In spite of herself, Liana gave the man a sharp look. Could this be Oliver Howard, the man who’d stolen Rogan’s first wife? Liana put her head down and started to dismount, but two men had their hands on her, clutching at her body, searching for her breasts and hips. She twisted away from them—and her hood fell off. Her long blonde hair went cascading down her back.
“Look at this,” one man exclaimed, touching her hair. “I think I’d like some of this little horse thief.”
“Bring her here!” the older man ordered.
With her arms pinned behind her, Liana was taken to stand beside the man’s horse. She kept her eyes lowered.
“Look at me,” he commanded. “Look at me or I’ll make you wish you had.”
Defiantly, not wanting him to see her fear, Liana looked up at him. As he studied her, years of anger lines seemed to melt from his face, until at last he threw back his head and gave a roar of mirthless laughter.
“Well, Lady Liana, let me introduce myself. I am Oliver Howard,” he said at last. “And you, dear lady, have given me what I have spent my life wanting. You have given me the Peregrines.”
“Never,” she said. “Rogan will never surrender to you.”
“Not even for your return?”
“He didn’t surrender for Jeanne and he won’t for me,” she said, and hoped her voice was as strong as her words. Inside, she was trembling. What would Rogan think when they took her? Would he believe she would betray him as Jeanne had so many years ago?
“Take her,” Oliver Howard said to one of his men. “Put her on your horse in front of you. It will be your life if she escapes.”
Liana felt too bleak to fight off the man’s hands on her body. What was happening was her own fault; she had no one to blame but herself.
The man who held her on his horse whispered into her ear. “The Howards have a charm for Peregrine women. Will you wed one of them? Will you divorce Peregrine and become a Howard as the first one did?”
She didn’t bother to answer, which seemed to amuse the man.
“It won’t matter what you do,” the man said,
laughing. “Lord Oliver will make your husband believe you have become a Howard. We will win in the end.”
Liana told herself that Rogan would never believe she’d betrayed him, but inside her, she was afraid.
They rode for two days. When they stopped at night, Liana was tied, sitting, to a tree and the men took turns staying awake to guard her.
“Perhaps you should assign two men to me,” Liana sneered at Oliver Howard. “I am so strong and mighty that were I to escape the ropes, I might beat them.”
Oliver did not smile. “You are a Peregrine and they are treacherous people. You might have the devil help you escape.” He turned his back on her and went inside one of the three small tents hidden in the trees.
During the night it began to rain. The men guarding her took turns, no man staying in the rain for longer than an hour. There was no mention of untying Liana and putting her inside the dry warmth of a tent.
In the morning she was cold, wet, and exhausted. The man who held her on his horse didn’t grope her as he had before. Instead, he was quiet and Liana felt her weary muscles beginning to relax. She fell asleep against him and didn’t wake until sundown, when they reached what Rogan called the Peregrine estates.
They could see the towers from a mile off, and as they approached, Liana’s lethargy left her. Never had she seen anything like the buildings looming before her. There were no words to describe the size of the estate: vast, huge, enormous—all seemed inadequate. There was a series of six “small” towers guarding the tunnel and outer wall that led to the gate in the inner wall of the castle. Each of these towers was larger than the single tower of Moray Castle.
Behind the inner walls were towers of such magnitude that Liana could only stare at them. She could see another wall inside and slate-roofed buildings.
They came first to a wooden bridge over a moat that was as wide as a river. In time of war, the bridge could easily be chopped away. They rode over a stone bridge, another wooden one, and then they were inside the tunnel. Above her were murder holes that in time of war were used for pouring hot oil on the enemy.
In the fading light again, they crossed another wooden bridge over another moat and at last they reached the inner gate, which was flanked by two tall, massive stone towers. Again, murder holes were above them, as well as the spikes of an iron portcullis.
They entered a grassy area with many half-timbered houses built against the walls. The place was clean and prosperous-looking.
They kept riding to go through another tunnel, this one flanked by two towers that were larger than those of any castle her father owned. Inside, they came to acres of a beautiful courtyard. Here were stone buildings with leaded-glass windows: a chapel, a solar, a Great Hall, storerooms where people bustled in and out with food and barrels of drink.
Liana sat on the horse and stared. She had never, in her wildest thoughts, imagined a place of this size or this wealth. So this is what the Peregrines are fighting for, she thought. This is what has caused the deaths of three generations of Peregrines. This is what makes the Peregrines hate the Howards.
Looking at the wealth around her, she began to understand Rogan better. No wonder he looked on small, decaying Moray Castle with contempt. That castle, including walls, could be placed three times inside the inner ward of this castle.