Page 20 of The Stag & The Owl
Roark sat at his usual seat to the right ofDonald and Leif, who sat at Roger’s right at the high table, withLynette and Gwyneth and Myrna, Donald’s wife, sitting to Roger’sleft.Alina was seated at one of the low tables with Peg, Jenny,and Craig, Peg’s husband, and the other house servants.A secondlow table held the laird’s six men at arms and their wives andchildren, while the stable hands ate at tables in the kitchen alongwith the cook staff.
As a princess, even one being held prisoner,Alina should have been sitting at the high table.Certain Roger hadseated her with the servants as an insult as much as to hide heridentity, Roark was even more certain she was more comfortablethere than she would be sitting anywhere near Lynette, Gwyneth, orMyrna, a sour-faced woman whose grudge against Alina’s family wassecond only to Roger’s.
She’d been a young wife with an infant sonwhen Jerrik banished them from Sea Ridge, and had lost her son tothe same sickness that’d taken her mother-in-law and Roger andLynette’s younger son.She’d miscarried several babies after that,leaving her, if not her husband, childless.Donald had at least sixblond-haired, grey-eyed by-blows he acknowledged living in thevillages surrounding North Shore Keep, though he only helpedsupport the mothers of his four sons and did nothing for themothers of his daughters.Or his wife.Theirs was as unhappy amarriage as Roark had ever seen, for which Myrna blamed Alina’sparents.
The kitchen servants brought out trays offresh baked ryes and aged cheeses and roast mutton with the last ofthe winter roots and the first of the spring greens, welcome foodafter four days of ship fare.Tucking into his meal, Roark was gladto see Alina eating heartily and speaking with Peg and Nessa,Gwyneth’s maidservant, a sweet-natured girl who generally boreGwyneth’s temperamental ways with a resigned complaisance.
“Brother,” Gwyneth said loudly to Leif in theNorthern tongue.“Tell us how you were able to capture theprincess.”
Roger clicked his teeth at his daughter, whoeither forgot or didn’t care Alina’s true identity was supposed toremain secret, while the servants who understood the Northernlanguage perked up.
“It was easy as it turned out,” Leif answeredin kind, making sure Alina would understand what he said.“I madefriends with her twin brother and got us invited to the springfestival where Roark flirted with her and smooth-talked her intotaking him to a secluded area.We followed and waited until theywere so wrapped up in their lovemaking that we walked right up andnabbed her.”
“Lovemaking?”Gwyneth asked, her blue eyeswide.“The princess and Roark?”
“Aye, sister.If we hadn’t taken her when wedid, your betrothed would’ve been swiving her, no doubt.”
Gwyneth stared down her nose at Alina.“Didyou not know he was betrothed?To me?”
Roark furrowed his brows.Gwyneth couldn’thave cared less about him as a man, or her betrothed.In fact, he’dbet coin she was sweet on Munroe, the youngest of Roger’smen-at-arms, and he on her.
“Well?”Gwyneth demanded.
“I, ah, I did know,” Alina said, her cheeksflushing pink.
“Yet you thought it fine to make love tohim?”
Alina glanced helplessly at Roark, who coulddo nothing but sit there with his jaw clamped tight.
“I was, we were both, quite drunk, my lady,”Alina lied.She shrugged unconvincingly and Roark bit down on agrin.She really was a terrible liar.
Gwyneth’s high-pitched laugh clawed its wayup Roark’s spine.“I would hope so,” she said, apparently buyingthe lie.“A woman would have to be drunk to make love to such afreckle-faced ginger willingly.”She looked at Roark and made adisgusted shiver.“Ugh.”
As used to Gwyneth’s vitriol as Roark was, hewasn’t used to seeing its effect on Alina, who sat back as if she’dbeen slapped.She looked to Roark, her expression full of the samesympathy she’d shown him during their talks about his betrothal tothe harpy while aboard the ship.He looked away quickly andplastered a well-practiced mask of indifference on his face.“Toeach his own,” he said.
“You want to swive the bitch?”Gwynethscreeched in their language, and every person in the room jerkedtheir heads up.“Be my guest.Maybe the Northern whore can teachyou a few tricks to liven up our marriage bed.”
“Enough.”Roger slammed his fist down on thetable.“There will be no swiving of or with my hostage,” he said inthe Green Isles tongue.He glared from one end of the room to theother.“By anyone.As a virgin she’s worth her weight in gold whereshe’s going.Do I make myself clear?”
Where she was going?“You mean back toher home?”Roark said.
“Of course,” Roger answered.He was, Roarkwas beginning to understand, an accomplished liar.
CHAPTER 5
Horses
Alina sank down into the hot bath water witha weary sigh.A small chamber of wood and stone with a hearth fireto heat the kettles of water, the bathhouse held two wooden tubs, asmall table of soaps and oils, and washing and drying linens.Though it wasn’t as private or as well appointed as the bathchambers in her family’s long house, after four days on a ship andyesterday, it felt good to soak and wash the stink off herself.
Unsure of how long Peg, who sat guardoutside, would allow her to stay in here, Alina dunked her headunderwater and then scooped a handful of soap and sniffed, smellingrose and lavender and bracing rosemary.She stood and lathered herhair and her body from head to toe, and then sat back down anddunked and rinsed, breathing in the clean scent of the soap andlounging in the warm, wet heat of the water, determined to enjoy itfor as long as she could.
She hadn’t slept well last night despitebeing in a big, soft bed.Her mind had been racing with everythingthat’d been said at supper, especially Roger’s comment about whereshe was going.She could tell Roark didn’t believe Roger wassending her home.Something was going on, and she had to find outwhat.
Leif’s bawdy story and Gwyneth’s cruelty werehorrid, but not as worrying as what Roger had said.
Poor Roark.Stuck between his obligations anda lifetime with a horrid woman who couldn’t see his worth.Alinapadded the tub’s edge with a rolled-up linen, leaned her head back,closed her eyes, and thought of Roark.He was everything she wantedin a man: handsome, kind, and intelligent, who kissed like no otherman she’d ever met.
She would be twenty years old in a littleover a moon’s time, and she was a princess.A princess who’d beenkissed and to whom marriage had been proposed by six men.Six menwhom she’d never come close to responding to the way she had toRoark.Yet, he was her abductor and played an integral part in hercapture.Nothing she could say or do would change theircircumstance.
