Soon in the morning, Tharn and his men were exercising, preparing themselves for their next fight. For the first time since he was nothing but a young lad, he couldn't concentrate on opposing Regan, his right-hand man. He was distracted. When he had left his house, he had peeked an eye in his bedroom to see that Adelheid was still sleeping, rolled up in the furs on his bed.
She looked at peace with her relaxed face, her golden locks surrounding her head on the soft pillows. How much he wanted to stroke her hair and be able to lie down with her astonished him. Of course, if he had wanted to, he could have done so. After all, she had verbally agreed to become his concubine. But that would have been wrong. Oh, so wrong. He couldn't force her into submission. That's not how he wanted her. He couldn't impose himself on her anymore.
So, he had left the room silently and had gone to the training field, where he had started even earlier that usually, his men soon joining him.
Suddenly, he fell down on his back, his breath cut off of his lungs, his sword a few meters from him.
He had been disarmed. That too was new.
Regan was standing tall in front of him, looking half-proud of disarming his Jarl and half-surprised it had happened.
"Well Tharn, aren't you quite distracted today?"
Regan was lightly laughing while he gave Tharn his hand to bring him back up on his feet. As the Jarl was picking his sword and about to go back to training, a shiny reflect attracted his eyes to the right.
It was Adelheid walking down the hill on a path leading to the nursing house, Hilda by her side. The golden-haired woman was wearing the same dress as the day before, but this time with some shawl around her shoulders, probably to hide her chest more since her dress had been partly ripped the day before. He winced as he remembered the horrified look on her face when this had happened. He would get her a new dress to wear soon enough. Overall, she was sporting a blank face, looking fairly less exhausted than she had had the previous evening, but he couldn't see her as well as he would have wanted to: she was too far from him. And it was not a great moment for him to try and get closer: she would not enjoy seeing him, he was sure of that.
He needed to keep his distances. But that didn't forbid him from admiring her from afar silently. The braids that had held part of her hair up the day before were undone and her long hair freely cascaded down her back and shoulders, looking like a gold cape from the distance. It must have been what caught his eye while fighting.
Fighting. After a long moment of absence, Tharn turned around and Regan was facing him arms crossed, leaning on a pillar with a smirk on his face.
"What?" Tharn grunted at him, annoyed by his knowing grin.
"Admiring the view, aren't we?" He answered.
Tharn didn't answer and told him to concentrate on training, receiving an amused look from him. Several hours later, as the midday meal was approaching, the men started to tire, but Tharn kept on fighting Regan, trying to make the green eyes of Adelheid leave his mind. He didn't know why, but a sudden image of her rosy lips getting apart to welcome his shaft suddenly came to him, making him drop all attention he had on fighting. Regan had not expected the sudden loss of attention from his friend and couldn't completely stop his axe as it hit him on the shoulder.
This time, none of them laughed it off as Tharn dropped to his knees with a grunt, let go of his sword, and instead hold his shoulder to stop the blood that was starting to goose out. It was not a dangerous wound, but it was deep enough to make him wince in pain.
"Skita!" He roared.
Regan bent over and checked the wound out.
"I believe you'll be able to go to the object of your thoughts sooner than planned Jarl." He told him, half worried about his wound, half amused by the joke he made.
Wounds happened during fight training. It was nothing new, but it was quite uncommon for the Jarl to be hurt, since he was actually quite a great fighter, one of the many skills he had had to master in order to prove his worth as a Jarl. He knew Regan had obviously not hurt him on purpose, and therefore he didn't blame him at all.
After ordering Regan to put an end to the training, since it was indeed time to go eat, Tharn took the path to the nursing house, honestly not knowing what to expect from his upcoming meeting with the woman. He had not really thought about what to tell her about the day before. He had no idea how to express his apology for what had happened. He didn't know if there would be a right way to do so.
The door of the nursing house was wide open, and as he peeked inside, he saw that both women were nowhere in sight. He entered anyway and heard some noises from the backroom. The small house was divided into two rooms: the entrance one which was quite large, with two benches in the middle and some storage tanks around, made to welcome wounded men and tend to them, while the backroom contained some working tables and was the place Hilda used to hang herbs, flowers and other things to dry, it was the workshop of the nursing house in a way.
Surely enough, when he went to the door of the backroom which was slightly ajar, he heard the humming of a woman that came from inside. Pushing the door, a bit more to be able to have a complete view of the inside, his breath caught in his throat.
Adelheid was alone, her back towards him, standing in front of a table, a large window allowed her body to get wrapped in sunlight, making her look even more heavenly than usual. She had not heard him enter and kept on grinding some sort of herbs in a bowl with a masher. The room nicely smelled of dry flowers, and he noticed that what she was taking care of must have been lavender, judging from the color of it and from the smell in the air. That was a nice scent.
Tharn took his time admiring the young woman, keeping himself mute. Her blue dress went very well with her hair and fair skin. The white shirt she was wearing beneath complimented her white creamy skin that he knew to be very soft from the few times he had been able to touch her. Thanks to the light showering her, her thick lashes projected shadows on her upper cheeks which had a slightly pink tint to them. He observed that her face looked livelier than she had on the previous night, which he was grateful for even if she looked fairly tired. Her hair was loosely tied in her back with a ribbon, probably to forbid it from getting in her eyes while working, which revealed a graceful neck the Jarl would love to feel under his lips. The dress she wore he hadn't taken his time to observe then: it was quite a right fit even if a bit too tight on her chest area, making it easy to imagine their fullness when she inhaled and the undershirt she wore stretched on them.
He was getting distracted again. As he decided it was time to announce his presence, his wounded shoulder hit the doorframe and he grunted, vividly reminded of the pain that occupied his arm. She hastily turned around when she heard him, dropping the masher down to the ground. That's when he saw her eyes. They were still puffy, probably from the crying of yesterday. He felt bad for having thoughts of using her body while he had caused her so much pain. What was wrong with him by Odin?
He wanted to appear composed, trying to put her more at ease.
As Adelheid looked at him with a guarded look, he bent over and picked up the masher before calmly walking towards her in order to put it back in the bowl.
She flinched as he approached.
Of course, she must have been scared of him. He felt dejected with himself.
"Good day Adelheid." He told her in a neutral voice while taking a few steps back, trying to make her a bit more comfortable in his presence.
She avoided his stare and muttered some greetings while still putting some more distance between them.
Would she step back anymore, she would merge with the wall.
He went back to the main room and installed himself on one of the bench, planning to present some sort of apologies to her before she tended to him, but he had no time to do so: Adelheid had just noticed his wound and gasped. She went to rummage through a few trunks before she came back with clean pieces of bandages, balms and jars towards him. She gestured for him to take off his shirt and he did so without any argument, admiring how serious and dedicated she was to treat him, letting her former fear from him left on the side when she realized he needed her help.
It made him feel even shittier. She was a gentle girl; he had known that from the beginning in spite of her feistiness. And this was one more proof of that. He had definitely been unfair towards her.
"You need to be stitched up." She announced calmly once she had completely cleaned out the wound. Her cheeks were slightly red now that she noticed how his half-naked form revealed a tone and muscular body to her. "Hilda should be back soon, she'll do it." She finally said as she retreated away from him now realizing that he was the one who made her so pitiful the day before and she was standing too close.
Before she was out of reach, Tharn grabbed her forearm trying to be gentle, and he sighed when she obviously flinched from his contact.
"Adelheid, I promise I won't hurt you. Not anymore. Thank you for nursing me." He told her calmly and was glad that she didn't go any further away even if she still looked guarded. "Yesterday, I didn't mean to do what I did. I don't know what came to me, it felt like I was not myself. By Odin, you're the first person who manages to bring out the worst in me. But I've been told that people who manage to bring out the worst from others could also bring out their best. I sincerely-"
The door suddenly burst open and Hilda walked in, talking to herself while carrying a large basket of many plants, not noticing the two young people as she rummaged through the basket.
"Adelheid, I have found some ginger, you'll see that this is really nice to let it soak in warm water with lemon: it makes an incredible decoction!" She said happily as she lifted her head. "Oh."
Adelheid immediately shifted away from Tharn, his hand falling at his side. He was a bit mad at Hilda for interrupting him, but at the same time glad because he didn't know what he would have done if the golden-haired woman had rejected him once more.
"Hello Jarl Tharn." She stated blankly, her eyes falling on his wounded shoulder. "Oh, you're hurt."
After briefly looking at the wound, she stated that he needed stitches but congratulated Adelheid on the cleaning and treatment of the wound. She went to a trunk and brought out a needle and some thread that she gave Adelheid with a smile.
"That will be a great training for you: Jarl Tharn is strong so he shouldn't be a sensitive subject of experiment and you already saw me do it yesterday. Just think of it as sewing."
Adelheid wanted to protest, but Hilda gave her no choice since she immediately took her basket from the entrance and went to the backroom, saying she had things to do.
Tharn decided against taking on his interrupted speech and silently sat as Adelheid slowly but efficiently stitched him, noticing his hard muscles more than before now that they had had a moment. But he was not talking, and Adelheid felt comforted by the fact that for the first time, he was at her mercy, and not the opposite.
Once she finished sewing him up, she applied a last balm on top of the wound to help it heal in a clean scar.
The Jarl took his time putting his clothes back on as he observed Adelheid's back while she was putting things back in their place and cleaning the needle in a bowl.
Before he took his leave, he went to her and lightly deposited his hand on her arm, staying behind her, happy that she didn't flinch away for once even if she had suspended all of her movements.
"Thank you for stitching me up. And thank you for your acceptance of our little... arrangement."
He was referring to her acting as his concubine. She had not yet thought about that since she mostly had to act that way in public during dinner, which had not happened yet.
"See you tonight." He whispered to her, resisting the urge touse her proximity to caress her skin more, knowing very well that she wouldn'tenjoy that. Not yet. But one day, he would be able to do so, and she would beawilling participant, he promised himself.