The Viking Takes a Knight Read Online Free PDF

expected such unkindness in Lady Eadyth’s son.”
    â€œGuilting again, m’lady.”
    â€œWe will depart at once. I am so sorry to have disturbed you.” The expression of disdain on her face belied her apology.
    â€œWhere will you go?” Even he knew how bad that sounded and regretted his hasty words almost immediately.
    â€œI have no idea, but then it is of no concern to you, you…you lout.” Going to the outer door leading to the back courtyard, she yelled, loud enough to make John’s ears bleed, “Godwyn, gather the children. We must leave immediately. And Ubbi, rehitch the horses to the wagon. Kavil, ask the stableman to saddle the other horses.”
    â€œDo not be ridiculous,” John said, definitely feeling guilty now. Her ploy, if that was what it was, had worked. “You do not need to leave right away.”
    â€œHow generous of you! Many thanks, but we do not stay where we are not welcome.”
    â€œI never said you were not welcome.”
    She arched her brows at him.
    â€œI was just surprised,” he said defensively, then added with more vigor, “I do not like my honey studies tampered with.”
    â€œLet us make an agreement then. I will not interfere with your honey work, and you will not interfere in my kitchen.”
    Her kitchen? He did not like the sound of that.
    â€œAhem!”
    Just then he noticed Hamr and Bolthor propping up the door frame, grinning like idiots. He threw up his hands in surrender, then stomped over, pushing them aside, heading for his great hall and about a tun of ale. Halfway there, he stopped and went back. Poking a finger in Bolthor’s chest, he said, “If you dare concoct some bloody damn saga about me and an invasion by a beautiful woman and a tribe of little people, I swear you will be in the stew pot afore morning.”
    â€œBeautiful?” Ingrith stared at him, wide-eyed. “Me?”
    He spun on his heel and could not decide whether to go for the mead in his hall, or go to his bedchamber and bury his head under the furs for a sennight or two.
    That was when he heard Bolthor say in an overloud whisper to Hamr, “I was thinking more about an Ode to Heart-Shaped Arses.”
    John, for one, would not be attending dinner that night if that was on the menu.
    On the other hand…
    Â 
    A woman’s work is never done…
    Ingrith endeavored with everything she did that day to please the irksome lord of Hawk’s Lair, to no avail. By the time the evening meal was ready to be served, she could have fallen asleep on her feet in the bustling kitchen.
    Ubbi was threatening to slit the throat of the“ungrateful troll” if he complained once more. To which John had threatened to hang the “bothersome gnome” from the rafters if he did not get out of his way. Hamr, the outlaw Viking, just stood back enjoying the chaos. And Bolthor, the one-eyed giant, was composing saga after saga about the doings at Hawk’s Lair, which would no doubt embarrass one and all, if their titles were any indication. “When Hawks Stutter.” “The Princess and the Hawk.” “Ode to Woman-Honey,” whatever that meant. “When Norse Ladies Go A-Viking.”
    Hawk’s Lair was a small keep, with only a hundred housecarls guarding its borders and another fifty servants or field cotters. She had fed, with ease, five hundred and more at her father’s estate in the Norselands. Apparently, most of John’s hersirs and hirds of soldiers were housed at Gravely, his deceased father’s estate, which was a day’s ride away.
    The children had already bathed, for once not protesting, in the wonderful hot spring channeled into a bathing house. They were hopefully asleep, having already eaten. The boys were in a clean stable stall, and the girls in sleep closets along the back end of the great hall.
    Now, as she sat supervising, platters and bowls of food were being