been no stopping her. Her belief in nissers inhabiting this place would have been proved true. She’d have clung to the doorframe to stay and see one.’ Her slight frown indicated that was the last thing she required.
His eyes widened. ‘And you know what it is?’
‘My father’s mother had a stone-man amulet like that. She used to swear it kept her safe. Perhaps it worked—she lived a long and prosperous life. It went missing after her death.’ She ducked her head and he saw how the fire had left her fringe long but burned the back of her neck. Her sister showed no such signs of injury.
Gunnar frowned. She and her sister would be safe...in Ile where she would be able to choose a better man than he as a husband. An unexpected twinge of jealousy at the unknown man stabbed him.
He pushed it away. It was for the best. His fate had been sealed the instant he spotted the soothsayer abusing those girls. An older warrior would have turned a blind eye, but he had acted to save those girls. Unfortunately, they had been too injured and died later. Now he lived with the consequences of the dying soothsayer’s prophecy.
She drew her brows together. ‘Is everything all right? Did you intend to lose the amulet? Is it bad luck?’
‘It belonged to my mother. All I have left of her.’ There was little point in telling Ragnhild that his mother had wanted to ensure he returned safely home for the start of Jul.
He turned the stone man over and over, feeling its familiar carvings. He almost heard his mother’s laugh as she told him that it would help him find the right partner in life.
He remembered Dyrfinna’s scorn about the crudely carved man when she discovered it. She’d pulled it from around his throat, saying it frowned at her. He’d intended on proposing marriage to her that evening, but her reaction made him question their relationship and possibly even saved his life. Rather than adoring him as she had pretended, Dyrfinna owed a debt to the soothsayer Gunnar had slain and had been determined to avenge his death. However, thanks to the stone man, they’d been arguing instead of being wrapped in the throes of passion when the assassins entered her house. The attackers were no match for his sword that day. But Dyrfinna had perished in the ensuing fight. Her last words had been that he’d been a gullible fool to love someone like her. Gunnar had hunted down the men until none remained.
Why did this woman have to find it? His mother would have approved of her—she was a good cook, came from the north and had a fine manner about her. And she was in trouble. His mother had raised him never to turn his back on women who sought his help. To be fair, it was the coming from the north part which his mother would have approved of most.
The walls pressed in on him. Ragnhild was standing a mere breath away. Her mouth was softly parted and her eyes large. Her lips would taste of summer strawberries or possibly cloudberries. They were ripe for the nibbling. All he had to do was to take her in his arms and declare he’d changed his mind, that he wanted her for his bride after all.
What would he look like then? ‘A gullible fool’—the words resounded in his brain, dripping with Dyrfinna’s precise intonations.
He shook his head to clear it and walked over to the hearth, putting the man next to his silver horn with a bang. ‘I will choose my own bride.’
The dogs and Ragnhild looked at him strangely. He rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
‘The King’s decree about marriage you spoke of earlier,’ Gunnar said quickly before she started asking awkward questions and he confessed about his mother’s prediction. ‘I must go north for a wife in the spring. The Lords Ketil and Kolbeinn will hold off enforcing the decree on me until then.’
She gave a half-shrug which revealed the swanlike beauty of her throat. ‘If you think you have until then.’
‘I do.’ He drew a breath and regained control of his wayward thoughts. ‘Kolbeinn will give me time to choose a bride, rather than forcing me to accept the first one who crosses my path, once he learns of the decree.’
‘Bringing you that stone man was an act of kindness, not an expectation of a marriage offer.’ Her laugh sounded hollow as she started for the door.
‘Stay. Keep me company.’
She halted so quickly the material flattened against her, revealing the shapeliness of her legs. ‘Is there something more we can say to each other? Returning the amulet was the only reason I bothered you.’
He knew she lied. The deep hollows into which her eyes had sunk betrayed her. Ragnhild disliked her dreams every bit as much as he disliked his own dreams.
‘Your sister is far too thin,’ he said in desperation to change the subject. Ragnhild was not the sort of lady who would agree to the only thing he was prepared to offer a woman—one night of pleasure to keep the bad dreams away. ‘You can see her collarbones.’
‘I know. Once she ate like a horse, but the sea voyage failed to agree with her. She was often sick. Her appetite will return in time.’
‘The dogs like her, even if she doesn’t like them.’ He leant down and fondled the tan dog Kolka’s ears. ‘I trust their judgement. They are rarely wrong about people.’
Ragn watched him with wary eyes. She longed to ask what the dogs thought of her. Gunnar had clearly not meant to say the earlier words about choosing his own bride aloud. Once she’d taken it for a positive sign, but that was the problem with believing in such things, one ignored reality.
Right now, the marriage was unimportant, the staying here was. And his remark about going north in the spring had given her an idea. ‘There are not many who have been kind to Svana lately.’
Gunnar motioned to her to come closer. Both dogs looked up briefly and then settled their heads on their paws. They seemed to accept her. The stew had worked with them, if not with him. ‘And you? How did the men react to you?’
She carefully shrugged a shoulder. The men had kept their distance. ‘They were less than kind and I no longer expect kindness.’
‘But it is welcomed when you receive it.’
‘I’ve no wish to seem ungrateful or forward. I fear I might have been. I find it hard to be idle. I see a task which needs to be accomplished and I start. But worse than that my tongue runs away with itself when I have ideas for improvement.’
‘My mother was one like you.’
She gave a careful laugh, aware that one wrong word and the chance would slip through her fingers. ‘I hope that is a good thing. Finding your charm seemed to alarm you more than anything.’
He took a stick and stirred the fire so that bright sparks leapt in the air. ‘Night-time is the right time to sleep. We can speak in the morning as we cross the channel to Ile.’
‘My mind races far too much to sleep,’ Ragn admitted, pressing her hands together to keep them from trembling. Gunnar’s mood had improved from earlier and there was an intimacy about the night which would vanish with the sunrise.
‘It is good that you will be going north in the spring. You have worked too hard on this hall to risk losing it for the want of a little thing like a bride.’
His eyes flickered to the stone man. ‘The bride I choose, not one which is foisted on me by well-intentioned friends.’
‘Did I say differently?’ She swallowed hard and tried to ignore the tightening of the knots in her stomach. ‘When you go north, you will leave this place empty. You need someone you trust to look after it. A caretaker to ensure it remains in good order.’
‘Eylir remains in the north.’
‘I meant me. I know how to run an estate. My husband used to leave me in charge when he went...when he went away.’ Ragn watched the glowing embers.
‘When your husband was off warring.’
‘That and other things. He served