The Conquest Read online

  Zared was amused at the idea of ending the feud. She knew him to be cowardly and weak-fleshed, but was he stupid also? "How do you propose to stop the fighting? To give us back the land your family stole from us? Will you give my brother Rogan the title of duke that should be his?"

  "Why, no," Tearle began, and at that moment he had an idea. "I shall end the feud by marrying a Peregrine to a Howard. We will join our families."

  "Do you have a sister hidden away who you plan to marry to Severn? Some drooling idiot of a sister you will try to foist on my handsome brother?"

  He smiled at her. "I thought perhaps I would marry you."

  Zared made the mistake of trying to breathe and laugh at the same time. She choked rather spectacularly.

  Tearle pounded her on the back and handed her a mug of watered wine. She gulped the wine while trying to move out of his reach.

  "Me?" she said at last. "Marry me? Me marry a Howard?"

  Tearle stiffened. "What better could a Peregrine hope for? You have no dowry." He looked her up and down. "You are not even a full woman."

  "Woman enough to want a man," she shot back at him. "Do you know how my brothers would take my saying I was to marry a Howard? My brother Rogan would—"

  "Yet you considered Severn marrying a sister, if I had one, which I do not." He had talked of the marriage on impulse, but since he'd said it, he didn't like her laughing at him. After all, it was an excellent idea, the best part being that he'd get his hands on her slim little body.

  Zared knew the man was stupid. "If my brother married a Howard, the woman would come to us. If I married you, a mere second son, I would go to live under your brother's rule. Do you think Oliver Howard would treat me well? Or do you think he would enjoy having a Peregrine to torture?"

  Tearle blinked at her. He could see his brother laughing in glee at the prospect of having a Peregrine under his roof. What he would do to Zared would increase the feud, not dampen it.

  "So you came to marry me," Zared said, still laughing at him. "How did you get past my brother?"

  "I have told you. I brought clothes." Tearle didn't feel jubilant any longer. He'd never proposed marriage to a woman before, and he had certainly never been turned down. What more did a woman want? He was the brother of a duke, he was handsome, he was—

  "Surely you did not think I would be fool enough to agree to marry you," she said. "It would be the same as turning myself over to you as a prisoner. I want the truth of why you are here."

  Tearle tried to recover his self-esteem. He grinned and shrugged. "You cannot blame me for trying. I told the truth when I said I wanted to end the feud. I am tired of hatred, and I thought perhaps I could befriend your brother and stop the hatred."

  "Befriend? How can a Howard be a friend to a Peregrine?"

  "I have made progress already. I brought clothes, and I brought your brother a splendid suit of silvered armor. It is mine. We are nearly the same size." He meant to point out to her his own strong, muscular body and to let her know he wasn't the weakling she seemed to think he was. But she didn't seem to hear.

  She stood and walked to one side of the big tent. "You came bearing clothes and armor—Howard clothes and armor—and my brother accepted it all without question?" Zared was having some doubts about her brother. Severn had said he'd been to lots of tournaments, yet he hadn't known about the procession. He said he knew all about women, yet he hadn't known Lady Anne would hate being picked up in front of everyone.

  "It was easier than I'd hoped. Your brother seemed to be expecting clothes from Lady Liana."

  "Not expecting them, but Liana…" She stopped. She wasn't going to tell that man, that enemy, anything. It wasn't like Severn to believe a stranger, but perhaps he had been embarrassed this morning, too.

  Zared's head came up. "So you are to be a servant to my brother? Is that what you told me? He is to call you Smith, and you, a rich man—falsely rich, for your land belongs to my family, but a rich man nonetheless —you are to fetch food for us? Shall you empty the chamber pots?"

  "I'll see that those lazy servants of yours do the work."

  She didn't believe him, not one word he said. "Now that the Howards know there is a Peregrine female, is it I you plan to take?"

  "I have told no one that you are female. I have told no one that I am a Howard."

  "Someone will recognize you. Someone will point you out as a Howard, and then my brother will kill you and your brother—"

  "Cease!" he half yelled. "I am not the evil monster you portray me to be. I am a simple man who does not want to spend his life hating. I saw a way to befriend the Peregrines, and I took it. No one knows me here except Anne, and she—" He stopped because he'd said far too much.

  "Anne? Lady Anne? The woman Severn is going to marry?"

  "Anne marry your uneducated lout of a brother? She'd rather—"

  Zared slapped him across the face, and it was a good, hard slap.

  "Why, you little—" he said, going for her.

  "You are awake," Severn said from the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. "Have you met Smith? Liana sent him." He walked toward the cot and picked up Zared's plate, but before he could get a bite to his mouth Zared grabbed the food from him.

  "That's mine," she said. "I mean it was meant for me."

  Severn looked puzzled. "All right. Smith, get me food."

  "No!" Zared yelled, dropping her plate. Food fell to the ground as she ran to put herself between Tearle and the food that stood on a little table.

  "What is wrong with you?" Severn asked, frowning.

  "Uh… uh…" She couldn't seem to think quickly enough.

  "I believe the boy is concerned that this food isn't as good as what the Marshalls are serving. This is cold and greasy, while in the hall hot soups are being served."

  Severn still looked puzzled. It wasn't like Zared to care about food. As long as the meat didn't have maggots on it and the weevils in the bread had been baked and weren't still crawling, the Peregrines didn't pay much attention to food.

  "I want you to have the best, " Zared said. "To keep up your strength for the fighting."

  Severn rumpled her hair. "All right. I'll go up to the hall. You stay here with Smith and sort out the clothes Liana sent. See if there's something in there for you."

  "My clothes are more than suitable for a Peregrine." She looked at Severn's tunic of thick black silk. There were gold and silver dragons embroidered along the edge. "We need not all look like peacocks."

  Severn gave her a hard look. "Do not disgrace me. Smith, see to my squire." With that, he turned on his heel and left the tent.

  Zared turned to look at Tearle. "Once in my life I get to see the world, and I am put in the care of a Howard. Now I shall have to stay with you every minute to see that you do no harm to my brother."

  "Every minute?" Tearle smiled, liking the prospect.

  Chapter Five

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  Zared watched as the Howard man went outside and rummaged through the cart that contained the clothes and weapons he had brought. Her belly growled with hunger, and in the distance she could hear the clash of weapons and the shouts of the crowd as the combatants met one another in the joust. Had Severn fought yet? Who had he fought? Had Colbrand fought yet?

  She didn't know because she had been drugged by a Howard and had slept the day away.

  Watching the man with his black hair and black clothes, she knew that what was to have been a pleasurable time for her was going to be a nightmare. Do Howards mean to ruin all my life? she thought. Was she to have no time when she was free of them? On her own land she could not ride out alone without being snatched by a Howard. And it looked as though she wouldn't even be allowed to enjoy herself at the tournament.

  She watched him pull out a garment of ruby-red velvet, the hem trimmed in gray fox.

  He had proposed marriage to her. Marriage between a Howard and a Peregrine. How absurd the idea was. Her brothers would never allow her to live u