The Taming (25 page)

Neither Oliver nor his two men took notice as they slammed from the room. Liana's shorn hair was in Oliver's hand.

Liana cried for a long time, never once touching her shortened hair. “He will never love me now,” she kept repeating. Near dawn she fell into a fitful sleep, and when she awoke, she was too weak to get out of bed to get to the water. She went back to sleep.

When she awoke again, there was a cool cloth pressed to her forehead.

“Be quiet now,” whispered a soft voice.

Liana opened her eyes to see a woman with gray-flecked brown hair and eyes as gentle and kind as a doe's. “Who are you?”

The woman kept dampening the cloth and wiping away the sweat from Liana's face.

“Here, take this.” She held a spoon to Liana's lips, then held her head so she could drink. “I am Jeanne Howard.”

“You!” Liana said, choking on the herbal medicine. “Get away from me. You are a traitor, a liar, a demon from hell.”

The woman gave a bit of a smile. “And you are a Peregrine. Could you eat some broth?”

“Not from you, I can't.”

Jeanne contemplated Liana. “I imagine you are a good match for Rogan. Did you
really
set his bed on fire? Did you wear coins to his table? Were you actually locked in a room with him?”

“How do you know of these things?”

With a sigh, Jeanne rose and went to a table where a small iron pot sat. “Don't you know of the depth of the hatred between the Howards and the Peregrines? They know all there is to know about one another.”

Liana, in spite of her fever and her weakness, was studying Jeanne. This was the woman who'd caused so much anger. She was an ordinary-looking woman, of medium height, with plain brown hair—

Hair! Liana thought, and put her hand on her own hair. In spite of herself, she began to cry.

Jeanne turned back to her, cup in hand, and looked in pity as Liana held the ends of her shorn hair. Then Jeanne's face changed and she sat down on the chair by the bed. “Here, eat this. You need the food. Your hair will grow back, and there are worse things.”

Liana couldn't stop crying. “My hair was my only beautiful feature. Rogan will never love me now.”

“Love
you,” Jeanne said in disgust. “Oliver will probably kill him, so what does it matter whether Rogan loves a woman or not?”

Liana managed enough strength to knock the cup from Jeanne's hand and send it flying. “Get out of here! You have caused all of this. If you hadn't betrayed Rogan, he wouldn't be as he is now.”

Tiredly, Jeanne retrieved the cup, put it on the table, then went to sit by Liana. “If I leave, no one else will come. Oliver has ordered that no one tend you. They dare not deny me entrance, though.”

“Because Oliver will kill whoever thwarts the woman he loves?” Liana said nastily. “The woman who betrayed my husband?”

Jeanne stood and went to the window. When she looked back at Liana, her face looked many years older. “Yes, I betrayed him. And my only excuse is that I was a stupid, naïve girl. I was given to Rogan to marry when I was just a child. I had such dreams of my married life. I had been orphaned when I was a baby and I was a ward of the king, so I grew up with nuns, unloved, unwanted, unnoticed. I thought marriage was going to give me someone to love, that at last I'd have a real home.”

She paused and slowed down. “You did not meet the older brothers. After Rogan and I were married, they made my life hell. To them, I was money—money for their war with the Howards—and nothing more. If I spoke, no one listened; if I ordered a servant, no one obeyed. Daily I lived in more filth than I had ever imagined.”

Liana's anger was leaving her. There was too much truth in Jeanne's words.

“Rogan sometimes came to me in the night, other times he had other women.” Jeanne stared at the wall beside Liana. “It was awful,” she whispered. “I was less than an orphan to those odious, beautiful men; I was nothing. To them, I didn't exist. They talked to each other over my head. If I was standing where one of them wanted to be, he pushed me aside. And the violence!” She shivered in memory. “To get one another's attention, they threw axes at each other's heads. I never understood how any of them made it to manhood.”

Jeanne looked down at Liana. “When I heard that you set his bed on fire, I knew you were right to do so. It was something Rogan would understand. No doubt you reminded him of his brothers when you did that.”

Liana didn't know what to say. She knew that every word Jeanne said was true. She'd known how it felt not to exist. And, yes, she'd done the right thing with Rogan, but would it have been enough if she'd had his older brothers to contend with? She caught herself. She was
not
going to side with this traitorous woman. “And was all this”—she motioned toward the window and the vast estate—“worth your betrayal? Two brothers died trying to get you back. Were you glad to hear of their deaths?”

Jeanne's face turned angry. “Those men didn't die trying to get
me
back. They couldn't have picked me out of a crowd. They died fighting the Howards. All I ever heard when I was with the Peregrines was how vile the Howards were, and now all I hear is of the evilness of the Peregrines. When will this hideous feud stop?”

“You did not help with your betrayal,” Liana said, and knew her energy was leaving her.

Jeanne calmed. “No, I did not, but Oliver was so kind to me, and this household…” She trailed off as she remembered. “There was music and laughter here, and bathtubs full of scented water, and servants who curtsied to me. And Oliver was so very attentive and—”

“So attentive you had his baby,” Liana said.

“After Rogan's rough handling, Oliver was a joy to bed,” Jeanne shot back, then stood. “I'll leave you now and let you sleep. I'll return in the morning.”

“Don't,” Liana said. “I can do well enough on my own.”

“As you wish,” Jeanne said, then left the room. As Liana heard the bolt lowered, she fell asleep.

For three days Liana was left alone in the room. Her fever grew worse in the cold, unheated room. She neither ate nor drank, but lay in bed, half-asleep, half-awake, sometimes burning hot, sometimes freezing so that her teeth chattered.

On the third day, Jeanne returned and Liana looked up at her in a daze.

“I feared they were lying to me,” Jeanne said. “I was told you were well and comfortable.” She turned away, then went to bang on the door for the guard to open it. “Pick her up and carry her and follow me,” Jeanne told the guard.

“Lord Oliver gave me orders that she was to remain here,” the guard said.

“And I am countermanding his orders,” Jeanne said. “Now, unless you want to be thrown into the road, pick her up.”

Liana was vaguely aware of strong arms picking her up. “Rogan,” she whispered. She slept while she was carried down the stairs, woke only a bit as the soft hands of Jeanne's ladies undressed her, bathed the sweat from her body, and placed her on a soft feather mattress.

For three days Liana saw only Jeanne Howard as Jeanne fed her broth, helped her to the chamber pot, bathed the sweat from her body, and sat beside her. Not once did Liana speak to Jeanne in that time. She was too aware that the woman had betrayed her husband.

But by the fourth day, Liana's resolve began to crumble. Her fever was gone and now she was merely weak. “Is my baby all right?” she whispered, breaking her silence to Jeanne.

“Healthy and growing every day. It takes more than a little fever to harm a Peregrine.”

“It takes a traitorous wife,” Liana said.

Jeanne put down her needle, rose from her chair, and started for the door.

“Wait!” Liana called. “I apologize. You have been very kind to me.”

Jeanne turned back, poured a liquid into a mug, and handed it to Liana. “Drink it. It tastes vile, but you need it.”

Obediently, Liana gulped the awful-tasting herbal concoction. When she handed the mug back to Jeanne, she spoke. “What has happened since I was taken? Has Rogan attacked?”

Jeanne took her time in answering. “Rogan sent word that…that you were no wife of his, that Oliver could have you.”

Liana could only gape.

“I'm afraid Oliver allowed his temper to get the best of him. He ordered your hair cut and sent it to Rogan.”

Liana turned away from Jeanne's pitying stare. “I see. But even when they took my…hair”—she could barely bring herself to say the words—“it made no difference to him.” She looked back at Jeanne. “What will your husband do now, send me back piecemeal to the Peregrines? A hand today? A foot tomorrow?”

“Of course not,” Jeanne snapped. In truth, Oliver had threatened just what Liana mentioned, but Jeanne had known they were only words. She was furious with her husband for having taken Lady Liana, but now that she was here and Rogan refused to take the bait, Oliver wasn't sure what to do with her.

“What will you do with me?” Liana whispered, using her weak arms to push herself up. Jeanne handed her a velvet robe to put over her bare body.

Jeanne decided to be honest. “I don't know. Oliver talks of petitioning the king to annul your marriage and then marrying you to his younger brother.”

Liana refused to cry. “It's good that Rogan hasn't risked his life and the life of his brothers to come for me.”

“Since he has only one brother left, I can see his reluctance,” Jeanne said, her tone sarcastic.

“If there were an attack, he'd no doubt have young Zared fight alongside the men.”

Jeanne gave her a sharp look. “I doubt that. Even the Peregrines have some standards.” She paused. “Did no one tell you Zared is a girl? Are they still dressing her as a boy?”

Liana blinked a few times. “Girl? Zared is a
girl?”
She remembered Zared smashing the head of the rat with his—her—fist. And Zared in her room in the middle of the night. Liana's eyes widened. Then she remembered being so angry because Zared had been in bed with three women. How Severn and Rogan had laughed when she'd raged at them!

“No,” Liana said, her jaw clenched tight. “No one bothered to tell me Zared was a girl.”

“She was only about five when I was there, and I think the brothers were embarrassed that their father had produced a female. They blamed it on the mewling, cowardly, but rich fourth wife of his. I tried to mother Zared. It was a mistake; she's as fierce as her brothers.”

“And I am an even bigger fool, for I never guessed,” Liana said. And they never bothered to enlighten me, she thought. They had kept her out of their lives. She had never been a Peregrine, and now they didn't want her back.

She looked at Jeanne. “There has been no response from the Peregrines since they received my…my hair?”

Jeanne frowned. “Rogan and Severn have been seen hawking and…and drinking together.”

“Celebrating, you mean. I thought…” She didn't want to say what she thought. She thought that they had come to, if not love her, then need her. She thought Severn had locked her and Rogan in the room because Severn missed the things she had done for the entire castle.

Jeanne took Liana's hand and squeezed it. “They are Peregrines. They are like no other people. They care only for their own. To them, women are a means to get money and nothing else. I don't mean to be cruel, but you should hear this: The Peregrines have your money now, so why do they need you? I heard how you tried to clean their castle and give them better food, but those men won't appreciate such things. The rains last week have half-filled their moat and I hear that already three dead horses are floating in it.”

Liana knew that what Jeanne said was true. How could she ever have believed that she meant anything to Rogan? No more would he have to put up with her interfering in his life. “And the Days?” Liana whispered.

“Already they are back,” Jeanne answered.

Liana took a deep breath. “So what do you do with me now? My husband does not want me, nor do I think my stepmother would like having me back. I am afraid the joke is on your husband.”

“Oliver has not decided yet.”

“Rogan and Severn must be laughing heartily. They have gotten rid of me, kept my dowry, and saddled their enemy with a plain-looking, meddlesome shrew.”

That seemed to be the gist of it, Jeanne thought, but said nothing. Her heart went out to Liana because she knew how she felt. Those first weeks, so many years ago, after Jeanne had been taken by Oliver Howard, she had been in agony. She had felt no love for her young husband or for his overbearing brothers, but she had suffered as she heard of the deaths that had occurred because of her. For a while it looked as if Rogan was going to die from Oliver's arrows, and when he recovered, he found out his brothers were dead.

Through all Jeanne's misery, there had been Oliver. He had never planned to love the young wife of his enemy, but Oliver's wife of a childless marriage had died over a year earlier and he was lonely, as was Jeanne, and they were drawn to each other. At first Jeanne had been defiant, standing up for a husband who had said very few kind words to her and never held her except during the sexual act. But in a very short time Oliver's quiet kindness made her soften. While outside the walls war raged and men died, inside Jeanne lay in Oliver's arms.