The Viking Warrior's Bride by Harper St. George

Author:Harper St. George
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Historical
Published: 2017-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The woman knew her way around a crossbow. Vidar hadn’t doubted that fact after she’d put an arrow in the eye of the lion carved into his ship, but seeing her today drove the point home. She’d spent the past half-hour putting an arrow into every target that his men found for her. It had become something of a spectacle with all of the warriors stopping to watch her put on her performance. Originally, he’d planned to have her train the few who had expressed an interest in learning, but as soon as her feat had gained an audience, he’d been reluctant to put the men back to work. He wanted them to watch her and admire her skill. More and more he was coming to think of her as his and he liked that she was competent in her ability.

He smiled as she let fly her last arrow. It zipped through the air and landed with a thud in the wooden target across the field nearly a hundred paces away. The men were suitably impressed with a few even cheering her success. Pride for her swelled within him. He was finding that he was quite happy with her as his wife. With her ability to hunt down rebels, retrieve stolen sheep and handle a crossbow. He was captivated by her. He knew full-grown warriors who wouldn’t be that astute if left to their own devices. He simply wasn’t certain how that all fit with the role of the person who was supposed to be his wife.

As she held the crossbow out to demonstrate how it moved to one of his men, Vidar allowed his gaze to wander down to her bottom. She’d gone to bed last night before he’d gone upstairs to their chamber. Though he hadn’t expected her to give in to him so soon, he’d been disappointed to find her sleeping none the less.

She was finished with her demonstration, so some of the men began to go back to their previous occupations. Vidar had planned to take a group out to the countryside. It was time to start thinking of establishing farms for some of them since their days of constant battle were behind them. They’d need women to marry and help run the farms, and Vidar planned to go back to Eirik’s home in late summer to bring some back with him. In the meantime, he’d have to talk to Gwendolyn about some of the unattached women here. It would be good to start intermarrying to lessen the divisiveness.

As he approached her, one of his men grabbed the crossbow from her and sighted it, aiming it at a sack that had been stuffed with hay and set up as a target. It wasn’t loaded with an arrow. Gwendolyn glared at the man. ‘That’s my crossbow. I’ve brought others for you to use.’

A group of around ten of his men had stayed back to learn how the crossbow worked, with the goal of being skilled enough to use it for protection.

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