Tearle bit into the apple and watched his brother's men train. Or perhaps he should think of them as his men, he thought, since his brother was so ill. Tearle knew that he should feel some loss at his brother's approaching death, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. He was sure that hatred was killing his brother. Even on his deathbed Oliver Howard could speak of little else but his hatred of the Peregrines.
"They will try to take all that I have worked for," Oliver would whisper night and day. "You must be strong and keep them away from what we own. They will know that I am not here to keep them away."
Tearle didn't answer his brother. It seemed that all the world thought he was weak. His own brother thought he was not strong enough to hold the lands. The Peregrines had always thought he was made of softness. Even his own wife—
He did not pursue that line of thought. In fact, for the three months that he had been back from the Peregrines' he had made a constant effort not to think of the woman he had stupidly made his wife. For weeks he had lain in bed, raging with fever, close to death as his body fought off the effects of the beating the Peregrines had given him when they had judged him without a trial.
On that day three months before, after that beating, on the long, painful ride back to the castle, he had kept the picture of his wife before him. He had thought that she would be enraged at what her brothers had done to him. He knew that at times she did not trust him and that sometimes she did not understand him, but he had been sure that she knew enough about him to know that he would never be so low as to take a child prisoner.
Yet when he had dismounted he had looked into her eyes and seen that she believed the worst of him. She thought that he had done what they accused him of. Even after having lived with him, after having spent a great deal of time with him, she thought he was capable of stealing a child. She thought that he had married her in order to perpetuate the feud between the two families. He looked into her eyes and saw that the hatred she felt was stronger than any love that she would ever feel for him.
For a while, between the pain of his body and the pain in his heart, he hadn't cared what the Peregrines did to him. It was instinct alone that had made him save the boy when he had seen the child was going to be struck by the man. That action had cost him much in pain, but in the end he guessed it had saved his life. At the time he hadn't cared much one way or the other, for his hatred of the Peregrines was equal to theirs of the Howards.
He had answered Liana's questions because for the first time he'd seen a Peregrine with a face that was not twisted with hatred. He had watched as she had stepped between her husband and him.
It was only later, when Tearle had been proven innocent, that Zared stepped forward. She said that she was ready to go with him. She was ready to go once she had been shown that he was not the villain that she had thought him to be. But he hadn't wanted her then. She hadn't believed in him when all she knew was what she had seen of him. She hadn't believed hi
m when he told her he loved her. She had believed only in her brothers and their hatred. Hate had meant much more to her than love.
Later he managed to get on his horse, and he'd managed to stay on it long enough to ride to where his brother's men were camped. They carried him home in a cart, Tearle only half conscious, and later Oliver's wife Jeanne had nursed him through his fever and his raging.
He was nearly fully recovered. He needed sunshine and air and some exercise and much food, for he had lost weight in his three months' recovery. Jeanne said that he would be as good as new in a few weeks, but Tearle knew that he would never recover from what had happened to him. He had been a naïve child when he had married the Peregrine brat. He had thought that love could conquer her hatred. But he had been wrong, for love had lost and hate had won.
It was while he was leaning against the wall, his body soaking up the weak sunshine, that he noticed something unusual about one of his brother's men. There was something familiar about the boy, something about the way he moved his sword. The boy didn't look very strong, but he was agile and quick on his feet and thus managed to miss most of the blows aimed at him.
Suddenly Tearle sat upright. That was no boy—that was his wife!
His first impulse was to grab her by her hair and pull her off the field, but his second impulse was to leave her where she was. But if one of his brother's men should recognize the brat as the youngest Peregrine, she would be ordered killed as fast as Oliver could speak the words.
He made himself lean back against the wall. How long had she been inside the Howard castle? How was she keeping her sex a secret from the boys? She must be living with the other men, sleeping in a bed with the boys.
Again he had an impulse to grab her, but he forced himself to stay where he was. Damn her and her whole family, he thought.
He watched her as she darted away from the boy's sword, and every time the boy came close to hitting her Tearle almost jumped up. It was when the boy knocked the sword from Zared's hand and sent it flying that he almost interfered, but he managed to make himself stay on the seat. He looked with disgust at the apple in his hand; he had crushed it.
He watched Zared dodge the boy, then run after her sword, and when she leaned over to pick it up she smiled at Tearle. She had known all along that he had been watching her, and she knew very well how it was affecting him.
He turned his head away. He wasn't going to allow her to see that he was concerned for her safety. In fact, he wasn't going to be concerned for her safety. He couldn't care less what happened to her or to any of her family.
At the sound of steel hitting steel he turned back quickly. The boy had Zared on the ground, his sword at her throat, and he was smiling as though he meant to skewer her.
Tearle was on his feet in seconds, and he pushed the boy away, sending him sprawling.
Zared lay still on the ground and smiled up at him. "You have recovered well, I see," she said softly.
"Not through the help of your family," he said, looking down at her, trying to remember the anger and loathing he'd felt for her on the day he'd left the Peregrine castle. What he noticed was that she was quite pretty. There was a smudge on her cheek.
"I came to be with you." She looked up at him with her heart in her eyes. "I have missed you. I… I do not like being without you."
He opened his mouth to tell her that he'd missed her, too. He had missed her laughter; he'd missed teaching her about the world. He'd missed her enthusiasm, her lack of artifice. He had wanted her with him even when he was ill. He had wanted her there telling him that he was weak and should have been up and about days earlier. Jeanne had been a good nurse, but Oliver had killed her spirit years before, and his convalescence had been a dreary affair.
"I have not given you a thought," he said haughtily.
She smiled up at him.
How did people not know that she was female? he wondered for the thousandth time. She was as feminine as the moon and the stars.
She started to get up, but he put his foot on her stomach. "I have but to tell anyone who you are and my brother will have you killed," he said softly.