tender goodbye.

Godric urged his horse closer to her. To them. And all his men did