Again he smiled, and again Erica’s heart warmed towards him, for taking care to reassure her. His mouth was beautiful, she thought, disconcerted. One could see more of a man’s expression when he was not hiding behind a beard as was the Saxon fashion. And certainly in Saewulf Brader’s case, the lack of beard was far from unattractive. The curve of his mouth and the shape of his jaw—strong…
Presenting his back to her, he rolled one of the barrels in front of the door, grunting with the effort. ‘And before you object…’ His voice was amused, though how on earth Erica could tell that she could not say. Saewulf Brader was Guthlac’s man, a stranger, yet already she knew when his voice was smiling. ‘Before you object, my lady, I am putting this here to ensure that you may sleep in privacy this night. It is not there to keep you imprisoned.’ Straightening, he dusted his hands on his thighs.
‘Saewulf?’
He came close, so close that she had to tip back her head to look up at him. ‘My friends call me Wulf.’
‘Wulf.’ Erica gave him a shaky smile and broke eye contact. Wulf. It suited him. And, since January was wulf-monath, the month of the wolves, it was fitting somehow. Sweet Lord, but he was tall. Having inherited her father’s height, Erica was unaccustomed to looking up at a man; it made her feel…shy. And Wulf’s proximity in the cramped storeroom made his physical presence seem overpowering. It was not simply his height; it was the width of his shoulders, the intensity of his gaze. If he wanted to, he would have no trouble in forcing her. But, thankfully, he did not appear to have any such intention. Her guardian angel must have been watching over her this night. This particular wolf was not of the ravening sort.
‘Wulf…’ she swallowed ‘…how apt.’ The name Wulf was, however, a timely reminder. Here she was, a lone woman among a pack of wolves, and he was one of them—she must not forget that. However personable Seawulf Brader appeared, she must keep in mind that he was Thane Guthlac’s man.
‘Apt? Oh, I see, of course, you would think that. It is wulf-monath—you must feel you have been flung into a den of them.’
Erica’s jaw dropped—he could read her so easily? She looked at the pulse beating in his neck and frowned. ‘Wulf, I…I do thank you for your help. But I wonder…’
‘My lady?’
‘It is just that I am not certain why Thane Guthlac gave me to you and not to…to…that other one—his name escapes me.’
‘Hrothgar.’
‘Yes. Why did he give me to you when you made it clear then that you had no intention of…?’ She tried unsuccessfully to hold down a blush and would have turned away, but a light touch brought her face back to his.
‘That is easily answered. After tonight, my lady, you will find that your status has changed—no one will believe that you are chaste. It will matter not that I have not touched you, everyone will assume the worst. And because—’ his hand fell away and steel entered those blue eyes ‘—because I am what I am, your disparagement will be the more certain, your fall from grace the more precipitate.’
‘How so?’ Erica’s chest was tight; there was not nearly enough air in this storeroom.
Seeming to sense her discomfort, he eased back a pace, though his eyes remained cold. ‘Did you not hear Thane Guthlac and Hrothgar? Not only am I new to the warband and untried in battle, but I…’ He gave her a mocking bow. ‘Thane Guthlac recalls me from my childhood in Southwark. He knows I am Winifred Brader’s illegitimate son, and he has made sure that every man sworn to him knows me for what I am—a bastard, a low-born bastard.’
His cheeks had darkened and he was no longer meeting her gaze. Erica did not think it was shame that made him look away. He imagines he will see scorn and dismissal in my face. ‘Wulf?’ She made her voice as gentle as she could. ‘You could not help the circumstances of your birth.’
‘Lady, did you not hear me? My parents’ union was unsanctified. A bastard will share your sleeping quarters this night. That is why Thane Guthlac permitted you to choose me.’ He smiled, but his smile was bitter, and her heart ached.
‘Your birth does not trouble me,’ Erica said, frankly. ‘I chose you over…?’
‘Hrothgar.’
‘Yes, him. Of the two of you, I knew at once who was the man of honour.’
Wulf shook his head and his dark hair gleamed in the lamplight. ‘Lady, we are strangers.’
‘I know you,’ Erica said firmly. ‘And you, Wulf Brader, will not hurt me. That tells me all I need to know.’
With a sigh, he stooped for the pallet, dragged it to the space he had cleared and flung his cloak over it. ‘Lady, your bed.’ Drawing his own russet cloak from the bundle he had brought in with him, he handed it to her.
‘And you? Where will you sleep?’
‘Here, by the door.’
The spot he indicated was small for a man of his proportions. ‘There is little room.’ Immediately, Erica blushed, and wished the words unsaid. They sounded almost like an invitation.
‘There is room enough.’
Retreating to the pallet, she sank down on it and drew her cloak to her chin. She tried not to look his way. The cloak that she was lying on—his cloak—was thick and double lined, but there was no disguising that the mattress under it was thin and lumpy. For a moment Erica felt a longing for the fat, down-filled mattress of her box-bed at Whitecliffe, but she pushed the thought aside, and closed her ears to the harsh rustle of straw as she shifted on her crude bed.
It would be an uncomfortable night, Erica thought, recognising with something approaching astonishment that fear no longer gripped her. Her judgement of this man had been sound—she could trust him. He might be illegitimate, but there was no denying that Wulf Brader was an honourable man. Honour, she was fast learning, was not confined solely to the aristocracy.
She raised herself up on an elbow, bracelets jingling. ‘Wulf?’
‘Mmm?’
He was sitting on the floor, leaning against a barrel, pulling his boots off. Briskly he unbuckled his belt and set his sword close to hand. Erica’s stomach lurched as he began unwinding the blue cross-gartering. She had never slept alone with a man. And Wulf’s dark, almost sinful good looks, were having a strange effect on her; it would seem that they made improper thoughts leap into her head, unseemly thoughts that an unmarried Saxon lady had no business thinking, particularly since she had barely escaped ravishment at the hands of Hrothgar.
But Erica could not help herself, the thoughts kept coming. Thoughts about what it would be like to kiss such a man, one with penetrating blue eyes and a well-shaped mouth that had softened more than once when he had looked at her, a powerful man with a peculiar hint of sensitivity about him. Erica had never kissed a man, not intimately. Once, Ailric had attempted to steal a kiss in the Christmas before the Normans had come, but he had come to Erica with the reek of the ale-house on his breath and she had pushed him away very quickly. Her position as thane’s daughter had spared her other men’s attentions.
As Erica watched Wulf Brader prepare for sleep, the disconcerting intimacy of their situation stole her breath, and for a moment she forgot her question. Then she remembered. She was curious about him, his background, and not just what it might be like to share a kiss with him. It was quite ridiculous that she was having carnal thoughts and most unlike her. Still, it had to be better than dwelling on her current plight—hostage to the whim of Guthlac Stigandson.
‘Wulf, you say you are but newly recruited—how came you to join Thane Guthlac?’
For a moment it seemed he was not going to respond, then he shifted and said, ‘I was brought up in the port of London,