WINDKEEPER (58 page)

Bending over the copper tub filled with her used bath water, already turning cold and clammy, the top coated with soap scum, she dipped the chamber pot in the water, filling it to the brim. Slowly she made her way back to the bedchamber, careful not to slosh the soapy mess on the floor.

Conar was still lying where she had last seen him. His hands held a death-grip on the amber coverlet, his knuckles white from his effort. His moaning had died down to an occasional pitiful grunt. His robe lay wide open, exposing him to her, although his drawn up knees hid his most private parts. His knees were trembling from his effort to keep them together.

"Madame, please!" he groaned. "Where is my water?"

He heard her angry purr, a hiss of seething air, but he didn’t pay heed to it. He was hurting too badly, his head throbbing like a million horse’s hooves inside his brain. Her voice when she began to speak to him likewise set off a million iron gongs in his head and he winced in pain.

"Call me a toad, will you? Send another man to do your dirty work, eh? Get yourself drunk on our wedding night? Recite dirty limericks about me in front of my mother? Insult your own brother?" Her voice was shrill with disgust and anger as she threw the contents of the chamber pot into his face. "There’s your water, Your Grace!"

The force of the water hit him like a rock. His eyelids flew open and he sputtered, shaking his head to fling the water from his sopping hair. A bad mistake, he realized, for his world went careening off into a multitude of directions.

"Oh, god!" he gasped then snorted, trying to dislodge the water from his nostrils, for his head had been thrown back along the edge of the bed.

"I hope you drown!" she screeched.

He tried to focus on her, but his vision was still doubling and tripling, the room, and her, skipping away from his view. What little he could see of her was a vision of a wild-haired harridan bent on killing him before he could bed her.

"Damn you, woman!" he shouted, immediately regretting the volume of his shout. "Damn you to the everlasting pit," he whispered fiercely as he brought up his hands to wipe at his streaming face. "You infernal tadpole!"

Turning himself over, mumbling what he intended to do to the bitch who had tried to drown him, he grabbed at the bed and tried several times to pull himself from the floor before actually being able to do so. At last, he heaved himself onto the edge of the bed and then wiggled his way like a child to the very center. Gasping, for it had cost him much in the effort, he lay clutching the bed covers as though his very life depended on his ability to keep himself from falling off the mattress.

"You insensitive lout! You insufferable, arrogant ass!" she named him.

His head throbbed unmercifully with each of her harsh words. "Peace, woman!" he whispered, blinding pain tearing through his body. "Peace!"

"Peace, hell!" she shouted.

"I am in pain."

"Good!" Her footsteps as she neared the bed were like the giant footfalls of a hell-wrought demon.

"Let me die in peace."

"You’ll not die."

"My belly is—"

"I hope your belly is cramping like a woman in hard labor! I hope your head is thundering like the sound of an erupting volcano! I hope you wretch up everything you’ve ever drank in your entire life!" She put out her foot and set the bed to shaking beneath him.

"God!" he moaned and scrunched his face deeper into the covers to keep from retching again. His fingers dug into the coverlet, dragging it closer to his head. "Don’t do that!"

"I hope your father has you cast into the deepest dungeon Boreas has to offer! I hope your aunt disowns you! I hope your friends ostracize you! I hope your people make you a laughingstock all over the Seven Kingdoms! I hope your brother never speaks to you again!" She shook the bed again.

"No," he moaned feebly into the covers.

"Don’t you tell me no! I hope you live long enough to regret humiliating me in public!" Her hands clenched into fists as she placed them on her hips. "Of all the godawful things for you to have done to me! And in public, too! To get drunk on our…my wedding night! I hope your intestines rot! I hope your head explodes! I hope you drown in your own puke! I hope…I hope…I hope…" She couldn’t seem to think of the right word to say.

"I hope you’re finished," he mumbled from beneath the covers he had now pulled over his head.

"Finished?
Finished
?" Behind him he heard the angry swish of silk as the bitch leaned over him. "I haven’t even begun!"

Conar wished with all his might that the gods would take pity on him and strike the bitch speechless, if not entirely dead. He wished he could sink into the bed and be swallowed up so he could die in silence. He hurt all the way from the ends of his hair to the tips of his toenails and he was convinced he could feel those parts of him as they grew, shafts of hair and horny plates squealing as they erupted from his body.

"Woman, go away. My head is pounding like a—"

"I hope your head is splitting, Conar McGregor! I hope your belly turns inside out! If you ever, ever, get this drunk again, ’twill be the very last time you ever see me!"

"Then get yourself gone," he gasped as she kicked the bed once more. His fingers dug into the coverlet with renewed strength. "Get as far away from me as you can!"

"You will pay for this, Conar! I swear it by all that is holy. You will pay for your actions this eve!" She leaned over him and braced herself, shaking the bed with mighty pushes.

"Damn it, woman! Cease!" He drew into a fetal position and pushed his face as hard as he could into the mattress. "You’re making me sicker!"

"I’m not kidding, Conar! If you dare do this again, I will leave you and never come back!"

"Then leave, damn it!" he gasped, his voice a mumble. "Leave and never, ever come back!"

"Oh, I don’t think you’d like that, Conar McGregor!"

"Woman, it is my fondest wish!"

"Truly?" The grating whisper, the shrill drag was gone. "Who’d torture you if I left, you ego-inflated churl?" She shook the bed, her sensuous voice tight with reprimand. "Who’d save your hide from the were-tigers, then?"

Despite his agony, Conar’s head popped up, shock, and disbelief stunning him. He knew that voice! Were-tigers? he thought with a gasp. His mouth dropped open and his face drained of what little color it had. With his eyes wide as saucers, he slowly turned to stare at the woman who was scampering onto the bed as she spoke.

"You’re a pig, Conar McGregor. You’re a slug. A slimy, slithering slug. Toads eat slugs, you know." She leaned over him and fixed him with an evil grin. "Shall I eat you, Milord?" She flicked out her tongue with a slurp and drew it back into her mouth, smacking her lips as if in great delight. "Shall I make lunch of you, dearling?"

"Liza?" he croaked feebly, unable to believe what he was seeing.

"And you had better pay heed to me, Conar McGregor. If you dare to ever humiliate me so again, I shall leave you and never come back." She folded her arms across her breasts and plopped down to sit beside him, her legs crossed under her.

"Liza!" he cried and grabbed her, dragging her down to his chest. He showered kisses on her face, her neck, her shoulders. His arms were so tight around her body, she could barely breath and was trying to push him away, but he was so overjoyed to see her, he didn’t notice.

"You’re suffocating me, Conar!" she protested, pushing at his shoulders. "And stop it. I’m mad at you! How can I curse you when you’re doing that?"

He leaned back, a smile of wondrous joy on his face, swept his hungry gaze over her beautiful face then suddenly turned pale as realization set in.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. His head was aching as much as his heart was beginning to. His love was here. But where the hell was The Toad?

"I got rid of her."

With sudden, dawning suspicion, he grasped her arm. "Where is she, Liza?" He pushed himself up, disregarding his throbbing head. "What have you done with the Toad?"

"Who, Milord?" she said, her voice lowering in a warning he didn’t hear.

Mumbling incoherently, he managed to scramble to his knees. He took her upper arms in his hands and shook her, despite the vomit that threatened to erupt from his throat.

"Where did you put The Toad?"

A strange light entered Liza’s face and a slow, angelic, innocent smile spread over her lovely lips. "She’s gone, Milord. Gone forever." Her voice was like a sweet caress.

"Gone? Gone where, Liza?"

"Out of your life, Milord. Aren’t you pleased?"

"Oh, my god!" His eyes widened even more. "Papa will have my hide. Her papa will have my…" He shuddered. "Oh, sweet Merciful Alel!"

"You said you would rather have me than her, didn’t you, Milord?" She grinned. "Well, here I am!"

"They’ll kill me, Liza!" He screeched and regretted doing so, for he grabbed his head and moaned.

With a pout, Liza told him, "I said she was gone, Milord. You’ll not be bothered by The Toad again." She giggled as he slowly raised his head.

"You killed her, didn’t you?" He thought of the magik-saying in the dungeon at Norus, remembered the man she had killed at the Hound and Stag and the were-tiger she had dispatched with such ease and he shivered. "Liza?"

When she only smiled at him, one dark brow raised, he thought he understood. "You did, didn’t you? You killed the bitch!"

"Let’s just say I sent her on her way." Her smile puckered into a sensuous challenge. "Aren’t you happy I am here instead of some ugly toadlet?"

"This is serious, Liza!" he shouted, wincing even as he did. He thrust his hand through his hair, tugging at the golden mass. "Can you bring her back?" He looked at her with a hopeful expression.

"I don’t know…" She pretended to think.

"Bring her back, Liza! Bring her back, now! Bring the bitch back before they find out she’s missing." He watched her face fall as though she had a terrible secret. His voice was barely a whisper. "You can bring her back, can’t you?"

She looked away. "Well, I don’t think I can, Milord."

Conar groaned. "You’ve killed her."

"Not exactly."

"What does that mean? Not exactly?" he shouted, flinching at the agony in his head.

"Well, you did tell me you didn’t want to marry the beastlet, didn’t you? You said if it weren’t for her, you’d marry me. Isn’t that what you said? So I sent her on her way and took her place. If I wear the veil all the time, as she does, and limp, as she does, no one will know it’s me and not her!" She laughed and clapped her hands. "Aren’t I clever, Conar?" She pushed her knees into the bed and began to bobble up and down.

Conar felt the bile rapidly rushing up his throat. The motion was playing hell with his battered belly. "Liza, stop it!"

She couldn’t. The more she looked at the wretched man who crouched beside her, the more she bobbled. The more she bobbled, the more she laughed. The more she laughed, the more the bed shook. The more the bed shook, the more he begged her to stop. The more he begged her to stop, the less inclined she was to do so.

"Have pity on me, Liza! If you have ever loved me, have pity on me now and stop!" He flung himself down, face over the edge just in time to splatter vomit on the carpet. He groaned in pain as the retching squeezed his head in a tight vise and bile went up his nose.

"You dimwitted sot," she said lovingly, caressing his bare shoulder where the robe had fallen away. "You well deserve this, but I can’t let you go on suffering."

She scooted off the bed and rummaged through her things until she found the green powder she knew would cure him. Giggling as she filled a tumbler with cool water from the pitcher on his night table, she poured in the powder and mixed it with her finger. She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked away the wetness, grimacing at the taste.

Conar turned over on his back, his head hanging off the side, his hands covering his face.

"Here, my love," Liza said softly. She put her hand under his neck and gently raised his head to bring the elixir to his dry lips. " Drink it all down. Do you remember the taste? I sent it to you a few hours ago." She smiled as he gulped. "Well, actually The Toad sent it to you."

Curling his body into a tight knot, he clutched the pillow to him and flung it over his face, shutting out the light that was now flooding his chamber, for dawn had come at last.

"Thank you," he mumbled through the pillow.

"Even toads have some worth, Milord."

He pulled one corner of the pillow from his face and stared at her. "Who are you, Liza?"

She smiled, pulling the pillow from his face. She tweaked his nose. "Know you not your own wife, Milord?"

"You are The Toad?" he asked in wonder. "Truly?"

"Truly!"

He grinned, despite his pain. "My Toad?"

She laughed, caressing his cheek with her palm. "Yours and yours alone."

"Anya Elizabeth?"

"Liza is a nickname for Elizabeth, Milord. I was surprised you never realized that."

"Mine," he said softly. "You are truly mine."

"For all time, Milord."

"Mine." He smiled. "My Toad."

It was a short, flat statement and it was the last thing he said before he passed out.

Liza looked at him and shook her head. In sleep he always looked like a small boy, smiling to himself, his hands tucked under his chin.

She bent to plant a feather-soft kiss on his cheek. "Aye, Conar. Yours and yours alone." She kissed his nose. "Sleep well, my love," she cooed and touched his smiling lips with one fingertip.

Lying beside him, she watched him until sleep closed her own eyes and she slipped into dreams.

Liza awakened slowly and looked into the calm, peaceful, loving face of the man who lay beside her. She smiled and he answered the smile. "Are you feeling better, Milord?" she asked, snuggling into the arm he opened to receive her. Her head went to his naked shoulder.

"I have never felt better." He touched her forehead with his lips. His lips moved to her ear. " ’Tis our wedding morn, my love."

"Aye, so it is."

"And the vows must be consummated, mustn’t they?" he said, running his tongue along her ear.