The Taming

by Jude Deveraux

  Rogan awoke almost immediately, and he reacted instantly by grabbing the sleeping maid from the fiery bed, then leaping up. The girl awoke and began screaming and kept screaming when Rogan dropped her on the far side of the room. He grabbed the smoldering blanket from the bed and began to beat at the spreading flames. The door burst open and Severn came in and helped his brother put out the fire before it reached the rafters of the wooden ceiling. When the flames were at last out, the two brothers shoved the charred remains of the mattress out the window, where they fell below into the moat.

  The maid’s screams had stopped, but now she stood huddled into a corner of the room, her eyes alive with terror. She made little whimpering sounds.

  “Stop that!” Rogan commanded. “It was just a little fire,” he said, then followed the girl’s eyes to where Liana stood, still holding the torch. It took Rogan a moment to understand what had happened, and then he didn’t believe what he thought to be true. “You set the bed on fire. You tried to kill me,” he stated, then turned to Severn. “She’s with the Howards. Take her and burn her in the morning.”

  Before Severn could answer, before any of the many people, including Zared, who were crowding at the doorway could reply, Liana’s rage erupted.

  “Yes, I tried to kill you,” she said, and advanced on him with the flame of the torch toward him, “and I wish I had succeeded. You have humiliated me, dishonored me, ridiculed me—”

  “I?” Rogan said, utterly astonished. He could have easily taken the torch away from her, but she looked rather good with all that fair hair and thin robe in the firelight. And her face! Was she the girl he’d thought plain? “I have paid you every respect. I have hardly been near you.”

  “True!” she hissed at him, taking another step toward him. “You left me alone at my own wedding feast. You left me alone on my wedding night.”

  Rogan wore the look of a man unjustly accused. “You are no longer a virgin. I saw to that.”

  “You raped me!” she half yelled at him.

  Now Rogan was beginning to get angry. In his view, he had never raped a woman in his life. Not because he was morally opposed to it but because with his face and form, he’d never found the act necessary. “I did not,” he said under his breath, watching the way her breasts moved under her robe.

  “I can see we aren’t needed,” Severn said loudly, but Rogan and Liana were so intent on each other they didn’t hear him. Severn pushed the others out of the room and shut the door behind him.

  “But she must be punished,” Zared said. “She nearly killed Rogan.”

  “Interesting wench, that one,” Severn said thoughtfully.

  “She has my room!” Wednesday wailed, a charred blanket wrapped around her nudity.

  Severn smiled. “She may have taken more than your room. Go sleep with Sunday. And you,” he said to Zared, “go to bed.”

  Inside the room, Liana and Rogan faced each other. Rogan knew he should punish her—after all, she might have killed him—but now that he knew her action was merely a woman’s jealous fit, he knew it was nothing to be concerned about. “I should have you flogged.”

  “You lay a hand on me, and the next time I’ll set your hair on fire.”

  “Now, see here—” he said. She was going too far. He was willing to put up with women’s little tempers—after all, they were women—but this was too much.

  Liana jabbed the torch at him. He seemed utterly unaware that he was wearing not a stitch of clothing. “No, it is your turn to listen to me. I have stood by silently and watched as you have ignored me, belittled me. You allow those…those Days of yours to laugh at me. Me! The lady of the castle. I am your wife, and I am going to be treated as I deserve. So help me God, you will treat me with courtesy and respect—I do not demand love—or you had better never sleep when I am by, for you will never wake up again.”

  Rogan was speechless. It was one thing to be threatened by an enemy, but this woman was his wife! “No woman threatens me,” he said quietly.

  Liana jabbed the torch at him and in one swift gesture he took it from her, then caught her waist. He meant to haul her from the room, to take her below and lock her in the cellar, but when her face was close to his, his anger turned to desire. Never had he desired a woman as much as he desired this one. He would die if he could not have her.

  He put his hand to her shoulder and started to tear the robe from her.

  “No!” she said, pulling back from him.

  He was blinded with passion, his brain given over to the wanting of her. He wrapped his hand in her hair and pulled her toward him.

  “No,” she whispered, her lips against his. “You do not rape me again. You may make love to me all night, but you do not rape me.”

  Rogan was taken aback by her. Women gave themselves to him, women had seduced him, but he’d never had a woman make demands of him. And suddenly, he wanted to please her. It had never occurred to him before whether he was pleasing a woman or not, but this one he wanted to please.

  His hands on her shoulders loosened their grip until his fingers were softly holding her skin. Gently, he pulled her toward him. He didn’t usually trouble himself much with kissing the women he bedded because they were always ready and eager for him and it was a waste of time to kiss them. But he wanted to kiss this woman.

  Liana leaned her head back and gave herself to his kiss, feeling the softness of his lips, her hands reaching up to touch his hair. His lips moved over hers, enveloping hers, then his tongue tip touched hers and Liana moaned and leaned her body into his.

  Rogan could wait no longer for her. His arms tightened about her, then one hand bit into her thigh as he lifted her right leg to wrap it about his waist. Then his other hand lifted her left leg.

  Liana, having had so little experience with sex, had no idea what was going on, but she loved the kissing and the feeling of her bare bottom against his skin. She was unprepared for when he slammed her back against the stone wall and entered her with all the force of a man using a battering ram to attack a locked door. She cried out in pain and protest, but her face was buried in the muscle of his chest and she could not be heard.

  It seemed that he kept up his deep, hard thrusts for hours, and at first Liana hated the act, the man, everything that was being done to her, but after a while, her eyes opened wider, for she felt a deep inner pleasure that was beginning to spread through her body.

  She cried out in surprise, then clutched Rogan’s hair in her hands, pulling it hard while she brought her mouth down on his.

  Her sudden passion was enough to finish Rogan and with a final thrust, he went limp against her, pushing her back hard against the stones as he leaned against her, his heart pounding.

  Liana wanted more. She wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted, but what she’d received wasn’t enough. Her nails bit into his shoulders.

  Rogan drew his head away from her shoulder and looked at her, startled. He could see that he had not pleased her. Instantly, he dropped her legs and stepped away from her and began searching for his braies in the debris on the floor. “You may go now,” he murmured, feeling anger rising in himself.

  Liana was energized by the too-brief lovemaking. “I have a bedroom off the solar prepared for us.”

  “Then you can go there and sleep,” he said with anger, but when he turned to look at her, his anger vanished. Her eyes were bright and alive and her hair was wild and free about her head. He almost reached for her again, but he forced his hands to remain at his side. Women who were new to him were always exciting, he told himself.

  Liana didn’t try to repress the anger she felt. The vision of him in bed with another woman was too fresh and too painful. “So that you can go to another woman?” she hissed at him.

  “Why, no,” he said, surprised. “So that I can sleep. There is no bed in here.”

  This statement, delivered so solemnly, made Liana smile. “Come with me,” she said softly, holding out her hand to him. “I have a clean, fragrant bed rea
dy for us.”

  Rogan didn’t want to take her hand and he knew he shouldn’t sleep with her, because he’d learned from experience that when you slept the whole night with women, they began to think they owned you. He’d been “owned” by a woman once and—In spite of his sensible thoughts, he took her hand, and her smile at him deepened.

  “Come,” she whispered, and he followed her like a little dog on a leash as she led him down the stairs to the kitchen, then out into the courtyard. It was quiet now and she paused to look up at the stars. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

  At first Rogan didn’t know what she meant. Stars were to guide you when traveling at night. “I guess they are,” he said softly. The moonlight on her hair made it silver.

  She stepped back against him, her back against his chest. This was what she’d imagined marriage to be, her husband holding her in the moonlight. But Rogan made no move to put his arms around her, so Liana put her hands about his wrists and guided his arms about her shoulders.

  Rogan was startled for a moment. It was such a waste of time to be standing outside in the middle of the night, holding a bit of a girl and looking up at the stars. Tomorrow he had so much to do. But then he put his nose in her hair, smelled the clean, spicy fragrance of it, and he couldn’t remember what he had to do tomorrow. “What’s your name?” he whispered against her hair. He had trouble with women’s names and had years ago assigned them a date as opposed to a name.

  Liana didn’t let her little lump of anger rise to the surface. “I am Lady Liana, your wife,” she said, then turned in his arms and put her face up to be kissed. When he didn’t kiss her, she kissed him, her hands caressing the back of his neck as she did so. Then she put her head against his shoulder and snuggled her body close to his.

  Rogan found himself holding her, just standing there and holding her close to him. He’d never done this before. Women were for sex, for fetching what a man needed, for doing whatever a man wanted. They were not for standing in the middle of a courtyard and just holding. There was no purpose behind such an action, yet he was powerless to move.

  Liana heard the movement behind her, someone who couldn’t sleep, perhaps. She was not used to being married and so immediately felt wrong for touching a man so intimately. “Come, let’s go before they find us.”

  Again, Rogan followed her as she led him up the stairs, past the Lord’s Chamber and up to the hall that led to the solar. Here was the bedroom that had once belonged to his father and his wives. He hadn’t been in it for years. This girl, this Liana, had hung a tapestry on one wall. There were fat, fragrant candles burning. There was a bed against one wall, a holy cross above it.

  Rogan took a step backward, but the girl tugged on his hand.

  “Come, I have wine, good wine from Italy, and I will pour you a glass.”

  Rogan wasn’t sure how she did it but moments later he was nude and in her soft, clean bed, a silver goblet of wine in his hand and her pressed to his shoulder, his arm holding her to him, his fingers playing with her hair.

  Liana snuggled her body against his as if she were trying to become part of his skin. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him about the castle, about the people. Who was the Lady she’d seen spinning? She wanted to know more about Severn’s Iolanthe. And why wasn’t Zared fostered to another knight and in training?

  But she’d poured out too much emotion tonight and was now too tired to talk. She put her hand on the hair of his chest, felt his big, strong body next to hers and, contentedly, she drifted into sleep.

  Rogan heard her soft breathing of sleep and thought that he should go. He should leave her now and go find somewhere else to sleep. He remembered the way she’d set the bed on fire. If he hadn’t wakened, he could have burned to death. By rights she should be in the dungeon now and at dawn he should tie her to a stake and burn her—just as she tried to burn him. But he made no movement. Instead, he lifted her hand from his chest and looked at it with curiosity. It was such a small, weak, useless hand, he thought just before he fell asleep, still holding her in his arms.

  When he awoke, it was full morning and he could hear the noise of the courtyard below. With the daylight, his senses returned. He was wrapped about the girl as if they were the entwined roots of a tree. He shoved her from him and rolled out of the bed, then started toward the garderobe. There was a urinal in the little hall before the room with the seat and he paused to relieve himself.

  Liana awoke and stretched luxuriously in the bed. She had never felt so good in her life. This was what marriage was supposed to be: standing in the courtyard in the night in your husband’s arms and looking at the stars, sleeping in his arms, waking to know that he’s near you, hearing a man in the garderobe. He walked out of the latrine, scratching his bare chest and yawning.

  “Good morning,” she said, moving her legs about under the blankets.

  Rogan’s mind was on the day’s work. Now that he had the Neville gold, he could begin hiring knights to help him fight the Howards. Of course he’d have to train them properly. Most men were lazy louts with the strength of children. And speaking of lazy, he’d better get Severn out of that witch-woman’s bed or there’d be no strength left in his brother. He left the room without once looking at, or remembering, his wife.

  Liana sat up in the bed in shock when he walked out without acknowledging her. She had half a mind to run after him and—What? she wondered. She lay back against the pillows and smiled. She had been quiet and meek and obedient and he had ignored her. She had tried to burn him to death and he’d spent the night with her. The lady who’d been spinning had said men never fought battles for women who were meek and mild. Would Rogan perhaps fight a battle for a wife who tried to set him on fire?

  “My lady!” Joice said excitedly as she burst into the room and began chattering.

  Liana’s thoughts were so occupied with her husband that she did not at first hear Joice’s words. “What? Fire Lady? What are you talking about?” When Liana began to understand the story, she laughed. It seemed the story of Liana’s lighting Rogan’s bed had traveled all over the village as well as the castle, and she had been dubbed the Fire Lady.

  “Two of the Days have already gone back to their parents in the village,” Joice said, “and the others are afraid of you.”

  There was pride in Joice’s voice, and Liana thought it was ironic coming from this woman who had counseled meekness. If she’d continued to follow Joice’s advice, last night would never have happened.

  “Good!” Liana said firmly, flinging the covers back and getting out of bed. “We shall use the fear while we have it. Perhaps you and the other women should mention poison and…snakes—yes, that’s good. If a maid doesn’t do her work, I might have snakes put in her bed.”

  “My lady, I don’t think—”

  Liana whirled on her maid. “You don’t think what, Joice? That I should use my own judgment? Do you think that I should continue to rely on your advice?”

  Joice knew she’d lost her power over her mistress. “No, my lady,” she whispered. “I meant…” She couldn’t finish.

  “Fetch me the green silk, then come and do my hair,” Liana said. “Today I begin to clean my house.”

  The people of Moray Castle found that the Pale Rabbit had indeed turned into the Fire Lady. They were used to working for the Peregrine brothers, who demanded five things at once of each person, but this little woman, in her brilliant green dress, her fat blonde braids down her back, demanded ten times the work of the masters. She took every man and knight from his usual task and set him to hauling trash. Fireplaces were shoveled out. Bucket after bucket was filled with bones and filth and dumped into the now-empty Neville wagons and hauled away. Liana got Zared to find three other boys and the four of them set about killing rats. She sent men to the village to hire women to scour the walls and floors and furniture. She also hired men to use weighted nets to start dragging the moat and when the nets would not sink into the filth but floate
d on top, she ordered the men to dig a trench and drain the filth away—if it will move, she thought. The men balked at that, fearing Lord Rogan’s sword more than they feared her fire.

  “My husband will give permission,” she said to the two men before her, both of them afraid for their lives.

  “But, my lady,” one man said, “the moat is for defense and—”

  “Defense!” Liana gasped. “An enemy could walk across it as it is now.” But no matter what she said, the men would not start digging. She gritted her teeth. “Where is my husband, then? I will go to him and we will settle this between us.”

  “He is beating farmers, my lady.”

  It took Liana a moment to understand. “What?” she whispered.

  “Someone is stealing, and Lord Rogan beats men until someone tells him who the thieves are.”

  Liana raised her skirts and ran inside the castle walls. While her horse was being saddled, she got directions to where Rogan and his brother were and minutes later she was riding furiously across the countryside, six armed knights close behind her.

  The sight that greeted her was one of horror. One man was tied to a tree, his back bloody from whip lashes. Another three men stood together, shaking with terror as a man held his bloody whip aloft. Four women and six children stood by crying, two of the women on their knees and begging Rogan for mercy. Six Peregrine knights stood to one side of Rogan and Severn, who were deep in conversation, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around them.

  “Stop!” Liana screamed, and came off her horse while it was still running. She hurled herself before the cringing farmers. “Do not kill them,” she said, looking into Rogan’s hard green eyes.

  Rogan and his men were so shocked, the knight lowered his whip for a second. “Severn, take her,” Rogan commanded.

  “I will find who is stealing from you,” she shouted, twisting away before Severn could grab her. “I will deliver the thieves to you and you may punish them, but not these random people.”