Page 1 of Loving the Blacksmith
PROLOGUE
“Here. It’s not much but?—”
“It’s perfect, thank you.”
Agnes looked at the man looming over her, making the room appear smaller than it was. Blond, muscular, with long, flowing hair and eyes as blue as the deepest part of the ocean—the part where she imagined dangerous creatures lurked—he was too perfect to be true. She had thought Björn, the Norseman who’d come to visit Birgit at the village, magnificent enough, but this one was even more compelling. She judged him to be a decade older than Björn and herself, and the added maturity suited his masculine features to perfection. In him, everything was...more, somehow. His stance was more assured, his body more developed, his gaze more piercing.
Though he was a stranger, and impossibly large, she felt at ease with him. Perhaps it was the way he had immediately offered her a place to sleep, perhaps it was the way he spoke, with the faintest trace of an accent, perhaps...
Perhaps it was simply the way he looked.
No matter what, she just couldn’t get past the attraction she felt. The men in her village had never stirred half the emotions this one stirred in her and she wondered if she should not askto sleep somewhere else. But where? She only knew Björn and Dunne, with whom she had spent the last few days traveling, and neither had offered to have her.
No, the blacksmith had been kind to offer her a place to sleep, she could not offend him now by asking to go somewhere else. She would simply have to pull herself together and stop gawping at him.
“I use this room to keep old tools,” Magnus was saying, mercifully oblivious to her musings. “But it’s clean because my brother visits regularly and sleeps in it when he does.”
“It’s perfect,” she repeated. At least she would be alone, and able to decide what to do next. The Norsemen village could only be a temporary stop. As a Saxon, she didn’t belong here. But she couldn’t go back to her village, knowing what was waiting for her there.
A husband she didn’t want.
A life she feared.
Magnus walked over to the pallet. “I’ll go and give the furs a shake outside and find a softer blanket for you. This one won’t do. Your skin is bound to be more delicate than Sven’s.” The way he said that, and then cleared his throat, told her the comment had put wholly unsuitable ideas in his mind. Was he imagining her naked and sprawled on the furs for him to gaze upon? Was he thinking of stroking her all over to ascertain just how soft she was? His hands, used to handle the tools around her, would be strong and callused, all the better to awaken her senses.
Heat bloomed under her skin, which suddenly felt as delicate as he’d called it.
“Really, please,” she mumbled. “This blanket will do very nicely. I don’t want to put you out.”
“You’re not putting me out.”
He bundled the furs up into a ball he lifted as easily as if it had not weighed almost as much as she did. Inexplicably, thesight caused her stomach to flip. Why was the man’s strength so appealing? It should have worried her. But for a reason she couldn’t explain, it thrilled her.
When he came back a moment later with a soft woolen blanket, she had herself under control once more. The reaction had been as brief as it had been inexplicable. Compelling as he was, the blacksmith was only a man. There was no reason she wouldn’t be able to keep him out of her mind, just like she had the others.
She nodded her thanks and watched him walk out of the room.
No. No reason at all.
CHAPTER ONE
Magnus woke up early, as per usual, and went to the chicken coop in search of eggs with which to break his fast. He had spent an agitated night, thinking about the woman sleeping in the room at the back of the forge, with her beautiful green eyes and luminous skin. Her skin that was more delicate than that of his oaf of a brother. Really, what had possessed him to say such a silly thing? Moments after meeting Agnes, he had established himself as an idiot who had no notion how to talk to women, not the impression he wanted to give.
When Björn had come back from accompanying Dunne to Mercia, he had brought with him another Saxon to the village. The poor girl, who, his friend had informed him discreetly, was fleeing a life she didn’t desire, needed a place to stay. It had taken no more than two heartbeats for Magnus to know he could not bear having anyone else offer to shelter her.
Why that was, however, he wasn’t sure.
She was a tiny, timid thing, who had looked at him in awe mingled with apprehension, not a reaction he was entirely comfortable with. He’d always been attracted to confident women who did not let his stature impress them. He knew he was taller than most men in the village, and days spenthammering in the forge ensured he had developed muscles that rivaled even those of Wolf, the village leader. For that reason, he tended to choose lovers who were on the voluptuous, and assertive side. With them, there was no danger of a mishap. They were strong enough, physically and mentally, to deal with him.
But the problem was, the women he usually favored didn’t favor him. And them being brazen ended up causing him more trouble than they were worth. Edith came to mind. As to confidence, surely it had nothing to do with size, and a woman who only reached up to his shoulder and yet was brave enough to stare at him in the eye could teach him a thing or two about it. Perhaps he’d been put in the path of the kind of person he needed rather than the sort he thought he wanted. It was worth pondering about at least.
He was finishing his eggs when a voice cut through his musings.
“Magnus, I knew you would be up. Do you have a hammer I could borrow?” Wolf walked in through the open door, a smile on his face. “I want to start repairing the fence around the vegetable patch and orchard and mine is too small.”
“Yes. I have what you need at the forge. Let me get it for you now.”
The interruption was welcome. He’d spent more than enough time daydreaming about the little Saxon’s soft skin and beguiling ways. It was time to get on with his day.
