Master of Desire Page 20

  Joanne’s voice shook from pent-up tears. “Niles led me to the pantry in the main hall. My head was spinning from the wine, and his kisses were unbelievably wondrous. I’d never been kissed before.”

  Emily swallowed at the memory of Draven’s lips on hers. If Niles’s kiss had been anything like that, she could imagine how her sister’s head had been turned.

  Joanne rubbed her brow with her hand. “And then he started touching me. Oh Em, Jude, I was scared and confused and I didn’t know what to do. I told him nay, but he kept on, and I was too terrified to call out lest someone find us there and blame me for it.”

  “What are you saying, Joanne?” Judith asked.

  “Did he force you?” Emily demanded.

  Tears streamed down her face, but she wiped them away. “Not exactly. I was curious too, but…”

  “But?” they asked in unison.

  Joanne sobbed. “It hurts so much when a man takes you. It felt as though he was cleaving me in twain. At first I thought ’twas because I was a virgin, but since then he has taken me three more times and it hurt every bit as much. Now all I can think of is how many more times I shall have to tolerate that awful pain.”

  Judith leaned forward. “But you said—”

  “I know what I said. I was afraid to tell you the truth.”

  Emily left the bed and gathered Joanne into a tight hug. For several minutes she held on to her, letting her sob until she was spent.

  Judith wet a cloth and brought it to them, then helped dry Joanne’s tears.

  When Joanne had regained some of her composure, she grabbed Emily’s hand. “Please, Em,” she whispered. “Don’t make my mistake. I’m no longer sure if life with Niles would be better than life here with Father.”

  Emily squeezed her hand back.

  “It’s just jitters, isn’t it?” Judith asked. “You’re just afraid of leaving here tomorrow?”

  Joanne swallowed. “Perhaps.”

  Emily knelt before her chair. “You don’t have to marry him, Joanne. You know that.”

  “But the guests—”

  “Won’t care,” Emily interrupted. “They came for free food and drink and they’ve been served amply.”

  “Emily!” Judith chastised. “How discourteous of you. I’ve never heard you say such before.”

  Emily inclined her head sharply to Joanne to let Judith know what she had said she had said for the benefit of their older sister.

  Joanne pulled back and stared into Emily’s eyes. “Promise me you won’t let Lord Draven take your virginity.”

  Emily frowned.

  “I don’t want him to hurt you, Em. You can’t imagine what it feels like when a man buries himself in you. And they don’t stop until they’re well sated, not even when you cry from the pain of it.”

  Emily sat stunned as Joanne’s words sank into her. Surely if Joanne were right Christina and Alys would have told her?

  Wouldn’t they?

  And there certainly had been no pain when Draven had touched her in Lincoln. But then again, he hadn’t finished the deed.

  Not that any of that mattered at the moment. Something needed to be done about the coming wedding. “I don’t want you to marry Niles.”

  Joanne looked at her aghast. “But—”

  “Nay,” Emily said firmly, “we shall go to Father and—”

  “Em, I’m with child.”

  Emily closed her eyes and held her sister’s hand tightly.

  “Then let us pray,” Judith whispered. “Surely God knows what is best.”

  Draven leaned against the crenelated wall and stared at the moonlight-dappled moat far below. The late-night wind blew a chill through the air, but he didn’t feel it.

  His thoughts were on a winsome maid, with hair of gold and eyes of dark green.

  He heard footsteps to his right.

  Glancing, he did a double-take as he saw Emily approach. “Emily?”

  She offered him a timid smile as she paused by his side and imitated his pose by folding her hands and leaning on her arms against the stone wall. “I thought I would find you here.”

  Draven didn’t bother making an excuse. She had learned weeks ago that he haunted the parapets at night like a troubled spirit seeking redemption.

  “I fear I couldn’t sleep if I had to,” he said quietly. “Simon snores like a charging boar.”

  She laughed, but he noted the hint of sadness in her eyes.

  “What troubles you, milady?”

  “I need someone to talk to and there’s no other I can trust.”

  Her words surprised him. “You trust me?”

  “Aye, I do.”

  For the first time in his life he actually felt gallant as a swell of pride beat through him. “What do you need?”

  “Why did you hit Niles?”

  The tenderness fled as anger took root in his heart. So, she didn’t trust him after all. She would yet question his actions.

  “Don’t be angry,” she said. “I am not fault-finding. My sister has told me things that make me doubt his character. From what I know of you, ’tis not like you to strike for no cause.”

  “Your father swears otherwise.”

  She gave him a peeved glare, the likes of which he’d not received since he lived with his own father, and he almost swore he could hear her call him beetle brain.

  “I am not my father,” she said coldly. “I have spent several months with you now and I think I can judge your mettle on my own. Now, tell me why you struck him.”

  Draven clenched his teeth. His first instinct was to remain silent, but somehow he found the truth coming out. “Montclef insulted your family.”

  “My family?” she asked in disbelief. “I find it hard to imagine you would defend my father.”

  She paused, then looked at him. “Niles insulted me, didn’t he?”

  Draven didn’t answer.

  She reached out and touched his right hand where a large bruise marred his knuckles. A tremor shook him as her warm hand enclosed around his.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “Montclef has a hard head.”

  She gave a short laugh. And then he made the mistake of looking at her. Gentleness, warmth and concern met his gaze. He felt as though someone had just struck him in the gullet.

  What would it be like to see that look for the rest of his life?

  And then he noted her troubled brow. There was still something on her mind.

  “Is there another matter?” he asked.

  Releasing his hand, she looked away. “Can I ask you something that is awkward and embarrassing, but ’tis something I really need to know?”

  Alarms went off in his head. He felt like a hare trapped by a pack of wolves. “If you must…”

  She nodded. “Before I ask, I want you to know that this is not part of my attempt to get you to marry me. This is simply one friend to another.”

  He cocked his head. That voice was back in his head telling him to run as fast as his legs could carry him.

  Like a fool, he didn’t move.

  “One friend to another. Very well, milady, ask away.”

  “Does it hurt when…”

  Draven waited expectantly, but she said nothing more. Instead, she looked as if she might be blushing and she refused to look at him.

  Draven tilted his head to catch her gaze, but she tucked her chin to her chest and studied her folded hands.

  “Does it hurt when what?” he prompted.

  She met his gaze for only an instant, then she looked up at the star-filled sky.

  “Does it hurt when you—” and then her words were lost behind the hand she rubbed over her lips.

  “I didn’t understand that last bit.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then blurted out, “Does it hurt when a man enters a woman?”

  He couldn’t have been more stunned had she reached out and slapped him. Worse was the image in his mind of him taking her in several different ways as he showed he
r the answer rather than told her.

  “I think I liked the hand gibberish better.”

  “Draven, please,” she begged, finally looking at him. “I am embarrassed enough. Please don’t make it any worse. I didn’t know whom else to ask. Alys is off doing who knows what, and this is not something one goes around asking strangers.”

  “I should say not.”

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I can’t say, but it is important.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she was after him again, but the concern in her eyes was proof she really needed an honest answer.

  Disregarding the painful burning in his groin as his body strained against his tight laces, he shook his head. “Nay, milady. It doesn’t hurt. ’Tis most pleasurable, point of fact.”

  And if it wasn’t for his fear she would readily agree, he would offer to show her just how pleasurable.

  “Have you ever had a woman cry when you…nay, wait,” she said stopping herself. “I don’t want you to answer that. I don’t want to know of any women you’ve been with.”

  She looked up at him and smiled a smile that made him weak in the knees. “Thank you for your honesty. I knew I could count on you.”

  “You give me far too much credit.”

  “Have you ever thought that you give yourself too little?”

  Draven couldn’t answer, and at the moment he wasn’t sure if he should.

  “Oh, Draven,” she breathed. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes for just one instant.”

  He scoffed at her words. “You said yourself that you are a dreamer, milady. When you look at me, you see what you wish to see. And you think of me as some hero the likes of which foolish minstrels sing of in their chansons. I am not Accusain to prove my love by walking naked”—why did that word keep coming up every time they spoke?—“through the gates to prove my love to you. I am a man, Emily. ’Tis all I am.”

  “Aye, you are a man. In every sense of the word. And I am a woman who can feel every part of you when you’re near me. Indeed, I can smell the warm manly scent of you and feel your presence with every sense and pore of my body.”

  His groin even hotter and harder than before, Draven’s head swam with visions of kissing her in the moonlight, of stripping her kirtle from her shoulders and taking her there on the narrow walkway.

  It would be so easy.

  She lifted his hand to her lips and placed a gentle kiss over the bruise on his knuckles. “Thank you for defending my honor.”

  She released his hand and he felt the coldness of the night against his skin, the coldness of the solitude in his soul far more sharply than he ever had before.

  The absence of her warmth was almost debilitating.

  “I would wish you sweet dreams,” she whispered, placing a butterfly touch to his lips, which burned from the tender caress, “but I know you won’t sleep in my father’s hall. I shall see you in the morning.”

  Draven watched her leave him. His heart and soul cried out for him to stop her flight. To call her back to his side, but his sense of honor refused.

  She wasn’t his.

  She could never be his.

  His heart weary, he turned back to stare at the water below. In that instant, he wished he had been the one to fall that fateful day in battle. Why had the sword not pierced his breast?

  And as he had done almost every day of his life, he cursed his fate.

  The next morning was a flurry of activity as everyone rushed about with last-minute preparations.

  Emily tried several times to get Joanne alone again and talk her out of the marriage, but her sister would have none of it.

  “’Tis done,” Joanne said dismissively. “I wanted to flee Father’s hall, and now I have my wish.”

  But something wasn’t right about it. Emily knew it in her heart and most definitely after what Draven had told her.

  In the end, she had no choice save to wish her sister well and watch as Joanne bound herself to a man Emily didn’t care for one little bit.

  After Niles and Joanne exchanged vows at the door of the chapel, she went to the front of the chapel to stand with her father and Judith while the priest conducted the wedding mass.

  Draven, Simon, and Draven’s men stood at the back of the chapel. And when the matter was finished, and Joanne and Niles had led their guests out of the chapel, Emily went to Draven’s side for the walk back to the hall where the wedding feast awaited them.

  Most of the crowd walked ahead of them, and they followed at a subdued pace.

  “I can’t help but notice your discomfort,” Draven said as they left.

  “Tell me,” she said, “what do you know of my brother-in-law?”

  “He has a small demesne outside of York. I fought beside his father during Henry’s ascension, but I know very little of his personal attributes.”

  “Oh,” she said, disappointed in his answer. She had hoped he could relieve her fears.

  “I’ve heard he has quite a number of debts,” Simon chimed in. “And Ranulf the Black has little liking for him.”

  “Ranulf?” Emily asked. She’d never heard that name before.

  “One of the king’s advisers,” Draven explained. “Much like you, Ranulf sees only the good in people. For him not to like you is quite a feat.”

  “Aye,” Simon said. “He even likes Draven.”

  Draven cast a droll look at his brother.

  No more words were spoken as they entered the hall, which had been decorated with flowers and white serge. The tables were filled to overflowing with food, flowers, and wedding gifts for both Niles and Joanne as well as little tidbits for all the guests.

  Emily had a place reserved at the table with her father, but opted instead to stay by Draven’s side at one of the lower tables.

  Her father met her action with blatant disapproval.

  “Why do you sit here?” he asked as he came up behind her.

  “Lord Draven is my guardian and guest, Father, I thought it appropriate, and I meant no disrespect to you.”

  Indeed, the appropriate thing would have been for her father to include Draven at the lord’s table. Her father’s slight was a heavy one that Draven had made no mention of. But as the king’s champion and one of the highest-ranking nobles among them, Draven should never have been set at one of the lower tables like a common guest.

  “Well, I am offended,” her father said gruffly.

  Draven rose slowly to his feet. “Hugh, I know we have our differences, but for the sake of your daughter, I propose we lay them aside.”

  Emily smiled at Draven’s kindness. It was a wonderful thing he proposed on her behalf.

  Her father raked him with a glare. “You offer peace?”

  “I offer a truce.”

  Her father laughed coldly. “From the son of Harold? Tell me, will you too strike at my back when I turn it?”

  She dropped her jaw at his insult to Draven.

  “Nay,” her father continued, “I’m not the fool Henry is. I know the blood in your veins, and I’d trust you no farther than I can see.”

  Rage darkened Draven’s eyes.

  “Father, please!” she begged, taking his arm. “He made an offer in good faith.”

  “And I declined it. As would anyone with sense. Only a fool would ever trust a Ravenswood under his roof or at his back.”

  For one tense minute, she feared Draven would strike her father. Just as she was sure he would, he took a step back. “Come, Emily, Simon, we leave.”

  Her throat tight, she nodded.

  “But the feast isn’t over,” her father snarled. “Emily said she would stay a few days. You can’t take her yet.”

  “Aye, Father, he can.”

  The look of hurt on her father’s face brought tears to her eyes, but she refused to cry. Or to try and change Draven’s mind yet again. Her father had done naught but insult him, and on her
behalf Draven had put up with it without even so much as a single complaint.

  She would ask no more of him.

  “I will have my cousin Godfried fetch my trunk,” she said to Draven. “If you’ll prepare the horses, I shall say good-bye to my sisters.”

  Draven nodded, then left her alone with her father.

  “Why could you not give just a little, Father?” she asked him when they were alone.

  His face hardened. “You would have me belittle myself to a man such as he?”

  Her throat tightened. How could he be so dense?

  “I won’t argue the matter with you. I had hoped you would give him a chance to prove to you—”

  “He murdered my people, Em. Have you forgotten that?”

  She hesitated. “Nay, I don’t believe it. Any more than I believe him when he says you attacked his village.” She looked straight into her father’s eyes. “Did you?”

  “You know better. ’Twas a lie he told Henry to mask his treachery. How could you doubt me?”

  She touched her father’s arm. “I don’t doubt you, Father. But I think the two of you should stop blaming each other long enough to consider that if you’re both innocent, then someone else raided your lands, and perhaps you should join forces to find out who that someone is.”

  Her father curled his lips. “I know who the somebody is, girl, and if you were wise, you’d stay here under my protection.”

  Emily patted his arm. “You know I can’t do that. The king has ordered otherwise.” She rose on her tiptoes and kissed her father gently on the cheek. “Let me say farewell to Joanne and Judith.”

  Emily walked through the crowded room toward her sisters. A red flash dashed in front of her, and she instantly recognized her cousin’s scarlet tunic.

  “Godfried?” she called before he left earshot.

  He doubled back to her side. “Aye?”

  “Could you please see that my trunk is taken outside to Lord Draven’s wagon?”

  He nodded, then hesitated as his eyes fell to the door.

  “Is something amiss?” she asked.

  Godfried ran his hand through his short black hair. “I suppose not, it’s just…”