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be frightened at the idea of shared pleasure.” He stressed the shared thistime, wondering if that had not been clear when he’d first introduced his intentions.
    “You are a heathen marauder,” she accused, as if his choice of gods also made him witless. “Your idea of pleasure is raping and thieving when you are not killing Saxons and burning whole towns. I would never share your pleasures.”
    “I have never done battle for the blood sport and I have never taken a woman against her will, even during the heat of a raid.” No man under his command would dare brutalize innocents during battle. Those kinds of distractions left a man’s sword useless and his back exposed to his enemy.
    “That has not been my experience of your people and I have no reason to trust your word.” She trudged along beside him, keeping pace while her gaze tracked the tree line nearby, obviously searching for somewhere to run.
    “What of your experience of me?” he demanded. He had been judged unfairly before and did not appreciate her assumptions. “I saved you from certain death when you were about to fall from the castle walls. I have not harmed a hair upon your head, even when you bit me, ran from me and hurled insult after insult upon my fathers. What reason have I given you to fear me?”
    He flexed his fingers, tightening his grip to encourage her gaze.
    Finally, she peered up at him with dark, thoughtful eyes.
    “Perhaps I have misjudged you as much as you’ve misjudged widows.” She made it less an admission and more of a challenge. “Not every widow is eager for—a man.”
    At last, he’d learned something about her beyondher bold spirit. Though the revelation might delay his inevitable seduction of the woman, it provided him with valuable insight. She wasn’t merely frightened of the Danes. She’d been mistreated—or at very least unappreciated by the last man who’d touched her.
    “Then let us judge one another only on what we know.” He hastened toward their destination before darkness caught them alone in the woods with no shelter. “So far, I know you’re a brave woman since you ventured out onto the battlements while invaders stormed the beach. I know you think your overlord is an arrogant pig and that you are surprisingly comfortable on the sea.”
    “You have a fine ship,” she admitted. “And I know you disagreed with your men on the way here. They do not approve of your taking me. Also, you are an enemy of the other troops that landed on our shores today. Other than that, I cannot claim much knowledge of you other than that you have uncommon strength and stamina.”
    He wanted to remind her that those qualities would be beneficial in their pursuit of pleasure, but held his tongue since she hadn’t yet grasped how rewarding this would be for them both.
    “You see?” Thumping his chest with his fist, he gave her his victory sign. “I am not a man of undue violence.”
    “But you are convinced you are right all the time and do not accept others’ counsel. I suspect your friend from your ship would agree.”
    She had to mean Erik. And wasn’t she an observant one?
    “Leading men requires decisiveness.” He peered out into a clearing between patches of trees, and when he deemed it safe, nudged her across the open meadow.
    “Leading a woman involves discussion. ” She seemed to consider the matter seriously. “And I do not wish to be some object of lust for an overbearing warrior unaccustomed to being denied his smallest desire.”
    If only she knew what he’d been denied. His home. His rightful place in a noble house. But long before either of those—love.
    “This matters naught, Gwendolyn. Because whether you will it or nay, you please me.”
     
    T IME PASSED SLOWLY TUCKED against the Norseman’s side.
    Gwendolyn could not be sure how far they’d traveled, since the journey had a dreamlike quality that made it feel unreal. She had never been so physically close to any man for that length