The Taming Read Online Free PDF

his hard chest. His face was smeared with black mud, but those eyes of his burned, and for a moment Liana thought he might kiss her. Her heart began to pound in her breast.
    â€œHungry, are you?” he said, his eyes laughing at her. “Well, I haven’t got time. I have another wench waiting for me.” He pushed her from him and back toward the pond.
    Liana decided that merely appearing before him in a radiant gown would not be enough. “I shall make him crawl,” she muttered.
    â€œWill you, now?” he said, overhearing her.
    She whirled to face him. “Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “I will make you crawl. I will make you regret treating me like this.”
    He didn’t smile, in fact his face seemed made of marble, but his eyes showed amusement. “You’ll have to wait for that day, because now I intend to make you wash my clothes.”
    â€œI’d sooner—” She broke off.
    â€œYes? Name your price, and I’ll see if I can manage it.”
    Liana turned away from him. It was better to just get it over with, to get his clothes washed and get away from him. Today he had the power, but tomorrow she would be the one who held the reins—and the whip and the chains, she thought with a smile.
    At the pond’s edge she stopped, refusing to obey him with any semblance of acquiescence. Her attitude seemed to amuse him further. He picked up his muddy shirt and slammed it against her chest so that, by instinct, she caught it.
    â€œMight as well do these too,” he said, and heaped her arms full of his other lice-infested clothing, then knelt down and washed the mud off his face.
    Liana gasped and dropped the load to the ground.
    â€œGet busy,” he said. “I need those clothes for courting.”
    Liana realized that the sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could get away from him. She grabbed a fist full of shirt, dunked it into the water, then slammed it against a rock. “She won’t have you,” Liana said. “She might like the look of you, but if she has any sense, she’ll jump from the town wall before she’ll agree to marry you.”
    He was stretched out on the grass in the sun, his head propped on his hands as he watched her. “Oh, she’ll have me, all right. It’s a matter of whether I’ll want her. I’ll marry no shrews. I’ll take her only if she’s biddable and soft-spoken.”
    â€œAnd stupid,” Liana said. She wanted to kill the lice, so she picked up a small rock and began pounding the clothes. Then, as she turned the shirt over, she saw the tiny holes the rock was making. Her eyes widened in horror, then she smiled. She’d clean his clothes for him all right, but they’d look like a fisherman’s net when she finished. “Only a stupid woman would have you,” she said loudly, hoping to distract him from what she was doing.
    â€œStupid women are best,” he answered. “I want no clever woman. Clever women cause a man trouble. Are you done with those yet?”
    â€œThey are filthy and need a lot of work,” she said as sweetly as she could manage. Thinking of his appearing at a girl’s door in clothes filled with holes pleased her. “And I guess women have given you a great deal of trouble in your life,” she said. His vanity was overwhelming.
    â€œVery little trouble.” He was watching her.
    Liana didn’t like the way he was looking at her. In spite of her wet clothes, he was making her feel very warm. He seemed lazy and quiet now, but she’d seen his anger and felt the violence just under his skin.
    â€œHow many children did you say you have?” he asked softly.
    â€œNine,” she said loudly. “Nine little boys, all of them big and strong like their father. And their uncles,” she added nervously. “My husband has six huge brothers, strong as oxen, and tempers! I never saw such