How difficult was it to put up with a comely wench? They were always willing to do his bidding, as long as he satisfied them in the bed box. He was good at that. The masts steadied as his head cleared. He limped ahead, leaning on her as little as possible. He would bed her and bend her to his will as soon as he was able. Then she would do his bidding. Perhaps this Brad had not Galen’s broad experience with pleasing women and that was why her temper was so bad. This Brad probably did not know what the women of Gaul had taught Galen.
She had taken out one of the small, serrated pieces of metal that were actually keys. She opened the lock on a metal grid fence and pushed open the gate, then closed it behind them and pulled him down the dock to the left. He was breathing hard and sweating. He hardly recognized the shiny, sleek white craft moored here as boats at all. There was little wood in sight. His mind registered their lines, how they rode in the water. They would be fast. Very fast.
She paused and compared her scrap of parchment with the signs in Arabic numbers at the head of each dock. “Wonderful,” she muttered as she did when she spoke her own language. But he knew that word.
“Thu understandath wonderful?” Surprising.
She looked up at him in equal surprise, her arm around his waist still supporting him. “I understand that.” And he understood her. It was the third time they had truly communicated. She spoke Englisc, no matter how warped.
She nodded and he could feel her relief. “Better than Latin. We might have a chance.”
He understood the first part. “Gd. Betra thone Latin,” he repeated. Her inflections were different, but the words sounded the same. When she talked fast, like to the man in green, it wasn’t just that so many words were unfamiliar. It sounded like gibberish, as if she didn’t know that words should have the emphasis only on the first syllable.
She looked around and pushed down the dock. She counted under her breath as they passed each boat. His leg was dragging. He wouldn’t make it much farther, and if he fell he was like to crush her. “Hwer is se bt?” he panted.
She looked up to him, blinking. “There,” she said, nodding at the last dock. She must have understood him.
He might have known it would be the farthest away. He got there. Barely. The boat looked to be more than forty feet long, shiny white, with bright canvas dyed blue with woad covering what must be furled sails. It was moored to the dock with surprisingly light ropes made of some slick, bright yellow material. He slung his leg over the light lines that formed a small fence at the edge and stepped down onto the rocking deck with his good leg. At least he didn’t fall. He did not want to humiliate himself in front of the woman. Still, he leaned against the cabin as she used another key to unlock a hatch.
She pushed it open and peered inside. “Uh-oh, ladder,” she said, looking worried.
She must think him weak as a mewling babe. He could negotiate a hleder. He pushed her aside. But he gripped the small rail with his good left hand until his knuckles were white as he descended into the cabin. It was surprisingly spacious. He didn’t have to duck his head.
“Learn some manners,” he heard her mutter just behind him in her own language. That he didn’t get. Didn’t have time to try because his legs didn’t want to obey him. He stumbled to a bench with a cushion at a small table and sat heavily.
“Okay, big boy. We’re getting you to bed.” Then she switched to Latin. “Stay here.”
What an ungrateful wretch. Pushing her aside like that. Like she wasn’t the one saving his hide. Now where to put him? Jake’s boat was a tidy affair, an Irwin with a center cockpit. It had been completely refitted. Forty-four feet was big enough to live on and just big enough to sail in heavy weather. It was like Jake to have called it the Camelot. Lucy glanced around at the rich, varnished teak that formed shelves and drawers around a galley much bigger than the one on her father’s Catalina 30 and lined the salon. She headed forward, past the head, and found only half of the usual V-berth. The other half had been converted to storage. The Viking was a big man. The narrow half V-berth didn’t look promising. She peeked behind the louvered doors where the other berth should be and found a generator, extra batteries, and floor-to-ceiling storage shelves. Jake didn’t apparently hold with the “sleeps seven comfortably” part of every yacht maker’s brochure. This vessel was outfitted for long voyages. She slid back down past Galen and the galley through the passage around the center cockpit and found a queen bed in the stateroom with a big locker and bookshelves and another head. Okay. That was better. He could have the big bed, and she’d take the V-berth at the opposite end of the boat. Far away, was good, too. She pulled back the spread. The bed had fresh sheets and several blankets. The dirty and blood-soaked leather of the Viking’s breeches flashed through her mind. Those breeches would have to go.
When she got back to Galen, he was looking ashen. “Bed,” she said in Latin, and nodded to the aft cabin. She grabbed his good left arm above the elbow and helped him up. The bulge of his biceps under her fingers, hard under the smooth skin, was . . . a little shocking. More than a little if she wasn’t lying to herself. Helping him down to the boat, with his arm over her shoulders and his bare ribs pressed up against her, had been difficult. Okay. That was natural. The heat from his body had seeped into her until she was hot, too. But even holding his arm was doing things to her she didn’t like in places that shouldn’t be reacting like this.
Her lack of foresight was soon evident. The little passageway wasn’t built for two to pass. She looked up at him and heaved a sigh. He was on his own. “Go there.” She inclined her head to the aft cabin.
He nodded, set his lips, and staggered through the passageway, his broad shoulders caroming off the varnished teak paneling. He stumbled to the right side of the bed and slowly collapsed onto his good left side. Lucy hurried forward and knelt to pull off his boots. She didn’t even try to explain. What she was doing was trying really hard not to think about the fact that she was stripping a very virile man. Or about what that was doing to parts of her body she hadn’t paid much attention to lately. He was injured. What kind of a human being was she to be turned on by a wounded man? She pulled at the strings of the bow she had tied at his waist.
“Are you so eager for my services?” he rumbled in a tired voice.
Conceited lout! Did . . . did he know what she was feeling? He couldn’t. A small smile curved his lips. Was that self-satisfaction, or was he . . . was he teasing her? Did Vikings tease? There was a kind of self-aware humor around his eyes that was . . . incredibly attractive.
“Dirt.” She pointed. “Blood.” She pointed to the crisp white sheets. “Clean.”
“Women.” He shook his head. Was that mock despair or real disgust? She motioned him up so she could get his breeches off, but he lay on the bed, propped on one elbow, making no effort. His complexion was so pale she thought it might not just be rebellion. Maybe he couldn’t do as she bid. She pulled the thongs from around his legs. All that was left was to pull his breeches off. She wouldn’t blush. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even look.
She looked.
Darn it. The flush moved up her neck to lodge intractably in her cheeks. She pulled the covers back. He dragged himself up to the pillows, and she drew the covers over him. That was better. Much better. She couldn’t see the ribs move under the skin on his flanks. Or the taut abdominals, for that matter. The bunching curve of his buttocks was concealed and the corded muscle in his thighs and even his nipples puckered in the cool morning air. Not to mention his . . . genitals. Big deal. All men had them. She wasn’t a virgin. She’d had two relationships that included sex. She’d seen men’s genitals dozens of times.