“Perhaps I can,” Rogan said suggestively, and swung her into his arms. “You told everyone we once spent a whole day in bed. Now you shall make your lie true.”
They made love to each other long and slowly, their first needy passion already spent. They explored each other’s bodies with their hands and tongues, and when they at last came together, it was leisurely, slowly, caressingly. Liana had no idea how Rogan watched her, how he wanted to give pleasure to her, how he wanted her to enjoy their lovemaking.
Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms and held one another.
“Do we hang your brother or kiss his feet?” Liana whispered.
“Hang him,” Rogan said firmly. “If there was an attack—”
Liana rubbed her thigh over his. “If there were an attack, you’d be too weak to fight, so it wouldn’t matter.”
“You are a disrespectful wench. You ought to be beaten.”
“By whom?” she asked insolently. “Surely not the worn-out oldest Peregrine.”
“I’ll show you who is worn out,” he said, rolling over on her, making Liana giggle.
But a thud on the floor near them caught Rogan’s attention. Immediately, he covered Liana’s body with his as he looked about for the cause of the noise. “At last, my damned-to-hell brother has sent us food.” He scurried off Liana, out of bed, and went to the package that Severn had managed to swing through the narrow arrow slit and then release so it dropped on the floor.
“You’re more interested in food than in me?” she asked.
“At the moment, yes.” He brought the food to the bed and they ate there. When bread crumbs dropped on Liana’s bare breasts, Rogan licked them off.
They stayed in bed together all day. Liana got Rogan to tell her about his life, about when he was a boy, about the things he’d dreamed about and thought about as a child. She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think he’d ever really talked to anyone before in his life.
At sundown Liana mentioned using some of her dowry wealth to add on to Moray Castle. Rogan was speechless with horror at the idea. “This is not Peregrine land,” he said. “The Howards took—”
“Yes, yes, I know. But you have now lived here two generations. Our children will make the third. What if it takes another five generations to get the Peregrine lands back? Will all of them have to live in a place where the roof leaks? Or live in a place this small? We could add a wing to the south—a proper wing, with paneled walls. We could add a chapel and—”
“No, no, no,” Rogan said, standing up and glaring down at her in bed. “I’ll not put money in this puny place. I’ll wait until I have the lands the Howards stole.”
“And until then you’ll spend every penny that I brought you for making war?” Liana’s eyes blazed. “You married me so you can wage war?”
Rogan started to yell that yes, that’s why he’d married her, but his eyes changed. “I married you because of your beauty that surpasses all other women’s,” he said softly. “Including my first wife.”
Liana looked up at him, her mouth open in astonishment, then she leaped from the bed and threw herself at him, her legs about his waist, her arms about his neck. “My beautiful husband, I love you so much,” she cried.
Rogan hugged her tightly. “I will spend the money how I see fit.”
“Yes, of course, and as an obedient wife I would never contradict you, but just let me tell you of my ideas for enlargement.”
Rogan groaned. “First you part me from my women, then you burden me with a bunch of red-haired brats, and now you propose to tell me how to spend the money I have worked so hard for.”
“Worked so hard for!” she said. “You didn’t even attend the wedding feast I had planned so carefully. And you insulted my stepmother.”
“She needed insulting. She needs a hand applied to her backside.”
“And you’d like to do it?” Liana asked archly.
“I wouldn’t want t
o touch her,” he said softly, looking at Liana in the fading light. “Now, come to the table because my bound-for-hell brother has sent down supper.”
They spent the night in each other’s arms, and as they fell asleep, Rogan murmured that he’d “think about” enlarging Moray Castle and Liana felt as if she’d won a great battle.
When she awoke in the morning, she looked up to see Rogan staring stonily straight ahead. She propped herself up on one elbow to follow his line of vision and saw the door to their room standing open. Liana didn’t know when any sight had depressed her so much.
“We could close it again,” Liana whispered.