The Taming Read Free Page B

man’s wife.”
    â€œSo I am to marry a man who likes hawking best? Is that the solution? Perhaps we should hold a hawking tournament and the man with the hawk with the biggest kill wins me as a prize. It makes as much sense as anything else.”
    Gilbert rather liked that idea, but wisely didn’t say so. “Now see here, Liana. I’ve liked some of the men who’ve been here to visit. What about that William Aye? Good-looking fellow he is.”
    â€œEvery one of my maids thought so, too. Father, the man is stupid. I tried to talk to him about the bloodlines of the horses in his stables and he had no idea what they were.”
    Gilbert was taken aback at that. A man should know about his horses. “What about Sir Robert Fitzwaren? He seemed smart enough.”
    â€œHe told everyone he was smart. He also said he was strong and brave and fearless. According to him, he’s won every tournament he’s ever entered.”
    â€œBut I heard he was unseated four times last year at—Oh, I see what you mean. Bragging men can become tiresome.”
    Gilbert’s eyes lit up. “What about Lord Stephen, Whitington’s boy? Now there’s a man for you. Good looking. Rich. Healthy. Smart, too. And the boy knows how to handle a horse and a hawk.” Gilbert smiled. “I’d guess he knows something about women. I even saw him reading to you.” Reading, in Gilbert’s opinion, was an unnecessary burden for a person to carry.
    Liana remembered Lord Stephen’s dark blond hair, his laughing blue eyes, his skill with a lute, the way he controlled an unruly horse, how he’d read from Plato to her. He was charming to everyone he met, and everyone in the household adored him. He’d not only told Liana she was lovely, but one evening in a dark corridor he’d grabbed her and kissed her until she was breathless, then whispered, “I’d love to take you to bed with me.”
    Lord Stephen was perfect. Flawless. Yet something…Maybe it was the way he glanced at the gold vessels lined up on the mantelpiece in the solar or the way he’d looked so hard at Helen’s diamond necklace. There was something about him that she didn’t trust, but she couldn’t say what. It wasn’t wrong, exactly, for him to take note of the Neville wealth, but she wished she saw a bit more lust in his eyes for her person and not her wealth.
    â€œWell?” Gilbert prompted. “Is there anything wrong with young Stephen?”
    â€œNothing, really,” Liana said. “He’s—”
    â€œGood, then it’s done. I shall tell Helen, and she can start planning the wedding. This should make her happy.”
    Gilbert left Liana alone, and she sat down on the bed as if her body were made of lead. It was settled. She was to marry Lord Stephen Whitington. To spend the rest of her life with a man she didn’t know yet who would have absolute power over her. He could beat her, imprison her, impoverish her, and he’d have a perfect, and legal, right.
    â€œMy lady,” Joice said from the doorway, “the steward asks to see you.”
    Liana looked up, blinking without seeing for a moment.
    â€œMy lady?”
    â€œHave my horse saddled,” Liana said, and damn the steward, she thought. She wanted a good long run, with the horse pounding beneath her. Perhaps enough exercise would help her forget what awaited her.
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    Rogan, the oldest of what was left of the Peregrine family, squatted on his heels and stared at the castle on the horizon. His dark eyes were full of his thoughts—and his fears. He would rather face a battle than what he faced today.
    â€œPutting it off won’t make it any easier,” his brother Severn said from behind him. Both men were tall and broad-shouldered like their father, but Rogan had inherited a sheen of red to his dark hair from their father, while Severn, who had a different mother, had more