The Taming (24 page)

“I might have what?”

His face changed, and Liana could see he was hiding something. “What might I have done?”

Rogan moved away from her and got out of bed. “If that damned brother of mine doesn't send us food, I'll hang him after burning him.”

“If you hadn't been drunk, I might have what?” She wrapped a sheet around herself and followed his nude form into the garderobe. Even as he began to use the urinal, she didn't hesitate. “Might have what?”

Rogan grimaced. “If I ever capture a Howard spy and want information, I'll send you to him.”

“Might have what?” she asked again.

“Been taken,” he snapped, turning back to the room.

“The Howards wanted me?” Liana whispered.

Rogan was angrily pulling on his braies. “The Howards seem to always want what the Peregrines have: our land, our castles, our women.”

“We could make them a gift of the Days.” Rogan did not find humor in her words. She went to him and put her arms about his neck. “You were so angry that morning because the Howards threatened to take me? Rogan, you
do
love me.”

“I don't have time for love. Get dressed. Severn may come in.”

She let the sheet fall off her body so that her bare breasts were against his chest. “Rogan, I love you.”

“Humph! You haven't spoken to me in weeks. You've made everyone's life miserable. Even Zared's room has rats in it. And I'm so light from lack of decent food, my horse doesn't know me. My life was better when no woman said she loved me.” What he said did not agree with how tightly he held her.

“Severn has taught me something,” she said. “I swear to you that never again will I leave you alone. If you hurt me—and I've no doubt you will do so often—I promise I will tell you why I am angry. Never again will I shut myself away from you.”

“It's not me who matters, but the men need decent food and—”

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “It is you who matters to me. Rogan, I will never betray you as Jeanne once did. Even if the Howards were to take me, I would still love you.”

“The Howards will never take another Peregrine,” he said fiercely.

“And I am now a Peregrine?” she asked, smiling.

“An odd one, but a Peregrine more or less,” he said reluctantly.

She hugged him and didn't see the way Rogan smiled into her hair, the way he closed his eyes as he held her. He didn't like to think how much he'd missed her in the past few days or how much her frivolous chatter had come to mean to him. He had lived his life without her and done very well, but she had entered his life meekly, then literally set him on fire. Nothing had been the same since. Pleasure, leisure, softness, had never been part of his life. But this snippet of a girl had introduced them all into his life and it was amazing how quickly he'd adapted.

He pulled away from her, her face held in his big hands. “I think my stupid brother locked us in here to get you to clean his room and to talk to the bakers.”

“Oh? And who is to persuade me to do what he wants?”

“Perhaps I can,” Rogan said suggestively, and swung her into his arms. “You told everyone we once spent a whole day in bed. Now you shall make your lie true.”

They made love to each other long and slowly, their first needy passion already spent. They explored each other's bodies with their hands and tongues, and when they at last came together, it was leisurely, slowly, caressingly. Liana had no idea how Rogan watched her, how he wanted to give pleasure to her, how he wanted her to enjoy their lovemaking.

Afterward, they lay in each other's arms and held one another.

“Do we hang your brother or kiss his feet?” Liana whispered.

“Hang him,” Rogan said firmly. “If there was an attack—”

Liana rubbed her thigh over his. “If there were an attack, you'd be too weak to fight, so it wouldn't matter.”

“You are a disrespectful wench. You ought to be beaten.”

“By whom?” she asked insolently. “Surely not the worn-out oldest Peregrine.”

“I'll show you who is worn out,” he said, rolling over on her, making Liana giggle.

But a thud on the floor near them caught Rogan's attention. Immediately, he covered Liana's body with his as he looked about for the cause of the noise. “At last, my damned-to-hell brother has sent us food.” He scurried off Liana, out of bed, and went to the package that Severn had managed to swing through the narrow arrow slit and then release so it dropped on the floor.

“You're more interested in food than in me?” she asked.

“At the moment, yes.” He brought the food to the bed and they ate there. When bread crumbs dropped on Liana's bare breasts, Rogan licked them off.

They stayed in bed together all day. Liana got Rogan to tell her about his life, about when he was a boy, about the things he'd dreamed about and thought about as a child. She couldn't be sure, but she didn't think he'd ever really talked to anyone before in his life.

At sundown Liana mentioned using some of her dowry wealth to add on to Moray Castle. Rogan was speechless with horror at the idea. “This is not Peregrine land,” he said. “The Howards took—”

“Yes, yes, I know. But you have now lived here two generations. Our children will make the third. What if it takes another five generations to get the Peregrine lands back? Will all of them have to live in a place where the roof leaks? Or live in a place this small? We could add a wing to the south—a proper wing, with paneled walls. We could add a chapel and—”

“No, no, no,” Rogan said, standing up and glaring down at her in bed. “I'll not put money in this puny place. I'll wait until I have the lands the Howards stole.”

“And until then you'll spend every penny that I brought you for making war?” Liana's eyes blazed. “You married me so you can wage war?”

Rogan started to yell that yes, that's why he'd married her, but his eyes changed. “I married you because of your beauty that surpasses all other women's,” he said softly. “Including my first wife.”

Liana looked up at him, her mouth open in astonishment, then she leaped from the bed and threw herself at him, her legs about his waist, her arms about his neck. “My beautiful husband, I love you so much,” she cried.

Rogan hugged her tightly. “I will spend the money how I see fit.”

“Yes, of course, and as an obedient wife I would never contradict you, but just let me tell you of my ideas for enlargement.”

Rogan groaned. “First you part me from my women, then you burden me with a bunch of red-haired brats, and now you propose to tell me how to spend the money I have worked so hard for.”

“Worked so hard for!” she said. “You didn't even attend the wedding feast I had planned so carefully. And you insulted my stepmother.”

“She needed insulting. She needs a hand applied to her backside.”

“And you'd like to do it?” Liana asked archly.

“I wouldn't want to touch her,” he said softly, looking at Liana in the fading light. “Now, come to the table because my bound-for-hell brother has sent down supper.”

They spent the night in each other's arms, and as they fell asleep, Rogan murmured that he'd “think about” enlarging Moray Castle and Liana felt as if she'd won a great battle.

When she awoke in the morning, she looked up to see Rogan staring stonily straight ahead. She propped herself up on one elbow to follow his line of vision and saw the door to their room standing open. Liana didn't know when any sight had depressed her so much.

“We could close it again,” Liana whispered.

“No,” Rogan said. “I must face the ridicule of my men.”

Liana had not thought how his men would look at their master, who, because of a spat with his wife, had been locked away in a tower chamber.

They were allowed no time to speculate because Gaby came bustling into the room, talking as fast as her teeth and tongue could move. It seemed that Severn had spread the rumor that Rogan had ordered his wife to be locked into the room with him in order to chastise her. Rogan's reputation was intact.

“And what of mine?” Liana asked.

“They believe you to be a proper wife,” Gaby said primly.

“A proper wife?” Liana gasped.

“Don't call her that,” Rogan said, “or we'll never have any peace. I want no more fiery beds.”

Gaby kept her mouth shut on her opinions about Liana's behavior as a wife. Gaby had won her husband through years of self-denying love and she expected every other woman to do the same thing.

Reluctantly, Liana left the chamber with her husband. She had learned something while in this room. She had learned that what was important to a woman was not necessarily important to a man. Rogan had not called her ugly, and better yet, he didn't think she was plain.

Somehow, she felt that they had come to a bridge and had crossed it safely. Liana could see no obstacles in their future path.

F
or six long, glorious weeks, Liana was the happiest person on earth. She and Rogan had feared his men's ridicule, but what they had not foreseen was that the men were so grateful to once again have good food on their table and the rats out of their rooms that they didn't really care what had brought about the change.

And Moray Castle did indeed change. The men, rather than ignore her or fight her, now tugged their forelocks in respect as Liana walked past. Severn couldn't be nice enough to her, and Iolanthe began to join them for dinner.

But best of all was Rogan. His eyes followed Liana wherever she went. He only went into his brooding chamber to fetch something and instead spent each evening in the solar with Liana and her ladies. Severn, instead of fighting his brother, began to join them, as did Zared and Io.

It was the morning after such a lovely evening that Liana realized she was going to have a baby. She had always assumed she'd be ill as she'd seen other women be in their first months, but she wasn't ill. She hadn't been tired, hadn't felt in any way unusual, except that now she could barely get into her clothes. She put her hands on her hard, expanded belly and dreamed of a little red-haired child.

“My lady?” Gaby said from behind her. “Are you well?”

“Fine. Lovely. I have never felt better. What are you doing?”

Gaby had a basket full of herbs over her arm. “Lord Rogan and Baudoin were wrestling and they rolled into stinging nettles. I shall prepare an infusion of these to help relieve the pain.”

Liana winced. Stinging nettles could be very painful. Near her father's house grew an herb that helped stop the pain much more than what Gaby carried. When Liana first arrived at Moray Castle, she remembered seeing the herb along the road. How far away was that? Ten, twelve miles? With a good horse she could be there and back by sundown. And tonight, as she rubbed the herb on her husband's fiery skin, she'd tell him about their child.

She dismissed Gaby. It wouldn't be easy to escape Moray Castle. Rogan had given her strict orders never to leave the grounds without an escort. And since the Howard attack, he'd told her she could not leave the castle even if all the Peregrine knights accompanied her.

Liana looked down at her brocade dress and smiled. Of course if she left the castle as someone else and not as Lady Liana, then she had nothing to fear. She dug into a trunk at the foot of the bed and found the peasants' clothes she'd worn to the fair. All she had to do was cover her hair, keep her face down, and steal a horse.

An hour later she was galloping eastward, away from Moray Castle, away from the village, and toward the herbs that would give her husband relief. The wind on her face and the muscles of the horse between her legs felt wonderful. She laughed aloud to think of the child she was carrying and of the happiness that was hers.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she neither saw nor heard the riders come from the trees. They surrounded her before she saw them.

“Look at this,” one of the five men said. “A peasant girl on an animal like that.”

Liana didn't need to be told who these men were. They were richly dressed, and there was an arrogance about them that could come only from their being retainees to a powerful man. These men were Howards. Her only hope was that they didn't find out who she was.

“I have stolen the horse,” she said in a whining voice. “Oh please do not tell my mistress.”

“And what will you give us for not telling?” one handsome young man taunted.

“Anything, sir, oh anything,” Liana said, tears in her voice.

Another man rode up behind them. He was older, with gray hair at his temples, a thick, muscular body, and what looked to be a permanent frown on what might have once been a handsome face. “Throw the girl off and take the horse,” the man commanded. “It's a Peregrine horse, so I'll take it.”

In spite of herself, Liana gave the man a sharp look. Could this be Oliver Howard, the man who'd stolen Rogan's first wife? Liana put her head down and started to dismount, but two men had their hands on her, clutching at her body, searching for her breasts and hips. She twisted away from them—and her hood fell off. Her long blonde hair went cascading down her back.

“Look at this,” one man exclaimed, touching her hair. “I think I'd like some of this little horse thief.”

“Bring her here!” the older man ordered.

With her arms pinned behind her, Liana was taken to stand beside the man's horse. She kept her eyes lowered.

“Look at me,” he commanded. “Look at me or I'll make you wish you had.”

Defiantly, not wanting him to see her fear, Liana looked up at him. As he studied her, years of anger lines seemed to melt from his face, until at last he threw back his head and gave a roar of mirthless laughter.

“Well, Lady Liana, let me introduce myself. I am Oliver Howard,” he said at last. “And you, dear lady, have given me what I have spent my life wanting. You have given me the Peregrines.”

“Never,” she said. “Rogan will never surrender to you.”

“Not even for your return?”

“He didn't surrender for Jeanne and he won't for me,” she said, and hoped her voice was as strong as her words. Inside, she was trembling. What would Rogan think when they took her? Would he believe she would betray him as Jeanne had so many years ago?

“Take her,” Oliver Howard said to one of his men. “Put her on your horse in front of you. It will be your life if she escapes.”

Liana felt too bleak to fight off the man's hands on her body. What was happening was her own fault; she had no one to blame but herself.

The man who held her on his horse whispered into her ear. “The Howards have a charm for Peregrine women. Will you wed one of them? Will you divorce Peregrine and become a Howard as the first one did?”

She didn't bother to answer, which seemed to amuse the man.

“It won't matter what you do,” the man said, laughing. “Lord Oliver will make your husband believe you have become a Howard. We will win in the end.”

Liana told herself that Rogan would never believe she'd betrayed him, but inside her, she was afraid.

They rode for two days. When they stopped at night, Liana was tied, sitting, to a tree and the men took turns staying awake to guard her.

“Perhaps you should assign two men to me,” Liana sneered at Oliver Howard. “I am so strong and mighty that were I to escape the ropes, I might beat them.”

Oliver did not smile. “You are a Peregrine and they are treacherous people. You might have the devil help you escape.” He turned his back on her and went inside one of the three small tents hidden in the trees.

During the night it began to rain. The men guarding her took turns, no man staying in the rain for longer than an hour. There was no mention of untying Liana and putting her inside the dry warmth of a tent.

In the morning she was cold, wet, and exhausted. The man who held her on his horse didn't grope her as he had before. Instead, he was quiet and Liana felt her weary muscles beginning to relax. She fell asleep against him and didn't wake until sundown, when they reached what Rogan called the Peregrine estates.

They could see the towers from a mile off, and as they approached, Liana's lethargy left her. Never had she seen anything like the buildings looming before her. There were no words to describe the size of the estate:
vast, huge, enormous
—all seemed inadequate. There was a series of six “small” towers guarding the tunnel and outer wall that led to the gate in the inner wall of the castle. Each of these towers was larger than the single tower of Moray Castle.

Behind the inner walls were towers of such magnitude that Liana could only stare at them. She could see another wall inside and slate-roofed buildings.

They came first to a wooden bridge over a moat that was as wide as a river. In time of war, the bridge could easily be chopped away. They rode over a stone bridge, another wooden one, and then they were inside the tunnel. Above her were murder holes that in time of war were used for pouring hot oil on the enemy.

In the fading light again, they crossed another wooden bridge over another moat and at last they reached the inner gate, which was flanked by two tall, massive stone towers. Again, murder holes were above them, as well as the spikes of an iron portcullis.

They entered a grassy area with many half-timbered houses built against the walls. The place was clean and prosperous-looking.

They kept riding to go through another tunnel, this one flanked by two towers that were larger than those of any castle her father owned. Inside, they came to acres of a beautiful courtyard. Here were stone buildings with leaded-glass windows: a chapel, a solar, a Great Hall, storerooms where people bustled in and out with food and barrels of drink.

Liana sat on the horse and stared. She had never, in her wildest thoughts, imagined a place of this size or this wealth. So this is what the Peregrines are fighting for, she thought. This is what has caused the deaths of three generations of Peregrines. This is what makes the Peregrines hate the Howards.

Looking at the wealth around her, she began to understand Rogan better. No wonder he looked on small, decaying Moray Castle with contempt. That castle, including walls, could be placed three times inside the inner ward of this castle.

This is where Rogan belongs, she thought. This is where the size of him, the look of him, the power of him, would fit.

“Take her to the top of the northeast tower,” Oliver Howard said, and Liana was pulled from the horse and half-dragged across the long courtyard to the thick, massive tall tower in the northeast corner. The men led her up stone spiral stairs, past rooms she barely glimpsed. But all looked clean and cared for.

There was an iron-barred door at the top of the tower, and one of the men unlocked it and shoved Liana inside, locking it behind her. It was a small room with a mattress on a wooden frame in one corner, a little table and chair in another, and a door to a garderobe to the west. There was one window looking north, and out of it she could see the hundreds of yards of outer wall that surrounded the vast grounds. Men walked on the parapets and kept watch.

“Against the Peregrines' puny force,” Liana said bitterly.

She put her hand to her head, feeling dizzy and tired. She'd spent last night tied to a tree in the rain, and that, together with the emotion she'd spent, was exhausting her. She went to the bed, lay down, and pulled the blanket of fulled wool over her and went to sleep.

When she awoke, it was late the next morning. As she struggled from bed to go to the garderobe, she swayed on her feet and when she put her hand to her forehead, her skin felt hot. Someone had been in the room and there was water, bread, and cheese on the little table. She gulped the water, but the food held no appeal for her.

She went to the door and banged on it. “I must speak to Oliver Howard,” she shouted, but if anyone heard, he didn't answer. She slid down the door to sit on the cold stone floor. She had to be awake when someone entered her room. She had to talk to Oliver Howard and somehow persuade him to release her. If Rogan and Severn tried to take her from this place, they would be killed.

She fell asleep, and when she awoke, she was in bed, uncovered, and drenched in her own sweat. Again, someone had been in her room, but even opening the door and carrying her to the bed hadn't awakened her. She staggered from the bed and poured a cup of water, her hands so weak she could barely lift the pitcher. She collapsed crosswise on the bed.

When she woke again, it was to someone roughly shaking her. Wearily, she opened her eyes to see Oliver Howard looming over her. The dark room, the candlelight coming from behind him, made him look blurry and indistinct.

“Your husband shows no interest in having you returned,” he said fiercely. “He has ignored all ransom requests.”

“Why do you want what little he has?” she asked through dry, cracked lips. When he didn't answer, she continued. “Our marriage was arranged. My husband is no doubt glad to be rid of me. If you ask at our village, you will hear of the horrors I have done to him.”

“I have heard it all. I have even heard how he went unarmed into the village to attend a fair. I would have been there, had I heard of it sooner, and I would have taken him. I would have killed this Peregrine as he's killed my brothers.”

“As you have killed
his
brothers.” Liana's words lost most of their force since she was too weak to lift her head. But even as weak as she was, she wanted to save Rogan. “Release me or kill me, it won't matter to him,” she said. “But do it soon. He will want a new heiress for a wife.” If it is soon, she thought, then Rogan will not have time to attack.

“I will see how much he doesn't care,” Oliver said, and motioned to one of his men.

Liana saw the scissors flash in the candlelight. “No!” she gasped and tried to twist away, but the men's hands were too strong. Hot, feverish tears rolled down her cheeks as the man cut her hair away, leaving it no more than shoulder length. “It was my only beauty,” she whispered.