Then I looked at Lund as he pulled out of the lunge he’d used to knock my dagger away and sheathed his own. Then he planted his hands on his hips and glowered at me.
“Finnie, I’ve told you, you have inexperience and lack of strength as formidable weaknesses but quickness, surprise and…” he paused and leaned slightly toward me, “concentration can be used as your strengths. To have quickness and provide surprise, you need to…” he paused again, leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest, “concentrate.”
He was not wrong. My mind was not on learning how to wield a dagger. It was afternoon. My mind was in the cabin where the adela tea pouch was and where, I hoped, Skylar had left a boiled kettle for me (a request, since I was thinking to surprise Frey, I had actually made myself).
“I’m sorry, Lund, my mind is elsewhere,” I admitted.
“If this is so, then you should not be working with a dagger. What just happened, happened because I am good and I don’t wish you harm. In a true fight, a man could take your hand with that maneuver, had he the strength and sharpness of blade. At the very least, he could cut your wrist where blood flows freely. Then you’d be significantly weakened and even face death.”
Ho boy. Death was never good.
“Right,” I said softly.
He uncrossed his arms, got closer to me and I looked up into his gray eyes which, I noted, had stopped glowering and had warmed. I had also long since noted that this was Lund’s way. He could lose his patience in our practice but only when I did really stupid shit he’d told me time and again not to do but he didn’t lose it for long.
“I enjoy our sessions, my princess, but I equally enjoy teaching you how to cut a deck false. If you wish to skip your lesson, we can sit down to cards. All you need do is say.”
God, seriously, he was a nice guy and, spending time with all Frey’s men, I’d found they all were.
Except Kell, who disliked me and Oleg, who was kind of monosyllabic and a little scary but mostly he was okay too.
“Thanks,” I replied quietly and Lund grinned at me.
“Wife,” I heard and since it was Frey’s voice and that could only be me, I turned to see him striding toward me.
My knees wobbled and not only because he, as ever, looked hot.
“We’ll leave it at that for the day,” Lund muttered, I looked from Frey to him, nodded and smiled and he moved away to collect my lost dagger.
I turned back to Frey who was now very close. He didn’t touch me but he was way in my space.
Hmm. I knew what that meant and that meant firstly, he did not want us to be overheard and secondly, he actually did want to touch me but this was something he avoided doing too much of in front of his men. There were times he did, of course, but in broad daylight in the middle of the waist deck with us having a large audience was not one of those times.
“We have plans, wee one,” he reminded me of something he so totally didn’t need to remind me of. “I need words with Kell. I see your lesson is finished?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he muttered, “I’ll meet you in our cabin.”
My knees wobbled again and my nipples tingled but my head nodded.
He grinned like he knew what was happening in my head and under my sweater and that grin was so good, my nipples got hard and I felt a really nice spasm.
“See you there, honey,” I whispered.
His eyes flared and he whispered back, “Indeed.”
I decided to get to the cabin firstly to make the tea and secondly before I melted into a puddle on the deck in front of everyone at just thinking about what would happen after I made the tea.
So I did that, smiling at Frey then turning my head as I walked toward the bridge deck and calling, “Later boys!”
I got some chin lifts and Max called back, “Until later, Finnie.”
Then I hightailed it out of there.
When I got to the cabin, I saw the good news was Skylar was a really good cabin boy. He didn’t make the bed because there was pretty much no point but he delivered water for washing, took it away, cleaned out the basin, brought food, took away the dishes, cleaned clothes and spent not a small amount of time shining brass.
He also made sure I had a kettle of boiling water, a cup and tea infuser.
The bad news was, by the time I made it to the cabin, I’d begun to get nervous.
What if it didn’t work or it went wonky? What if Frey wasn’t into this kind of thing? What if we got a bad batch and not-so-good things happened?
I stood by the boiled kettle that, in the not even close to warm cabin was cooling fast and worried my lip. Then I heard a noise outside and jumped, thinking it was Frey. I looked to the closed door; it didn’t open so I looked back to the kettle.