Chapter Fourteen
Zahid…
Emmeline couldn’t have known that when Addax returned to her later in the day, he’d found her sleeping and simply left her alone.
She’d awoken to the colors of sunset on the walls.
For a moment, she was still half-asleep, watching the sky beyond the window. She didn’t exactly know where she was, and it took her a minute to realize she was in Addax’s chamber.
That brought a smile to her face.
It also took her a moment to realize that the conversation with him earlier had not been a dream.
Zahid, he’d told her. Something more than love.
To know that he loved her left her feeling as if she could face the rest of her life with courage, as if her marriage to Maximilian didn’t matter.
She had Addax’s love, and that was her only concern.
But that was also the problem.
He gave her a false sense of hope.
Rolling onto her back, Emmeline found herself staring up at the ceiling and pondering the situation.
Perhaps she always knew Addax felt for her the way she felt for him, but to hear it verbalized was something completely different.
She still didn’t know why she’d asked him if he loved her, but she had.
And he had responded the way she thought he would.
There was no surprise there, but there was a sense of euphoria.
But it was a selfish feeling.
She was being selfish.
That was something she didn’t want to acknowledge, yet something she knew was true.
She had even asked him if he intended to leave her, but he said that he didn’t know.
Addax was a great man, admired by many, and a man who should have been ruling his own kingdom.
He was far beyond her grasp, and she knew it.
The truth, as brutal as it was, was that he was wasting his life at Alston.
The role he found himself in was as mediator between two people who hated one another, and unless she took a stand and did something about it, he would be doing it for the rest of his life because he thought that was what she wanted.
It was what she wanted.
But she couldn’t let him do it any longer.
For his own sake, she was going to have to tell him to go.
The realization of what she had to do left her feeling sick in the pit of her stomach.
Emmeline put her hand on her belly, feeling the gentle rise of the baby that was growing inside of her.
A child put there by a monster. As she had told Addax, it simply wasn’t fair what had happened to the both of them, but the difference was that he had a way out. She didn’t.
Emmeline knew she was going to have to show him the way out.
Perhaps his admission of love for her was enough to get her through the rest of her life.
She was a reasonable woman, and a strong woman, and she knew that she couldn’t use Addax as a crutch for the rest of her life.
She was going to have to ask him to leave so he could at least get on with his, as painful as that was for her.
She had to love him enough to do what was right for him.
Emmeline didn’t realize that tears had made their way down her temples, not until she felt them running on her ears.
Sitting up, she wiped her ears and her face, knowing that she should be grateful that she had experienced love at all.
She’d had two husbands and never felt that emotion.
The fact that she felt it for a man she was not worthy of was ironic, but she was grateful to have experienced it just the same.
It was going to have to be enough.
Rising from the bed, she straightened her garment and walked over to the window, looking out over the land as evening approached.
Down below in the bailey, she could see part of the kitchen yard, and it reminded her that there were four newborn goats.
Thoughts of Addax turned to thoughts of goats.
Alston kept a small herd of them because Emmeline liked to make cheese from the milk.
Baby goats meant more milk, but it also meant she had a sweet little pet until they grew up big enough to nibble on her skirt and tug ribbons from her hair.
There were a few bully juvenile goats in the yard that did just that.
Even so, the thought of them still made her smile.
As she turned away from the window, she could feel the baby kicking in her belly, and she put her hand against the firmness of her stomach to feel more butterfly kicks.
Even if she hated the baby’s father, she certainly didn’t hate the baby, and she smiled as she felt a few little punches and rolls.
The baby was growing more active now, and above the turmoil at Alston Castle, Emmeline was deeply grateful for the chance to carry a child, something she’d never thought she would do.
It only proved that Ernest had been the problem, and not her.
She felt vindicated in a way, but more than anything, she simply felt happy that in a few months, she would be holding her baby in her arms. She was positive that it was a girl, and the girl already had a name.
Elizabetha.
She’d had a friend many years ago by the name of Elizabetha, back when she was fostering, and Elizabetha de Burnley had been sweet and pretty and thoughtful.
Unfortunately, she had died of a fever, and Emmeline always swore that she would name a daughter after her dear friend.
Therefore, when Elizabetha rolled around in her belly, she would talk to her gently and tell her how eager she was to meet her.
It was, perhaps, the only real joy she had in her situation.
She endeavored to focus on it.
Exiting the chamber, Emmeline found herself on the stair landing.
This floor had three small chambers on it, and on the next level below there were three larger chambers.
Mostly visitors, and in particular male visitors, slept on this side of the keep, so the chambers weren’t elaborate.
Simply functional. She made her way down the staircase to the floor below, which was quiet at this hour, and found her way to the mural stairs.
There was a landing at the top of the stairs, and one could either go to the visitor side of the keep or to the family apartments.
She headed to the family apartments.
The keep was quiet at this hour, and she could only imagine that Maximilian and his father and the Scots were in the great hall, drinking all of the fine wine and demanding copious amounts of food.
It seemed that was all Maximilian ever did when he was in residence.
The man had developed a love for gluttonous eating.
That also meant that if the men were in the hall, she would not be.
She would take her meal in her chamber. She was too tired to deal with Maximilian and the deals he wanted to make with the Scots, but come the morrow, she would be forced to assess the damage.
She had a feeling that regardless of what she said, Maximilian would do exactly as he pleased.
He usually did.
But at least the money was safe.
Even if Maximilian decided to defy her and sell the ore for the paltry sum of one hundred pounds per ton, there was enough money in the coffers hidden in the sub-levels that she could still pay the miners a fair wage and not lose a great deal.
Emmeline always saved for those times that would not be so prosperous, so Maximilian’s deal with the Scots wasn’t going to destroy them.
However, she was coming to understand why Addax had told her not to make the deal. Clearly the Scots wanted to cheat them.
And Maximilian, the fool, was letting them.
The family apartments were softly lit at this hour.
She went into her chamber, which was warm from a fire in the hearth that her maid had started.
The maid, an old woman who had been at Alston long before she arrived, had been a godsend all those years Emmeline had been married to Ernest. The woman had taken care of her like a mother.
But the maid was nowhere to be found as she went to her dressing alcove to change out of the day dress.
The night was coming, and the temperature was dropping, so she hunted down a heavy shift and an equally heavy robe that was made from red brocade with rabbit trim.
It would be soft and warm for the evening to come.
As she finished dressing, she heard the chamber door open.
“M’lady?”
It was old Aline, the maid, and Emmeline called to her. “In here,” she said. “I was just preparing for bed.”
“You’re not joining the men in the hall?”
“Is that where they are?”
“Aye,” Aline said, hobbling over to the alcove and looking her over. “There you are. No one has seen you since this morning.”
Emmeline sat down at her dressing table, examining her face in the fine mirror. She’d all but stopped using the cosmetics that Ernest had liked her to wear, mostly because none of the men around her these days seemed to care.
“No one has seen me because I do not wish to see Maximilian,” she said. “We had angry words again this morning, and Sir Addax took me up to his chamber and told me to stay there while he straightened out Maximilian. I took a nap.”
Aline had linens in her arms, having just come up from the laundry. She frowned at Emmeline as she entered the alcove to put the linens in the wardrobe that held them.
“Angry words,” she grumbled. “More like shouting and yelling. All he does is shout and yell.”
Emmeline continued to look at her face in the mirror, picking up some iron tweezers to tweeze away some errant hair around her eyebrows.
“As long as he is in the great hall and away from me, he can shout and yell to his heart’s content,” she said. “It is of no concern to me.”
Aline glanced at her. “But he is not in the great hall, my lady.”
Emmeline paused to look at her. “Where is he?”
“I saw him in the solar.”
“Now?”
“As I was coming up here.”