Captive Of The Viking
Taken in revenge!Aric the Ruthless is consumed by his need for vengeance. And so he takes his enemy’s widowed daughter, Lady Fearn, as his slave… His fiery captive may fight him at first but he knows he will soon tempt her into his bed!Fearn’s marriage brought her only fear and pain, but powerful Viking Aric is nothing like her cruel husband. And as her captor’s seduction awakens her to new sensations, dare she hope this ferocious warrior could become the husband she deserves?
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Taken in revenge!
Aric the Ruthless is consumed by his need for vengeance. And so he takes his enemy’s widowed daughter, Lady Fearn, as his slave... His fiery captive may fight him at first, but he knows he will soon tempt her into his bed!
Fearn’s marriage brought her only fear and pain, but powerful Viking Aric is nothing like her cruel husband. And as her captor’s seduction awakens her to new sensations, dare she hope this ferocious warrior could become the husband she deserves?
‘This,’ he said softly, ‘will be good. Here we have peace and privacy, and time for you to discover things you could not have imagined.’
‘You are arrogant!’ she whispered.
‘Sure of myself, yes, and sure of you too. I doubt you’ve ever been told that you’re the loveliest woman in all England. But I’ve seen how men’s eyes follow you.’
‘Lust. That’s all.’
‘Let go of your anger. This is more than simple lust. I want you because you’re a match for me. Courageous, fierce, passionate, impetuous. You have the body of a goddess, made for loving, and I can give you pleasure if only you’ll allow it. Let me show you.’
Whilst I am interested in most periods of British history, I find the overlapping of the early Celtic, Viking and Anglo-Saxon eras particularly fascinating. It is not the violence, battles and bloodshed that intrigue me most, but the position of women in those societies. They were obliged to balance their own desires and needs against those of husbands, fathers, the decrees of society, the King and religion. The constraints must have been enormous and yet we know there were women who managed to make things work in their favour.
This is why I like to make my heroines women who rise above the difficulties in which they find themselves, become stronger as a result, and find love in the most unlikely circumstances. After all, to most British women there can be few more unlikely circumstances than being caught up in a series of conflicts as world-changing as those between the tenth-century Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings of Denmark.
My story may be a work of fiction, but I believe there must have been situations not unlike this one which did not claim the attention of the chroniclers. I like to think that in this small way I am redressing the balance.
JULIET LANDON has a keen interest in art and history—both of which she used to teach. She particularly enjoys researching the early medieval, Tudor and Regency periods, and the problems encountered by women in a man’s world. Born in North Yorkshire, she now lives in a Hampshire village close to her family. Her first books, which were on embroidery and design, were published under her own name of Jan Messent.
Books by Juliet Landon
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
At the Tudor Court
Betrayed, Betrothed and Bedded
Taming the Tempestuous Tudor
Stand-Alone Novels
The Widow’s Bargain
The Bought Bride His Duty, Her Destiny The Warlord’s Mistress A Scandalous Mistress Dishonour and Desire The Rake’s Unconventional Mistress Marrying the Mistress Slave Princess Mistress Masquerade Captive of the Viking
Collaboration with the National Trust
Scandalous Innocent
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
Contents
The year 993—Jorvik, now known as York
Even at that early hour of the day, a dense pall of smoke lay over the thatched rooftops of Jorvik like a grey blanket filtering upwards into the haze of dawn. The furnace was already roaring from the blacksmith’s workshop, from the glassmakers and potters, the bakers and the moneyer, whose task was no less exacting than the swordsmith’s. The Lady Fearn and her young maid, Haesel, kept to the path on the outer edge of the city and soon came to the river from where, for safety, the merchants’ ships had been moored upriver well away from the main wharves and the warehouses. They rocked gently on the brown water as the ferryman pulled his boat into the bank just as the two women reached it.
‘Morning, lady,’ he called. ‘You not taking the bridge, then?’
The bridge over the River Ouse was close by the wharves, now deserted in readiness for a fleet of Viking longships that had been reported entering the Humber Estuary two days ago. The merchant ships would be an obvious target. Fearn chose not to answer him. ‘Can you take us across, Gaut?’ she said. ‘We’re bound for Clementhorpe.’
Last evening, she and Haesel had put the last few stitches into a pile of linen smocks for the invalids at the little nunnery where frail and elderly townsfolk were nursed through their illnesses by twelve devoted Benedictine nuns. As the foster daughter of Earl Thored of Northumbria, Fearn did not intend an imminent Viking raid to prevent her acts of charity.
* * *
The nunnery at Clementhorpe was little more than a cluster of thatched huts, animal sheds, a larger infirmary and a church with a shingled roof situated on the very edge of Jorvik. The dense woodland sheltered pigs beyond the plots where two cows and their calves grazed, where an orchard, herb garden and neat rows of vegetables were tended by soft-spoken women in serviceable long kirtles of undyed wool. Their noble birth counted for very little here, all of them being known as ‘sister’ except Mother Bridget, the founder of the nunnery.
