“Is what, my lady? We will kill it.”
“Is the largest flock of the prettiest butterflies I have ever seen,” she said, giving the man her most dazzling smile. “I lost track of time. I am so sorry if I worried anyone. Shall we return?” She turned her horse and rode ahead of the men, greatly puzzled by what she’d done. It would be better, of course, to wait and tell her father what had happened and how that awful man had treated her. Yes, that was it. She was just being sensible. Her father would know how to deal with him. Perhaps seal him inside a nail-studded barrel. Yes, that sounded like a good idea.
Chapter
Three
Rogan watched the girl go and regretted the fact that he hadn’t had time for her. He would have liked to touch that pale skin of hers—and that hair! It was the color of the mane of a horse he’d owned as a boy.
A horse killed in battle by the Howards, he remembered with bitterness, and pulled hard on the knitted, footed stockings.
His big toe came through a hole just below the knee. Without thought, he pulled the hose over his toe then yanked on the braies again. His little toe stuck at the ankle. This time his clothing got his attention. He held the braies up to the sunlight and saw the hundreds of tiny holes. Now the stockings were holding together out of habit, but in a matter of days they’d start unraveling. He grabbed his shirt and saw that it too was full of holes, as was his woolen overtunic.
Damn the presumptuous snippet of a girl, he thought with anger. Here he was to marry the Neville heiress and his clothes were falling off his body. If he ever saw that wench again, he’d—
Rogan stopped his thoughts and looked at the shirt again. She’d not wanted to wash his clothes. What she’d wanted was a good tumble in the grass. When she didn’t get it, she’d had her revenge on him, and revenge was something Rogan understood very well.
In spite of his anger, in spite of the fact that he was now going to have to go to the expense of new clothes, he looked at the sunlight shining through the holes in his shirt and he did something he rarely did: He smiled. Saucy wench, she wasn’t afraid of him. She had risked a well-deserved beating when she’d pounded holes in his clothes. If he’d caught her, he would have…He would probably have given her the tumble she wanted, he thought, still smiling.
He tossed the shirt into the air, caught it, then began to dress. He felt better now about marrying the Neville heiress. Perhaps after his marriage he’d find the blonde beauty and see if he could give her what she wanted. Maybe he’d take her with him and maybe he’d fill her belly with the nine brats she claimed to have.
Once dressed, he mounted his horse and rode up the bank to where his brother and his men waited.
“We’ve waited long enough,” Severn said. “Have you built your courage now? Can you face the girl?”
Rogan’s humor left his face. “If you want to keep that tongue of yours, you’ll hold it still. Mount and ride. I go to marry a woman.”
Severn went to his waiting horse, and as he put his foot in the stirrup, something blue in the grass caught his attention. He picked it up and saw that it was a piece of yarn. He dropped it again and gave it no more thought as he rode after his hardheaded brother.
“My lady,” Joice said again, then waited. But Liana made no response. “My lady!” she said louder, but still no response. Joice looked at Liana staring out the window, her mind far away. She had been this way since yesterday, when she’d returned from her ride. Perhaps it was her impending marriage—the messenger had been sent to Lord Stephen this morning—or perhaps it was something else altogether. Whatever it was, Liana was not telling anyone. Joice eased out of the room and closed the heavy oak door.
Liana hadn’t slept during the night and she’d given up all attempts at work. She just sat on the window seat in her room and stared at the village below. She watched people scurrying, laughing, cursing.
The door opened with a bang. “Liana!”
There was no possibility of ignoring the angry, hate-filled voice of her stepmother. Liana turned cool eyes to her. “What do you want?” She couldn’t look at Helen’s beauty without seeing Lord Stephen’s smiling face, his eyes shifting to the gold salver on the mantel.
“Your father wants you to come to the Hall. He has guests.”
There was a bitterness in Helen’s voice that piqued Liana’s curiosity. “Guests?”
Helen turned away. “Liana, I don’t think you should go down. Your father will forgive you; he forgives you everything. Tell him you have seen this man and do not want him. Tell him you have given your heart to Lord Stephen and want no one else.”
Now Liana was indeed interested. “What man?”
Helen turned back to look at her stepdaughter. “It’s one of those dreadful Peregrines,” she said. “You probably don’t know of them, but my former husband’s land was near theirs. For all their long line of ancestors, they are poor as a honey-wagon driver—and about as clean.”
“So what do these Peregrines have to do with me?”
“Two of them arrived last night and the oldest one says he has come to marry you.” Helen threw up her hands. “It’s like them. They don’t ask for your hand—they announce that one of the filthy beasts is here to marry you.”
Liana remembered another filthy man, a man who had kissed her and teased her. “I am pledged to Lord Stephen. The acceptance to his proposal has already been sent.”
Helen sat down on the bed and weariness made her shoulders droop. “That’s what I’ve told your father, but he won’t listen. These men brought two huge hawks as gifts for him, two big peregrine falcons like their name, and Gilbert has spent all night with them recounting one hawking story after another. He is convinced they are the best of men. He doesn’t notice the stench of them, the poverty of them. He ignores the stories of their brutality. Their father wore out four wives.”
Liana looked steadily at her stepmother. “Why do you care who I marry? Isn’t one man as good as another? What you want is for me to get out of your house, so what difference does it make who I marry?”
Helen put her hand on her growing belly. “You will never understand,” she said tiredly. “I merely want to be mistress in my own house.”