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Wulfric awoke to the smell of salt and nuts. His nose was buried in Anna’s hair. She was lying on her side with her back to him and he was holding on to her firmly with one hand on her belly and the other, the one on the arm her head was resting on, holding her breast. He squeezed it just a little, just because he could. They were round and firm with large pink areolas and nipples that looked like cute crimson buttons.
She sighed in her sleep, and he liked to think that it was because of his touch. He had no idea how many times he had fantasized about sleeping with her, but he could never have imagined that it would be like that. That he would be able to arouse her so thoroughly, that she would tease him, that it would feel so right when she cried out his name as she came.
He had noticed how she had clung to him afterwards. Like she wanted to spill himself inside of her. Even though he would have liked nothing more himself, there was no way he could do that. He had promised her that he would be careful, and he had. Nevertheless, if she became pregnant and they had to marry, it would probably be the best thing to ever happen to him.
He smiled into her hair and squeezed her tightly to his chest.
“You’re crushing me,” Anna mumbled sleepily.
“Oh,” Wulfric said and loosened his grip on her. “I’m just so happy,” he mumbled and kissed her neck.
“I can feel that,” she said and nudged his groin with her bare bottom. He could hear the smile in her voice.
Wulfric could not help but laugh both happy and a bit embarrassed. It seemed a bit too imposing, but what could he do? She was just so... everything.
“Do you want to?” he whispered and kissed her ear.
“Mmm-hmm,” Anna answered.
This time it was quick and intense and left both of them sweaty and panting afterwards. She had held on tightly to him again as she came, and it had taken everything in him to pry himself lose.
“Oh, my, Anna,” Wulfric mumbled.
“Indeed,” Anna simply said sleepily. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “How far is it exactly between Rosenlund and your estate?” she said with a cheeky smile.
“Grubbesholm is about two hours away on horseback,” Wulfric answered.
“Perfect for a midnight ride then, when the anxious lover wants to see his mistress,” Anna said and kissed him.
“Don’t say that, Anna, that’s not how I think of you,” Wulfric said.
Anna shrugged and propped her herself up on an elbow, resting her head in her hand.
“Or we could meet halfway between our estates,” she went on. “An hour’s ride for each, that would be perfect. Do you have a hunting lodge or something in that part of the estate? Or do I? I haven’t been there in ages, remember?”
She was smiling broadly as she talked, tracing lazy circles on his chest with an index finger.
“I meant to ask you,” she said, her finger following the scar on his chest. “How did you get this?”
Wulfric looked down himself, even though he knew the scar. Every woman he had slept with had asked about it. Had it been light enough to see it of course. He wondered whether he should tell Anna one of the stories he had told the other women but decided against it. This was Anna. He wanted to spend his life with her. She deserved to know the truth.
“My father cut me,” he said.
Her hand stilled with her index finger still on his scar.
“What?” she said, and he could hear the astonishment in her voice. “Why?”
It was the logical next question of course, but he could not help but squirm a bit before he answered.
“About twelve years ago... I got a girl pregnant,” he waited for her reaction, but she did not say anything. “I wanted to marry her, but my father would not let me.”
He paused not sure how to relay the rest of the story.
“And that’s when he cut you?” Anna finally asked.
“It wasn’t...” Wulfric began but then stopped. He turned his head and looked at her. “My father often drank too much. Did you know that?”
She shook her head.
“Normally, I was able to tell when he had had too much and avoid him. But I had just come back from talking to... Well, her name doesn’t matter, does it? And I was upset, but also eager to do the right thing, and I just went into my father’s study without thinking. I blurted out what had happened, and that I had to marry the girl. He didn’t agree. She was not noble, not even from one of the best farms – but I thought since I was the second son, that it would be okay.”
Anna did not say anything. Her eyes were on his scar, her finger had started brushing over it again. Perhaps she was not even aware of it.
“The argument got heated and I... I punched him. I was at least an inch taller than him, and I was young, sober, and angry... he felt threatened by me and pulled his knife. I did not think that he would use it on me, but when I took a step closer, he swung it at me. To get me to back off. Not to hurt me, of course. If he had wanted to hurt me, he would have stabbed me.”
Wulfric could feel that he had trailed of the original topic and looked at Anna, not knowing which expression he expected. Resentment, perhaps, but all he saw was sympathy.
“What happened then?” Anna said quietly.
“I got ill. The wound got infected and I got a fever. By the time I had recovered my parents had already send her away. It turned out, that she did not want to marry me after all,” Wulfric said.
“What? Whyever not? Did she marry someone else?”
Wulfric took a deep breath. Unsure whether to tell her the last part.
“She just moved away,” he said without looking at her.
“Why didn’t she want to marry you?” Anna persisted.
“Because she already knew that I was in love with someone else... and she did not want a husband, that... didn’t love her back.”
Wulfric couldn’t meet her eyes. She might have known about his feelings for her, but he was unsure whether she knew how far back they went.
Anna seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, then she abruptly sat up in bed. She quickly covered her chest with the blanket, tucking it into her armpits to prevent it from falling.
“You’re telling me, that your child has grown up as a bastard because of me?” she said in a shrill voice, that he had not heard her use before. “That this girl, this woman, has been cast out of society because of your crush on me?”
Wulfric quickly sat up as well, not bothering to cover up.
“Anna, it wasn’t like that. I wanted to marry her. Believe me. If she would have had me, I would have married her, no matter what my parents had said.”
He was holding on to her upper arms, ready to shake her, if she was not willing to see reason.
“Please tell me, that it’s not a boy. That he would have been able to inherit your estate, had he not been a bastard,” Anna said as two fat tears started rolling down her cheeks.
“Anna, please don’t cry. This certainly has got nothing to do with you,” Wulfric said and held her close.
“Is it a boy, Wulfric?” she whispered against his shoulder. Completely limp against his body.
“It’s a girl,” he mumbled into her hair. “But it doesn’t matter.”
He held on to her upper arms again, holding her from his body, to be able to survey her face. She did not meet his gaze.
“I didn’t do right by either her or her mother,” he went on. “I should have tracked them down back then and I didn’t.”
“Then how do you know, what happened to them?” Anna said. Finally, she raised her green eyes to look at him.
“Her sister still lives at my estate. Every time I went home, I would visit her. Ask about... Elena. That’s her name. I would give her sister money to give to them, hoping that they would receive it,” Wulfric bit his lips thinking of all those visits to the small, thatched hut in the middle of the woods. Elena’s sister was a wise woman just like her.
“Three years ago,” Wulfric went on, “Her sister accidentally revealed to me where they were. I was finally able to see her again, to ask her to marry me again. My desire to do the right thing was only strengthened when I saw her daughter. My daughter, I guess. But she still refused me.”
There was no need to tell Anna, that he had slept with Elena again, and that she had become pregnant again. She had not kept the second child, which in a way he was grateful for. The one child he had with her was already weighing too heavily on his conscious.
“Anna, I hope, that you don’t think ill of me for saying this,” he said and tried to gain eye contact with her. She finally looked at him, and he could clearly see the confusion and sadness in her eyes.
“I just feel sorry for them,” Anna said.
Wulfric nodded. Sometimes he did too. His daughter could have been the daughter of one of the wealthiest earls in the kingdom, instead she was living in a hut with one room in the middle of the forest.
“I do too,” Wulfric said. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Forgive you?” Anna said. “There’s nothing to forgive. If everything really happened like you said, you have tried to do everything in your power to make things right. I’m just sorry that your... feelings for me got in the way. Why would you even tell a woman that you bedded that you were in love with someone else? It makes no sense.”
Wulfric smiled sadly.
“It wasn’t like that. I had been friends with her when we were children. Then I had been living at my uncle’s estate for a couple of years, preparing to go to court and train as a soldier. When I came, I sought her out again. As a friend. I told her that I’d met the most beautiful girl at court but that she could never be mine, because she was clearly in love with someone else...”
He hesitated and watched as Anna smiled sadly.
“Everyone at court knows everything, don’t they?” she said.
Wulfric nodded.
“She comforted me, the girl, and then one thing led to the other...” he deliberately let his voice trail of.
There was no reason to tell her, that when it came to sleeping together, he was probably the one that had wanted it the most. In the beginning at least. When she had realized how he could pleasure her, she had wanted it just as badly as he did.
“Was she in love with you?” Anna asked.
Wulfric looked at the window, where the sun was shining brightly outside. He had no idea what time it was now. Nor did he care. He was here with Anna now and he needed to tell her the whole story. He had never thought about Elena being in love without before.
“I don’t know,” he said because he didn’t know what else to say.
“She had to have been,” Anna said thoughtfully. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have refused to marry you because you were in love with someone else.”
She moved out of bed and picked her shift up from a pile of clothes lying on a stool. She had to have undressed quickly last night. Wulfric watched as she stretched her hands over her head to put the shift on. She was the most perfect woman he had ever seen. From her areolas that were probably a bit too large to her hips that were probably a bit too narrow to her toes that just looked freakishly weird now that he looked at them. But all of it was perfection to him.
“You should leave,” Anna said as she tied the shift at her chest.
Wulfric looked at her stunned.
“I need to think,” Anna said and turned her back to him, grabbing a dress from the pile on the stool. Not the one she had worn yesterday at dinner, but one of the light grey ones that she had been wearing the entire journey.
“Anna,” Wulfric said and got out of bed. “What’s going on?”
He wanted to reach for her, but Anna pulled her dress over her head at that moment.
“Nothing,” she said from within the dress. Wulfric tucked it to help her get it on properly. “I just want to be alone. I need to think.”
“Does it have anything to do with what I just told you?” Wulfric said and stepped behind her to help her tie the dress in the back.
“That too,” Anna said. “Now please put on your clothes and go to your own room.”
Wulfric had forgotten that he was not wearing any clothes.
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk tonight,” he said as he picked up his pants and put them on.
“No,” Anna said. “I’d like to stay a couple of more days. You should go on to Grubbesholm alone.”
“I’ll come visit you then,” Wulfric said hopefully.
“No,” Anna said, and she looked pained.
Wulfric could feel his face fall. She was the one that had talked about how their estates was not that far from each other. She was the one who wanted to meet up for a secret rendezvous in the forest and now she didn’t. Because of the story with Elena.
“We need to talk, Anna,” he finally managed to say. “I can see that’s something’s wrong.”
“I need time to think,” Anna said again. “I intend to invite Jonathan and Maria to Rosenlund in a couple of months. I expect that you will be there as well?”
Wulfric nodded. If King Jonathan was going, then he most likely would be with him.
“Good,” Anna nodded without looking at him. “We will speak then.”