Fires of Winter (14 page)

“Is she mine?”

“Yea,” she replied reluctantly.

“Then leave me to handle her as I see fit.”

Brenna bristled. That they assumed she could not understand them was what she wanted, but it was becoming exceedingly difficult not to retaliate when the conversation was about herself. Garrick had proved himself to be a cold, heartless adversary, no better than she expected. At least she knew for sure now.

She found him looking at her with icy eyes. “Give me the knife, mistress.”

His voice brooked no refusal, yet she shook her head vehemently. “Nay, you will have to take it.”

“Garrick, for God’s sake, let her keep it for now!” Heloise said earnestly. “Would you chance a wound here?”

“By Thor!” he stormed. “Her words are brave, but you greatly overestimate her, mother, as she does herself. She is no match for a man.”

“Please, Garrick!”

He battled quickly with his emotions, but finally his mother’s pleading won out over his instincts. He turned to Brenna, who faced him defiantly.

“Will you come with me peaceably?”

“Yea,” she answered readily, knowing the victory was hers. “I will leave this hall.”

He motioned for her to precede him, and she did so proudly, looking neither left nor right. She returned the knife to her belt as she walked, assured that no one would accost her now.

At the top of the stairs, Garrick stopped Brenna when she turned left, and instead shoved her toward his room. She did not object. At least his chambers had a soft bed. But as soon as she stepped through the doorway, he took her by surprise, lifting her off her feet with one arm, while the other snatched her knife away. He then swung her viciously across the room, and she fell hard against the cold floor.

“I should have done that below,” Garrick snarled cruelly, “to put you in your place properly.”

“Liar!” she hissed as she got to her feet. “You were afraid to face me when I was prepared for you. You had to attack me from behind like the cowardly swine you are!”

“Careful, wench,” he warned her menacingly. “Or you will get the beating you so greatly deserve.”

“So you also beat defenseless women? Is there no end to your despicable ways?”

“Not defenseless women, mistress—incorrigible slaves!” he said furiously.

“Ohhh!” she screamed and started to rush him.

“Hold, girl, if you value your life!”

She did not heed his words, intent only upon doing him harm. But she did stop in her tracks when she heard vicious growling coming from the bed. She turned fearful eyes in that direction and saw a huge white shepherd crouched on the bed, baring his sharp teeth at her.

“Had you struck me once, mistress, he would have been at your throat in an instant.”

“Call him off,” Brenna whispered fearfully, her face a deathly white.

“Nay, I think not. The dog is just what you need to keep you from mischief,” Garrick replied, his lips turning up at one corner in a sneer.

She turned wild eyes on him. “You cannot leave me here with him!”

“He will not harm you, as long as you stay put.”

Garrick stopped at the door, an amused smirk on his face. “We have not tangled yet, Brenna Carmarham. But when the time comes, I think I will enjoy it.”

She forgot the dog for a moment and snapped, “So will I, Viking!”

Garrick laughed heartily and looked at the animal on the bed. “Guard her well, dog.” He grinned, then closed the door, leaving the girl and the beast alone.

A
chill wind coming in through the balcony door woke Brenna. She shivered, then quickly tucked her cold bare feet under her shift. As she lay there tucked in a ball for warmth, the door opened and Brenna looked up. Garrick stood there holding a large tray of food. He ordered the shepherd out, then kicked the door shut with his heel and put the tray down on the table.

“What have you against fresh air, mistress?” he asked sourly, not looking at her, and opened the balcony door.

“What have
you
against a little warmth?” she returned flippantly.

Suddenly he grinned at her. “I fear you will perish come winter, girl, if you think this fine weather is cold.”

She shivered at his words. How
would
she bear up come winter? Being so far north, the long, cold months would be nothing like those she enjoyed at home. And if what both Wyndham and Garrick told her was true, there would be no sun during that time to help melt the snow away.

“Come and eat, mistress,” Garrick said, pulling the two new thronelike chairs over to the table.

“Have your
guests
finally departed?” Brenna questioned, saying the word with the disgust and loathing she felt.

“Yea, my household has returned to normal. We will eat first, and then we will talk.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “About what?”

“You and your new life here—what will be expected of you. ’Tis time we settle things.”

Oh, Lord! She sensed another battle was at hand, and in truth, she was not up to it. Would she always have to lock wills with this man? She had yet to have a day of peace since the day her father died, and she did so yearn for one.

Brenna sighed and joined Garrick at the little table. He had brought two large bowls filled with the normal daily breakfast, a porridge made of oatmeal. There was also warmed leftover pheasant and a full loaf of hard barley bread for them to share. When Brenna reached for her tankard and found warm milk in it as before, she grimaced.

She shot Garrick an accusing look. “What am I thought to be that I am given milk like a babe?”

“I have milk myself, mistress,” he replied, raising a tankard like hers. “’Tis thought to be a healthful drink.”

“I hate milk!” she snapped. “Are women not allowed wine or mead here?”

He leaned back in his chair, a little smirk on his lips. “Yea, they are. But slaves are not.”

She had a strong urge to throw the warm milk in his face to wipe away that smirk. She wondered briefly how he would react to that, then decided it would not go well for her. She damned the fates again, then attacked the meal, anxious to be done with it altogether.

Garrick watched her silently as he ate, noting the high color on her cheeks. It did not take much to ignite her temper. Just the mention of her new status was enough. He had never known a woman with so much misplaced pride and arrogance. That she belonged to him was something he had yet to decide he appreciated.

He remembered how she looked when he came late in the night and found her curled in a small ball on the bed. Her face had been so childlike, her beauty so unreal. But then he recalled how she looked when he found her below yesterday—all spit and fire, wildly defiant. Even then he had to admire her beauty, the fiery sparks reflected in her silver eyes, the high color of her face caused by her fury. He was angered to his very core to find her arguing with his mother. But then he stopped to listen to her words describing the ordeal she had suffered, what she had lost at the hands of his father. Some of his anger died then, but was quickly rekindled when she threatened his brother.

To think that a slave of his would dare to accost his family! Then to have his mother defend her, to stay his hand from the beating the girl deserved. Still, it was fortunate that his mother was there, for as infuriated as he was, he would surely have hurt the wench seriously, only to regret it later.

“Well, are you going to lay your law down on me now?”

Her saucy question made him smile, which brought his dimples out. “Will you accept my law?”

“I will hear you out first, then you shall have an answer,” she replied in a toneless voice.

“Very well,” he said, leaning back in the chair again. “To begin with, there will be no more tantrums of the kind you have shown me thus far.”

“I do not throw tantrums, Viking. I speak my mind,” she returned calmly.

“The word Viking on your lips is a curse, mistress. I will hear it no more.”

“I will not call you master!” she hissed, saying the word with loathing.

“I concede that,” he replied. “I have a given name and you may use it.”

“I also have a given name, though I have not heard you call me by it.”

“Very well—Brenna,” he grinned.

She let a smile cross her lips. “’Tis not so hard to settle things with you.”

“Oh? You should reserve your opinion till we have finished,” he responded, watching the rare smile vanish. “Now,” he continued in an authoritative voice. “Yarmille has suggested you be put with the two other young females. Janie and Maudya share a small house a short ways behind the stable. You will be quartered with them. You will sleep and pass your free time there. Is this agreeable to you?”

“Yea.”

“Good. Your duties will be no different than those the other females share. You will help with the cooking and cleaning, the washing, milk the cows, grind corn. There is not really that much to do, since this is a small household and you have only me to serve. Yarmille will instruct you in your duties when she is here. When she is not, Janie will show you what to do. And since I have no wife, you will also help occasionally in the sewing room with the mending and making of new clothes.”

“Is that it?” Brenna asked coolly.

“Yea. There will be no children to mind or a lady to tend, since I will never marry. You have only me to please,” Garrick said quickly, assuming from her question that there would be no argument.

“All these duties you have described are woman’s work.”

“Of course.”

She gazed at him levelly, trying to keep calm. “You were right that I should reserve my opinion on the outcome of this meeting, for if this is the only course you offer me, we will never be in accord.”

Garrick looked at her sharply, frowning. “Do you refuse to work?”

“I have told you I will not do woman’s work!” she said haughtily. “I never have and I never will!”

He leaned forward, his eyes forming narrow slits, his anger building. “You will!”

“Nay, Viking!” she snapped, ending the short truce between them. “I won’t!”

“The food you eat, the clothes you wear, they come from me! The house you sleep in is mine!” he stormed, coming to his feet. “If you will not earn your keep, mistress, then you are useless to me!”

“I will earn my keep,” she said in a suddenly calm tone that surprised him.

“How? ’Twill not be in my bed, if you have that in mind.”

“With certainty,
that
will never happen. Nay, Erin has agreed that I may help him with the horses if you will give him your permission.”

Garrick scowled at this. “When did you speak with Erin?”

“Your first day back.”

“You were told to stay in the sewing room that day!”

“I am not accustomed to inactivity, Viking,” she replied hotly. “Nor to taking orders!”

“Well, you will have to learn, wench,” Garrick returned brusquely. “And as for working with Erin, that is out of the question.”

“Why?” she demanded. “You said I must earn my keep. Well, I have told you what is agreeable to me. I know horses as well as I know weapons, and I am not opposed to cleaning a stable, for I have done so before. If that is not enough, I can also hunt game. I provided meat for the table at home; I can do as well here.”

“Is that the extent of your talents?” Garrick asked sarcastically.

Brenna suddenly grinned. “Nay. If you have an enemy, I will kill him for you.”

Garrick burst out laughing. “You are amazing, wench. You would really try to be a man?”

She glared at his mockery, her voice breaking. “I cannot help the way I am. ’Twas the way I was raised.”

“Well, you will have to change your ways, mistress.”

“You will not concede?”

“Nay, you will work in the house.”

Brenna drew herself up, her shoulders stiff, her chin held at a proud angle. “Then you leave me no alternative but to leave.”

“What?” He looked at her incredulously.

“You heard me, Viking. Since I will not work as you dictate, and you will not allow me my choice, then as you said earlier, I would be useless to you. So I will leave.”

Garrick shook his head slowly, his arms crossed. “Nay, wench, that is impossible. You forget that you are no longer free to come and go as you please. You belong to me now.”

“You insufferable ass!” Brenna stormed, her fury evident in the glassy silver of her eyes. “Do you think
you
can stop me if I want to go?”

Garrick’s body stiffened in anger. That he had put up with her obstinacy for this long amazed him.

“If you leave my lands, mistress, every Viking for miles around will be called to hunt you down. You will then be locked in a cell for your troubles—indefinitely.”

She laughed at him. “Once I go, Viking, I will not be found, so your threats do not frighten me.”

“I have tolerated much from you,” Garrick said in a voice as cold as ice. “But no more. ’Tis time you learned fully what being owned entails.”

Brenna looked at the closed door, but refused to flee—not when she could secure the knife in Garrick’s belt and win the upper hand.

“What have you in mind, Viking?”

“A sound thrashing to begin with,” he said and started to approach her.