The Taming Read online

  Liana kept up a running stream of conversation with Gaby and pretended she was taking no notice of Rogan and the child, but she kept the little girl supplied with dates and figs. When the child tired of feeding her uncle, she settled back against Rogan and went to sleep.

  All too soon, the sun dropped low in the sky and Liana knew it was time to go home. She didn’t want this pleasant time to end, didn’t want to return to gloomy Moray Castle and, perhaps, a husband who ignored her. She slipped her hand in Rogan’s and put her head on his shoulder. For a long while they sat there, entwined, the sleeping baby on his lap.

  “This has been the best day of my life,” Liana whispered. “I wish it would never end.”

  Rogan tightened his arm around her. It had been such a wasteful day and he planned never again to be so frivolous, but he agreed that it had been…well, pleasant.

  It was Sarah’s waking and crying that made them realize they had to return to their respective homes.

  “You’ll come tomorrow?” Liana asked Gaby, and saw tears of gratitude in the woman’s eyes. Already, Liana had plans of making Gaby her mistress of the household. Gaby would make sure the maids kept the place clean, and Liana would have more time to spend with her husband.

  A few minutes later, in the growing darkness, Rogan and Liana began to slowly walk back to Moray Castle. Hands clasped, they were quiet for a while.

  “I wish we didn’t have to go back,” Liana said. “I wish we could be like Gaby and Baudoin and live in a simple hut somewhere and—”

  Rogan snorted. “They were ready enough to give up their simple hut. That meal must have cost them a year’s wages.”

  “Half a year,” Liana said in the tone of someone who spends a great deal of time with account books. “But they’re in love,” she said dreamily. “I could see it in Gaby’s eyes.” She looked up at Rogan. “It must be how I look at you.”

  Rogan was looking ahead at the walls of Moray Castle. It had been too easy for them to leave this morning. What if the Howards were to dress as vegetable sellers and beg entry? He’d have to tighten vigilance.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Liana asked.

  Perhaps he should require a badge to be worn by the peasants who were allowed to enter. Of course a badge could be stolen, but—

  “Rogan!” Liana had stopped walking and, clutching his hand, she made him halt too.

  “What is it?”

  “Were you listening to me?” she asked.

  “Heard every word you said,” he answered. Perhaps something besides a badge. Maybe a—

  “What did I say?”

  Rogan looked at her blankly. “Say about what?”

  She tightened her lips. “I was telling you that I love you.”

  Perhaps a password, changed daily. Or maybe the safest thing would be just to designate certain peasants to enter, with no new faces allowed in, ever.

  To Rogan’s consternation, his wife dropped his hand and marched ahead of him, and from the way she walked, she looked to be angry. “Now what?” he muttered. He’d done everything she wanted of him today and yet she still wasn’t pleased.

  He caught up with her. “Something wrong?”

  “Oh, so you noticed me,” she said haughtily. “I hope I wasn’t disturbing you by telling you that I love you.”

  “No,” he said honestly. “I was just thinking about something else.”

  “Don’t let my declarations of love interrupt,” she said nastily. “I’m sure a hundred women have sworn they love you. All of the Days. But then you even had Months once. And of course Jeanne Howard probably told you every day.”

  Rogan was beginning to see through her cloud of illogic. This was another one of those woman things and not serious at all. “She wasn’t a Howard when she was married to me.”

  “I see. But you don’t deny that she told you repeatedly that she loved you. You’ve probably heard it so many times it means nothing coming from me.”

  Rogan thought for a moment. “I don’t remember any woman telling me she loved me.”

  “Oh,” Liana said, and slipped her hand back into his. They walked in silence for a few minutes. “Do you love me?” she asked softly.

  He squeezed her hand. “I have a few times. And tonight I’ll—”

  “Not that kind of love. I mean, inside of you. Like how you loved your mother.”

  “My mother died when I was born.”

  She frowned. “Severn’s mother, then.”

  “She died when Severn was born, when I was two. I don’t remember her.”

  “Zared’s mother?” Liana asked softly.

  “I don’t think I felt much of anything for her. She was scared of us all. Used to cry a lot.”

  “Didn’t anyone try to comfort her?”

  “Rowland told her to stop crying so we could get some sleep.”

  Liana thought about that poor woman, alone with a dirty castle full of men whose chief concern was that her crying disturbed their sleep. And she was the wife who was starved to death at Bevan Castle. If Rogan had not loved the women in his life, he must have loved his brothers. “When your oldest brother died—”

  “Rowland did not die, he was killed by the Howards.”

  “All right then,” she said impatiently. “Killed. Murdered. Slaughtered unfairly without provocation. Did you miss him after his death?”

  Rogan took a while to answer as images of his strong, powerful brother floated through his head. “I miss him every day,” he answered at last.

  Liana’s voice lowered. “Would you miss me if I died? Say, if the plague took me?”

  He looked down at her. If she died, his life would return to the way it had been. His clothes would be crawling with lice. The bread would be filled with sand. The Days would return. She wouldn’t be around to curse him, ridicule him, publicly embarrass him, or make him waste his time. He frowned. Yes, he’d miss her.

  And he bloody well didn’t like the idea of missing her.

  “I wouldn’t have to go to any more fairs,” he said, and walked away from her.

  Liana stood rooted where she was. She didn’t like to think how much his words hurt. They had been together such a short time and he meant so much to her, yet she was less than nothing to him.

  She vowed to herself that she’d never let him see how he’d hurt her, that she’d keep her pain to herself. She thought her face was impassive, with no expression showing to give herself away, but when Rogan turned back, he saw his pretty little wife with her lower lip extended and her eyes big with unshed tears. He searched his mind to figure out what was wrong with her. Did she dread returning to the castle?

  He went to her and put his fingers under her chin, but she jerked away.

  “You care nothing for me,” she said. “If I were to die, you could get another rich wife and keep her dowry.”

  Rogan gave a bit of a shudder. “Marriages are too much trouble,” he said. “My father had the stamina of a thousand men. He went through four marriages.”

  In spite of her intentions, tears began to roll down Liana’s face. “If I died, you’d no doubt toss my body in the moat. Good riddance!”

  Rogan’s confusion showed. “If you died I’d…”

  “Yes?” she asked, looking up at him through lashes heavy with tears.

  “I would…know that you were gone.”

  Liana knew this was the best she was going to get from him. She flung her arms about his neck and began to kiss him. “I knew you cared,” she said.

  To the consternation of both of them, people around them began to applaud. They had been so involved in their own dispute that they hadn’t been aware of the people around them who had been gleefully watching and listening.

  Rogan was more embarrassed than Liana. He grabbed her hand and started running. They stopped not far from the castle walls and suddenly he, too, was reluctant for the day to end.

  There was a vendor nearby with a wooden tray fastened to a belt around his shoulders. In the tray were