The Taming (Peregrine 1)

Again came the clatter.

Liana went to the doorway of the garderobe. “Leave us,” she ordered to the bent old man who’d been clumsily cleaning her room for the last three days.

“But I haven’t finished, my lady,” he whined.

“Go!” Liana ordered, and stood there while the old man hobbled out, one leg dragging behind him.

When they were alone, she turned back to Jeanne. “What did Rogan say to the challenge?”

“I don’t believe it’s been issued. Oliver could not think he could beat Rogan. Oh, Liana, this has to stop.”

“Then release me,” Liana said. “Help me get away. Once I am gone, Oliver’s anger will cool.”

“Will you go back to Rogan?”

Liana turned away. “I don’t know. I have some property in my own right. Perhaps I’ll go there. Surely I can find someplace where I belong, someplace where I’m not a burden.”

Jeanne stood. “My first loyalty is to my husband. I cannot help you escape. He is not pleased that I see you every day as it is. No,” she said firmly, “it would humiliate him if I betrayed him.”

Betrayal, Liana thought. The history of the Howards and the Peregrines was rife with betrayal.

Abruptly, Jeanne left the room, as if she were afraid she’d change her mind if she remained with Liana.

The next day Liana was nervous, jumping at every sound. The door was unlocked and she looked up, hoping to see Jeanne and hear the news, but it was only the old cleaning man. Disappointed, she looked back down at the new piece of linen stretched on her embroidery frame. “Take the food tray away and get out,” she said crossly.

“And where should I go?” said a voice that was so familiar to her that chills went up her spine. Very slowly, she looked up. Standing before the heavy door was Rogan, an eyepatch pushed up to his forehead, a padded hump on his back, a leg bandaged so that it looked as if it were crooked.

He was grinning at her in an infuriating way that Liana knew signaled he expected her to leap on him in joy.

Instead, she grabbed a goblet from her empty breakfast tray and threw it at his head. He ducked, and it went slamming against the do

or. “You bastard!” she said. “You randy satyr. You lying, cheating blackguard. I never want to see you again.” One by one she threw items from the tray at him and then began on whatever she could grab in the room. “You left me here to rot. They cut my hair, but you didn’t care. You didn’t want me. You never wanted me. You never even told me Zared was a girl. You said Oliver Howard could have me for all you cared. You laughed while I was held prisoner. You went hawking with Severn while I was locked in this room. You—”

“It was Baudoin,” Rogan said.

Having run out of ornaments to throw at him, Liana began to tear the blankets from the bed and threw them. They fluttered through the air, landing at his feet. There was now a large pile of ornaments, pillows, and dishes around him. “You deserve everything the Howards do to you,” she yelled. “Your whole family is rotten to the core. I nearly died of a fever while you were enjoying yourself. I’m sure you won’t care, but they tied me to a tree all night in the rain. I could have lost our baby. As if you’d care. You never—”

“It was Baudoin hawking. I was here,” Rogan said.

“That’s just like a Peregrine: blame someone else. That poor, innocent family man. He would care if someone cut off his wife’s hair. He would—” She paused. There was nothing else left in the room to throw at him. “Here? You were here?” There was suspicion in her voice.

“I have been here searching for you for nearly three weeks. The location of your room has been a well-guarded secret.”

Liana wasn’t sure she believed him. “How could you be here and not be noticed? The Howards know you by sight.”

“Not as well as they think. Their spies have seen Baudoin hawking and chasing the Days, not me. I have been here under disguise. I have cleaned things. I have whitewashed walls, swept floors—and listened.”

Liana was beginning to hear him. Perhaps the news she had heard of his denials had been untrue. “You clean something?” she said. “I am to believe that? You wouldn’t know which end of a broom to use.”

“If I had one now, I’d know which end to use on your backside.”

It was true. Oh God in heaven, it was true. He had been searching for her. Liana’s knees weakened on her and she collapsed, sitting, on the bare feather mattress, put her face in her hands, and began to cry as if her heart would break.

Rogan didn’t dare touch her. He stood where he was in the midst of the debris and stared at her. He hadn’t thought ever to see her again.

The day she’d been taken, he’d rolled in stinging nettles and his skin was on fire. He’d imagined how his wife would have a tub of hot water prepared for him and she would ease his pain. But he’d bounded up the stairs to find a solar full of crying women. He couldn’t get anything out of Liana’s maids, but Gaby, between sobs, was able to tell him Liana had been taken by the Howards. Oliver Howard had sent a message that, for her return, he wanted the surrender of Moray Castle.

Rogan, without a word, had gone into their bedroom. He had meant to spend some time alone to plan his strategy, but the next thing he knew, Severn and Baudoin were on him, pinning him to the floor. The room was destroyed. In a rage so blind he still remembered none of it, he had taken an axe to the room and chopped up every piece of wood, iron, cloth. Candle wax mixed with cut sheets. Oak chair legs were crushed with a bent iron candle stand. Liana’s fine crucifix was in splinters. Pieces of her clothing were everywhere. Red silk, blue brocade, cloth of gold, cloth of silver. Four of her headdresses lay broken, the padding spilling out of them.