Page 137 of The Thornwyck Rose

The door creaked.

She startled, then exhaled when Erik stepped into the light, with his dark cloak damp from the weather.

“Lord David and I are to meet,” he said, his voice low. “Saw the fire.” His eyes traced her face, her neck, her body in the chair, before his gaze lifted once more to meet her gaze.

“I thought everyone had gone to bed,” Seren said, her hand flinching toward her veil.

Erik glanced toward the door, then back at her. “Thought Lord David might be in here.” He took in Margot and Isolde, noting the impropriety of remaining alone with her with only her sleeping handmaidens.

He shifted his weight. Seren saw the desire to stay in his eyes, but the bitter words came from his lips: “I’ll leave you to your work.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said before she could think. “Come in. Sit. You said David will be here shortly.”

She had meant what she said. She didn’t want a scandal, but everything at the moment felt right with Erik, and the fact that she’d lose it all made her soul burn against the injustice she’d done to herself.

The corners of Erik’s mouth lifted as he picked a heavy wooden chair up and set it next to the hearth, too close to her. His fingers brushed hers as he settled in, and neither pulled away.

She forced a small chuckle as she lifted the parchments in the air with her other hand.

“They’re ridiculous, aren’t they?” she said, nudging one of the scrolls with her thumb. “These requests for my daughter’s hand. One of them thinks himself a poet. Another’s too sickly to ride.”

She tossed them onto the desk behind her.

Erik smirked. “A sickly poet. Quite the prize.”

He slid his fingers into her palm and up to interlace with her fingers. “In the north, we would have to show off our skills as a fighter and a farmer, bringing our best crop—win the heart of the woman and her parents.”

“Is that how you married Astrid?”

He nodded.

“Wait,” she laughed, his words catching up to her. “You were a farmer?” Her lips spread wide.

“We all were. Raiding season was just a season. My brothers and I were just exceptionally good at raiding.”

She squeezed his hand. The question came unwelcome. “Did Henry kill them, too?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t know what happened to them.”

His brow furrowed at Seren’s silence. She wanted to ask how he found himself under Henry’s thumb, and, reading her glance, as he had done so many times before, he answered.

“Astrid was sick with child. We were moving north to evade the Normans. I loved her too much to make her endure the terrain. She was so sick that she couldn’t eat or barely drink. So weak and tired.”

His gaze turned inward.

“My father warned me. I didn’t listen. We settled with a few who stayed behind with us until Ragnar was born. They left, but Astrid needed time to recover. Her arms and legs were as thin as needles. I should have carried them, but I didn’t.”

Erik sniffed as grief welled as a glisten in his eyes. He shook his head and sighed.

“Then Henry . . . brought me here.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. The fire painted gold across her skin.

“To you.”

Seren sat with his grief. “I am so sorry, Erik. Henry was an awful man. If it weren’t for him, perhaps you could be with your family somewhere north with Astrid and Ragnar and maybe more children.”

Erik only shook his head. “If not Lord Henry, it would have been another, and then I would never have met you.”

“I told myself you only ever wanted Astrid,” Seren whispered. “You kissed all of them—the ladies in the stairwells. I told myself you were just pretending with me, until I knew you weren’t.”