His own humors in a miserable state, Galen peered at the unusually large number of diners, all of whom were pressed together in two lines of trestle tables that extended from the high table all the way to the wooden screen at the far end of the hall. From his vantage point in the center of the dais, he had an unobstructed view of the upper gallery, where a group of troubadours had just begun to play. It was a scene of much merriment, and yet he took no joy in any of it.
Too annoyed to eat, Galen instead reached for his tankard of ale. For several moments he stared pensively into its depths.
I truly thought I had her tamed.
No sooner did the thought pass through his mind than Galen snorted derisively, Laoghaire’s fiery temper fast becoming the bane of his existence. That he would now have to punish Laoghaire for her willful behavior left a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew that any form of reprimand—whether physical or verbal—would only calcify the enmity that had arisen between them.
“I do not want to punish the wench,” he mumbled to himself, still staring into his tankard. “I want to make love to her.”
But I must punish her, he affirmed in the next instant, his wife having gone too far this time. If Laoghaire had only restrained herself, if she had behaved in a docile, ladylike fashion, he would not now be trapped in an untenable position.
“If onlyIhad restrained myself,” he muttered, well aware that his unruly lust had been the catalyst for what followed. Forced into celibacy, his need for his wife’s touch had been too great to bear. And because of that, all of the good will he’d accumulated with the gifting of the jennet had been squandered in one explosive, passionate interlude.
Not that I am to blame.’Twas Laoghaire who dared to broach the forbidden subject of annulment. Exhibiting a surprising amount of cunning, she tried to hold him hostage to his carnal lust, and thereby force him to acquiesce to her demands.
Raising the tankard to his lips, Galen took several deep swallows before he slammed the vessel down on the table.
“Suffering hell,” he grunted.
He would not—he could not—put the marriage asunder. The union between Clan MacKinnon and the House of Ogilvy had been ordered by the king to strengthen the shaky alliance between the Highland clans and the noble families of Norman descent. As the king’s vassal, Galen was sworn to obey and give fealty. It was as simple as that.
Admittedly, his affairs had been less complicated before Laoghaire entered his life. Although, if he were to be completely honest with himself, his life had also been rather lackluster, his days bleeding one into the other with little to excite his interest.
And then Laoghaire MacKinnon rode through the castle gates, a flame-haired Valkyrie who made every other woman pale in comparison.
“Christ above! ’Tis like an empty room without her.” Peering downward, Galen saw that even the two wolfhounds at his feet appeared woebegone on account of Laoghaire’s absence.
Nearly as desolate as the dogs, Galen began to absently fiddle with his knife, tapping the blade against the edge of his plate. For some baffling reason, despite his sexual release earlier in the day, he still craved Laoghaire’s touch, her kisses.Her smiles.To his ire, he found himself yearning for Laoghaire in myriad ways. Long years ago he’d learned to control his sexual desires, refusing to think with his cock as some men did. But now he found that a good many of his thoughts revolved around the bedding of his wife. In truth, he yearned to lay her upon their marriage bed and make love to her until they both collapsed, made bleary-eyed and exhausted by passion.
I do not like having these feelings, he ruminated.Feelings exist for but a moment, and then the moment passes.
“So, why has it not yet passed?” he growled as he jabbed his knife blade into the apple that protruded from the roasted boar’s open mouth.
Earlier, when he was in the tub, he should have ordered Laoghaire from the bedchamber so he could have brought himself to orgasm. While it was a practice he preferred not to engage in, there were times when a man must discharge his seed or go mad.
But he had wanted—nay, needed—Laoghaire to fondle him.And when she brought him to orgasm, it had been so powerful that for several moments it felt as though he’d been transported to another place and time, and that the only thing keeping him tethered to the world was Laoghaire’s blue-eyed gaze.
While Laoghaire may not have come to the marriage an unopened bud, it didn’t detract from the fact that he desired her above all others. Willing to overlook the fact that she wasn’t a virgin, he had every intention of making his lady wife forget her Highland lover. Strangely enough, though, her shy modesty almost made him believe that Laoghairewasa virgin.
But, alas, the proof of it is not there,he reminded himself.
Suddenly hearing one of the troubadours begin to sing a popular ballad about a knight who failed to gain the love of his lady fair, Galen clenched his teeth.
I wooed my lady fair with gifts and compliments, and still she spurned me.Although he suspected that events might have unfolded differently had he not forsaken the rituals of courtly love and begged Laoghaire to milk his manroot.
“Why don’t they sing a song aboutthat?” he grumbled into his tankard. “They could call itLed Astray by One’s Prick.”
Growing more vexed with each passing moment, Galen watched, disgusted, as Father Giroldus tossed a bone into the rushes before reaching for another capon. The rotund cleric then cast a withering glance at Laoghaire’s empty chair.
At seeing the direction of the priest’s gaze, Galen mouthed a silent curse. In the next instant, catching his squire’s attention, he brusquely motioned Piers to approach the high table.
“Go find my countess and bring her to me,” he ordered in a blunt tone. “Use whatever means necessary to force her compliance. Drag her by the hair, if you must,” he added. Laoghaire’s absence had annoyed him to such an extent that he didn’t care how she arrived in the great hall, only that she did so.
The young squire’s Adam apple bobbed in his throat as he gulped in a breath of air. Clearly at a loss for words, he jerkily nodded his head before he turned on his heel and bustled toward the door.
Leaning back in his chair, Galen folded his arms over his chest, confident that his lady wife would soon take her place at his side. Pleased with his decision to force the issue, he watched as a band of jongleurs suddenly entered the great hall. Itinerant entertainers, they made their living traveling from castle to castle.
Within moments—to the delight of the assembled throng— there were acrobats nimbly tumbling about, a juggler who had a talent for catching a ball in a cup balanced on his forehead, and one jongleur, the man attired in a bright yellow tunic, who began to sing a bawdy tune while he strolled amongst the guests.
