‘You will not tell him that.’
It shouldn’t surprise her that he would feel that way, but it did. ‘I cannot marry him and not tell him.’
‘You can and you will.’ He dropped his spoon and levelled a finger in her direction. ‘This will be the last we speak of this. You will not tell him. It is not information he needs to know.’
‘But he does. I cannot marry him under...under false pretences. It would be vile of me to do so.’
‘It would be vile of you not to do so.’ Cedric countered. ‘You must think about your people. Not yourself. Not even Rurik in this. This is about doing what is right for Glannoventa. These people have become your responsibility. You have spent the last years of your life shouldering that responsibility. You cannot, you must not, shirk it now.’
Bristling under the weight of his displeasure, she drew herself up. ‘I have said nothing of shirking my responsibility.’
‘Fine. Then you can marry whichever Dane Jarl Eirik puts forth to you.’
‘I... That... I...’ Annis was aware that her mouth was opening and closing like a fish tossed up on the shore gasping for air. She simply was not able to stop doing it. This was all too much and far too soon.
‘The Norseman, then?’ He raised a brow.
‘How can you expect me to decide so soon? For that matter, how do you know that he will not wed me only to slit my throat as I sleep? You are putting me in a very difficult position.’
‘It is not me putting you in this position, Annis. It is simply the situation we find ourselves in.’ Cedric sighed. ‘Rurik could already have harmed you if that was his plan.’
‘But once he finds out about Maerr—’
‘You will not tell him!’ His voice rose so that it echoed off the high ceiling. ‘Never speak of that time again. You put all of us at risk, but especially yourself.’ Pushing back from the table, he came around to kneel before her. His hands took hers in a rare sign of physical affection. ‘Please, Annis. I know that you feel compelled to honesty, but it will not help you here. By all means, tell him if you must, but later. Much later. He is still a stranger to us in many ways. If you tell him now, he could very well marry you anyway with no one to stop him from carrying out his revenge on you. My protection can only extend so far.’
He did not say it, but they both knew what he meant. At night in her chamber, no one could intervene. Though she had no doubt that Cedric would knock down doors to get to her, there were things the Norseman could do that would not be heard. A coldness crept over her and she had to fight to keep her limbs from trembling, though Cedric must have felt it in her fingers because he tightened his grip. ‘Have you told Wilfrid about Maerr? About me?’
He shook his head. ‘I saw no need to share that. We both know the risk of upsetting him. Even that scene just now left me frightened for him. Wilfrid prefers Rurik because he wants to end the need for vengeance after he is gone. It does not hurt that marrying the Norseman will likely annoy Jarl Eirik. He does enjoy thwarting the man.’ He grinned in fondness.
The door to the hall opened and Rurik stood there framed by two guards. She wanted to believe that he could be the saviour that Cedric, incredibly, believed that he could be. A large part of her trusted him, whether she wanted to or not. And the night they had spent talking had made her feel closer to him than was comfortable. But what did they know of him? What decision would he make if he knew her part in the massacre?
Perhaps he would take the choice from her. Perhaps he wanted no part of Glannoventa and would leave at first light.
But he stepped into the hall and took that final hope away from her. ‘I will wed you, Lady Annis.’
Chapter Fourteen
Life could change in a day and sometimes in an instant. That had been proven to Rurik more than once. His mother’s sudden death from an illness, the wedding attack, finding out that King Feann was actually his uncle and now this. He was to be married into the same family he had come to destroy. As improbable as it seemed, with a night to sleep on his decision, he still believed he was making the right one.
In truth, he could remember very little of the previous evening. He remembered clearly right up until the moment Cedric had suggested marriage. After that, the bits of memory became vague and matched together in a way that did not seem to follow a logical trail of time. There was Annis’s horrified expression. That particular memory kept coming back and it smarted. There was Wilfrid and the almost sage way he had pressed Rurik to consider marriage. There was Annis’s face again when Rurik accepted. She had excused herself, but he honestly could not remember if she had accepted as well. Cedric had spent the meal—all with guards still present—droning on and on about Glannoventa’s great history, but Rurik did not recall a word of it.
Earlier that morning, Alder, the guard who seemed to be assigned to him most and the one who had hit him that first night outside the tavern, brought him food and requested he ready himself for an outing. He half expected that Annis had arranged for his imminent demise. A little while later he had been given his fur and led out a set of doors and was now standing in a courtyard. A low wall surrounded it with a gate that was open to the outside. Alder disappeared into a stone building that seemed to house horses if the smell of manure
