The Conquest

by Jude Deveraux

  "You will have supper now, my lord?"

  Tearle gave a start and looked up from his goblet of wine. "Oh, Margaret, I didn't see you. Has she come down yet?"

  "No," Margaret said slowly. "I imagine that she will find it difficult to dress herself."

  "You do not miss much, do you?" He smiled at the woman who had come to his mother when they were both girls. Tearle's mother had died in Margaret's arms.

  "I could not help notice that you are mad in love with her."

  "She hates me," he said gloomily.

  Margaret nearly laughed aloud at that. "The girl who gave you such a look of longing in the courtyard does not hate you."

  "You have not heard her speak to me. Ah, sometimes she desires me, if I kiss her enough and tell her that she is pretty, but she desires that from any handsome man." He snorted. "She desires that even from me, who she thinks is ugly." He looked up at Margaret. "She is a Peregrine."

  Margaret's face lost its laughter. She went to Tearle and put her hand on his shoulder. "You were always a good boy. That you'd marry this boy-girl to settle a feud is very noble of you."

  "I tricked her into marrying me," he snapped. "And I didn't marry her to settle a feud. I married her because I wanted her."

  "Ah, could you not just have bedded her?"

  Tearle didn't speak for a while. "Perhaps." He didn't say more but just sat there looking at his wine goblet.

  Margaret sat on the chair next to him. He was as near to being a son as she was ever going to have. "I have heard about these Peregrines. Are they as rough as I have heard?"

  "Worse."

  "Then perhaps some softness in the girl's life would do her good. Perhaps soft music and soft words would win her. Perhaps if you let her see you as you are, she would come to love you."

  "I have told her I will petition the king for an annulment. I mean to keep my word."

  "Did you tell her when you would send the messenger?"

  Tearle smiled at her. "No, I did not. But I did say I would give her an annulment, which means I am not to touch her."

  Margaret laughed. "Do you not know that there is much more sensuous pleasure than what goes on in the bed?"

  Tearle gave her a look to say that she was half mad.

  "The girl moved from me when I but meant to touch her arm," Margaret said. "And she looked at my gown with lust in her eyes. For all her boy's clothes, I think she hungers for what a woman has and wears. I think that roses might win your lady."

  "Roses?"

  "And music and tales of love and silk and gentle kisses placed behind her ear."

  Tearle looked at the woman for a long while, his mind racing with his thoughts. He remembered the way Zared had reacted to his kisses. Perhaps she did not hate him as much as she said she did. If he had not allowed his jealousy to overcome him, what might have happened? Perhaps it was possible to win her with a bit of courting. He smiled at Margaret.

  Chapter Twelve

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  Nothing that Zared had ever experienced had prepared her for life in the Howard house. At supper she sat at a clean table and ate delicious food, and her new husband treated her as though she were fragile and precious.

  The calmness of the servants, the general peace of the whole house was new and interesting to her. In her own home it wasn't unusual for her brothers' knights to come storming into rooms demanding that someone come and settle a fight. Her brother Rogan regularly slammed his battle ax into tables to make a point. But at Tearle's the questions were whether she had enough wine or whether her soup was hot enough.

  After supper a handsome young man came and played a lute while he looked at Zared with liquid eyes.

  "What is he saying?" she asked, since the man was singing in French.

  Tearle looked at her across a silver wine goblet. The whole room glowed with the light from the fireplace. "He is singing of your loveliness, of your beauty, and of the beautiful way you move your hands."

  Zared looked startled. "My hands?" Her brothers had always complained that she had no strength in her hands, that she could barely lift a sword. She held her hands in front of her and looked at them.

  Tearle took one in his own and kissed her fingertips. "Beautiful hands."

  "What else is he saying?" she asked, looking away from her husband to the handsome young man.

  "He says only what I have told him to, for I wrote the song," Tearle answered, an edge to his voice.

  She looked back at him in wonder. "You? You can write songs in another language?"

  "Songs and poetry. I can play the songs as well. Should I demonstrate?"

  "If you can write, then can you read? Liana can read. Could you read me a story?"

  Tearle stopped kissing her hand and smiled at her, then signaled the man to leave them. Another soft command from him and a servant brought five books into the room. "Now, what shall you hear?" When Zared looked blank, Tearle smiled. "I know. I shall read you Héloise and Abelard. That should appeal to you."

  An hour later Zared was sitting in front of the fire trying not to cry, for the story he had read to her was very sad.

  "Come now, it happened long ago, and there is no need to cry." When she kept sniffing he pulled her into his lap and stroked her hair. "I did not know you had such a soft heart."

  "I do not think you have any heart at all," she snapped.

  He kissed her forehead, then, still holding her, he stood and began to carry her up the stairs. "I think it is time you were in bed."

  Zared snuggled against him. He was still her enemy, of course, but at the thought of spending the night with him her skin began to tingle. But when they entered the room he kissed her forehead and left her alone.

  She didn't know whether to be glad or enraged. In the end she was just puzzled. She undressed and went to bed and lay awake for a while, thinking about the odd man she was married to. She knew of his idea to keep her a virgin until he could petition the king for an annulment, but how could he keep his word? Her brothers would not have allowed a wife to remain a virgin no matter what the woman said. The more she thought the more puzzled she became. The Howard man was not like any man she had met before.

  She woke to find him sitting in her room, a rose on the pillow beside her. He helped her dress in riding clothes, a shorter skirt with no train, but he did no more than kiss her neck as she held her hair up for him to fasten the ties at the back of the gown.

  They went down the stairs together, and there were horses waiting and servants bearing trays of fresh bread and cheese and goblets of wine. They rode together, and he talked to her not of war or weapons, but of the beauty of the day. He pointed out pretty birds and once even imitated a bird's call.

  They stopped at a lake, and he asked her to go swimming with him. Zared said that she did not like to swim and that she didn't really like the water. She sat under a tree and watched as Tearle stripped down to his loincloth and slowly walked to the water. She looked at him for as long as she liked without his watching her. Over the past few weeks each time she looked at him he seemed to have grown larger. She remembered thinking that he was a puny man, a weak man. There had been that time when she had first met him and thought that he had nearly been killed by a slight knife wound. Then she had thought him to be very weak.

  But she looked at him and saw how broad his shoulders were, how thick the muscles in his legs were. There were scars on his body, scars just as her brothers had, scars made by weapons. She wondered if he had been injured in battle or if all the scars had come from practice or tournaments.

  She leaned back against the tree and watched him swim. It was all a waste of time, of course. She should be training as she usually did, she thought, but then she smiled. Her training had always been to prepare her for fighting the Howards, but she had married a Howard and was watching him swim in a pool.

  He lay on his back in the water, and Zared could not help but notice the deep muscles on his chest. He wasn't as big as her brothers, of course, but he
was certainly larger than Colbrand.

  She was lazily watching him as he raised his arm to wave at her. She smiled at him, then saw him dive under the water. She sat still and waited for him to resurface. A minute went by, and she sat up. He had not come to the surface.

  She waited a few seconds more, and still she did not see him. She got up and walked to the edge of the lake. "Howard!" she called, but there was no answer. She called louder. "Howard!" Still no answer, and still no sign of him.

  She didn't think about what she did. She ran into the water. She could swim, her brothers had seen to that, but she had never liked doing it. But she didn't think about like or dislike, she just reacted.

  She took a deep breath and dived under the water, her eyes wide as she looked for him. It didn't take her long. He was easy to see, as he was curled under the water, his face against his knees.

  Her lungs were already beginning to hurt, but she stayed under long enough to pull him up, putting her arm under his chin and dragging him to the surface of the water. She heard no intake of breath as he came to the surface; in fact, a quick glance at him showed him to be as pale as death.

  She swam to the edge of the pool with him, then had to drag him to the shore. He was as heavy as a draft horse, and she had to strain every muscle to get him onto land.

  When he was on land, his lower half still in the water, she looked down at him, as pale and cold as death. What should she do? she wondered. "Howard!" she yelled into his face. "Howard!"

  He didn't respond. She straddled his stomach and began to slap his cheeks, but it had no effect on him. "Damn you, Tearle," she said, and there were tears of frustration in her voice. "Don't you dare die just when I have begun to think you are worth something."

  On her knees she leaned over him, put her hands to his cheeks, and shook his face.

  At that Tearle spewed a fountain of water from his mouth. Zared, her face dripping, leaned back from him and stared in astonishment.

  Tearle opened his eyes and smiled at her. "I could always hold my breath longer than anyone."

  She knew then that he had been playing a joke on her. She sat down hard on his stomach, but he didn't so much as flinch. "You are a horrible man," she said, and she struck him on the chest with her fists.

  He caught her fists and rolled over on top of her. "You were worried about me."

  "I was not. I only cared that your death might cause a war between my family and yours. Not that that brother of yours deserves the name of family. I care only for my brothers and Liana and maybe Rogan's son, but not for you." He had her pinned to the ground, her hands above her head. She knew that she wanted him to kiss her. She had indeed been frightened for his safety, but she didn't want to admit that to him.

  He rubbed his cold, wet face against hers, which was also cold and wet, then he nuzzled her neck. When he released her hands she put her arms around him— and when she did that he rolled off of her.

  Zared frowned, for somehow she felt rejected.

  "You will freeze if you do not get dry," he said, and there was a smugness in his tone that angered her. It was as though he had wanted to know something and had found it out.

  He stood, then pulled her up with him, and when she wouldn't look at him he put his hand under her chin. "Would it be so awful if a Peregrine came to care for a Howard?"

  "It cannot happen," she said with as much sincerity as she could muster, but even to her the words sounded false.

  He laughed, then picked her up in his arms and whirled her about until she was dizzy. She clung to him, and before long she, too, was laughing.

  He stopped twirling her and held her close to him. "Come, my little enemy, and let's get dry. There's a crofter's cottage nearby. Let's see if they can feed us."

  She stood by while he dressed, and she allowed him to help her on her horse when they left the lake.

  After that things between them began to change. Zared wasn't sure what it was that changed, but she knew that something had. It was as though her attempt to rescue the man had answered a question for him and had freed him from whatever had been holding him back.

  She didn't know what he was really like, for she had known him only under the most unusual circumstances, but after that afternoon at the lake she sensed that he began to relax around her. No longer was he afraid of whatever he had been afraid of before, and she began to see the man he really was.

  He was as unlike her brothers as night and day. Whereas her brothers tried to get as much work out of each day as they could, Tearle seemed to want to get as much pleasure out of each day as was possible. He trained, just as her brothers did, but he didn't train for many hours at a time, and he had a lighthearted spirit about his training. He laughed when he could. He wagered with his men and paid them when he lost. There was no life-or-death feeling to his training.

  At first Zared was annoyed at that attitude of his. She said that he did not understand that training was very important, that men needed to be trained for war. She said that he was so frivolous that even she could beat him with a knife. She knew that she had no chance of winning against him with a heavy sword, but she figured she was faster than he was and more agile.

  It didn't take her but minutes to realize that she was wrong on both counts. For all his playfulness he was a very good opponent. He toyed with her, teasing her, making her think that she was winning, then he'd sidestep and take her off balance. As with all the Peregrines her anger rose to blazing in just moments. And when her anger came to the surface Tearle easily took her knife away from her.

  "I hope you have learned that a cool head can think faster than a hot one," he said, then, when she meant to try to strike him, he caught her in his arms and kissed her soundly. Zared was embarrassed because of the laughter of the men around them.

  Later he came to her and tried to make up. He teased her and handed her a bouquet of flowers and told her she was pretty and that her eyes sparkled more than any jewel. She told him that he was absurd, but she couldn't help smiling. He was an easy man to be near.

  The next day he took her to a fair in a town ten miles away. Zared had never been to a fair, for at home she had never been allowed out of her castle, and besides, her brothers did not believe in such frivolity.

  The fair was a wonder to her. At the tournament she had not been able to enjoy herself, for she had been under such strain with her brother and her enemy being in the same camp, but at the fair things seemed to be different. Nothing had actually changed, but it seemed that it had. She was still with her family's enemy, but as she glanced at him on his big horse he didn't seem like much of an enemy. In fact, she was beginning to think that he was as big and strong and handsome as her brothers.

  The day at the fair was wonderful. All the merchants were glad to see the lord and his pretty lady. It was so different from the tournament, when she had been sniggered at for being one of those dirty Peregrines.

  Tearle bought her everything. After having grown up in a household where every penny was treated as though it were gold, it was heavenly to be able to buy pretty things. She ate some of everything that was for sale until Tearle warned her about having a stomachache. When the juice from half a dozen cherries ran down her chin he leaned over and licked the sweet liquid off. She turned red to her toes, but he just laughed at her.

  When he saw her watching a beautifully made wrestler bragging that he could beat all comers, Tearle stripped and wrestled the man. When her husband won Zared was bursting with pride, and she held the prize, an ugly knot made of cheap ribbons, as though it were a jeweled ornament won in a tournament.

  Tearle stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders as she laughed at a puppet show. When a fight broke out between half a dozen men who'd had too much wine he swept her into his arms and carried her to safety.

  There was a booth where a man was selling fabrics from Italy, and Zared paused to look longingly at a bolt of dark green brocade. Tearle ordered the man to show it to them. It was expensive beyond belief,
and Zared told the man to put it away. Tearle bought the entire bolt for her. "You can make bed hangings from it," he said.

  Some part of her said that she should remember that the money he was spending so freely actually belonged to her family and not his, but all that seemed far away.

  He stood with her and watched as she hid her eyes while a man walked across a rope stretched tight between two poles. "That is not so hard. I could do that," Tearle bragged.

  "You could not," she answered, and when she saw him moving toward the man she caught his hand and begged him not to do it. It was one thing to wrestle a man, but quite another to walk a narrow rope ten feet above the ground. He could be killed doing that.

  She had to beg and beg and beg him to keep him from getting on the rope. In order to stop him she had to tell him that she believed that he could walk the rope and therefore did not have to prove it to her. She had to tell him that he was the best and the bravest knight in all the kingdom. He wanted to know if she thought he was better than Severn, and she said she was certain that he was. He asked if she thought he could beat Rogan, and she assured him that he could. Then he asked if she thought he could beat Colbrand.

  "Not in a pig's eye," she said, and then she had the wisdom to start running.

  He caught her and tickled her until she admitted that maybe, perhaps, possibly he was better than Colbrand.

  When night fell he told her that they had to return to his house, for he was sure that unsavory types came out at night, and he didn't want to risk injury to her. She protested, but she was indeed tired. He mounted his horse, and then one of the five Howard men who had been with them all day handed her up to him, and she rode the ten miles home held in Tearle's arms.

  Once they were at home she undressed and waited for him. She was sure that he would come to her bed, but he didn't. As he always did, he kissed her goodnight and left her. As tired as she was, she couldn't sleep, and so she got out of bed and sat before the fire.