Severn frowned for a moment as he looked at her. “As you wish,” he said, and with a little bow he rode away from her, to position himself beside his brother at the head of the line.
“Oh excellent, my lady,” Joice said as she came to ride beside her mistress. “You have pleased him now. Lord Rogan will like an obedient wife.”
As they rode through the courtyard, across the drawbridge, and onto the dusty road, Liana sneezed at the dust. “I have been the obedient wife, but now I must ride behind ten men on horses and half a dozen wagons,” she muttered.
“You will win in the end, though,” Joice said. “You will see. Once he sees that you are obedient and loyal, he will love you.”
Liana coughed at the dust and rubbed her nose. It was difficult to think of love and loyalty when one had a mouthful of dirt.
They rode for hours, Liana remaining where she was in the middle of the procession, none of her husband’s men talking to her. The only voice she heard was Joice’s, lecturing her on obedience and duty, and when Severn asked her if she was comfortable, Joice answered for her mistress, saying that if Lord Rogan wanted his wife here, then of course Lady Liana was happy where she was.
Liana gave Severn a weak smile and choked on a cloud of dust.
“That one shows far too much interest in you,” Joice said when Severn was gone. “You had better let him know his place right away.”
“He is only being kind,” Liana said.
“If you accept his kindness, you will cause problems between the brothers. Your husband will wonder where your loyalties lie.”
“I am not sure my husband has yet looked at me,” Liana mumbled to herself.
Joice smiled through the cloud of dust that surrounded them. With each day she was feeling more and more powerful. As a child, Lady Liana had never listened to her and several times Joice had been punished because Liana had escaped her rule and gotten into some mischief. But at long last here was something she knew which her mistress didn’t.
They rode well into the night and Liana knew Joice and her other six maids were drooping with exhaustion, but she did not dare ask her husband to stop. Besides, Liana was too excited to rest. Tonight would be her wedding night. Tonight she would lie all night in her husband’s arms. Tonight he would caress her, touch her hair, kiss her. A day spent riding in a little dust was worth such a nightly reward.
By the time they did stop to make camp, her senses were alive with anticipation. One of the knights perfunctorily helped her dismount, and Liana told Joice to see to the other women. Liana looked about for her husband and saw him disappearing into the trees.
Behind her, Liana was vaguely aware of the complaints of her women, who weren’t used to riding horses such a distance, but she had no time for them. Taking her time, and trying to act casually, she followed her husband into the woods.
Rogan answered a call of nature in the woods, then walked deep into the still darkness toward the little stream. With every step he took, his muscles tightened harder. It had taken longer to get here than when he traveled without wagonloads of goods, and now the darkness was so complete he had to feel his way along the bank.
It was a while before he found the cairn, the six-foot-high pile of stones that he’d built to mark where his eldest brother, Rowland, had fallen to a Howard blade. He stood for a moment, his eyes adjusting to the faint moonlight on the gray stones, and heard the sounds of battle once again in his head. Rowland and his brothers had been hunting and Rowland, feeling safe since they were two days’ ride from the Howards’ land—the Peregrine land, in truth—had walked away from the protection of his men and sat by the river to drink a jug of beer alone.
Rogan knew why his older brother wanted to be alone and why he so often drank himself into a stupor each night. He was haunted by the deaths of three brothers and their father—all at the hands of the Howards.
Rogan had watched his beloved brother walk off into the darkness and he hadn’t tried to stop him, but he’d signaled a knight to follow and keep watch over his brother, to protect him while he lay in drunken oblivion.
Rogan looked at the stones and remembered, and once again cursed himself for having fallen asleep that night. Some small sound woke him, or maybe it wasn’t a sound but a premonition. He jumped from his pallet on the ground, grabbed his sword, and started running. But he was too late. Rowland lay beside the stream, a Howard sword through his throat, pinning him to the ground. The knight who guarded him was also dead, his throat slashed.
Rogan had thrown his head back and given a long, loud, piercing cry of agony.
His men and Severn were beside him instantly and they tore the woods apart looking for the Howard attackers. They found two of the men, distant cousins of Oliver Howard’s, and Rogan made sure their deaths were long and slow. He ended one man’s life when the man mentioned Jeanne.
The demise of the two Howards did nothing to bring back his brother, nor did it lessen Rogan’s sense of responsibility now that he was the eldest of the Peregrines. Now it was his job to protect Severn and young Zared. He had to protect them, provide for them, and most of all, he had to get the Peregrine lands back, the lands the Howards had stolen from his grandfather.
His senses were dulled with memory, but at a snapping branch he whirled and put his sword to the throat of the person behind him. It was a girl, and for a moment he couldn’t remember who she was. Yes, the one he’d married that morning. “What do you want?” he snapped. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts and his memories of his brother.
Liana looked down at the sword pointed at her throat and swallowed. “Is that a grave?” she asked hesitantly, remembering every word Helen had said about the violence of these men. He could kill her now that he had her dowry, and all he had to do was say he’d found her with another man and he would escape unpunished.
“No,” Rogan said curtly, having no intention of telling her about his brother, or anything else for that matter. “Go back to the camp and stay there.”
It was on the tip of Liana’s tongue to tell him she’d go where she pleased, but Joice’s warning to be obedient echoed in her head. “Yes, of course I’ll return,” she said meekly. “Will you return with me?”
Rogan wanted to stay where he was, but at the same time he did
n’t want her walking in the woods alone. For all that he couldn’t remember her name, she was a Peregrine now and therefore an enemy of the Howards. They would no doubt love to hold another Peregrine woman captive. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll return with you.”
Liana felt a little thrill of pleasure run through her body. Joice was right, she thought. She had meekly obeyed her husband and he was walking her back to the camp. She waited for him to offer her his arm, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned his back on her and started walking. Liana ran after him for a few steps, but then her gown caught on a fallen log. “Wait!” she called. “I’m caught.”