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Chapter One

He entered the long hall of Wyndhurst and every woman in it stopped what she was doing to follow him with her eyes. There was nothing unusual in that. It happened every time he was in the presence of women; here, at home, it mattered not where, they couldn't help but stare at him. Here at Wyndhurst, it made no difference that he was a Viking and they were Saxons all, or that the two rarely mixed without bloodshed. It was only last year that their own men concluded yet another war with the Danish Vikings to the north.

It was not fear that held these women mesmerized, though this Viking could be fearsome when warranted, skilled warrior that he was. It was not awe for his towering height, which surpassed even that of their Lord Royce, who was an exceptionally tall man himself. It was simply that they had never known a man of Selig Haardrad's uncommon handsomeness.

He didn't just have a body the northern gods would envy, he had been blessed with a face likened to an angel's, with eyes that could be as dark as a summer storm or as light as polished silver, prominent cheekbones to frame a perfectly shaped nose, and brows subtly arched and as raven-black as his long, luxurious mane. He also had lips so sensual, every woman he met yearned to know the taste of them.

The women should have grown used to his looks in the six years since his first appearance, when he had come with his Norse Vikings to raid their land and nearly died for it. But familiarity made no difference either. And none were immune, not old Eda in the cooking area at the end of the hall, although she was the first to recall herselfand snap at the women there to get back to work. And not young Meghan in the front of the hall, who sat sewing with her ladies before the open windows.

Meghan was no more than ten and four, but she still sighed dreamily and wished this particular Viking was not twice her age. Not that she wasn't old enough to marry. Babes could be married if the need for an alliance was strong enough. But Royce, her brother, had no such need and was already related to Selig by marriage. And besides, he loved Meghan too dearly to consider letting her leave his home for many a year yet, and she was perfectly happy to have it so.

On the left side of the long hall, at one of the tables set around a large barrel of ale, where the men were wont to gather, Selig's sister, Kristen, watched him approach. She didn't usually notice the effect he had on her women,

but with the silence that greeted his appearance today, she couldn't help it. She noted the smile he bestowed on several women, and the winks he gave even more, those he knew intimately. There were too many winks in her opinion.

Sitting beside Kristen, her husband, Royce, rolled his eyes, seeing the same thing, and remarked in an aside to her, "He ought to get married and put them out of their misery."

"What misery?" she snorted. "He spreads himself around too much to leave naught but happy sighs in his wake. The misery would come if he did marry. And why should he, when he has women of all ages throwing themselves at him in two countries, not to, mention every market center he visits?"

"So 'twas the same in Norway?"

"Always." She sighed.

Royce chuckled, aware that she was not the least bit annoyed with her brother for his legion of conquests, including those in her own hall. They were too close, those two, for her ever to begrudge him anything. He knew Kristen had even set herself the task of avenging Selig's death when she thought Royce's cousin Alden had killed her brother in that raid that had brought both her and Selig to Wessex six years ago.

It was a time Royce didn't like to dwell on. How dose he had come to ordering the deaths of the prisoners his men had captured that day, and almost lost his true love in the process. His wife had been one of those prisoners, though her friends had helped to disguise her so that she appeared no more than a boy. And the guise would have worked, for she was nearly as tall as they, and as tall or taller than most of his own men. It was the Vikings own forgetfulness, in still treating her like a woman, shielding her, aiding her, coming to her defense, that drew attention to her and finally to the truth the day Royce had her whipped.

He had separated her from her friends after that, moving her into his hall. He had thought her their whore, no other reason for her presence with them coming to mind. And she had let him think it, had been amused by it, and with her boldness unlike any he had ever encountered in a woman, she had tempted him from the first. If she had not, he could have resisted her, despite her beauty, despite the fascination she held for him, for he hated all kinds of Vikings with a passion.

Although he had fought wars against them for fifteen years, his hatred had only blossomed eleven years ago. In one horrific ordeal, he was forced to watch, impaled on a wall, while Danish Vikings killed his father and his only brother, and raped and killed his betrothed. Royce was left to die there, amid the corpses of his loved ones, and would have, if the Danes hadn't gone on to sack Jurro Monastery further inland, allowing those servants who had survived to aid him. Aye, Royce had good reason to despise all Vikings. Yet he had fallen in love with one, and because of that, was even tolerant of her family.