Chapter 8
Eight
“Do you think me foolish?” Emily asked as she sat in the bower seat of Christina’s room. She hugged a small red pillow to her breast as she poured her scheme out to her lifelong friend.
Christina sat across from her in a heavily carved chair that looked like a cross between a dragon and winged frog. Christina looked up from the needlepoint in her lap.
Her face pensive, she met Emily’s gaze. “I understand wanting to protect your father and family. I’m just not so sure Lord Draven is the one you should choose. He’s just so...”
Emily waited for several minutes. When it became apparent Christina wouldn’t speak, she offered a word for her, “Gruff?”
“Aye,” Christina agreed.
“And moody?”
“Aye.”
Emily waited, watching her friend struggle as if trying to find another word to describe Draven. “And distant?”
“Aye.”
Impishly, she added, “Strange?”
“Definitely.”
Emily tossed the pillow at her. “No aye?”
Christina smiled and tucked the pillow behind her back. “I was growing bored.”
Emily laughed. “He is not so strange.”
“You think not? Orrick says in battle Lord Draven becomes crazed. That he plows through men like a ploughshare over snow.”
“I would think in battle that would be a virtue.”
“In battle mayhap, but what if he does it at home as well?”
Emily arched her brow in question. “What, plough snow?”
“Emily! You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
“I know what you’re saying.” Emily sighed. “But I have never seen him lose patience with anyone.”
“You just met him,” Christina reminded her.
“I know. It’s just there’s something about him that makes me feel all...” She bit her lip trying to think of the words. “Strange inside.”
Christina gave a knowing smile. “You’ve not been around many men, Em, and I doubt you’ve ever been around one such as he.”
“You’re right about that.”
“You have an infatuation, I suspect.”
“Infatuated? Me?” Emily laughed. “Now who’s being ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous.” Christina stabbed her needle through the linen. “It’s that tingly warm, giddy feeling you get when you look at a really handsome man.”
“I know the definition of it.”
“Aye, but you’ve never felt it, I wager. How could you? Your father has never allowed a handsome man into his castle for fear of it.”
That was true enough. Niles looked more like a wooly bear than a man. He was two inches shorter than Joanne and about as thick as an oak tree with wiry brown hair and a thick beard. She’d never understood her sister’s attraction to him.
Emily frowned as she considered Christina’s words. Could her own feelings be something so simple as a mere infatuation? “Perhaps. But what of you and Orrick?”
Christina shrugged.
“Nay, don’t you dare get tight-lipped around me. Especially since I am forced to live with the king of tight-lips.”
Christina laughed at Emily’s description of Draven. “Forgive me.” She returned to her sewing. “Orrick is good to me. Very good, in fact, and I have no reason to complain.”
“But you’re not entirely happy. I can see it in your eyes.”
Christina gave a reluctant nod. “It’s just hard going to bed every night with a man older than my father. In truth, my stepson is a year older than I am.”
Emily sympathized. She’d known numerous women who had the same complaint. “At least you have a husband. And soon a babe.”
Christina looked up at her. “I know how much you want a child. And maybe Lord Draven isn’t so bad. As you say, and knowing your father as I do, you’ll like as not have another chance to find a husband.”
Her chest drew tight at the words. Emily didn’t want to think about living her life alone. What would she do if she returned to her father’s?
And should he perish, would she be confined to a nunnery?
That was her biggest fear. Having absolutely no control over her life whatsoever. It was nightmare thought.
“I have to make this work,” Emily whispered. “I have to.”
For the next two days Emily saw no sight of Lord Draven as he scoured Lord Orrick’s accounts. Countless times she and Simon walked past the closed doors, listening for a sound from within.
Nothing. Not a snore, not a curse. Nothing.
Lord Orrick sent food inside and back it came untouched. Never had she seen such.
On the third day, she and Simon were partaking of the midday meal with Christina and her husband.
“Does the man never sleep?” Orrick asked as he cracked his boiled egg with the side of his knife.
Simon snorted. “You’d be amazed how long a body can go without rest.”
Orrick let out a fierce impatient growl. “Obviously. I’ve never seen someone apply himself so diligently.”
Nor had she.
Well, then again she, herself, could be pretty single-minded when the occasion warranted it. But going over accounts and taxes?
Quite honestly she’d rather be tied to a stake by her hair, and drowned in pickle juice.
Seeking to dispel the moroseness of the diners, Emily turned to Simon. “Since Lord Draven seems content to live out his visit in the council room, is there any chance we might visit the fair today?”
Simon glared at the closed council room door across the foyer as if he despised it every bit as much as she did, then sighed. “I don’t see why—”
“Father!”
Emily jumped at the drunken shout that came from the doorway as the door was thrown back against the wall with a resounding thud.
All activity in the hall stopped as all heads and gazes turned to the foyer.
A man about four years her senior stumbled into the room with the help of two very large, very frightening men.
At first glance the two mountains appeared twins, until one looked closer.
The man on the right had brown hair, brown eyes and a scar that ran the length of his face.
The other man’s hair wasn’t so much brown as it was an unwashed dark blond.
Each one well-muscled, they had stern, angry faces that promised a sound thrashing to anyone dumb enough to approach them.
The man in the middle she deduced as Orrick’s son. He was as handsome as Christina had told her. He wore his dark auburn hair clipped short and neat, but his clothes were wrinkled and stained.
The two scary men brought him to stand before his father’s dais. Orrick’s son propped his left arm up on the table and gave a loud belch.
“Reinhold!” his father snapped. “What are you—”
“Not now, old man,” Reinhold said disrespectfully as he rolled his head up to look at his father. “Let me introduce you to Fric.” He clapped the man to his right on the shoulder. “And Frac,” he slurred, pointing to the man on his opposite side.
“My name is Frank,” the first one said in a thick Teutonic accent.
“And mine is Fritz,” the other responded.
“Whatever.” Reinhold waved his hand dismissively. He scratched at his unshaven face and looked back at Orrick. “I need twenty silver marks to pay them.”
Orrick’s lips were tight as he perused his son. Though Orrick sat tall and proud in his chair with his spine stiff, she could see the obvious embarrassment on his face as he glared at Reinhold.
“Pay them for what?” Orrick asked.
Reinhold snorted. “Not killing me for one thing.”
“He owes debts to our master.” Frank crossed his beefy arms over his chest and narrowed a vicious glare at Orrick. “Tam the Scot wants to be paid in full or else we’re to make sure your son doesn’t renege on any more debts.”
“Tam the Stewholder?” Orrick stared at Reinhold in disbelief. “You swore to me that you’d never go there again.”
“Well, here’s a big surprise, old man, I lied. Now be a good boy and pay up.”
Orrick’s breaths came in short, sharp gulps. One vein pounded on his temple.
Christina reached out and touched his hand, but he shook her touch off.
He looked first to Fritz, then Frank and lastly his son. “I don’t have it.”
“You what?” Reinhold bellowed.
“You heard me, boy. I told you last time that I can’t keep this up. You promised me—”
“Bullocks!” Reinhold slammed his hand down so hard on the table that it shook Emily’s bowl. “You keep up your whore without complaints and yet you can’t spare a copper for your own son?”
“Reinhold, please,” Orrick begged. “I have company.”
Reinhold looked at Emily and curled his lip. “You can afford to feed them, yet you have no money for me. Fine.” He turned to the mountains. “What say the two of you take my step-whore to work off my debt in the stew?”
Christina gasped as Orrick reached an arm out protectively.
The two men actually looked at one another as if considering the terms.
“All right,” Frank said. “She should bring in enough in six months or so.”
“Nay!” Orrick shouted, coming to his feet.
Fritz pulled a knife from his belt and angled it at Reinhold’s throat. “Your choice, my lord,” he sneered. “Your wife or your son.”
Suddenly, Fritz’s eyes bulged.
“You forgot the third choice.”
Emily breathed in relief as Draven stepped around Fritz and it was only then she saw the sword he held to the giant’s back. “Your life or the knife.”
The giant dropped the knife.
Draven kicked the knife across the floor, then sheathed his sword.
Fritz took one look at Draven’s surcoat, then crossed himself.
“My Lord Earl of Ravenswood.” Frank gulped audibly. “We have no quarrel with you.”
The look on Draven’s face bore all the promise of hell wrath and brimstone.
“Don’t you?” Draven’s voice was so cold it actually sent a shiver down her spine. “You come into the hall of my host, threaten him, his son, and his wife, and you think you have no quarrel with me?”
They gulped in unison.
Draven looked from one to the other. “Who do you think you are to come into a man’s home and make such threats?”
“We just do as we are told,” Frank said, his voice unsure and wavering.
Draven approached Fritz who fair shrank before him. Like a dog herding bulls, he backed them away from Orrick’s table and Reinhold.