Free The Seducer (Viking Warriors) by Jianne Carlo Page B

wicked grin sent shivers across Elaina’s exposed back. “Bid your wife leave and return in normal garb.”
    “As you wish, your majesty.” Jarvik bowed and took one, two, three steps back, dragging Elaina with him. As soon as they were out of hearing distance of the monarchs, Jarvik hissed, his voice low but feral, “Take the back stairs. Get you to our chamber, change, and return. If you are not here by the time the meat platters are on the table, I will come to fetch you myself. And, Elaina? The fetching will involve my hand connecting with your tempting bottom many times.”
    Relief sped her footsteps. She nigh flew to their chamber, threw on an old cyrtel that she had worn before donning the padding. Her breasts had blossomed during her time as a healer, and the bodice revealed far more than Jarvik would like. Mother Mary, what would he do when they were alone?
    Jarvik’s eyes bored into her the second she entered the hall. He did not understand what ’twas like to live known only as the concubine’s daughter. Now that he had claimed Kateri and Kitti as his daughters, the girls would be taunted as Elaina had been. Jarvik believed that because he had married Elaina she would be accepted. Elaina knew better.
    The whispers began when she crossed the hall to the high table. Her chin firmed and she clenched her jaw. None would know how she quailed inside, how the smell of the food brought bile to her mouth, or how she yearned to cuff the men who snickered when she walked past them.
    Jarvik lurched to his feet when Elaina approached the bench. He helped her to sit, curved an arm around her waist, and drew her close. “For this eve, I am pleased that you left your hair unbound. ’Tis glorious. I have a quarrel to pick with you, wife.”
    She blinked, twined her fingers together, and ducked her head. He would quarrel with her in front of all these nobles?
    His fist nudged her chin. “You have not stolen your score kisses this day. So, I will steal two score from you this eve.”
    Unshed tears blurred her vision. “You would have me act the concubine’s daughter?”
    “Nay. I would have all, every man, woman, and child in this hall know that Jarvik the Seducer has eyes for none but his wife. Look to me, sweetling.” His stare pierced her. She felt his determination and knew he seethed with rage. “That the Seducer values Princess Elaina above all. That he chooses the finest of everything for her. That he will not sate his hunger until she is replete.”
    Elaina blinked, and she cupped his jaw. It took a few moments before she could find her voice. “I vow to you that I will never give you cause to set me aside. I will ne’er cast my sights to another man.”
    He brushed her lips with his.
    Jarvik would not let her lift a finger the whole meal. “Deidra tells me you taught her how to eat without meat or fowl.”
    “I will eat fowl, but Deidra is loath to eat any animal. I fear I had to convince her to taste fish, eel, and cockles. May I not offer you a morsel, my lord?”
    “Later. In our chamber.” He speared a choice oyster. “I will have you feed me the chocolate spiced balls Magnus is so fond of.”
    Her sex readied for him, for his shaft, for the most delicious friction that fed ecstasy. His words and the desire blazing from eyes lit a fire low in her belly, a conflagration that spread everywhere all at once, radiating to toes too warm in thin slippers, to her tingling scalp, and finally to the aching nubbin between her folds.
    “You blush deliciously. I hunger for you, wife.” He found a slice of leek covered in buttery cream and slipped the morsel between her lips. “Mayhap we will have to take some thick cream and a few plump berries with us when we leave the hall.”
    How many women’s honey had her husband tasted? Elaina studied his eating knife separating a square of fish from a chunk of turnip.
    “To me, wife.”
    Elaina forced her lips to curve when she met his gaze. “My lord?”
    “What