"Liza?" he croaked feebly, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"And you had better pay heed to me, Conar McGregor. If you dare to ever humiliate me so again, I shall leave you and never come back." She folded her arms across her breasts and plopped down to sit beside him, her legs crossed under her.
"Liza!" he cried and grabbed her, dragging her down to his chest. He showered kisses on her face, her neck, her shoulders. His arms were so tight around her body, she could barely breath and was trying to push him away, but he was so overjoyed to see her, he didn’t notice.
"You’re suffocating me, Conar!" she protested, pushing at his shoulders. "And stop it. I’m mad at you! How can I curse you when you’re doing that?"
He leaned back, a smile of wondrous joy on his face, swept his hungry gaze over her beautiful face then suddenly turned pale as realization set in.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. His head was aching as much as his heart was beginning to. His love was here. But where the hell was The Toad?
"I got rid of her."
With sudden, dawning suspicion, he grasped her arm. "Where is she, Liza?" He pushed himself up, disregarding his throbbing head. "What have you done with the Toad?"
"Who, Milord?" she said, her voice lowering in a warning he didn’t hear.
Mumbling incoherently, he managed to scramble to his knees. He took her upper arms in his hands and shook her, despite the vomit that threatened to erupt from his throat.
"Where did you put The Toad?"
A strange light entered Liza’s face and a slow, angelic, innocent smile spread over her lovely lips. "She’s gone, Milord. Gone forever." Her voice was like a sweet caress.
"Gone? Gone where, Liza?"
"Out of your life, Milord. Aren’t you pleased?"
"Oh, my god!" His eyes widened even more. "Papa will have my hide. Her papa will have my…" He shuddered. "Oh, sweet Merciful Alel!"
"You said you would rather have me than her, didn’t you, Milord?" She grinned. "Well, here I am!"
"They’ll kill me, Liza!" He screeched and regretted doing so, for he grabbed his head and moaned.
With a pout, Liza told him, "I said she was gone, Milord. You’ll not be bothered by The Toad again." She giggled as he slowly raised his head.
"You killed her, didn’t you?" He thought of the magik-saying in the dungeon at Norus, remembered the man she had killed at the Hound and Stag and the were-tiger she had dispatched with such ease and he shivered. "Liza?"
When she only smiled at him, one dark brow raised, he thought he understood. "You did, didn’t you? You killed the bitch!"
"Let’s just say I sent her on her way." Her smile puckered into a sensuous challenge. "Aren’t you happy I am here instead of some ugly toadlet?"
"This is serious, Liza!" he shouted, wincing even as he did. He thrust his hand through his hair, tugging at the golden mass. "Can you bring her back?" He looked at her with a hopeful expression.
"I don’t know…" She pretended to think.
"Bring her back, Liza! Bring her back, now! Bring the bitch back before they find out she’s missing." He watched her face fall as though she had a terrible secret. His voice was barely a whisper. "You can bring her back, can’t you?"
She looked away. "Well, I don’t think I can, Milord."
Conar groaned. "You’ve killed her."
"Not exactly."
"What does that mean? Not exactly?" he shouted, flinching at the agony in his head.
"Well, you did tell me you didn’t want to marry the beastlet, didn’t you? You said if it weren’t for her, you’d marry me. Isn’t that what you said? So I sent her on her way and took her place. If I wear the veil all the time, as she does, and limp, as she does, no one will know it’s me and not her!" She laughed and clapped her hands. "Aren’t I clever, Conar?" She pushed her knees into the bed and began to bobble up and down.
Conar felt the bile rapidly rushing up his throat. The motion was playing hell with his battered belly. "Liza, stop it!"
She couldn’t. The more she looked at the wretched man who crouched beside her, the more she bobbled. The more she bobbled, the more she laughed. The more she laughed, the more the bed shook. The more the bed shook, the more he begged her to stop. The more he begged her to stop, the less inclined she was to do so.
"Have pity on me, Liza! If you have ever loved me, have pity on me now and stop!" He flung himself down, face over the edge just in time to splatter vomit on the carpet. He groaned in pain as the retching squeezed his head in a tight vise and bile went up his nose.
"You dimwitted sot," she said lovingly, caressing his bare shoulder where the robe had fallen away. "You well deserve this, but I can’t let you go on suffering."
She scooted off the bed and rummaged through her things until she found the green powder she knew would cure him. Giggling as she filled a tumbler with cool water from the pitcher on his night table, she poured in the powder and mixed it with her finger. She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked away the wetness, grimacing at the taste.
Conar turned over on his back, his head hanging off the side, his hands covering his face.
"Here, my love," Liza said softly. She put her hand under his neck and gently raised his head to bring the elixir to his dry lips. " Drink it all down. Do you remember the taste? I sent it to you a few hours ago." She smiled as he gulped. "Well, actually The Toad sent it to you."
Curling his body into a tight knot, he clutched the pillow to him and flung it over his face, shutting out the light that was now flooding his chamber, for dawn had come at last.
"Thank you," he mumbled through the pillow.
"Even toads have some worth, Milord."
He pulled one corner of the pillow from his face and stared at her. "Who are you, Liza?"
She smiled, pulling the pillow from his face. She tweaked his nose. "Know you not your own wife, Milord?"
"You are The Toad?" he asked in wonder. "Truly?"
"Truly!"
He grinned, despite his pain. "My Toad?"
She laughed, caressing his cheek with her palm. "Yours and yours alone."
"Anya Elizabeth?"
"Liza is a nickname for Elizabeth, Milord. I was surprised you never realized that."
"Mine," he said softly. "You are truly mine."
"For all time, Milord."
"Mine." He smiled. "My Toad."
It was a short, flat statement and it was the last thing he said before he passed out.
Liza looked at him and shook her head. In sleep he always looked like a small boy, smiling to himself, his hands tucked under his chin.
She bent to plant a feather-soft kiss on his cheek. "Aye, Conar. Yours and yours alone." She kissed his nose. "Sleep well, my love," she cooed and touched his smiling lips with one fingertip.
Lying beside him, she watched him until sleep closed her own eyes and she slipped into dreams.
Chapter 37
* * *
Liza awakened slowly and looked into the calm, peaceful, loving face of the man who lay beside her. She smiled and he answered the smile. "Are you feeling better, Milord?" she asked, snuggling into the arm he opened to receive her. Her head went to his naked shoulder.
"I have never felt better." He touched her forehead with his lips. His lips moved to her ear. " ’Tis our wedding morn, my love."
"Aye, so it is."
"And the vows must be consummated, mustn’t they?" he said, running his tongue along her ear.
Liza sucked in her breath as he captured her ear lobe with his teeth. "I suppose they must."
"And the sheets examined for…ah…the signs of the seal," he reminded her.
"I’ve a dagger on the dressing table, Milord." She giggled. "Your thigh or mine?"
Conar lifted his head and looked at her. "I suppose the sacrificial blood will be my own."
"I believe I can make it worth the offering, Milord."
"You do?"
She grinned. "I’m gods-be-damned s
ure I can."
Conar lifted up just enough to tear the unbelted robe from his body. He tossed it away, then put his hands on the bodice of her gown. He cocked one golden brow.
"If you must," Liza sighed.
"I must."
The ripping of the silk gown was all the impetus either needed. Liza’s arms went around his shoulders, his hands went under her bottom, and in the flicker of an eye, Conar’s ladylove was impaled on his thrusting shaft. What followed was an orgy of pleasure that left them both exhausted and asleep in each other’s arms.
* * *
"And are you happy with your Toad?" Her smile widened as she nestled into the warmth of his side.
He shrugged his unhampered shoulder. "Fairly well content with my Toad."
She looked up at him. "Only fairly well, Milord?"
Conar moved so that he hovered over her, his body barely touching hers as he braced himself on his elbows and knees. "As content as any man with a woman who plays the game by her own set of rules and neglects to warn him." He blew a stray wisp of hair from her cheek.
Liza’s nose crinkled. "Faith, Milord!" she gasped. "Have a care! Your breath could scorch the quills from a porcupine!" She tried to shove him off, but he wouldn’t budge. She saw his grin turn into a lecherous smirk.
"And whose fault is that?" He scooped her up in his arms and flipped over to his back, pulling her over him, holding her above him, her body stretched full length along his own. He shook his head in wonder. "First you get me mad; then you get me drunk; then you have me manhandled up here and stripped of my clothing; then you torture me as I lay dying in agony. I would venture to say my breath should be the least of your worries, Madame."
Liza’s face held an innocent look. "I didn’t make you mad, Milord. I didn’t get you drunk. Your aunt had you brought upstairs and my mother had you stripped."
"But you tortured me by shaking the gods-be-damned bed!"
"True, but well you deserved it."
" ’Twas not the first time you’ve tortured me, Liza," he said in a soft voice.
"When did I hurt you?"
"When you left me. All the times you left me, but the last was the worst. Why? Why did you let me hurt so?"
"You sent another man to find out about me, Conar. You didn’t come yourself; you sent Rayle. When time passed and you never came to meet me, my parents sent a spy here to ask questions and what they learned made them angry. They almost broke the contract because, in believing what Rayle told you about me, you had questioned my parent’s honor."
"In what way?" He was puzzled by her remark.
"Papa was furious with you. I overheard him telling Mama that if I had been born with some horrible defect, he would have broken the contract then because it would not have been fair to you. But instead of asking him or my mother, you took Rayle’s word without finding out for yourself, and in doing so, you made it seem as though my parents were trying to lie. Papa is one of the most honest men I know and you questioned that honesty."
"So, why didn’t he just send a messenger telling me nothing was wrong with you? Why let me go on believing the worst?"
"They thought you deserved to suffer," she said with a sober smile.
"And you? What did you think?" His forehead crinkled with worry.
"It took all my begging and pleading and threatening to persuade them that I understood your reluctance to marry a woman you thought handicapped." She lowered her gaze. "I would not have wanted to marry you if I thought you were in a like way." She looked at him again. "They said you were a pompous, arrogant fool who did not deserve to know the truth. Papa was all for marrying me to another."
"Brelan Saur?" Conar sneered. His face hardened.
Liza grinned. "Someone told you?"
"So, why didn’t he break the contract?" Conar asked, ignoring her question.
Liza shook her head. "I made a bargain, and a bet, with him. Papa loves to gamble and I wagered I could get to know the real Conar McGregor, not the high-and-mighty heir to the throne of Serenia, not the arrogant, egotistical man who had said such wicked things about me, but the man beneath that cold heart and exterior. He bet me I couldn’t." She shrugged. "You see who won."
"That’s when you came looking for me?"
"That day at the Hound and Stag, you were so smug, so self-righteous. You were so cynical and condemning of women in general. I decided not to tell you who I was. I don’t think you would have believed me, anyway." Her hand curled around his neck. "You seemed so distant and angry, but beneath all that, I saw something I don’t think anyone else ever had. A terrible, terrible loneliness. I was determined to have you love me." Her free hand began to stroke the hair on his chest. "I wanted you to know the real Anya Elizabeth, not the Princess, nor your betrothed, nor the woman you thought deformed in some way, but the real woman, the woman who had fallen in love with you years ago."
"You’re joking!" he grinned, his brows shooting up. "When was this? When you realized my reputation as a stud was so well-deserved?" He wagged his brows.
Liza looked at him with exasperation. "Conceited oaf!" She laughed. "When I came with my brother Grice and Brelan Saur to a fair near Corinth."
His forehead wrinkled as he tried to remember. He shook his head.
"It was the summer festival there. Do you remember Grice winning one of the du Mer stallions? It was a big roan? You even joked about the stallion, telling Grice he was one of Seayearner’s cousins and Grice decided to name him Sea Star?"
Conar’s eyes lit. "I do remember! That was the day me and Grice and the baker’s daughter—" He stopped, his face turning beet red.
"Aye, that day!" Liza giggled.
"But I don’t remember you," he said, hoping she hadn’t been a witness to what he and her brother had done with the baker’s voluptuous daughter.
"Brelan kept me occupied while you two were enjoying the other pleasures of the festival." She laughed.
"Then we didn’t actually meet?" He wanted to get her away from thoughts of the baker’s daughter and Brelan Saur.
"Oh, but we did."
"When?"
"I was your second when you and Prince Chase Montyne had your little discussion on the jousting field."
"That was you?" he gasped, staring at her, remembering the slim boy who had gazed up at him with such moonstruck eyes. He had even made a rude, hateful and extremely vulgar remark to the boy, telling him to find another of his own kind to ogle.
"You thought I was a boy and that was what Grice and Brelan wanted you to think."
"But you couldn’t have been more than—"
"I was twelve, Milord. And I thought you were the handsomest boy I had ever seen. And so did every other female at the festival."
He shook his head. "And because of that, you fell in love with me?"
"No," she answered quickly. "It was an added incentive, but it was what you did that endeared you to me."
"What I did?" He couldn’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary that day, except maybe with the baker’s daughter, and he didn’t think that would have endeared him to her.
"There was a little girl who was lost from her mother. Do you remember her?" When he shook his head, she added, "You took her up on your shoulders and walked all over the crowd until you found her mother, who was getting frantic trying to find the child. When you put down the little girl and the mother hugged her so fiercely, you smiled, and there was a sheen of tears in your eyes, Milord, when you told the woman no child should ever be separated from its mother. It was then I knew I loved you."
"Her name was Katie," he said, his memory returning.
"That you could remember her name after so many years is a wonder." Liza smiled, a catch in her voice.
"Not really. Her mother came here to work. Katie is one of the chambermaids here, as well." There was no way he could tell her that Katie, that little lost ten-year-old girl from so many years before, was now the mother of Tia, one of his children.
"When I saw y
ou again, Milord, it was at the Hound and Stag. I had nearly forgotten how handsome you were. It surprised me. Your attitude surprised me. I was amazed that you would marry, sight unseen, without regard to your own personal happiness. Even though you were being forced to marry, I had always assumed you would try to find a way to break the contract." She grinned. "Not that I would have allowed that. I wasn’t prepared for the man I found that day. I was stunned that you would honor a woman you found detestable. I was touched by your faithfulness to the Princess Anya Elizabeth when you defended her to me at Norus."
"But you set out to seduce me anyway," he reminded her.
"Aye, but it was my own husband I was seducing."
His hand came up to tangle in her thick tresses. "How did you know that Conar, the man, would love, Liza, the woman?"
She smiled against his chest. "I simply gave him the chance, Milord. How could you not? We were destined to belong to one another."
His hand stilled in her hair. "I tried not to love you. I didn’t want to."
"I know, but you didn’t count on Liza’s tenacity, Milord." She gazed at him through her lowered lashes. "Or her willpower. I have yet to want something that I could not find a way to get."
He laughed a deep rumble in his wide chest. "And you decided you wanted me? Despite my churlishness and cynical outlook."
She raised her head and looked at him, her face serious. "I could see hurt in your eyes, Milord. I could see pain so deep that you thought you had it buried, but I could see it. I could feel it. You needed me and I wanted you to need me. I refused to let what some other woman had done cost me your love and affection. If you could love Liza, you could love your wife, for they were two sides of the same coin. You just didn’t know that."
"Maybe if I had known…"
"Would you have believed me if I had told you who I really was?" She cocked a brow at his uneasy look. "I didn’t think so. That was why I never told you."
"And all the postponements? Why was there so many postponements even after you knew I had fallen in love with you?" There was a dull ache in his heart as he realized all the months of pain could have been avoided.
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