The Taming (23 page)

“Will you go to him?” Io asked.

Liana knew who she meant. “I cannot. He does not want me; he wants gold. Now that he has it, he should be content.”

“Gold makes a cold bed partner.”

A lump formed in Liana's throat. “He has his Days. Now, will you excuse me? I have a bit of embroidery that needs finishing.”

They walked down the stairs to the solar, and Iolanthe bid Liana farewell.

 

That evening Severn came to Iolanthe's apartments. He was limping and there was a blood-dripping gash on the side of his head. Io motioned to her maid and soon Io was bathing his head with a linen cloth.

“I am going to kill my brother,” Severn said through his teeth. “That is the only way to stop him. Did you talk any sense into that wife of his?”

“I had as much success talking to her as you have had with your brother.”

“Watch that!” Severn said, wincing. “I don't want new wounds. At least I can understand Rogan. He's been very tolerant of that woman, allowing her to sit by him while he judged the courts, letting her do what she could in the village, even giving her a full day in bed.”

“He has been
most
generous,” Io said sarcastically.

“He has, actually. I never thought he'd be so generous with a wife.”

“What did you think? That your sweet-tempered brother would drop her in this filthy castle with servants who ridiculed her, that he'd ignore her, that he wouldn't remember what she looked like until she set him on fire?”

“Women!” Severn muttered. “You are such illogical creatures.”

“My logic is fine, it's your brother who—”

Severn pulled her into his lap and kissed her neck. “Let's forget my brother.”

She pushed away from him and stood. “How many weeks has it been since you had a bath?”

“You never used to care whether I bathed or not.”

“I thought horse manure was your natural scent,” she shot back at him.

Severn stood up. “This is all that woman's fault. If she—”

“If
you
hadn't interfered, things would be fine now. What are you going to do to make up for what you've done?”

“We've been through this, remember? I was willing to admit that I'd been…well, a little overzealous with Rogan, so at
your
suggestion I sent them invitations to supper. And you saw where that went, didn't you? That stupid bitch showed up wearing coins. Rogan should have accepted her offer of payment. What he should have done was—”

“He
should
have told her she's beautiful,” Io interrupted. “She thinks your oversexed brother doesn't desire her. I can't imagine why. He'll bed anything that's even three-quarters female.”

Severn smiled proudly. “Great cocksman, isn't he?”

“Let's not go into my opinions of your brother. You have to get Rogan to tell Liana he thinks she's beautiful and he desires her above all other women.”

“Sure. And I'll move a few oceans, too. You want London moved while I'm at it? You've never tried to get Rogan to do something he doesn't want to do.”

“Is he back sleeping with his Days now?”

Severn grimaced. “No, and I think that's half his problem. This is the longest he's gone without a female since…” He thought a moment. “…since the Howards took his first wife. Don't give me that look,” he said to Io. “My brother can handle women whether he's married to them or not. Maybe he just doesn't want a woman right now. I can understand that, what with the way his wife has behaved. Wearing those coins was the last straw.”

“It's up to you,” Io said sweetly. “Why don't you get Rogan to send Liana back to her father, get rid of her completely. Then you could bring in a wagonload of beautiful, nubile young girls so your brother could have a dozen per night.”

“And which one will see that we have pies to eat?” Severn muttered. “Damn you, Io! And damn that Liana. Damn
all
women! Why can't you leave a man alone? Rogan only married her to get money. Why did he have to…to…”

“To what?” Io asked innocently. “Fall in love with her? Begin to need her?”

“That isn't what I meant at all. Damn both of them! Somebody ought to lock them in a room together and throw away the key. Both of them make me sick.” His head came up.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just a thought.”

“Tell me,” Io urged.

It was a while before Severn began talking.

That same evening Severn sent a peace offering to Liana. She sat alone in her solar with her ladies, as she did every evening. Usually, she was undisturbed by anyone from the castle—as if she didn't exist, or as if they wished she didn't exist—so she was very surprised when a scarred old knight brought up a jug of wine and said it was from Lord Severn to his beautiful sister-in-law.

“Do you think it's poisoned?” Liana asked Gaby.

“Perhaps with a love potion,” Gaby answered. She'd never give up trying to reason with Liana.

The wine was spicy and warm and Liana drank more than she meant to. “I suddenly feel very tired,” she said. She was so tired that her head felt too heavy to hold up.

It was at that moment that Severn entered the solar. All of Liana's women perked up at the sight of the handsome blond giant, but Severn had eyes only for Liana.

Gaby was looking at her mistress in alarm as Liana's eyes closed and her head lolled against the back of her chair. “I'm afraid something's wrong.”

“She'll sleep it off,” Severn said, elbowed Gaby out of his way, then picked Liana up.

“My lord!” Gaby gasped. “You cannot—”

“I
am,”
Severn answered as he carried the sleeping Liana from the room and started up the spiral stairs. He went up past the bedrooms above the solar, up another flight until he came to a heavy iron-clad oak door. He shifted Liana, tossing her over his shoulder while he took a key hanging at the end of a chain suspended from his belt and opened the door.

It was a small room with a garderobe off to one side and another heavy, barred door leading out to the walk along the top of the parapets. The room was usually used for housing guards, but today the guards were gone. Sometimes the room was used as a prison and that's what Severn wanted it for.

Severn pushed the door open and stood for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Lying on the bed, sound asleep, was Rogan and for a moment Severn reconsidered his plan. But then a couple of fleas began scurrying about on his back and he knew that what he was doing was right. He dumped his sister-in-law on the bed beside his brother and gouged at the fleas.

“There,” he said as he looked down at the two of them. “You can stay in here until we have some peace.”

I
t took Liana a while to wake up in the morning. It was as if she couldn't open her eyes. She stretched her arms, then her legs, as she luxuriated in the soft warmth of the mattress.

“If you want something to eat, you better get up and get it.”

Her eyes flew open to see Rogan sitting at a small table devouring chicken, cheese, and bread.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Why have you brought me here? The wine! You drugged it.”

“My brother did. My brother, whose days on this earth are limited, drugged the wine.”

“And he brought me here?”

“He brought both of us here while we were sleeping.”

Liana sat up and looked about the spare little room: a bed, a table and two chairs, and a candle stand. “He has betrayed us to the Howards,” she said softly. “Does he mean to turn the castle over to them?”

Rogan looked at her as if she were the village idiot. “My brother may be stupid at times as well as stubborn, but he is not a traitor.”

“Then why has he done this?”

Rogan looked back at the food.

Liana got out of bed. “Why has he drugged us and put us in here?”

“Who knows? Now, eat.”

Liana felt her temper rising. She went to the doors and pulled on them, then beat her fists against them and shouted to be released, but no one came. She went to each of the two narrow arrow slits and shouted down from them, but no one answered. She turned back to Rogan. “How can you eat? How long are we to be prisoners? How do we get out of here?”

“My father made this room to keep prisoners. We cannot get out.”

“Until your stupid, overbearing brother lets us out, that is. Why did I ever marry into a family like this? Do any of you men have any sense?”

Rogan just looked at her with hard eyes, and Liana immediately regretted her words. “I…” she began.

He put his hand up. “You may return to your father as soon as we are released from here.”

He pushed away from the table and went to stand by the narrow window. She walked beside him. “Rogan, I…”

He walked away from her.

The day was spent in silence and anger. Liana looked at Rogan and remembered his telling her that her money meant everything to him. So be it, she thought. She would return to her father or retire to one of her dower estates and live without the Peregrine family, with their horses' skulls hanging over the mantel.

Food was lowered to them in a cloth bundle that would fit through the arrow slit. Rogan took the food and yelled up at Severn about what he planned to do to him when he was released. Rogan took his food to the other side of the room and refused to sit at the table with Liana.

Night came and they still were not speaking. Liana lay down on the bed and wondered where Rogan planned to sleep. She started to protest when he lay down beside her, his back to her, but she didn't. She just made sure she wasn't touching him.

But as the early morning sun touched the arrow slit, Liana woke to find herself held tightly in her husband's arms. She forgot about feuds and arguments and kissed his sleep-softened mouth.

Rogan woke instantly and kissed her with all the hunger he felt. After the kiss, they were both lost and there was a frenzy of clothes being discarded as they frantically sought each other's skin. They came together fast and furiously, with a passion that had built up over the past two weeks.

Afterward, they lay in each other's arms, plastered together by sweaty skin, clinging to one another. Liana's first impulse was to ask if Rogan really thought she was ugly and if he actually meant to send her away, but she refrained.

“I saw the ghost,” she said at last.

“In the chamber below us?”

“She's the Lady I thought was Iolanthe. Remember I told you she was older than Severn? She told me about Jeanne Howard.”

He didn't answer her, and Liana turned in his arms to look at him. “You've seen her, too, haven't you?” she asked after a moment.

“Of course not. There is no ghost. It's just a—”

“A what? When did you see her? Was she sewing or spinning?”

He took a while to answer. “Sewing. The tapestry with the unicorn.”

“Did you ever tell anyone?”

“Not until now.”

His words made Liana feel triumphant. “When did you see her? What did she say to you?”

His voice was soft. “It was after Oliver Howard took…her.”

“Jeanne.”

“Yes, that one,” Rogan answered. “The woman came to me and told me she wanted Howard, that she carried his brat. She asked me to stop the feud. I should have killed the bitch with my own hands.”

“But you couldn't.”

“I didn't, anyway. I returned here to get supplies—we'd been fighting the Howards for a year—and early one morning I shot an arrow to test a bow and the wind caught the arrow and carried it into a window over the solar. At least, that's what I thought at the time. I also thought I heard a woman scream. I went to the solar, then to the rooms above. No one had lived in them for years because of the stories of the ghost. My father used to curse her because when he had guests, she always appeared and frightened them.”

“Were you frightened when you went to get your arrow?”

“I was too angry then at the Howards to care about a ghost. I'd lost my two brothers, and every arrow was needed.”

“Was she there?”

She saw Rogan smile slightly. “I thought a ghost would be…foggy, I guess. She was so real-looking. She had my arrow and she gave me a scolding, said I'd nearly hit her. At the time I never thought about the fact that I had been shooting away from the castle walls.”

“What did you talk about?”

“It was odd, but I talked to her as I've never talked to anyone else.”

“Me, too. She knew so much about me. Did you talk about Jeanne?”

“Yes. She told me my wife was not the one.”

She looked at him. “The one for what?”

“I don't know. It made sense when I was with her, but none whatever when I left. I guess it had something to do with the poem.”

Liana's eyes widened. “What poem?”

“I haven't thought of it in years. Actually, it seems to be more of a riddle. Let's see…

Liana lay quietly in Rogan's arms and thought about the riddle. “What does it mean?”

“I have no idea. Sometimes I used to lay in bed and think about it, but I never came up with anything.”

“What does Severn think? Or Zared?”

“I never asked either of them.”

She pushed away to look at him. “Never asked? But it could have something to do with the parish registers. The Lady is your grandmother, and if anyone knows where the registers are, she does.”

He frowned. “The woman is a ghost. She's been dead a long time. Maybe I didn't see her and I dreamed the riddle.”

“I
didn't dream the story about you and Jeanne Howard. The Lady told me how beautiful Jeanne was and how much you loved her.”

“I hardly knew the Howard bitch, and I don't remember her as being especially good to look at. Certainly nothing like Iolanthe.”

Liana pulled the sheet over her bare breasts and sat up. “Oh, so now it's Iolanthe you want. You could get money
and
beauty.”

Rogan's confusion showed on his handsome face. “Iolanthe is a bitch. I'm sure she's the one who planned this.” He motioned to the locked door.

“Why? In an attempt to get me to forgive you for telling me before your men that I was hideously ugly?”

Rogan sat up, his mouth dropping open. “I never said any such thing.”

“You did! You said you married me for my money, not for my advice or my beauty.”

Rogan's confusion deepened. “I only spoke the truth. I didn't even see you before the wedding, except when I didn't know who you were, so how could I have married you for anything besides money?”

Liana could feel tears of frustration coming to her eyes. “I married you because I thought you…that you desired me. You kissed me when you didn't know I had any money.”

Rogan had never made an effort to understand the female mind and now he knew why. “I also kissed you when I knew you were rich.” His voice was rising as he got out of bed and leaned over her. “I kissed you after you interfered between me and the peasants. I kissed you after you wheedled me into seeing a play that made me look like a fool. I kissed you—”

“Because I'm your wife and for no other reason,” she said. “You told everyone you thought I was ugly. Maybe I'm not as beautiful as Iolanthe or as pretty as your first wife, but there are some men who've said I was quite pleasing to look at.”

Rogan threw up his hands in exasperation. “You're not bad when you're not sniveling.”

Liana started to cry in earnest at that. She lay down in bed, her knees drawn up, and cried so hard her shoulders shook.

As Rogan looked down at her, at first he felt nothing but anger. She was accusing him of something, but he wasn't sure what. She was making it seem that he was in the wrong for what he'd said. He had merely told the truth and he had said it to keep her from stepping between him and his men. What in the world did his words have to do with her looks? And
desire?
Hadn't he just proved this morning that he desired her? And damnation, he hadn't touched another woman in two whole weeks. Two long, long weeks!

He knew he had every right to be angry with her.
He
should be the one being comforted, but as he watched her cry, he felt something inside himself soften. When he was a boy he'd cried just as she was doing now and his big brothers had kicked him and laughed at him.

He sat on the bed by her head. “Tell me…what's wrong,” he said hesitantly, feeling awkward and embarrassed.

She didn't answer but just cried harder.

After a moment he lifted her and pulled her onto his lap and held her close. Her tears wet his shoulder as he stroked her hair away from her face. “What's wrong?” he asked again.

“You think I'm ugly. I'm not beautiful like you or Severn or Zared or Iolanthe, but the jongleurs have written poems to my beauty.”

Rogan started to say that for money anyone would do anything, but he wisely caught himself. “Not as beautiful as me, eh? Or Severn? I might agree with you about me, but we own pigs better-looking than Severn.”

“Better-looking than me, too, no doubt,” she cried anew.

“I think you're prettier now than when I first saw you.”

Liana sniffed and lifted her head to look at him. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know.” He smoothed her hair back. “When I saw you at the church, I thought you were a pale little rabbit and I couldn't tell you from the other women. But now…” He looked in her eyes. “Now I find you quite pleasant to look at. I have…thought about you these past weeks.”

“I have thought about you every minute of every day.” She clutched him to her. “Oh, Rogan, tell me anything about me, tell me I'm stupid, tell me that I'm a great nuisance and a bother, but please don't tell me I'm ugly.”

He held her close. “You should never tell your secrets to a person. They'll use them against you.”

“But I trust you.”

Rogan couldn't help but feel that her trust was a burden and a responsibility. He held her away from him. “I will tell you that you are the most beautiful of women if you will not unman me before my men.”

It was Liana's turn to be shocked. “Me? Never would I do such a thing.
Never!”

“You countermanded my orders for the peasants.”

“Yes, but you were flogging innocent people.”

“You tried to burn me in my bed.”

“But you were in bed with another woman,” she said indignantly.

“You seduce me away from my work with sweetmeats and music and pretty smiles.”

She smiled at him as his words convinced her of how right she was to have married him.

“And you disobeyed my orders before my men.”

“When?”

“The morning the Howards attacked.”

“I was merely—”

“Interfering,” he said sternly. “It wasn't any of your business. If I hadn't been drunk, you might have—” He stopped. He didn't want to tell her that while he lay in a drunken stupor, the Howards might have taken her prisoner.