“Yes. If I take Danes to France, there will be room for you to make the journey as well. Does that prospect not interest you, even if I do not?”
Celiese’s long sweep of lashes touched her brows as she stared up at him, astonished by his question. “You would take me home? I could return home?” She had not dared hope such a possibility even existed, but she saw clearly in his expression that it did.
Hagen waited a long moment, enjoying the light filling her sparkling green eyes with unabashed delight. “Yes, I will take you home, but we needn’t make our plans tonight. Come, let us walk back to the house before it becomes too dark for you to make the way safely.”
She sprang to her feet, nearly dancing with joy as she moved down the path beside him and when he paused at her door she knew he was waiting for a kiss and lifted her lips shyly to his. He drew her into his arms, his gentle kiss growing passionate, but he left her blushing brightly with embarrassment rather than pleasure. He walked away, as though he had given her no more than a light kiss upon the cheek, but she knew exactly what he would expect were she to travel with him to France. Tears again filled her eyes, but she blinked them away, uncertain now if going home meant more to her than her pride.
Chapter 14
Celiese stretched languidly, pressing her silken skin against Mylan’s broad chest as his kisses moved slowly down her throat. His kiss tickled at the curve of her shoulder, and she purred with a playful giggle before coming fully awake with a startled gasp, “Mylan?” She sat up then, looking around anxiously, but the pale light filling the room revealed no trace of the handsome Viking.
Flopping dejectedly across the bed with a frustrated moan, she longed to go back to sleep but an escape into the oblivion of slumber proved impossible. The dream had been much too real, too tantalizing a reminder of Mylan’s generous affection for her to force his compelling image from her mind. His memory filled her senses to overflowing, and she rested her cheek upon her arms as she relived in her imagination each moment they had shared. She had wanted him to love her, to be as proud to call her his wife as she had been to call him husband, but it had proven to be a hopeless dream. Perhaps her cause had been doomed from the very beginning, but she had no regrets. Even knowing how furious Mylan had been that she had prized her freedom so highly, she could not have remained his slave forever.
“I am no slave,” she whispered hoarsely, her voice ringing hollow in the early morning air. No indeed, she could no longer be called a slave by anyone, but the freedom to love the man she had chosen had eluded her with a suddenness that left her reeling still with the harshness of his rejection. “Why couldn’t you have really been my husband, Mylan?”
Her dark mood had not lightened by the time she joined Olgrethe later that morning. The enthusiastic young woman had tried to interest her in a fine bolt of red silk, but when she made no favorable comment upon the luxurious fabric she was asked pointedly, “Where is your mind today, Celiese? I am trying to help you create the most stunning of gowns, and you act as though we were sorting rags.”
“I beg your pardon?” Celiese leaned forward, forcing herself to pay more attention. “All the fabrics you’ve shown me are lovely, but red is so ostentatious a color, and I’d prefer not to attract such notice as surely a gown of so bright a hue would.”
Tossing the silk aside Olgrethe frowned petulantly. “It isn’t the silk at all, is it? I saw you laughing happily with Hagen last nightâ??what happened between you two that your mood is so downcast today?”
Celiese shook her head slowly, uncertain as to how to relate her latest problem, but, hoping Olgrethe might possibly be able to help her, she described her predicament. “Hagen said he is considering a voyage to my homeland, but, while I want so desperately to return to France, I do not believe I should make the journey with him.”
Olgrethe’s honey-colored curls flew about her head as she leapt to her feet, her shock at Celiese’s announcement unhidden. Married women were expected to wear their hair covered by a scarf, or at the very least pulled atop their heads in a confining bun, but Andrick considered his bride’s glowing tresses too pretty to hide and she had readily agreed to wearing her hair in the carefree style she always worn to please him. “You want to leave me now when I will need you the most? How could you abandon me when I’m expecting my first child? Am I to face giving birth all alone?”
Celiese instantly regretted having confided in the self-centered young woman and attempted to soothe her injured feelings. “I am not an experienced midwife. It will be no great tragedy if I am not with you.” Indeed, other than a cat or two, household pets, she had not seen any creature give birth, so she did not understand how she could prove helpful.
Her pretty face contorted in an angry pout, Olgrethe continued to fume, “If I mean nothing to you, what of Mylan? How can you leave the man you love without the slightest regret, without even telling him goodbye?”
It was Celiese who tossed her silken curls this time as she scoffed at the question, “Mylan cares little what happens to me, as should be obvious. It has been more than two weeks since I came here and he’s not come for me nor given me any hope that he will. He’s thrown me away as if I were trash, and if Hagen will give me the opportunity to return to France, why shouldn’t I seize it eagerly?”
“Because it is Mylan you love, not Hagen!” Olgrethe proclaimed loudly, the logic that seemed to have escaped Celiese so extremely plain to her.
After a long pause, Celiese began to laugh with a delicious giggle that bubbled up from deep within her, for Olgrethe’s show of temper was so very amusing. “Yes, I do love him, and most dearly, but of what value is love if it is not returned?”
Again taking her place beside her friend, Olgrethe offered more advice, but with a surprising twist. “I’ve not once heard you mention Erik, but didn’t you notice how black his gaze grew last night when Hagen asked you to accompany him on a stroll?”
Confused, Celiese gestured helplessly. “What has Erik to do with this?”
“It is plain you do not appreciate his attempts to impress you with his wit. He is not yet grown, and his feelings are therefore more easily bruised, but I thought you were merely being aloof so as not to encourage his infatuation. Are you telling me now you had not even noticed how he adores you? You’ve always been so perceptive in the past. Has your rudeness been unintentional?”
“Have I been dreadfully rude?” Celiese asked regretfully. “Erik is so lively and good-humored I did not dream he had grown overly fond of me.” Indeed, she had no experience with young men, for she had gone from slave to wife in the space of one day, without ever having been courted.
“Well, he most certainly has,” Olgrethe assured her confidently. “If Hagen offers to escort you home, then his feelings for you are just as plain.”
Celiese felt certain Hagen had no feelings for her other than lust, but she would not reveal that opinion to Olgrethe and risk the questions she would be sure to ask. “Please stop. I’ve done nothing to encourage the affections of either of Andrick’s brothers.”
“How can you be so foolish, they are Mylan’s brothers too!” Olgrethe pointed out heatedly.
“So?” Celiese responded,
deeming their conversation pointless.
“So why don’t we think of some compelling reason for Mylan to come home, and he’s sure to be driven mad with jealousy in less than one day.”
A sudden chill shot up Celiese’s spine, instantly filling her with a dread so deep she could barely find her voice to argue. “Never, Olgrethe, I’ll never stoop to such treachery, for Mylan would only despise me all the more were he to think I was using his brothers’ devotion to inspire his.”
Alarmed by Celiese’s dramatic tone, Olgrethe sat back. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, while she attempted to rephrase her suggestion in more acceptable terms. “It is not all that easy for me here either, Celiese. I often think of how I was cheated out of having the wedding celebration I deserved. Time for the harvest is nearly here, and it will be such a fine one this year, Aldred might be convinced to host a party that Mylan can be enticed to attend. There will be no treachery involved, only an opportunity for the two of you to be together again, and once the man is here, who can say what he will see for himself?”