The Captive - By Joanne Rock Page 0,60

Gwendolyn had understood the plan also worked well for a man attempting to distance himself from her.

From any tenderness he may have felt for her.

She might have dreamed the flicker of connection between them that night before they sailed for the keep. But she could have sworn something monumental had happened when they’d made love in the wild. And the fact that Wulf seemed to withdraw from her ever since only supported her theory, since his experience with Hedra seemed to have hardened his heart to women for all time. Gwendolyn was frustrated at the unfairness of having to pay the toll for another woman’s misdeed.

Then again, Wulf Geirsson could simply be an un-communicative, hard-hearted Viking who only lusted for wealth and lands, and Gwen had merely imagined the tenderness that night in the wishful regions of her heart.

Spearing a thick ball of roots with a rusted spade, Gwen cursed the rock wall of Dane pride. Did he think he showed weakness to care for another? Or was she deceiving herself that he had ever cared? Perhaps she truly was his temporary diversion—a pleasurable dalliance—for a man who had no intention of ever giving his heart away again.

She was so intent on her labors that the deep voice—now so familiar—caught her off guard.

“Do you wish to uproot all the flowers or just the prettiest ones?”

Dropping her spade, she startled back from where she knelt near the overgrown bed.

Wulf opened the old hazel wattle fence that ringed the garden, the wood creaking with age. He cast a long shadow over the flowers as he neared. Gwendolyn drew off her gloves and dropped them by the spade, but even though she relinquished the gardening tools, she scurried to arm her heart with more subtle weapons.

“It is past time I took up the lady’s mantle here.” Too late, she realized how that sounded. “Not that I wish to have a place beside you,” she hastened to explain. “It’s just that the keep has grown dismal in my absence and I would like to take up some of my family’s old projects. A valuable library is in disarray. The garden contains plantings from across the continent, yet they are now hidden under hearty native plants strangling the more delicate varieties—”

“I want you to move into the main bedchamber with me.” He did not blink as he studied her in the high noon sunlight.

He didn’t quite command her. A sennight ago, he would have simply said, You will move into the main bedchamber. Of course, he didn’t ask her, either.

She swiped a humming bee away from her shoulder, knowing she was as ill-equipped for this conversation as she was to battle the bee. She’d already told him she would not be his concubine.

“I do not think that is wise.” Turning from him, she pointed to an empty space on the far side of the garden. “Perhaps when you are done reinforcing the outer walls, you might consider building a loggia there. My mother talked of resurrecting one when they returned from Rome.”

Gwen hadn’t thought of the loggia or the gardens in a long time. Maybe it had been easier for her not to think about anything that reminded her of her family when she missed them so much. Now, after so much time, she found she wanted to remember them. To honor their lives and what they’d worked to accomplish.

What would they think of her Norse lover?

“Then we must move up our nuptials so you will feel comfortable sharing sleeping quarters.” His blue eyes were like the calm sea. Unhurried. Unruffled.

“Nuptials?” Her heart ached to think he would mark this order as some sort of proposal. Was this how a Dane came to marriage—with no declaration of gentle feelings, but a command to his bed?

“We will wed with all haste now that we have returned to your home.” He tucked an arm about her waist and nudged her toward a raised turf-covered bench. “I have won the keep without the help of negotiating a marriage, so I have eased your concern about wedding you for political purposes.”

Dropping onto the sun-warmed grass covering the bench, Gwendolyn tried to regroup the scattered defenses of her wayward heart and failed. Wulf truly expected her to be pleased about marrying him, even though he had maneuvered her exactly where he’d wanted her, making her feel as powerless as ever.

Truth be told, part of her wanted to simply agree to the marriage and hope they could come to find happiness