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English
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2020-04-29
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1/1
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Too Good a Woman

Summary:

Hild attempts to comfort a drunken Uhtred, and he's harder to shut down than ever. Set during Season One.

Work Text:

His home needed the touch of a woman. That’s what Hild had decided, when she looked upon Uhtred’s pitiful loneliness after the loss of Iseult. Even though he had created the current state of his estate, deserved it even, when he rejected his Christian wife and sent Mildreth along to a nunnery.

Hild was bent over the table, chopping vegetables for a wholesome meal, when Lord Uhtred returned from wherever he had been.

“Hild!” he cried, voice rich and warm and much more cheerful than she had expected. It brightened her mood even as it made her suspicious. “This must be a vision; the Christian god has sent me one of his angel.”

“Not an angel, Lord.” Her mouth tried to scowl and smile at the same time. “Just a friend.”

Uhtred’s smile was as wide as his arms as he stepped close to embrace her. “My most wonderful friend.” He pulled her in tight, his whole body nestling around her own. Uhtred’s hugs were more intimate than any touches anyone else dared give her. And he was the only one who would ever be allowed.

He pulled back only a little, peering down at her face while his arms still gripped her around the shoulders. “But why are you here?”

From the way his eyes were struggling to focus on her face, Hild could see now that he was thoroughly drunk. “I came to check on you, Lord. I thought you might—” she hesitated, loathe to be the one that ruined his unexpected good mood, “—be a bit lonely here.”

Uhtred turned to look around his living space, his movements jerky and larger from the drink. “You’ve been tidying,” he observed. “And cooking?”

Hild pulled out of his arms and picked up her chopping knife. “This hall was in need of a woman’s touch.”

“Not just this hall,” Uhtred said, his voice dropping an octave, but Hild just waved him off and turned her attention back to the vegetables. Just as insufferable as always. Which was likely a good sign concerning the recovery of his spirits.

She had only been chopping for another minute or two before she felt Uhtred step up behind her. “You are too good to me, Hild.” His voice was low and even, and his hands came to settle on her waist, just above the swell of her hips.

Hild’s breath caught. While she worried that he was about to cross a line, his touch felt better than she wanted to admit. Her hands resumed chopping, twice as hard. “What are you doing, Uhtred.”

“What any good Christian would do at the sight of such an angel in his home.” He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, making her body shiver. “Worshipping.”

“That's blasphemy.” She shrugged her shoulder to move him off.

“You have heard me say worse.” He kissed her cheek, just in front of her ear, soft and slow.

Hild thought of all the women that must have melted at that kiss of his. “Are you drunk?” she said crossly. Still telling herself she was about to push him away.

“Not unreasonably.”  His hands stole across her belly, pulling her body more firmly against his.

“I would certainly call this unreasonable.”

“Why?”

She put her hand on top of his, stopping him from sliding it any higher along her body. “I cannot do what you want, Uhtred. I am God’s wife.”

He leaned his handsome face over her shoulder, trying to catch her eye. “And you are too good a woman,” Uhtred quipped, saying what he always said. “He can share you with me. Do you not find it strange, that priests can marry and nuns cannot?”

Hild lifted an eyebrow, leaning back to look at him more squarely. “Oh, we are talking about marriage now, are we?”

Uhtred’s eyes sparkled with a loose, silly grin. “If you want to be.”

“I certainly do not.” She scowled at the absurdity of what Uhtred was asking for, nevermind the girlish fluttering in her limbs. “You are drunker than I thought. Let’s get you off to bed, I see now that you’ll need to sleep this one off. You can enjoy this stew when you’re in your right mind again.”

“Yes, Hild, take me to bed.” The mischief was dripping from his tongue, but she led him to his bedchamber anyway. She could handle this arseling.

He did not try to pretend to be sober. Quite the opposite; Hild was sure he did not need to lean on her entirely this much. He was using her own accusation as an excuse to lean his head against her shoulder, to keep pressing his thigh against her own as they made their way to the Lord’s bedchamber.

When they reached the bed Hild tried to sling him off her shoulder and into it, but Uhtred remained steady. “My boots,” he slurred, and rather than sitting down to remove them, he leaned into her harder as he lifted his leg and struggled to work the first one off.

His breath was heavy, and sweeter against her cheek than she had expected. The first boot fell, and he shifted his weight to work on the second. Uhtred was heavy, and when he wobbled again she couldn’t quite hold him up. With a sigh, she tried to dump him into his bed.

Uhtred dropped his boot in favor of grabbing Hild around the waist as his momentum changed. There was some spinning, and Hild found herself crashing to the bed with a drunk and amorous Lord Uhtred right on top of her.

For a long moment they just stared at each other. Uhtred’s eyes were playful and kind, with his pain etched in the tightness around their edges. Hild truly did wish to bring him comfort. But not in the way that he was asking, even if the temptation was rising up thick like honey through her body. “This is not the remedy you need,” she said gently, interrupting the progress of his mouth toward kissing hers.

“Let us try it anyway,” Uhtred murmured.

Hild rolled her eyes and jabbed him with her knee, turning his weight just enough to slip out from under him. She felt him let her go. When she was standing, with her clothes straightened, beside the bed, she fixed him with her sternest look. “Sleep this off,” she admonished him.

He smiled up at her, still playful, but less amorous. He settled himself against the pillows. “Tuck me in then, Mother Superior.”

She sighed loudly and ripped the blankets up over him. His eyes tracked her movements, wide and round like a child’s, and he did not move to grab her again. “Rest well, Lord,” she scowled down at him when all was tucked and settled. But her palm was soft against his forehead. “And come give me your apology in the morning.”

Hild hoped that he would not come looking for her too early. She needed to go straight to the chapel after this, and she did not know how long her prayers would take.