The man didn’t say a word but pointed at the bog.
She realized he was not going to allow her to leave. Grimacing, Liana walked toward the bog and leaned forward to reach the edge of the sleeve. She couldn’t reach it, so she stretched further—then further.
She fell face forward into the rich, thick ooze of mud, her arms sinking to her elbows, her face covered. For a moment she struggled to get out of the bog, but there was nothing to hold on to. Then an arm swooped down and pulled her up to dry land. She stood there sputtering for a moment, then the man pushed her backward into the pond.
Face forward into a bog, then backward into ice-cold water.
She managed to get to her feet and started out of the pond. “I am going home,” she muttered, feeling close to tears. “Joice will make me a hot posset and build me a fire, and I’ll—”
The man caught her arm. “Where do you think you’re going? My shirt is still buried.”
She looked up into his cold green eyes and all fear of him left her. Who did he think he was? He had no right to order her about even if he thought she was the lowliest field gleaner. So he thought he was her master, did he?
She was wet through and freezing, but anger was keeping her warm. She smiled what she hoped was an ingratiating smile at him. “Your wish is my command,” she murmured, and managed to keep a calm face when he grunted with satisfaction, as if that was the answer she was supposed to give.
She turned her back to him and got a long stick from under a tree, then went back to the bog. She fished the shirt out, held it on the end of the stick for a moment, then with all her might, she sent it flying to hit him cold and hard smack across the face and chest.
While he was peeling the shirt from his body, Liana began to run. She knew the woods better than any stranger ever could, and she went straight to a hollow tree and disappeared inside it.
She heard him crashing through the woods nearby and she smiled to herself at his inability to find her. She’d wait until he was gone, then go to her horse on the other side of the pond and make her way home. If he was a huntsman, tomorrow she’d greet him in her father’s house and have the satisfaction of hearing his apology for his conduct today. Perhaps she’d borrow one of Helen’s gowns, something covered in furs, with a jeweled headdress. She’d sparkle so brightly he’d have to shield his eyes from the glare.
“You might as well come out,” he said from just outside the dead tree.
Liana held her breath.
“You want me to come in after you? Or shall I chop the tree down around your ears?”
Liana couldn’t believe he really knew where she was. Surely he was bluffing. She didn’t move.
> His big arm came into the tree, caught her waist, and pulled her out—and against his hard chest. His face was smeared with black mud, but those eyes of his burned, and for a moment Liana thought he might kiss her. Her heart began to pound in her breast.
“Hungry, are you?” he said, his eyes laughing at her. “Well, I haven’t got time. I have another wench waiting for me.” He pushed her from him and back toward the pond.
Liana decided that merely appearing before him in a radiant gown would not be enough. “I shall make him crawl,” she muttered.
“Will you, now?” he said, overhearing her.
She whirled to face him. “Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “I will make you crawl. I will make you regret treating me like this.”
He didn’t smile, in fact his face seemed made of marble, but his eyes showed amusement. “You’ll have to wait for that day, because now I intend to make you wash my clothes.”
“I’d sooner—” She broke off.
“Yes? Name your price, and I’ll see if I can manage it.”
Liana turned away from him. It was better to just get it over with, to get his clothes washed and get away from him. Today he had the power, but tomorrow she would be the one who held the reins—and the whip and the chains, she thought with a smile.
At the pond’s edge she stopped, refusing to obey him with any semblance of acquiescence. Her attitude seemed to amuse him further. He picked up his muddy shirt and slammed it against her chest so that, by instinct, she caught it.
“Might as well do these too,” he said, and heaped her arms full of his other lice-infested clothing, then knelt down and washed the mud off his face.
Liana gasped and dropped the load to the ground.
“Get busy,” he said. “I need those clothes for courting.”
Liana realized that the sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could get away from him. She grabbed a fist full of shirt, dunked it into the water, then slammed it against a rock. “She won’t have you,” Liana said. “She might like the look of you, but if she has any sense, she’ll jump from the town wall before she’ll agree to marry you.”
He was stretched out on the grass in the sun, his head propped on his hands as he watched her. “Oh, she’ll have me, all right. It’s a matter of whether I’ll want her. I’ll marry no shrews. I’ll take her only if she’s biddable and soft-spoken.”