"You know nothing. Hugh Marshall could have ordered Severn killed for what he—"
"It is a sad but true fact that Hugh cannot abide his younger daughter. She has more brains in one foot than he has in all his body, and he resents that. Also, I have heard it rumored that he was not her father. He's the sort of man to want to repay Anne for rumors she could not help."
"You mean for me to believe that you knew all this, and that this is why you brought the maid to Severn?"
"No, I brought her to Severn to give him the wife he wants so that I may have the wife I want."
She could only look at him, unable to say a word. After a moment she recovered herself and turned away. "You could not have known what would happen, therefore you did not bring about this marriage, therefore my bargain with you is void." She started to walk away.
She walked about ten yards before she stopped. What would he do now? she wondered. Go to his brother and raise an army to attack the Peregrines? Challenge Severn to a combat to the death? Tell Severn who he was and cause a war?
She looked back and saw that he was walking in the opposite direction. She ran after him. "What are you planning now?"
"Planning? I plan? You have just told me that I am incapable of planning."
"What are you going to do to us?" she asked, teeth clenched.
"Do to you? Why should I do anything to you?"
"Because I'm not keeping my bargain. I mean," she said quickly to cover her error, "what are you going to do to my family because I won't marry you because your bargain was false?"
"I will do nothing," he said, smiling.
"Oh, I see. Your brother will do all. Do you go to him to plan war now? Will you use what you know against us?"
Tearle's eyes widened. "I would never tell my brother or anyone else that a Peregrine refused to fulfill a bargain. I would want no one to know that a person who bore the proud, ancient name of Peregrine was so lacking in honor."
"We Peregrines do not lack honor," she screeched at him.
"I know that to be true of one brother, but you… Tell me, is your brother Rogan like you or like Severn?"
She tightened her fists until the skin turned white. "We are all honorable. I am most honorable."
"If you say it, it must be true."
She wanted to kill him, to run a sword through him and watch him bleed. "I will marry you," she shouted.
"No," he answered, moving away.
She stepped in front of him. "No? But our bargain was for me to marry you if you got Anne to marry Severn."
"Severn did that himself. I did not have the pleasure of paddling the beautiful Lady Anne; he did that himself."
"But you told him Anne had played the jokes."
"What did that have to do with paddling her lovely bottom?"
The man was truly stupid, she thought. "If you had not told him, Severn wouldn't have known, and if he hadn't known, he wouldn't have gone to Hugh Marshall's Hall and taken Lady Anne—" She stopped.
"Yes? Are you saying that if I hadn't told Severn, he wouldn't be betrothed to Anne now?"
She refused to speak to him.
"So if I did have something to do with the betrothal taking place, then perhaps I did fulfill my part of the bargain."
She refused to speak, but she gave a tiny, curt nod.
"So it seems that I kept my end of the bargain, but you do not wish to keep yours. I understand now. Good day, Lady Zared." He smiled at her and started walking.