The Taming Read online

  “Beautiful, my lady,” Joice said, tears in her eyes. “No man will be able to take his eyes from you.”

  Liana hoped so. She hoped she was as physically appealing to her husband as he was to her.

  She rode sidesaddle on a white horse to the church and she was so nervous she barely saw the crowds of people lining the sides of the road and yelling their wishes that she bear many children. Her eyes were straining ahead to see the man standing by the church door. Her palms were wet as she drew nearer to him. Would he take one look at her, see that she was the woman who hit him with a mud-soaked garment, and refuse to marry her?

  When she was close enough to see him, she smiled with pride that he looked as good as she’d imagined in the green velvet tunic that she’d had made for him. The tunic barely reached the tops of his thighs and his powerful, muscular legs were tightly encased in dark knitted hose. On his head he wore a short-brimmed fur hat with a large ruby twinkling on the band.

  She swelled so in pride at the look of him that her ribs ached against the steel bones in her corset. Then she held her breath as he stepped down from the church steps and started toward her. Was he going to lift her from her horse himself and not wait for her father, who rode ahead of her, to do it?

  Her horse moved maddeningly slowly. Perhaps he could see she was the woman from the pond and he was pleased. Perhaps she had haunted his thoughts for the past three months as he had hers.

  But Rogan did not come to her horse. In fact, as far as she saw, he did not so much as glance her way. Instead, he went to her father’s horse and caught the bridle. The entire procession halted as Liana watched Rogan talk earnestly to her father. Liana watched in puzzlement until Helen moved her horse forward to stand beside her stepdaughter.

  “What is that red devil up to now?” Helen spat out. “Those two are wrong if they think we will wait while they talk of hawks.”

  “Since he is to be my husband, I assume we must wait,” Liana said coolly. She’d had enough of Helen’s complaints about Rogan.

  Helen kicked her horse’s ribs and went to stand on the far side of her husband. Liana could not hear what was being said over the noise of the crowd, but she could see Helen’s anger. Gilbert remained impassive and even leaned back in the saddle while Helen talked angrily to Rogan, but Rogan merely looked across at her with unseeing eyes.

  Liana hoped he would never look at her like that. After a moment Rogan looked about him, as if seeing the crowd for the first time, and as an afterthought he looked at Liana sitting quietly on her horse. Liana held her breath as his cool eyes scanned her from toe to head. She did not see any recognition in his eyes and she was glad, because she didn’t want to risk his refusing to marry her. When his eyes rose to meet hers, Liana lowered her lashes, hoping to seem modest and obedient.

  After a moment, she looked up to see Rogan returning to the church steps and Helen riding toward her.

  “That man you plan to marry,” Helen said with a sneer, “was asking for twelve more knights’ fees. He was saying he would walk away now and leave you here if he didn’t get them.”

  Liana’s eyes widened in alarm. “Did my father agree?”

  Helen closed her eyes for a moment. “He agreed. Now, let’s get this over with.” She kicked her horse forward to ride behind Liana.

  Gilbert helped his daughter from her horse, and she walked up the stairs to meet her husband. The ceremony was brief, the vows no different from what they had been for centuries. Liana kept her eyes lowered throughout, but when she vowed to be “meek and obedient in bed and at board,” the crowd cheered her. Twice she stole looks at Rogan, but he merely seemed impatient to be away—as she was, she thought with a smile.

  When they were pronounced man and wife, again the crowd cheered and the bride and groom, their family and guests went inside to mass, for the wedding was of the state and therefore outside the church, but mass was of God. The priest blessed their marriage and began the mass.

  Liana sat quietly beside her new husband and listened to the Latin incantations for what seemed to be hours. Rogan did not look at her, did not touch her. He yawned a few times, scratched a few times, and sprawled his long legs in the aisle. At one point she thought she heard a snore coming from him, but his brother punched him and Rogan sat up straighter on the hard bench.

  After mass, the wedding group rode back to the castle while the peasants threw grains at them and shouted, “Plenty! Plenty!” For three days and nights every man, woman, and child would have all the food and drink they could hold.

  Once over the drawbridge and into the inner courtyard, Liana sat on her horse and waited for her husband to lift her down. Instead, she watched as Rogan and his brother Severn dismounted and went to the wagons loaded and waiting along the stone wall.

  “He cares more for your goods than for you,” Helen said as a groom helped Liana from her horse.

  “You have had your say,” Liana snapped. “You do not know all there is. Perhaps he has reasons for his actions.”

  “Yes, such as not being human,” Helen said. “There’s no use reminding you of what you’ve done. It’s too late now. Shall we go in and eat? It is my experience that men always come home when they’re hungry.”

  But Helen was wrong, because neither Rogan nor his men came in to the feast Liana had spent weeks organizing. Instead, they stayed outside, going through the wagons that were packed with her dowry. She sat alone at her father’s right side, the groom’s place next to her empty. All around she could feel the tittering of the guests as they looked at her with sympathetic eyes. She kept her chin up and refused to let them see she was hurt. She told herself it was good that her husband was interested in his property. A man who was so concerned about his estates wasn’t likely to gamble them away.

  After a couple of hours, when most people had finished eating, Rogan and his men came into the Hall. Liana smiled, for now, surely, he’d come to her and apologize and explain what had kept him. Instead, he stopped beside Gilbert’s chair, reached between Gilbert and Helen, and picked up a two-pound piece of roasted beef and began to gnaw on it.

  “Three wagons are full of feather mattresses and dress goods. I want them filled with gold,” Rogan said, his mouth full.

  Gilbert had had nothing to do with the packing of the wagons and so could not answer Rogan’s complaint. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  Helen had no such problem. “The mattresses are for my daughter’s comfort. I don’t imagine that place of yours has even the barest comforts.”

  Rogan turned cold, hard eyes on her and Helen almost backed down. “When I want a woman’s opinion, I will ask for it.” He looked back at Gilbert. “I am having an accounting made now. You will regret it if you have cheated me.” He stepped away from the table, the meat eaten, and wiped his greasy hands on the beautiful velvet tunic Liana had had made for him. “You can keep your feathers.”

  Helen was on her feet instantly as she confronted Rogan. He was much taller than she and overpoweringly large, but she held herself rigid before him. Her anger gave her courage. “Your own wife, the wife you have chosen to ignore, supervised the loading of those wagons and she has not cheated you. As for the household goods, either they go with her or she remains here in her father’s house. Choose now, Peregrine, or I’ll have the marriage annulled. No daughter of mine goes from my house naked.”

  The entire room was silent. Only a dog snuffling in a corner could be heard and it, too, soon quietened. Guests, acrobats, singers, musicians, jesters all paused in what they were doing and looked at the tall, handsome man and the elegant woman confronting each other.

  For a moment Rogan did not seem to know what to say. “The marriage has been performed.”

  “And not consummated,” Helen flashed back at him. “It will be easy to have it annulled.”

  The anger in Rogan’s eyes increased. “You do not threaten me, woman. The girl’s goods are mine and I will take what I want.” He took a step backward and