She gave him her shoulder, and using her as a crutch, he slowly rose from the bed.
Draven was careful not to hurt her as he took a tentative step. Pain exploded through him at his first attempt to put weight on his leg. Grinding his teeth, he forced himself to ignore it.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Aye, and you?”
“Never better,” she huffed as she helped him take another step.
Draven almost smiled at her bravado.
It was slow progress to the room across the hall, but they finally made it. Draven left her outside while he went to relieve himself.
When he opened the door a few minutes later, he found her still there waiting for him.
“You should take yourself to bed,” he said gruffly, noting her look of exhaustion.
She waved his words away and again took him by the waist. “Are you hungry?”
Aye, but what he hungered for, mere food wouldn’t sate. “Nay.”
They worked their way back to his bed. Draven sat down and carefully lifted his legs back to the mattress.
Draven had never in his life had anyone take care of him. It was strange to watch her buzz around the room bringing him a cup of ale, checking his bandages, and tucking the covers in around him.
“What?” she asked as she caught him frowning.
“I’m just amazed,” he said quietly. “I didn’t expect you to do so much for me.”
“Well, ’tis what people do when they care for each other.”
“And do you care for me?”
“If I said aye, would you believe it?”
He thought it over. Did he dare believe a woman such as she could ever care for a man like him?
Or was it all just a ruse?
“Are you doing this in hopes of gaining a husband?”
“Nay, Draven,” she said, her voice thick and chiding. “I do this for you as I would for any friend I care about. I told you the day you brought me here that I bore you no animosity, and I meant it.”
He swallowed at the hurt he saw reflected in her eyes. He had been wrong to accuse her of deception, and he regretted his words. “Then I owe you an apology. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t know how to treat a friend. Having never had one before I’m not sure how to behave.”
Her smile took his breath. “You’re forgiven.”
She piled pillows up behind him and helped him lean back against them.
Draven sipped at the ale as she retook her seat and retrieved a small cloth she had been stitching.
A strange feeling came over him. It was such an intimate moment. One a lord might share with his lady wife. The type of moment he had never thought to experience.
And in that instant, he discovered that he liked it.
Nay, that he craved it more than he had ever craved anything in his life.
He closed his eyes against the wave of longing that crashed through him. This was not his to feel. She was not his to covet. He could never have her, and wishing for it was wrong.
Draining the ale, he set it aside and sought a way to drag his thoughts away from her.
“Did my men find the ones responsible?” he asked.
She shook her head as she made a tiny stitch. “They gave chase to two men, but they escaped.”
She stretched the thread tight and bit it in twain with her teeth. “Simon still believes my father responsible. Have you changed your mind?”
“Nay. As I said, your father might hate me to the depth of his soul, but he’d never take a chance with your life.”
By her face he could tell his words pleased her, and that gave him much more satisfaction than it should have.
“Have you any idea who else?” she asked as she picked up another color of thread, placed it in her mouth to moisten it, then threaded it through her needle.
Draven diverted his gaze from her perfectly white teeth and his mind from the thought of her sinking those teeth into his flesh in a tender lover’s bite.
“Unfortunately my list of enemies is long and plentiful. It could have been most anyone.”
“Aye, but it was someone who wanted you to blame my father.” She set her sewing aside. “I think whoever it was is also the person who attacked your village and my father’s.”
“Emily—”
“Nay, hear me out. My cousin told me he fought someone wearing your surcoat on the night my father’s village was attacked. He wounded the man he thought was you.”
Draven frowned. “Why would someone do such a thing?”
She shook her head. “I know not, but my guess is it would be someone who could profit by both your deaths.”
“There’s no one who could do that.”
“Then I’m out of ideas.”
“That I find hard to believe, knowing you as I do.”
She laughed as she retrieved her sewing from the floor and leaned back in the chair with it.
They were silent for several minutes while Draven enjoyed the peace of sharing the solitude with her.
“Know you how many knights it takes to extinguish a candle?” she asked at last.
Draven looked askance at her. “None, ’tis what squires are for.”
She laughed at his answer. “That’s good, but the answer is one. However, the candle must accept the blow.”
Draven rolled his eyes.
Emily huffed at him. “Do you find nothing amusing?”
“Aye,” he said in a whisper. “I find you very amusing.”
By the shocked look on her face, he could tell he had caught her off-guard.
She leaned forward. “Draven—”
“Nay,” he said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “Say nothing more and don’t try your wiles on me for I am weak and in no condition to fight you.”
“My father says that is the best time to press the advantage.”
“But it wouldn’t be very chivalrous of you.”
She moved to sit next to him. And before he could move, she pressed her lips against his. Draven opened his mouth to taste her and balled his fist in her hair as he held her head to his.
Glory, but she tasted of heavenly delights and earthly desires. Her arms surrounded him with warmth and he pulled her fully against his chest. He was all too aware that he wore nothing more than a fur and that she would be more than willing to have him take her.
So easy…
And so very hard.
Her tongue stroked his an instant before she pulled back. “Tonight I will let you escape,” she whispered against his lips before she took an impudent nip at them, “but on the morrow when your strength is back, I will again challenge you. And I will win.”
He frowned at her words, not understanding why she didn’t press her advantage. “Why would you leave knowing I can’t fight you like this?”
The hungry look in her eyes was almost enough to undo him. “Because I want you to have no excuse to deny me later. I’ll deal with you fairly.”
He was so tempted to ask her to marry him anyway. But he couldn’t. There was his oath to the king, the curse of his temper, and the little matter of the fact that her father despised the very ground he trod upon.
Even if Henry willed it, her father would never approve, and he refused to put her in the position of choosing between them.
“You need to sleep,” he said to her, touching the dark circle beneath her eye.
She moved back to her chair.
“Not there!” he snapped. “Go to your bed. You’ve earned a good night’s sleep.”
“But if you need something?”
“I assure you I can shout down the walls if needs be.”
She gave a short laugh. “I have no doubt about that.”
“Then go.”
“Aye, Lord Ogre. Your wish is my command.”
Draven watched her leave, his chest tight. More than anything he wanted to call her back. To feel her against him once more.
But what was the use?
He
leaned his head back and felt the pain swell inside him.
“God,” he said quietly. “I beg you, give me peace. Please take this heart from me and kill it now before ’tis too late. I don’t want to harm her, yet You of all people know what I would do to her. Please, give me strength.”
Closing his eyes, Draven clenched the fur covering him in his fist. He would harden his heart to her. From this moment forward he would spend no more time with her. He would make certain she stayed far away from him. Forever.
Emily awoke just after the midday, but when she tried to see Draven she found herself barred from his room.
“What do you mean I cannot enter?” she asked Simon.
“’Tis on Draven’s orders. I dare not cross him on this.”
“Simon,” she said darkly, “you’re supposed to be my ally.”
“I am, but I also want to keep all my teeth in my head, and he was most explicit on what he would do to me if I allowed you to cross this threshold.”
Emily saw red. So he thought he could thwart her so easily. Well, he would soon learn otherwise!
“Fine,” she said angrily.
Then she raised her voice and addressed the door. “You can’t stay in there forever. Sooner or later you will have to leave.”
As expected, no answer came.
So be it.
She would win him in the end. She would!
Turning on her heel, Emily stalked down to the hall below.
Days went by as she waited for Draven’s appearance, but not once did he so much as crack open his door. She was about to give up on him when one morning found him coming down the stairs.
Emily’s heart soared at the sight of him fully clothed and heading out the door.
“Draven!” she called, rushing to his side.
He ignored her.
Miffed, Emily stepped in front of him to block his path.
“Out of my way, woman. I’ve no time for foolishness.”
“Woman?” she asked in surprise. “What is wrong—”
“Nothing is wrong. Now go to your sewing or whatever it is you do all day.”
Emily’s jaw fell. “I beg your pardon?”
The look he gave her was so cold it froze her all the way to her toes. “Make yourself useful, but bother me not. I have duties to attend.” He stepped around her and went on his way.
An urge to strangle him consumed her, and if she were a few inches taller and broader she might have actually attempted it.
“Fine,” she said to his departing back. “I’ll just go and do that.”
Heading back into the hall, she summoned Denys to her. She had one more modification to the hall she wanted to make. One everyone had told her not to, but her vengeance was such that she wanted him to feel the angry betrayal that burned in her.
She had thought they had gained a friendship. But obviously she was wrong.
Fine, she didn’t need him anyway.
And if he wanted to be so bullish, she would give it right back.
“Milady,” Beatrix begged. “Do not do this! Have them remove it before His Lordship returns.”
As she’d done all afternoon, Emily ignored the housekeeper as she studied the carpenters finishing the dais. The men hammered in the last nail and moved back so that she could inspect it.
Emily ran her hand over the rough wood. It needed painting, but that could wait until the morrow. Satisfied with their work, she told Denys to pay them.
He reluctantly did so, but muttered beneath his breath the entire time. “Were I you, I’d order it destroyed before Lord Draven returns,” he grunted.
Emily stood her ground. “Unless someone gives me reason, it stays.” She looked to Denys.
Denys shook his head and studied the floor.
Beatrix opened her mouth, then clamped it shut.
“Is there anything else, milady?” the master carpenter asked.
“If you’ll have your men place the table upon it, I would be most grateful.”
“Aye, milady.”
She didn’t care if it angered Draven. In truth, she hoped it did. For if he were angry, then he wouldn’t ignore her, and as she had so plainly said, better to be annoying than to be ignored.
The men had barely finished placing the table in the center of the dais when the door to the donjon opened.
A sudden hush fell upon everyone in the hall.
Emily turned her head to see Draven and Simon standing in the open doorway.
Simon’s face grew as pale as a ghost. Draven’s, on the other hand, flushed to deep crimson. He let out a fierce battle cry as he rushed into the room.
His servants and the carpenters fled the room at a dead run. Emily stood frozen. Never had she seen such rage as Draven rushed across the room and seized an axe from the wall above the hearth.
Her eyes widened as he brought it down upon the table and split it in twain with one forceful blow.
Suddenly Simon was behind her pulling her back. “Get out, Emily.”
“But—”
“He knows not what he’s doing,” Simon said, urging her to leave. “Get out before he hurts you!”
She shrugged off Simon’s hold as Draven continued to shred the table and dais with his axe.
What on earth was wrong with him?
What could there possibly be about a table that would so enrage him?
She didn’t know, but she had to find out. Rushing to his side, she ducked the axe as it came within inches of her head.
“Draven?” she called, reaching for his arm.
He turned on her with his arm raised as if to strike her.
Emily gasped in terror as she tensed for the blow.
But the blow never came.
As soon as his gaze fell to her face, he froze. And then she saw not the fierce countenance of a warrior, but the tormented eyes of a man in pain. Unbridled agony laced his brow, and he looked as if some dark phantom haunted him to the core of his very soul.
The axe slid from his hands and fell against the floor with a sharp clatter.
He looked at the shredded table, then the hall as if waking from a bad dream, and she noted Simon had left them alone.
“Draven, what is it?”
His gaze went back to the table. “My mother,” he whispered. “She was killed…on the table in this hall.”
Emily covered her lips with her hand.
What had she done?
Why hadn’t anyone told her that?
No wonder they had all acted so strangely this afternoon.
His entire body rigid, Draven kicked at the remnants of the table.
She took a step toward him and he threw his head back and bellowed, “I hate you, you evil bastard! And I pray God you are burning in hell for eternity.”
Tears filled her eyes as she heard his misery. Emily went to stand in front of him and took his face in her hands. “Tell me what happened,” she begged.
She saw the torment in his eyes. “We were eating,” he said hoarsely. “My mother leaned over and told me a jest and I laughed.”
His gaze held hers in thrall as he repeated. “I laughed.”
Emily felt the room careen at his words and the agony she saw on his face.
He swallowed. “My father became enraged. The earls of Ravenswood never laugh. We are warriors, not jongleurs or jesters. And so he grabbed her to punish her for my slight. I tried to stop him, but he knocked me away. And then he threw her across the table and started choking her. I drew my dagger to stop him, and he turned on me with his own drawn. We fought and he did this,” Draven dragged his hand over the scar on his neck. “By the time I regained my feet ’twas too late. She lay dead upon the table.”
“Oh, Draven,” she breathed as her tears fell. “I’m so sorry.”
He wiped at her tears, his hands warm as they lingered on her cheeks. “I knew it to be the curse.”
“What curse?”
“Our rage,” he whispered. “Every lady who has ever lived here fell victim t
o the rage of her lord. Every one has died by the hand of her husband.”
At last she understood his distance. Why he had never married.
And in that moment she loved him more than she ever had before.
“But you didn’t hit me,” she said, hoping to make him realize that he had mastered his rage. That he would never harm her.
“Emily, I—”
“Nay, Draven,” she said, interrupting him. “Listen to me. Just now when I grabbed you, you were out of control. But you didn’t strike me. You came to your senses as soon as you saw me and you stopped, just as you stopped when your knight hit you the first day I was here.”
Draven blinked as her words sank into his mind. He hadn’t struck her. Even in his blind rage he had recognized her and he had stopped himself.
“You are not your father,” she whispered.
And for the first time in his life he believed that. “I didn’t hit you,” he repeated.
“Nay.”
Draven pulled her to him, wrapped his arms tightly about her, and laid his cheek against the top of her head. “I didn’t hurt you.”
“Nay, but you’re squeezing me to death now,” she said.
Draven released her ribs and cupped her face in his hands. He stared into her eyes as if seeing her for the first time. There was wonderment there and a fire so hot it scorched him.
Draven couldn’t catch his breath as emotions tore through him. It felt as if a tremendous weight had lifted from his soul. He had been furious and he had stopped himself. All these years he had been terrified of what he might do, and Simon had been right.
He was not his father.
Relief and gratitude overwhelmed him. And in that instant he knew he would have her. Now, this instant while the taste of victory was strong within him.
No matter what Henry might do to him on the morrow, for this one moment in time, he would live.
And he would love.
Even if the cost of it was his life, he would gladly pay it in full. To have her, he would give up anything.
Everything.
Draven pulled Emily to him and kissed her with all the fierce longing and desire he had kept caged inside. He turned it all loose and basked in the pure, basic elements of life.
She would be his.
Emily’s head swam at the contact of his lips on her own. No gentle savoring kiss, this was one of pure possession. A ravishing, demanding kiss that took her breath as his untamed, masculine scent filled her senses. She laced her fingers through his hair as he nibbled her lips with his teeth and clasped her body against his.
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