And if one dared to touch…
Well…
She was quite surprised Niles had anything left beneath his codpiece.
Another thought struck her. “But what if I want him and he wants another?” Emily asked.
Alys sighed. “Lady Emily, you are always so full of what ifs, and ands, and buts. Let us say for argument that he might have interest elsewhere. All you must do is keep yourself in his presence. Flash him a little smile, a little ankle, a—”
“An ankle!” Emily gasped. “I should be mortified.”
“Better mortified than an old maid.”
Perhaps there was some truth to that, and at this point in her life she was becoming quite desperate. Her father wouldn’t listen to reason, and if she had any hope of finding herself a husband, then she’d best be on with it.
“A little ankle,” Emily repeated, her face growing hot at the mere thought. “Anything else?”
“Always make him wait,” Alys said. “Anticipation makes a man appreciate you all the more.”
Emily nodded.
Joanne folded her arms over her chest. “Now, the next question is where do we find this man?”
Emily frowned in frustration. “Aye, that would seem to be the crux of the whole seduction thing, wouldn’t it? How can I make a man marry me when there’s no desirable man to be found?”
“Well,” Alys said. “My mother always says you’ll find your rose where and when you least expect it.”
Later that day, Emily left the kitchens and headed back to the donjon. She’d no more than taken two steps when she found her way blocked by Theodore, the cousin of her sister’s betrothed, and the man they had disaffectionately dubbed the “demon from the devil’s most odoriferous pit.”
They must have inadvertently summoned him with their words that morning, for Alys had no sooner finished her lecture than Niles and Theodore had shown up on their doorstep.
A great big bear of a man, Niles had rudely taken Joanne off on a picnic and left his cousin behind. From the moment her sister and Niles had vanished, Theodore had done nothing save make a nuisance of himself as he hung about her skirts while trying his best to get beneath them.
Emily’s patience had long worn thin, and all she wanted was peace from her pestilence.
If Theodore be the rose Alys had referred to earlier, then Emily decided spinsterhood had great possibilities.
He rushed to her side and immediately reached for her hand, sending a wave of revulsion up her spine.
Why could he not leave her in peace?
The man might be considered passably handsome, if a woman were desperate enough. And Emily prayed she never became that desperate.
But he lacked basic hygiene. If it was true cleanliness was next to godliness, then this man had to be a heathen through and through, for his balding blond hair looked as if it seldom saw a comb and had never known soap. His clothes were eternally rumpled as if he slept in them, and by the stains marring the fabric she would say he cleaned them about as often as he did his hair.
“Are you ready to give me my kiss now?” he asked.
“Um, nay,” she said, trying to step around him. “I fear I have many, many chores to do.”
“Chores? Surely my company is far more desirable than any chore.”
Personally, she’d rather clean the cesspit.
He stepped in front of her, cutting off her escape. “Come now, sweet Emily. I know how lonely you are here. Surely you dream of a man to come and claim you for his own?”
Aye, she did, but the key word was man. Since she barely classified Theodore as a bedbug, he would never be the one she dreamed of at night.
He reached out and touched her veil to the side of her face in a familiar gesture that made her cock her brow in censure. He disregarded her look. “You’re fast passing your prime, milady. Perhaps you should consider doing as your sister did in order to gain yourself a husband.”
Emily didn’t know what part of that offended her more. The insult to her age or the reminder of her sister’s shame at being caught abed with Theodore’s cousin.
“I can find my own husband, thank you,” she said icily. “And without any help from you.”
Anger darkened his gaze.
“I will have you.” He wound his fist in her veil.
Emily clenched her teeth in expectation of pain as she jerked out of his hold. The pins that secured the veil to her head tugged at her hair before popping free and allowing her to escape.
She rushed across the bailey, hoping to reach the crowded donjon before he caught her again.
She was not so lucky.
Theodore tossed her veil to the ground and this time grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop.
Emily winced at the way his fingers dug into her upper arm as she tried to pull away. Scared and angry, she wished her father home. No man ever dared such insolence while looking at his fierce countenance, and wherever Emily went, her father’s watchful gaze always followed.
“I will have a kiss, wench.”
She would sooner kiss a leprous mule! Panicking, Emily looked about for some way to escape him.
A flock of chickens rushed out just then, gathering about their feet. As Theodore kicked at them, she was suddenly hit by inspiration.
She turned to face her pestilence with a charming smile as she recalled Alys’s earlier advice.
“Theodore?” she said in her softest voice.
It worked. The anger left his face and he released her arm to take her hand. He placed a slimy kiss on her palm.
“Ah, Emily, you’ve no idea how many nights I’ve lain abed dreaming of you and your soft sighs. Tell me, how much longer must I wait before I sample the fruit of your succulent thighs?”
Until the devil’s throne turned into icicles.
Emily barely caught the words before they escaped. She couldn’t believe her luck, she finally found a man to whisper poetry to her and it was the most offensively obscene poetry she could imagine, and came from a man who was only one step up from a warted troll.
On second thought, he wasn’t even a full step.
She forced herself not to let her distaste show on her face as she wrested her hand from his cloying grip.
She heard horses approach. Assuming they were her men-at-arms returning from patrol, she didn’t even bother to look behind her as they entered the bailey.
Instead, she coyly wiped her hand off on her skirt. “At last you have won me over, milord.”
The arrogance on his face was unbelievable as he postured before her like some molting peacock. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me, milady. No woman ever has.”
He must make it his habit to stay in the company of women who’d lost their ability to see, their ability to judge, and, most of all, their ability to smell.
“Close your eyes, Theodore, and I shall give you what your tenacity deserves.”
A sly smile curved his lips as he closed his eyes and leaned forward with what she assumed he thought was a seductive pucker.
Wrinkling her nose at the awful face he made, she seized one of the red hens at her feet and lifted it to his lips.
Theodore gave a loud smooch as he kissed its neck.
Then it must have dawned on him that his lips were against feathers and not flesh, for he opened his eyes and met the curious gaze of the hen.
His eyes widening, he gave a mighty shriek of surprise.
The frightened hen squawked back in reprisal. It raised its wings and flapped about in Emily’s hands as it fought for freedom. Emily let go, only to have it launch itself at Theodore, who raised his arm to ward it off as its sister hens joined the fray. The hen pecked at his head, leaving tufts of his thin, greasy hair sticking straight up while the other hens gathered about his feet, tripping him.
Chickens and man tumbled backward in a cacophony of curses and clucks.
With a curse to shame all others, Theodore stumbled into a water trough where he landed on his backside. Water splashed up all arou
nd him, and Emily had to step back to keep from being doused. The chicken screeched, then shot to the edge of the trough, where it buried its head in its feathers in an effort to smooth the damage Theodore had done.
As Theodore came sputtering up from the water, the chicken moved to rest upon his head.
Emily burst into laughter.
“The gentlest maid on earth? Hugh, your lies know no bounds.”
That deep, resonate baritone was not the voice of one of her men-at-arms. Her laughter dying in her throat, Emily turned about to see her father in a company of fifteen men.
By his face, she could tell the depth of her father’s displeasure.
Still, relief overwhelmed her at his presence. At last she would have to tolerate Theodore no more.
As she took a step in his direction, her gaze went to the left of her father. On the back of the whitest stallion she had ever seen sat a knight wearing a bloodred surcoat emblazoned with a black raven. Even though she couldn’t see the man’s face, she could feel his gaze upon her like a blistering touch.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Never had she seen his like. He sat tall in the saddle as if he and the horse were one creature united in power and in form.
His mail armor draped most sinuously over a body rock hard from years of training, and he wore his armor with the ease of a second skin. His broad shoulders were thrown back with pride, and the mail only emphasized the breadth of them.
The huge, powerful charger shifted nervously, but he brought it instantly under control with a squeeze from his powerful thighs and one taut jerk at the reins.
Still she felt his gaze on her, hot, powerful.
Disturbing.
This was a man who commanded attention. A man used to control and authority. It bled from every part of him.
And as she watched him, her gaze unwavering, he reached up and removed his great helm.
Her heart stopped beating an instant before it began to pound furiously. Never in her life had she seen a man so handsome. Eyes so light a blue they seemed to glow stared out from a chiseled face surrounded by his silver chain mail coif. The black brows that slashed above his eyes told her his hair must be the color of a raven’s wing.
There was something mesmerizing in his gaze. Deep intelligence shone there along with a guarded look that kept his emotions well hidden. She had the impression that nothing escaped his attention. Ever.
For all his handsomeness, though, there was a hardness to his sculpted features that told her a smile was all but alien to those lips.
He raked her with a bold, assessing stare that set fire to her blood as he cradled his helm beneath his arm. She couldn’t tell what he thought of her, but as his gaze paused over her bosom, she felt her breasts tighten in response to the searing heat of his stare.
“What goes here?” her father demanded as he dismounted and moved to her side.
She jumped at his thundering tone, grateful for the distraction from the strange things the knight’s gaze had done to her.
Theodore shooed the chicken from his head and climbed out of the trough while trying to look dignified.
He failed miserably.
“I think you should ask your daughter if it is always her habit to attack any man who annoys her with a chicken,” the handsome knight said with a hint of amusement in his voice. His face, however, showed nothing.
“Silence, Ravenswood,” her father snarled. “You know nothing of my daughter, or her habits.”
“That will change soon enough.”
Emily cocked a brow at the comment. Whatever did he mean by that?
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but her father’s face turned even redder, his eyes darker. It was only then she caught the handsome knight’s name.
Surely he wasn’t the Draven de Montague, earl of Ravenswood; the man her father had gone to the king to have Henry censure?
Why on earth would they be riding together? Given her father’s hatred of the earl, she couldn’t imagine it.
Something odd was afoot here, and she couldn’t wait to get her father alone to find out just what was going on.
Her father’s eyes softened as he looked at her. “Did Theodore hurt you, Em?”
Theodore stiffened. “I would never harm a lady.” His eyes, however, told another story. She could see pure malice there, and she silently vowed to make sure he never caught her alone again.
Still, Emily was never one to be intimidated. She could handle him well enough, with or without a chicken.
“I am fine, Father,” she assured him.
“’Tis the chicken he terrified,” the earl said wryly.
Emily bit her lip to keep from laughing again as she looked past her father’s shoulder to see that the earl’s face bore no trace of humor.
Her father’s nostrils flared.
Emily threw her arms around her father and hugged him tightly. The last thing she wanted was for him to be angry the instant he came home. He’d spent far too much time brooding and being miserable. Besides, she hated to see anyone unhappy. “I’m so glad you’re home. Did you have a pleasant journey?”
“A journey to hell would have been more pleasurable,” he muttered.
Her father cast a feral glare back to the knights on horseback. “You might as well stay the night. You can leave first thing on the morrow.”
The earl of Ravenswood narrowed his gaze on her father. “I make it my habit not to lie down with my enemies. We shall camp outside your walls.” His gaze turned even icier. “We will leave at first light. I would counsel you to have everything in order.”
And with that mysterious warning, the earl wheeled his massive warhorse about and led all but two royal messengers and her father’s three knights from the bailey.
Theodore excused himself and made a dripping trail toward the stable.
Emily looked to her father. Something wasn’t right about any of this. “Father?”
He sighed and draped a weary arm around her shoulders. “Come, my precious Em. I needs speak with you alone.”
Draven and his men found a small clearing just beyond the castle’s gate where a small stream provided fresh water. Left alone as was his preference, he brushed his horse while his men prepared tents and his brother, Simon, started a fire.
Still, he couldn’t get the sight of Hugh’s daughter from his mind. All he had to do was close his eyes and he could see her as plainly as he had when she’d stood before them, her face alight and smiling, and her dark green eyes shining in mischief.
And the chicken….
He almost laughed. Until her smiling face drifted before him again and tormented him with a fiery groin.
Grinding his teeth, he tightened his grip on the brush.
The Lady Emily wasn’t the typical beauty milksops sighed over. She held a strange exotic quality to her that almost defied his abilities to name her essence or her charms.
But what had held his attention most were her large, catlike eyes that burned mischievously while they took in the world with an astounding boldness.
She was slender with a wealth of curly blond hair that fell to her hips. He doubted if the very angels in heaven had a face that was so soft and alluring. No wonder Hugh had balked at the thought of letting her go. A treasure so priceless should be guarded with care, and in spite of himself, he felt a tiny degree of respect for a man who would try to protect his child.
Goliath reared his head and snorted.
“Sorry, boy,” he said as he realized he’d been brushing the same spot far too long. Draven gave a gentle pat to the horse’s flank to soothe his thoughtlessness. It wasn’t like him to be careless with his animals, and he hoped he hadn’t caused a sore spot with his daydreaming.
Pushing the girl from his thoughts, he continued his chores.
He was adding oats to his horse’s feed sack when Simon approached.
“Not what you expected?” his brother asked.
“The feed sack?” he responded in
a deliberate effort to keep his brother from broaching a most disturbing subject. “’Tis the same as it ever was.”
Simon rolled his eyes. “I have no interest in the sack as well you know. ’Tis the lady I speak of. Can you believe the daughter of Lord Big Nose was so comely? I can’t recall the last time I saw a lady so well formed.”
“She is the daughter of my enemy.”
“And the woman you’ve sworn to protect.”
Draven looped the sack over the horse’s head. “Why do you bother me with trivial facts I already know?”
Simon had a devilish look about him, and if it were any man save Simon, that teasing quality of his would have been laid to rest long ago. But for all the annoyance, Draven loved his younger brother.
Simon grinned at him. “You know, I so seldom get to see you squirm that I rather enjoy the novelty of it. It makes you seem almost human.”
Draven stroked Goliath’s forehead, then moved to retrieve his saddle and saddlebags from the ground before heading back to his men.
He paused by Simon’s side. “Whatever humanity ever existed in me, I can assure you it was beaten out long ago. You of all men should know that. I will protect her because my king ordered it. Beyond that, she will not exist for me.”
“As you say.”
Draven narrowed his gaze. “It is as I say.” He headed toward the fire.
“One day, I hope you learn, brother, that you are not a monster born of hell.”
Draven ignored Simon’s words. In truth, he envied his brother’s optimism. It was a rare gift their mother had given her younger son. But he had not been so lucky, and fate had never been kind to him. Holding on to dreams and hopes only emphasized just how vacant his life had always been. He wasn’t a fool to think anything would change.
It never had and it surely never would. This was his lot, and he would survive it just as he had always survived every blow dealt him.
Chapter 2
The wee hours of the morn found Emily alone in her bower with her sister as they finished packing Emily’s things. Disbelief still filled her—at long last, and for the first time in her life, she was leaving home.
“I can’t believe you’ll be gone in just a few hours,” Joanne whispered, her voice filled with tears.