“Are you an honest man?”
Baudoin’s face showed his anger. “More honest than the man who fathered us. More honest than my illustrious brothers. I do not leave my children to starve.”
Liana could not see Rogan’s face, but she feared Baudoin’s taunts were signing his own death warrant.
When Rogan spoke, it was softly and somewhat hesitantly. “I have lost several brothers in the past few years. I cannot lose more. If I were to bring you into my household, would you swear an oath of fidelity to me? Would you honor it?”
Baudoin was stunned—so stunned he could not speak. He had hated his half-brothers in their castle on the hill all his life. He had lived in poverty while they had had everything.
Liana could see Baudoin’s hesitation and she could guess its meaning. She could also guess that Rogan’s generosity would soon turn to anger if it weren’t readily accepted. Quickly, she stepped between the two men.
“You have children?” she said to Baudoin. “How many? What are their ages? When you come to live with us, I’ll see that they’re educated. They can go to school with Rogan’s sons.”
“What sons?” Rogan said, glowering down at her. This wool merchant was refusing to pay homage to him! He should have killed him an hour ago, but he hadn’t because of his interfering wife. He stepped toward her.
Liana took Baudoin’s arm in such a way that she was protecting him and herself. “All your little red-haired sons, of course,” she said brightly. “Can your wife sew?” she asked Baudoin. “I need some women who can sew. Or spin. Or weave. When you’re out training with Rogan, she can stay with me. Rogan, why don’t you tell your brother”—she emphasized the word—“how hard you’ll work him. Perhaps he’d rather continue buying and selling wool.”
“I am to try to persuade him?” Rogan said in disbelief. “Shall I tell him of the comfort of the bed? Or tantalize him with offers of meat every day?”
Baudoin was recovering from his shock. He had inherited their father’s intelligence and no one had ever accused him of being a fool. “Forgive my hesitancy, my lord,” he said loudly, taking Rogan’s attention from his wife. “I am most grateful for your offer and I…” He paused and his eyes hardened. “I will defend the Peregrine name with my life.”
Rogan looked at the man for a long moment, and Liana could see that he was wrestling with something inside himself. Please, she prayed to herself, please believe him.
“Come to me tomorrow,” Rogan said at last. “Now, go.”
When Baudoin was gone, tears of relief came to Liana’s eyes. She went to Rogan and put her arms about his neck and kissed him. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Will you be so thankful when I am returned with that man’s sword in my heart?”
“I do not think…” she began, but she didn’t know that Rogan wasn’t correct. “Perhaps I have made an error. Perhaps you should make him a clerk or send him to your other castle or—”
“Are you turning coward on me?”
“When it comes to your safety, I will risk nothing.”
“Women have said such to me before,” he said, “and it turned out they were n
ot to be trusted.”
She put her lips next to his. “Who said this to you? Jeanne Howard?”
One moment she was in his arms and the next she was on the ground, looking up into the face that had made grown men tremble.
Chapter
Twelve
He turned on his heel and started walking quickly through the forest, away from her and away from the village.
Liana began to run after him. She was glad for the short peasant skirt as she leaped over logs and around trees. But she couldn’t catch Rogan. He was out of sight within minutes.
“Damn him and his temper,” she said aloud, stamping her foot in anger.
She hadn’t realized she was so close to the edge of the stream or that the land fell away so sharply. The bank gave way under her and she went sliding downward, on her back, for about twenty feet, screaming as she went.
When she hit bottom, Rogan was there, a short sword drawn from someplace under his tunic, standing over her.
“Who did this?” he demanded.