Jeanne turned back to her, cup in hand, and looked in pity as Liana held the ends of her shorn hair. Then Jeanne’s face changed and she sat down on the chair by the bed. “Here, eat this. You need the food. Your hair will grow back, and there are worse things.”
Liana couldn’t stop crying. “My hair was my only beautiful feature. Rogan will never love me now.”
“Love you,” Jeanne said in disgust. “Oliver will probably kill him, so what does it matter whether Rogan loves a woman or not?”
Liana managed enough strength to knock the cup from Jeanne’s hand and send it flying. “Get out of here! You have caused all of this. If you hadn’t betrayed Rogan, he wouldn’t be as he is now.”
Tiredly, Jeanne retrieved the cup, put it on the table, then went to sit by Liana. “If I leave, no one else will come. Oliver has ordered that no one tend you. They dare not deny me entrance, though.”
“Because Oliver will kill whoever thwarts the woman he loves?” Liana said nastily. “The woman who betrayed my husband?”
Jeanne stood and went to the window. When she looked back at Liana, her face looked many years older. “Yes, I betrayed him. And my only excuse is that I was a stupid
, naïve girl. I was given to Rogan to marry when I was just a child. I had such dreams of my married life. I had been orphaned when I was a baby and I was a ward of the king, so I grew up with nuns, unloved, unwanted, unnoticed. I thought marriage was going to give me someone to love, that at last I’d have a real home.”
She paused and slowed down. “You did not meet the older brothers. After Rogan and I were married, they made my life hell. To them, I was money—money for their war with the Howards—and nothing more. If I spoke, no one listened; if I ordered a servant, no one obeyed. Daily I lived in more filth than I had ever imagined.”
Liana’s anger was leaving her. There was too much truth in Jeanne’s words.
“Rogan sometimes came to me in the night, other times he had other women.” Jeanne stared at the wall beside Liana. “It was awful,” she whispered. “I was less than an orphan to those odious, beautiful men; I was nothing. To them, I didn’t exist. They talked to each other over my head. If I was standing where one of them wanted to be, he pushed me aside. And the violence!” She shivered in memory. “To get one another’s attention, they threw axes at each other’s heads. I never understood how any of them made it to manhood.”
Jeanne looked down at Liana. “When I heard that you set his bed on fire, I knew you were right to do so. It was something Rogan would understand. No doubt you reminded him of his brothers when you did that.”
Liana didn’t know what to say. She knew that every word Jeanne said was true. She’d known how it felt not to exist. And, yes, she’d done the right thing with Rogan, but would it have been enough if she’d had his older brothers to contend with? She caught herself. She was not going to side with this traitorous woman. “And was all this”—she motioned toward the window and the vast estate—“worth your betrayal? Two brothers died trying to get you back. Were you glad to hear of their deaths?”
Jeanne’s face turned angry. “Those men didn’t die trying to get me back. They couldn’t have picked me out of a crowd. They died fighting the Howards. All I ever heard when I was with the Peregrines was how vile the Howards were, and now all I hear is of the evilness of the Peregrines. When will this hideous feud stop?”
“You did not help with your betrayal,” Liana said, and knew her energy was leaving her.
Jeanne calmed. “No, I did not, but Oliver was so kind to me, and this household…” She trailed off as she remembered. “There was music and laughter here, and bathtubs full of scented water, and servants who curtsied to me. And Oliver was so very attentive and—”
“So attentive you had his baby,” Liana said.
“After Rogan’s rough handling, Oliver was a joy to bed,” Jeanne shot back, then stood. “I’ll leave you now and let you sleep. I’ll return in the morning.”
“Don’t,” Liana said. “I can do well enough on my own.”
“As you wish,” Jeanne said, then left the room. As Liana heard the bolt lowered, she fell asleep.
For three days Liana was left alone in the room. Her fever grew worse in the cold, unheated room. She neither ate nor drank, but lay in bed, half-asleep, half-awake, sometimes burning hot, sometimes freezing so that her teeth chattered.
On the third day, Jeanne returned and Liana looked up at her in a daze.
“I feared they were lying to me,” Jeanne said. “I was told you were well and comfortable.” She turned away, then went to bang on the door for the guard to open it. “Pick her up and carry her and follow me,” Jeanne told the guard.
“Lord Oliver gave me orders that she was to remain here,” the guard said.
“And I am countermanding his orders,” Jeanne said. “Now, unless you want to be thrown into the road, pick her up.”
Liana was vaguely aware of strong arms picking her up. “Rogan,” she whispered. She slept while she was carried down the stairs, woke only a bit as the soft hands of Jeanne’s ladies undressed her, bathed the sweat from her body, and placed her on a soft feather mattress.
For three days Liana saw only Jeanne Howard as Jeanne fed her broth, helped her to the chamber pot, bathed the sweat from her body, and sat beside her. Not once did Liana speak to Jeanne in that time. She was too aware that the woman had betrayed her husband.
But by the fourth day, Liana’s resolve began to crumble. Her fever was gone and now she was merely weak. “Is my baby all right?” she whispered, breaking her silence to Jeanne.
“Healthy and growing every day. It takes more than a little fever to harm a Peregrine.”
“It takes a traitorous wife,” Liana said.