“Jeanne Howard,” she said. Her teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Yes, that woman has caused the deaths of—”
“Basil and James,” she supplied.
He stopped and glared at her. “Do you make light of me?” he whispered.
Her eyes were pleading with him. “Rogan, I’ve never meant to make light of something as awful as death. I was merely asking my husband about his first wife. Every woman is curious about the other women in her husband’s life. I’ve just heard so much about Jeanne and—”
“Who told you?”
“The Lady.” When Rogan obviously didn’t know who she meant, she said, “I believe she’s Severn’s lady, although she’s somewhat older than he is.”
Rogan’s face lost its hard look. “I wouldn’t dare remind Iolanthe that she’s older than Severn if I were you.” He paused. “Io told you about…”
He didn’t seem able to say his first wife’s name, and this bothered Liana. Was he still so much in love with her? “I’ve never met Iolanthe, but the Lady mentioned her. Rogan, I’m freezing. Couldn’t we talk over there? In the sun?”
Twice he’d walked away from her when she’d mentioned that woman’s name and both times he’d returned, and now he was considering remaining with her to “talk.” He grabbed Liana’s hand and pulled her from the stream.
When they were in the sun, he folded his arms across his chest and set his jaw. He was never, ever again in his life going to agree to spend a day with a woman—especially not this one. She had a talent for picking at his sorest spots. “What is it you want to know?” he asked.
“Was she pretty? Were you very much in love with her? Is she the reason the castle was so dirty? Did you vow to never love another woman because she hurt you so? Why would she want Oliver Howard instead of you? What’s he like? Did she make you laugh? Is it because of Jeanne that you never smile? Do you think I can ever replace her in your heart?”
When the questions at last stopped, Rogan just stood there looking at Liana. His arms were at his sides and his mouth was open a bit in astonishment.
“Well?” Liana said, encouraging him. “Is she? Was she? Tell me!”
Rogan wasn’t sure what he’d expected from her when he’d asked her what she wanted to know, but these frivolous, unimportant, lovesick questions were not it. His eyes began to twinkle. “Beautiful?” he said. “The moon was afraid to come up over Moray Castle because it couldn’t compete with the beauty of…of…”
“Jeanne,” Liana said thoughtfully. “Then, she was much prettier than me?”
He couldn’t believe she was taking this seriously. Truthfully, he didn’t remember what his former wife looked like. It had been so many years since he’d seen her. “Much,” he said in mock seriousness. “She was so beautiful that…” He searched for a comparison. “…that charging war horses would halt before her and eat from her hand.”
“Oh,” Liana said, and sat down on a rock, her wet clothes making squishing noises. “Oh.”
Rogan gave the top of her bowed head a look of disgust. “She could never wear pretty clothes because if she did, she hurt men’s eyes. She had to wear peasants’ clothes all the time just to keep from blinding people. If she rode into the village, she had to wear a mask or otherwise men would throw themselves under her horse’s hooves. Diamonds looked dull next to—”
Liana’s head came up. “You’re teasing me.” There was hope in her voice. “What did she really look like?”
“I don’t remember. She was young. Brown hair, I think.”
Liana realized that this last was the truth, that he didn’t remember much about Jeanne’s looks. “How can you forget someone you loved so much?”
He sat down on the grass, his back to her, and looked at the stream. “I was just a boy, and my brothers ordered me to marry her. She…she betrayed me, all of us. James and Basil died trying to get her back.”
She went to him and sat beside him, her cold wet side next to the warm dryness of him. “She’s what has made you sad?”
“Sad?” he said. “The death of my brothers has made me sad. Seeing them die one by one, knowing that the Howards have taken everything I ever wanted in life.”
“Even your wife,” she whispered.
He turned and looked at her. He hadn’t thought of his first wife in a personal way in years. He couldn’t remember her face, her body, anything at all about her. But as he looked at Liana he thought that if she left, he would remember a great deal about her—and it wouldn’t just be her body either, he thought with astonishment. He’d remember some of the things she’d said.
He put his hand out and touched her damp cheek. “Are you as simple as you seem?” he asked softly. “Is whether someone loves you or thinks you’re beautiful the most important thing in your life?”
Liana didn’t like to sound so frivolous. “I can watch the accounts of the estates. I can produce thieves. I can judge court cases. I can—”
“Judge?” Rogan asked, leaning away to look at her. “How can a woman make a decent judgment? The judgments are not about love and who has the cleanest floor—they’re about issues of importance.”
“Give me an example,” Liana said evenly.
Rogan thought it better not to burden a woman’s mind with too many serious matters, but he also wanted to teach her a lesson. “Yesterday a man and three witnesses came to me with a document signed with a seal. The document said the man was the owner of a farm, but the farm’s previous owner would not leave. That man had put his seal to the paper as collateral for a debt. Now the debt went unpaid, but the first owner remained on the farm. How would you have settled the matter?” he asked smugly.
“I would make no judgment until I’d heard the first owner’s testimony. The king’s courts have ruled that a seal is too easy to forge. If the man was educated enough to have a seal, perhaps he could also write his own name. He would have put his seal and his mark on the paper. I would also question whether the witnesses were friends of the first man or not. All in all, the case does not sound straightforward to me.”
Rogan gaped at her. The document had indeed proved to be a false one, made by a man who was angry at having seen his young wife talking to the owner’s son.
“Well?” Liana said. “I hope you did not send men to throw the poor farmer off his land.”
“I did not,” he snapped. “Nor did I burn anyone for eating rats.”
“Or impregnate a daughter?” she said teasingly.
“No, but the farmer’s wife was a beauty. Big—” He held his hands in front of him.
“You!” Liana said, and lunged at him.
He caught her, pretended that her weight had knocked him down, then held her closely to him. He kissed her.
“I did well in the judgment, didn’t I? The document was false, wasn’t it?” She was lying on top of him, feeling his strong, hard body under hers.
“Your clothes are wet,” he said. “Maybe you should take them off and let them dry.”
“You’re not going to distract me. Was the document false or not?”
He lifted his head to kiss her again, but she turned her face away.
“Was it?” she asked.
“Yes, it was false,” he said, exasperated.
Liana laughed and began kissing his neck.
Rogan closed his eyes. He’d had so few women in his life who weren’t afraid of him. The high-born women of the courts usually turned up their noses at him, so Rogan told himself he preferred the servant girls. They were usually fearful of his scowls and frowns. But this woman laughed at him, yelled at him—and refused to obey him.
“…and I can help,” she was saying.
“Help in what?” he murmured.
“The judgments.” She was running her tongue along his collarbone.
“Over my dead body,” he said cheerfully.
She wiggled on top of him. “I’m over your body, but it doesn’t feel very dead to me.”
“You’re an i
mpudent wench,” he said, kissing her.
“How shall you punish me?”
He put his hand behind her head and rolled her over, throwing his big leg over hers. “I will wear you out.”
“Impossible!” she said before his mouth came down on hers.
From the trees came a sound of people walking, which, at first, the lovers did not hear.
“Gaby, I tell you this is a bad idea,” came a man’s voice.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always say,” answered a woman.
Liana felt Rogan’s body stiffen, then quickly he took his short sword from under his tunic and knelt over her in a gesture of complete protection.
Through the trees came Baudoin and a small, plump woman, a little girl in her arms, a basket on her arm, and a boy between them.
Liana and Rogan just stared, not understanding the meaning of this intrusion.
“There you are,” the plump woman said, coming forward. “Baudoin has told me everything. You must forgive his temper. I’m his wife, Gabriel, but everyone calls me Gaby, and these are our children, Sarah and Joseph. I told Baudoin that if we’re going to live with you, we ought to get to know you. My father was a knight, nothing as high as an earl, mind you, but a man of respect. I knew Baudoin was the son of a lord, so I pleaded with my father to let me marry him.” She gave the tall, handsome young man a look of adoration. “And I’ve never regretted a minute of it. Aren’t you cold, my lady, in those wet clothes? The dye’s coming out of your hair and it’s all over your face. Here, let me help you get clean.”
Rogan and Liana, in their astonishment, hadn’t moved. He still knelt over her, knife drawn, protecting Liana beneath him. When the woman Gaby held out her hand, Liana didn’t move.
Baudoin broke the silence. “Go on,” he said. “Everyone does what she says.” The words were mean, but there was a tone of love in his voice. The couple didn’t look as if they belonged together. Baudoin was tall, lean, exceedingly handsome, and angry-looking. Gaby was short, plump, pretty, but far from beautiful, and she looked as if she’d been born with a smile on her face.
Liana took the woman’s offered hand and followed her to the stream. Liana was used to women of Gaby’s class being fearful of her, but ever since she’d come to the Peregrine land, nothing had been as she’d once known it.
“Now, sit there and behave yourself,” Gaby said as she set her daughter on the ground. She looked back at Liana. “I heard what happened this morning. Brothers shouldn’t fight. I always told Baudoin that someday his brothers in the castle would see the light, and I was right. He’s a good man, is my Baudoin, and he’ll do whatever is needed. Look at them. Two peas in a pod.”
Liana looked at the two men standing near one another, not looking at each other, not speaking, the little boy between them just as silent.
“Lean over here and let me wash your hair,” Gaby directed.
Liana did as she was bid.
“Does yours talk as little as mine?” Gaby asked.
Liana was unsure of what to do—whether to be friends with this woman or not. It was odd how clothes affected one’s mind. If she were wearing her best blue silk she would have expected this woman to bow before her but, somehow, while wearing peasant’s wool, she felt almost as if she were…well, equal to this woman. “If I chain him in one place he will talk, but not much,” Liana finally said.
“Don’t give up the fight. He’ll pull into himself completely if you allow it. And make him laugh. Tickle him.”
“Tickle him?” Black-dyed water was streaming past Liana’s face.
“Mmm,” Gaby said. “Ribs. They’re good men, though. They’re not fickle in their affections. If he loves you today, he’ll love you forever. He won’t be like some men and love you today, somebody else tomorrow, and somebody else the next day. There, that should do it. Your hair is blonde again.”
Liana sat up, slinging her wet hair back. “And now we can’t return to the fair. Someone might recognize me.”
“No,” Gaby said seriously. “You don’t want to go back there. There was talk this morning of who the mysterious man was who beat Baudoin. You shouldn’t return.” Her face brightened. “But I have brought food and we can stay here in this pretty spot.”
Gabriel didn’t tell Liana that she’d spent a year’s savings on the feast she’d brought with her. Under Gaby’s happy exterior was a very ambitious woman—but she was not ambitious for herself. She was ambitious for the man she loved more than life itself.
She had been twelve when she’d first seen the handsome, cold-eyed Baudoin and she had decided then that she’d have him no matter what it took to get him. Her father had wanted her to make a good marriage, not to marry some bastard son with no prospects. But Gaby had wheedled and whined and pleaded and nagged until her father at last made an offer to Baudoin’s stepfather.
Baudoin had married her for her dowry, and the first years together had been hard. He’d had many other women, but Gaby’s love was stronger than his lust. Gradually he began to notice her, to come to her for love and comfort, and when the children were born, he found he enjoyed them, too.
In the six years of their marriage, Baudoin had gone from being a hellion who jumped from one bed to another to being a successful merchant who most of all enjoyed his wife and children.
This morning, when he’d seen Lord Rogan in the crowd, he’d recognized his half-brother immediately. For the first time in years his old rage had come to the surface. Hours later he’d found Gaby and, after much word-pulling from her, had told her what had happened in the forest. He was ashamed of having attacked a man from behind and he told Gaby about the offer he’d accepted, but said that they must leave the area and start over again elsewhere, that he could not bear to face Lord Rogan again.
Gaby gave a quick prayer of thanks to God for at last giving them this opportunity, and then she proceeded to work on Baudoin. She used every technique she could think of to break Baudoin’s reserve. Once this was accomplished she knew she had to work on the lord and his kind, forgiving wife. And she knew that today, while the lord and his lady were dressed in peasants’ garb, was her opportunity. Tomorrow, when they were in silk and she was in wool, the gulf between them would be too great.
So she’d taken the money from its hiding place, purchased beef, pork, chicken, bread, oranges, cheese, dates, figs, and beer, and put them into a basket and gone in search of Baudoin’s illustrious relatives. She didn’t let herself think of Rogan’s reputation, which had been so well portrayed in the play (and she refused to think about Lord Rogan’s having seen Baudoin playing him), but concentrated on being amusing and equal.
Liana didn’t have to say much when she was near Gaby, but then no one did, for Gaby talked enough for an army. At first Liana was reserved with the woman. She didn’t like her presumption, didn’t like the way the woman had forced herself into what was to have been her time alone with Rogan.
But after a while, Liana began to thaw. It was so good to hear talk. With Rogan she had to force every word from him and there were no guests at Moray Castle, no one to talk with except her maids and the Lady—who too often stayed behind a locked door.
And, too, Liana liked the way Gaby adored Baudoin. Her eyes roamed over him in a possessive way that was part wife, part mother, part she-monster who meant to suck the life from him. I wonder if I look at Rogan like that, she thought.
The men looked at one another warily, not knowing what to say or how to react to each other, until Gaby suggested Rogan teach Baudoin how to fight with long poles.
The women sat on the ground eating cheese and bread and watched the men train. Rogan was a good teacher, if a harsh one. He knocked Baudoin into the cold stream three times. But Baudoin wasn’t his father’s son for nothing. The fourth time Rogan meant to send his half-brother into the water, Baudoin pivoted and Rogan went splashing face down into the icy water.
Liana was on her feet instantly and running to her husband. He looked so startled as he
sat there in the water that Liana began to laugh, as did Gaby. Even Baudoin smiled. It took Rogan a moment, but he smiled also.
Liana put her hand out to help him up but, still smiling, he pulled her down into the water with him. “Not fair,” she cried. “I was nearly dry.”
He stood, then lifted her out of the water and carried her to the grassy place in the sun and sat down beside her. He removed his shirt, and when Liana shivered, he pulled her into his arms so that she leaned back against him. Liana knew she’d never been so happy in her life.
“What’s to eat?” Rogan asked. “I’m starved.”
Gaby pulled luscious food from the basket, and the four adults and two children began to eat. For the most part it was Gaby who talked, telling amusing little stories of village life. She was remarkably tactful when it came to avoiding all reference to the Peregrine family’s terrorizing of the village.
Liana could feel Rogan beginning to relax. He asked Baudoin some questions about being a wool merchant, even asked him if he had any ideas how to improve the Peregrine wool production.
The little girl, Sarah, only a toddler, just able to walk, picked up a date and on her chubby legs made her way, with her father’s help, to Rogan. She stood and stared at him for a while until Rogan turned to look at her. He’d never paid much attention to children, but he noted that she was a pretty child with intense dark eyes that studied him.
The child handed him the date, and when Rogan took it, she seemed to think this was an invitation. She turned and plopped into his lap, snuggling her back against his chest.
Rogan looked down at the soft curly hair in horror.
“Never met a stranger,” Gaby said. “That’s my Sarah.”
“Take her,” Rogan said under his breath to Liana. “Get her off me.”
Liana suddenly became deaf. “Here, Sarah, give these figs to your Uncle Rogan.”
Solemnly, the child took a fig and held it to Rogan’s mouth. When he tried to take it from her, she gave a squeal of protest. Looking as if it were the most unpleasant thing he’d ever done, he opened his mouth and allowed her to put the fig inside.