CHAPTER EIGHT
“Suffering hell!” Galen hissed on a sharp intake of breath. “What is the meaning of this?”
Rather than reply, Laoghaire pressed the tip of the dagger a bit deeper into his skin.
Galen growled another profane curse before he very slowly turned his neck, enabling him to look his wife directly in the eye. At seeing the fierce determination writ large in Laoghaire’s indigo blue orbs, he said, “I can’t decide if you’re the bravest woman I know or the most foolhardy.”
“I am the woman who holds yer life in her hands,” Laoghaire retorted, her eyes narrowing with defiance.
Hoping to weaken her resolve, Galen glanced contemptuously at the dagger, as though it were a mere trifle. “Do you actually intend to kill me with that?”
“I grant ye the idea has merit, but I think I’ll geld ye instead.” With a mocking smile on her lips, Laoghaire’s gaze momentarily dropped to the area in question. “That way I won’t have to suffer ye rutting on me like some beast in the field.”
“Then, I hope you wield a sharp blade.”
Again, she favored him with another humorless smile. “Ye have nothing to fear on that account. ’Tis very sharp.”
Still crouched beside the pool of water, Galen knew that he was in an awkward position for launching an attack to disarm her.
Because of that he thought it best to defuse the situation with words instead.
“When next I see the king, I must remember to thank him for saddling me with such a scold. You and your foul humors have become quite the millstone around my neck.”
“And ye are like a noose around mine!” Laoghaire exclaimed heatedly. “I have to wonder what was going through King Robert’s mind when he ordered this farce of a marriage.” As she spoke, Laoghaire removed the dagger from his neck. She then carefully backed several steps away from him.
Rising to his feet, Galen daubed at the trickle of blood that coursed down his neck, while he took the measure of the woman standing opposite him.
Although her breasts heaved with the force of her emotions, Laoghaire ably held the dagger with a steady hand, the blade aimed at his midsection.
Fortunately, he was garbed in a quilted leather tunic, which would offer some protection if she attacked.
Be that as it may, the wench would incur a grave consequence should she make the attempt, Galen not about to permit his own wife to gut him.
Tempted to draw his sword, he refrained from doing so at the last, lest it cause Laoghaire to act injudiciously. “At this moment your failings far exceed your virtues, lady wife. If you do not sheathe your blade, this will end very badly for you.”
The warning incited a rosy splotch of color to instantly bloom on Laoghaire’s cheeks. “Ye can rot! I fear nothing!”
Despite being infuriated with her show of belligerency, Galen was nonetheless put in mind of the ancient Queen of the Amazons, that fierce warrioress who fought so bravely against the Greeks.
“‘The ferocious Penthesilea, gold belt fastened beneath her exposed breasts, leads her battle-lines of Amazons with their crescent light shields,’” he quoted from memory, having always been strangely fascinated with the tale of doomed love between Achilles and the fabled warrioress.
Laoghaire’s brows drew together, the wench clearly bewildered. “Do ye mock me?”
“On the contrary,” he responded. “Although admittedly this marriage of ours is more akin to a joust than the holy sacrament it was intended to be.”
“Ye have no right to complain,” she huffed. “I am the one who was forced into marriage with the devil’s own.”
“I have every right to complain,” Galen was quick to inform her, thinking her indignation without merit. “We have been married for ten days and I have yet to plow you.”
“On our wedding night ’twas ye who refused to believe that I am a virgin. I was a virgin then. I am a virgin now.”
Suddenly intuiting that was the underlying reason why she drew a dagger on him, Galen could not help but scoff. “A virgin without a maidenhead? ’Tis like a stallion without bullock stones.”
Glaring at him, Laoghaire made no reply. None was necessary, her silence eloquent enough.
“Perhaps the fact that ye refused to consummate our wedding vows is a blessing in disguise,” she said at last.
Not only did she speak in a surprisingly calm tone of voice, but Laoghaire’s words bespoke a cunning intent, Galen wondering if he wasn’t being led into a snare.
“You have a strange notion of what constitutes a blessing,” he remarked.
“By that I mean there are no encumbrances to prevent us from having our marriage annulled.”
At hearing his wife’s surprising explanation, Galen’s jaw slackened.
Hell and the devil! So that was the wench’s intention was it, to ask the pope to annul the same marriage that the king commanded?
Outraged, Galen strove mightily to keep his fury in check.
“In addition to our vows remaining unconsummated, neither of us consented to the marriage, as it was forced upon us both,” Laoghaire argued, the woman more tenacious than a wolfhound chasing a scent.
“The fact that we were yoked together against our wills is yet another valid reason for us to sever our bonds.”
Unable to gainsay her argument, Galen made no comment.
In truth, the only reason he consented to the marriage was to further his political ambitions.
Had he refused to wed her, his willfulness would have undoubtedly proved a grave detriment to his future standing in the king’s court.
And so I put aside the woman I originally planned to marry.
Whether that was a mistake was of no consequence, the die already cast.
Long moments passed, the ensuing silence so tense, so palpable, it seemed to vibrate in the very air around them.
Pushing out a resigned sigh, Galen said finally, “My preference has no bearing in this matter. I do the king’s bidding.”
“Would you not prefer to be with Melisande?”
The retort—made in a soft, tempting tone of voice—took Galen by surprise.
“What do you know of that?” he demanded, a little too roughly.
Her air noticeably blasé, Laoghaire shrugged and said, “One castle is like any other, gossip traveling as freely as the wind blowing across a treeless valley. Besides, ’tis no secret. Even the lowliest of villeins knows that ye were betrothed to Melisande Jardin.”
While Laoghaire spoke verily, Galen nevertheless took a chastising tone with her. “You would be wise not to concern yourself with idle gossip. Indeed, your time would be better spent seeing to my needs.”
“Am I not doing that by offering ye an opportunity to wed a woman of uncommon beauty, one who will make ye a far better wife? Unlike Melisande, I can neither embroider nor play the harp,” Laoghaire added, dangling what she obviously deemed an irresistible enticement.
Thinking she knew little about the nature of men, Galen said, “What need do I have for a wife who can make tapestries? You will bear me strong sons. Of that I am certain,” he muttered under his breath, confident that if his sons turned out anything like the mother, they would be without peer on the field of battle.
“Our union is not a pagan handfast whereby either spouse can dissolve the bond if the mood strikes. We were wed by a priest. Marriage is a sacrament that—”
“Must be consummated,” Laoghaire insisted, refusing to surrender the point. “Until such time, the marriage is not valid and can therefore be annulled.”
His patience at an end, Galen thrust out his hand. “Come. Give me the dagger. There is no profit to be gained in continuing this conversation.”
Refusing to do as she’d been ordered, Laoghaire wordlessly shook her head. However, given the look of uncertainty that suddenly flashed across her face, Galen surmised that she’d lost the will to use the weapon against him.
“If you give me the dagger, I will not physically harm you,” he assured her, suspecting that was the crux of his wife’s dilemma, Laoghaire well aware that once she gave up custody of the weapon, she would be vulnerable.
Again, she obstinately shook her head, this time tightening her grip on the dagger hilt.
“So be it,” Galen said quietly, before he pushed out a deep exhalation, giving every appearance of being a man who’d just met with defeat.
Taking the bait, Laoghaire started to lower the blade; which is when Galen suddenly lunged toward her mid-section and tackled her onto the ground.
Stunned, she was incapable of mounting a defense as he grabbed hold of her right wrist and—with a quick twist—forced the dagger out of her hand.
He then snatched hold of the blade and flung it out of her reach.
With that done, he placed a hand under her chin, bracketing his fingers around her jaw to keep her head from thrashing about.
Neither spoke as their ragged breaths mingled and collided.
In those pulse-pounding moments, the world around him—the dappled glade, the rush of water—immediately faded to the periphery, Galen’s attention, indeed, his sole focus, now on the provocatively beautiful woman sprawled beneath him.
Pinned to the ground by his much larger frame, Laoghaire frantically arched her back in a desperate attempt to throw him off of her; only to go noticeably rigid in the instant when she felt his fully erect organ pressing against her woman’s mound.
With a smug, manly smile, Galen adjusted his hips, firmly nestling his stiffened manhood in the cleft between her legs. While the gall of the woman infuriated him, his ire was trumped by a desire so potent that he had little control over it.
“Get off of me, ye great Norman cur!” Laoghaire spat at him, the angry heat of her breath hitting him full in the face. “Ye gave yer word that ye would not mistreat me!”
“Given the seriousness of your transgression, I have behaved with commendable restraint. Any other man would have killed you for daring to draw a dagger on him.”