Dream of Me/Believe in Me

what?”
    “Flatter yourself if you imagine I want you out of those clothes because I desire you. You're filthy. You look like something a self-respecting cat wouldn't drag in. It is to your advantage—
yours
—to at least look human beforewe discuss the reasons for your outrageous behavior. Now get out of those clothes!”
    He clamped down hard on his temper but not before Krysta realized that she stood on the edge of a precipice. She should have stepped back. Any sensible person would have. But she was beginning to suspect that despite what she'd always thought about herself, good sense might not be her strong point.
    “I will if you leave.”
    Under other circumstances, his expression would have been comical. Now it was chilling. “Leave? You are telling me to leave … my quarters … in my stronghold? Leave?”
    “Not telling, asking. If you want me to undress and bathe, please leave. And I'll need fresh clothes. Obviously, I can't put these back on. If you would be so kind as to send someone to the women's quarters, my chests are there.”
    “You have no instinct for survival at all, do you?” He said it almost pleasantly, as though that was an interesting discovery.
    It was that pleasantness, the suggestion that her plight was entertaining to him, that pushed Krysta over the edge. Beneath the trails of black dye, her cheeks flamed. She gripped her ruined gown between her hands and began twisting it as though it were her intended lord and master's neck. He observed that, too, with some interest and just a hint of trepidation. It stirred his own instinct for survival, however belatedly.
    “Survival?” She spoke the word with scorn. “As though I would be satisfied with so little. It's possible to survive in a hole in the ground but it's no way to live. I want peace for my people and yours. Peace! A chance to live with safety and hope instead of always wondering when the next attack will come, the next men carriedhome dead, the next farmsteads burned. I thought you wanted peace, too, but now I think I must have been wrong. Allow me to inform you,
my
lord Hawk, the path to peace does not lie through the beds of other women!”
    He stared at her dumbfounded. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You heard me and don't try to deny it! You wanted to lie with me when you thought I was a servant. That's what you would have done if all this”—she gestured at her hair—“hadn't happened.”
    “I was sending you back to Vestfold so that it wouldn't happen!”
    “Then you admit it, you wanted to lie with me when you had every reason to think I was another woman. You would have betrayed me with … myself.” That didn't sound quite bad enough so she hurried on. “And with who knows how many other women. Oh, I know it's common practice. But to not even be able to wait until we were decently married before violating your vows—”
    His head was spinning. He, who had faced hordes of screaming Danes with perfect equanimity, slashing and hacking his way through them as though partaking of healthful exercise, couldn't seem to find his balance. His sputtering spitfire of an intended bride spoke to him as no one had ever dared. She challenged him at every turn and apparently expected him to accept such behavior as her right. Belatedly, he remembered what he'd heard about Norse women. They were headstrong and independent, as liable to cuff a man as to kiss him, and fiercely possessive of what they regarded as their own. Dragon had warned him but Hawk had thought he was exaggerating.
    He had himself a termagant by the tail and unless he was very careful, she was going to upset his entire, carefully ordered existence. “Enough!” His roar shook the rafters and so affrighted the returning servants that they splashed water all over the floor. That made them even more nervous, so that in scrambling to empty the tub theyspilled yet more water. Hawk watched them in disbelief, sure he was seeing a warning of things to come.
    Servants were on their hands and knees trying to mop up the mess. Others were frantically running about bringing in yet more water. People with no business in his tower were finding a reason to appear, staring into the room in horrified astonishment. The spectacle was even attracting birds, for just then a raven landed on the win-dowsill and cawed raucously.
    “Be quiet,” Krysta said.
    Hawk had no idea whom she meant and didn't care. Throwing his hands into the air, he stormed