Medieval 01 - Untamed Read Free

brother,” Dominic said sharply. “I want no funeral to interfere with my marriage.”
    â€œI wonder if Lady Margaret is as eager to wed as you?”
    â€œEager or dragging feet like a donkey, it matters not. My heir will be born by Easter next.”

2
    A LONE IN HER ROOM ON THE fourth floor of the keep, Meg unlaced her overtunic and tossed the worn russet wool cloth onto her bed. Her floor-length inner tunic quickly followed. The cross she wore around her neck gleamed like liquid silver in the candlelight. With each step she took, dried rushes, herbs, and last summer’s flowers rustled underfoot. Hurriedly she pulled on the simple tunic and coat of a commoner’s daughter.
    A woman’s laughter floated up from the great hall on the floor below. Meg held her breath and prayed that Eadith was too busy flirting with Duncan to bother about asking after her mistress’s needs. Eadith’s constant chatter about Lord Dominic’s brutal strength and cold demeanor had worn Meg’s nerves.
    She didn’t want to hear any more. She wouldn’t even be presented to her future husband until the wedding tomorrow because her father said he was too weak to leave his bed. Meg didn’t know if that was true. She did know that she would be married tomorrow to a man whom she had seen for the first time only yesterday.
    The wedding was being rushed too much forMeg’s peace of mind. The vision of Dominic le Sabre condensing out of the mist astride a savage battle stallion had haunted her sleep. She had no desire to lie in pain beneath a cold warrior while he planted his seed within her infertile body.
    And she had no doubt it would be an infertile, painful mating. Denying the harsh knight any children would be small recompense for a future spent being harrowed by a harsh Norman plow.
    Chills coursed through Meg’s blood at the thought of it. For many years she had known what had driven her Glendruid mother to walk into the forest and never return, abandoning her daughter to John’s harsh hand. Meg would rather not have known, for it was like seeing into her own future.
    Perhaps the legends are right. Perhaps there is another, more gentle world just beneath ours, and its entrance lies somewhere within the ancient burial mound. Perhaps Mother is there, whistling to the falcon on her wrist while her great striped cat sleeps in her lap and sunlight pours around her ….
    A woman’s laughter spiraled upward, interrupting Meg’s thoughts. She frowned. The laugh was new. Rich and sultry, like a summer wind. It must belong to the Norman woman Meg had spied from her room. Even at a distance, the woman’s black hair and red lips had been enough to turn any man’s head.
    What do I care that Lord Dominic’s leman is a beauty? Meg told herself impatiently. More important that I get free of the keep before Eadith comes trotting to me with the latest tale of Norman brutality. Whether true or not—and I often wonder!—Eadith’s tales are unnerving .
    With flying fingers Meg stripped away the embroidered ribbon that was twisted through her long braids. Impatiently she braided her long hair again and tied the ends with leather strings. A simpleheadcloth with a twisted leather circlet completed her costume.
    Meg hurried from the room and down the winding interior stone stairs to the second floor of the keep. By the time she reached the bottom, one of her braids was half undone. Like a fall of fire, her bright, red-gold hair spilled down the neutral gray wool of her short coat.
    Servants bowed quickly as Meg passed through to the attached forebuilding that guarded the keep’s entrance. No one thought her common clothing odd, for she had been running free at the keep since she was thirteen and her marriage to Duncan of Maxwell had been refused by the king. At nineteen, an age when most women of her station had a husband and a handful of babes, Meg was an old maid whose