Read Online The Taming by Jude Deveraux - Free Book Online Page A

the clank of steel, they were being attacked. Who had left the drawbridge down?
    â€œOh Lord, don’t let me die before I marry him,” Liana prayed as she leaped out of bed and began running.
    In the hall, Helen was also running, as was half the household, it seemed.
    Liana made her way through the chaos to her stepmother. “What is it? What has happened?” she shouted above the noise.
    â€œYour bridegroom has at last arrived,” Helen said angrily. “And he and all his men are drunk. Now someone who doesn’t value his life will have to get this Red Falcon of yours off his horse, bathed, dressed, and sober enough to say his vows to you.” She paused and gave Liana a look of sympathy. “You vow away your life today, Liana,” she said softly. “May God have mercy on your soul.” Helen turned and started down the stairs to the solar.
    â€œMy lady,” Joice said from behind Liana. “You must return to your room. You cannot be seen on your wedding day.”
    Liana went back to her room and she even allowed Joice to coax her into bed, but she could not sleep. Once again Rogan was under the same roof as she was and soon…soon he’d be here in bed with her. Just the two of them. Alone and quiet and intimate. What would they talk about, she wondered. They knew so little about each other. Perhaps they’d talk about first learning to ride a horse or maybe he’d tell her about where he lived. This Peregrine castle would be Liana’s new home and she longed to know about it. She had to plan where her mother’s tapestries would be hung, where her gold plates would be set to best display them.
    She was so happy in her thoughts that she dozed off for a while until Joice came to wake her and four giggling maids began to dress her in red brocade with a cloth-of-gold underskirt. Her double-horned headdress was red, embroidered with gold wire, and strung with hundreds of tiny pearls. A long transparent silk veil hung down her back.
    â€œBeautiful, my lady,” Joice said, tears in her eyes. “No man will be able to take his eyes from you.”
    Liana hoped so. She hoped she was as physically appealing to her husband as he was to her.
    She rode sidesaddle on a white horse to the church and she was so nervous she barely saw the crowds of people lining the sides of the road and yelling their wishes that she bear many children. Her eyes were straining ahead to see the man standing by the church door. Her palms were wet as she drew nearer to him. Would he take one look at her, see that she was the woman who hit him with a mud-soaked garment, and refuse to marry her?
    When she was close enough to see him, she smiled with pride that he looked as good as she’d imagined in the green velvet tunic that she’d had made for him. The tunic barely reached the tops of his thighs and his powerful, muscular legs were tightly encased in dark knitted hose. On his head he wore a short-brimmed fur hat with a large ruby twinkling on the band.
    She swelled so in pride at the look of him that her ribs ached against the steel bones in her corset. Then she held her breath as he stepped down from the church steps and started toward her. Was he going to lift her from her horse himself and not wait for her father, who rode ahead of her, to do it?
    Her horse moved maddeningly slowly. Perhaps he could see she was the woman from the pond and he was pleased. Perhaps she had haunted his thoughts for the past three months as he had hers.
    But Rogan did not come to her horse. In fact, as far as she saw, he did not so much as glance her way. Instead, he went to her father’s horse and caught the bridle. The entire procession halted as Liana watched Rogan talk earnestly to her father. Liana watched in puzzlement until Helen moved her horse forward to stand beside her stepdaughter.
    â€œWhat is that red devil up to now?” Helen spat out. “Those two are wrong if they think