Free The Viking's Woman by Heather Graham Page A

and a belt that buckled with a finely crafted Celtic cross. At his shoulder he held his regal crimson mantle in place with the crest of his father’s house, the wolf and the crown.
    When he was done, he glanced around the room. Rollo would have had him brought to the best in the manor, so if it was not the lord’s room, then it was the lady’s. Curious, he went to the trunk at the foot of the bed and opened it. The trunk was filled with women’s wear, long tunics in fine materials trimmed with fur and with jewelry.
    So the Lady Rhiannon had ruled here. This had been her room. He had cast her from her place, or so it seemed. Tension filled him, tightening his jaw, constricting his muscles. There had been treachery here, and this Rhiannon had surely been the cause of it. It was her land, so said her servant. She had been the one to order the battle and to see it to its bloody end.
    She had sent her rain of arrows descending upon him. She had struck him. She had heartily desired to slay him. “Witch!” he muttered, and that she was, with her silvery-blue eyes, her hair of pure fire, and her sizzling hatred. He picked up a jeweled dagger,pondering all that had happened. Perhaps he should have thrown his knife at her heart. If the treachery had been hers, it had cost many, many lives. And if she had the chance again, Eric thought, she would gladly slay him. She had come closer than any man to ending his life. She was no gentle, demure lass. She had fought like a vixen and cut him; she knew where to aim against a man.
    “Well, my proud one,” he muttered aloud, turning her jeweled dagger over in his hands, “you will pay in part, for you will give up this land and these clothes and all that I hold. You will never regain them—that I swear. Perhaps you will learn humility. If ever I am given the chance, lady, I will see that you learn it well.” He still could not forget the rage she had instilled in him. Nor in honesty could he forget the woman herself. Even shimmering with the passion of her hatred, her eyes were beautiful, with their ambient gray-blue irises and thick fringe of dark lashes. She did not elicit his tenderness but had touched a haunting cord of desire within him. He smiled. ’Twas a pity she was a lady born. To be given to a man she deemed a Viking, as his concubine, surely would be a difficult cross for her to bear.
    He cast the dagger back into the trunk and closed it. No woman, no matter how beautiful, was worth as much to him as the land. And though the taste of revenge lay sweet within his mouth, he wanted this piece of earth and the surrounding coves with a passion. If the king was not behind this, Eric would demand the
land
of him in retribution. As a Christian prince, he couldn’t demand a lady as a passing diversion, a concubine.
    He came downstairs, where certain of his men sat around the great fire. Mastiffs roamed the great hall now, and it seemed that the serfs were back at their work. The blessing of being a slave! Eric thought wryly. For if a master was a decent one, a serf did not change his or her position much in life—no matter who triumphed, no matter who ruled.
    Hadraic, Rollo, and Michael of Armagh ringed the fire, drinking ale. Hadraic was the son of one of his father’s men and an Irish maid. Rollo was a Norseman through and through, and Michael was as Irish as Queen Erin. Watching them, Eric thought that his father’s alliance with his grandfather had been a good one. They had learned friendship and had prospered. These three men were important to him. They fought together, cared greatly for one another, and were fiercely loyal.
    Yet, like him, they were seeking … something. Conquest, perhaps, of their own.
    Rollo gazed up at Eric as he came down the stairs. “We’ve ordered a feast prepared for the King of Wessex. He has sent us a young noble of East Anglia as hostage, and we have now sent an escort to meet with his party. I was thinking that we should now ride out and