Rolf shook his head, totally bemused. 'God's nails, Aubert, I need time to think, and for that I have to gather my wits, which you have scattered to the four winds.'
Aubert smiled, a decided gleam in his hooded hazel eyes. 'I knew that one day, I'd see you at a loss for words.'
Ailith felt Rolf raise the covers and slide into the bed. One sinewy arm came across her body, and he pressed close, touching the tip of his tongue to the tiny hairs on her spine. Ailith had been pretending to be asleep, but a small, sensuous shiver gave her away and with a sigh, she rolled over to face him.
He nuzzled her throat. 'We shouldn't have parted in anger earlier,' he murmured.
Only moments before Rolf had come to bed, she had been imagining a scene where she necked Inga's cursed gander herself, and perhaps Inga too into the bargain, but she grasped Rolf's olive branch eagerly. 'I'm sorry I was a shrew. I was worried about Julitta.'
'I was too thin-skinned myself. Call it even. I promise I will speak to Inga and make her do something about those geese.'
Ailith snuggled against him, breathing in his familiar scent. He stroked her hair, her spine, her breasts, and she felt his erection strain against her belly.
'Aubert desires a marriage between Benedict and Gisele.' His words came muffled as he buried his lips in her cleavage. 'I do not know whether I should accept or not. What do you think?'
'Benedict and Gisele?' she said, as surprised as Rolf had been. 'Are they suited?
'As well suited as any couple are when their parents arrange a marriage. Aubert, as it turns out, is a very wealthy man, and I like the boy's spirit. Gisele is like her mother — biddable, pious, and very pretty.'
'Perhaps you should let them meet and see how they respond to one another.'
'That would not be so bad an idea, and in the meantime, I could give the proposition due consideration.' He moved lower, softly pinching her skin with his lips.
She touched his hair, feeling beneath her fingertips the springy curls that he had passed on to Julitta, making her longer tresses such a bane to comb. 'But they will meet on Norman ground, you will not bring your wife to Ulverton?' she said, suddenly anxious.
He ceased what he was doing, and the muscles tensed across the back of his neck. 'I am not a complete fool,' he murmured against her flesh.
'I could not bear it if you did bring her,' Ailith whispered.
He sighed, and for a moment she thought that he was going to turn away as they trammelled the same old ground whose ruts they both knew because they had worn the path so often and so painfully before. 'I won't,' he said. 'On my soul I swear I won't.'
'It is forever.' Her hands remained in his hair, gripping him. 'Say it is forever.'
He hesitated again. 'It is forever,' he repeated, and broke her hold, pinning her beneath him, assaulting her senses until she sobbed aloud, half with pleasure and half with pain.
CHAPTER 32
Two days later, Rolf gave Mauger instructions to spruce up a young grey stallion which was to be inspected for the royal stables by a representative of King William, and rode out in the misty, gleaming dawn to keep his promise to Ailith.
Smoke twirled from village cooking fires and the people were already up and about their daily business. He was greeted according to each individual's adjustment to the fact of a Norman lord, but mostly with respect. Curious stares followed his progress down the village street to the house at the end where dwelt Inga, the woman from the north, and eyebrows were raised when he dismounted and tethered his horse to the low palisade surrounding her property.
Inga herself was just emerging from her house. She had a knobbed walking stick in one hand, although she had no need of it, the item was just a matter of habit, a prop to make people keep their distance. Over her other arm was draped a fine, dark blue cloak. Her small terrier growled at Rolf, but she commanded it to silence. Her cool hazel stare assessed him.
'How may I help you, my lord?' Her voice was cool too, but like Scots usquebaugh, it possessed an afterburn that set his nerves tingling.
'I want to talk to you about your geese… about your gander in particular.'
Inga pursed her lips. Her gaze flickered beyond him to the interest being generated in the village street and turning back, she reopened her door. 'Then you had best enter,' she said and commanded the dog away to his kennel in the yard.
Feeling uncomfortable, Rolf followed her into the house. The beaten earth floor had been stamped solid and covered with a layer of rushes. There was a bedding bench along one wall, piled with goatskins, and shelves upon the wall boasted an array of jars and pitchers. It was far from poor, but much less than that which had been her due in the north.
'They don't like me, your villagers,' she said, depositing the cloak, and gesturing him to be seated on the bedding bench. 'I don't fit in with their customs or their ways.'
'You don't try to like them,' he answered. 'Your son Sweyn has been accepted easily enough.'
'He's a man now, and they're short of men. I'm a rival for the few available — my own house, an income of sorts. They're jealous.' She reached down a flask of mead and poured a measure into a round wooden cup, then held it out to him. 'What about my gander? I suppose Widow Alfric's been complaining again.'
Their fingers touched as Rolf took the cup from her hands. Cool, with an afterburn. He was playing with fire and he knew it. 'Widow Alfric would have taken her complaint to my reeve first,' he said. 'This comes closer to my own threshold. Two days ago, your bird attacked my daughter Julitta, and she has the marks on her body to prove it. If my Godson Benedict had not happened along on his pony, she might have been killed. As it was, the gander attacked him too, and he had to throw his cloak over the thing to save himself.
Inga's face became ivory pale, but she maintained her composure. 'I am sorry to hear that,' she said in her clear, astringent voice. 'It is in the bird's nature to protect his territory. Belike the children came too close. Was there no-one there with them?'
He saw through her attempt to turn the tables and his lips tightened. 'It is not his territory, Inga. And what you say wanders from the point. It could have been anyone crossing that land – Widow Alfric for example. You know as well as I, that this is not the first time your gander has made an attack. If you value him as much as you say, then you had best keep him penned up and make sure he causes no more trouble. If he does, I will come here and neck him myself.'
Inga eyed him stonily. 'It will not happen again,' she said. He gave her his empty cup, but instead of setting it aside, she poured it full again from the mead pitcher and fetched another cup for herself. 'And if the gander is to be necked, I will do the deed. He is mine, not yours to destroy.'
Rolf knew that he should refuse the drink and escape, but his body would not obey his conscience, preferring to remain and play her game, whatever it was. And he thought he knew.
She drank her mead swiftly, like a man, tilting, swallowing, setting down. 'But then you're a Norman, aren't you?' she added when he did not speak. 'You do not care what you destroy.'
'Is that what you truly think?'
'Why should you care?'
Rolf shrugged. 'It might explain why you are so hostile. I do not believe I have ever seen you smile or utter a glad word.'