Chapter 9 #2
He would not be his father. He would not forsake his oath! Never.
She turned and looked up at him, her face tender.
Draven blinked and quickly averted his gaze to the minstrel. He had to focus on something. Anything other than her.
Determined, he listened to the song of a Saracen warrior and a Norman princess. The mewling love story of a man degrading himself for his lady fair was almost enough to turn his stomach sour and divert his thoughts.
At least he knew he would never be so foolish over a woman.
When the minstrel finished, Emily turned to him and sighed. “What a great tale of love.”
He snorted. “What a great fool for love,” he said, thinking over the warrior the minstrel sang about. “No man would ever walk naked through his enemy’s castle.”
“But Accusain loved Laurette,” Emily insisted. “That was his proof to her.”
Draven curled his lip in distaste. “I leave such grand imaginings to milksops like yon minstrel. No man worthy of the title would do such a thing.”
She leaned her shoulder against his arm and nudged him ever so slightly. “Perhaps not, but ‘tis what every woman dreams of.”
Draven looked in front of him as opposed to her lest he be taken in any more by her charm. “Then women and men have much in common, I think.”
“How so?”
“Every man I know dreams of a naked woman walking through his castle gates in search of him.”
Heat rose high in her cheeks, and he could tell he’d shocked her greatly. In truth, he knew not why he said such a thing to her. He’d never been so crude in the presence of a lady.
“You are wicked, milord.” She laughed. “Truly wicked.”
The minstrel played two more equally repugnant tales before he took a break. Emily was on her feet before Draven could blink, pulling at him to rise.
He stood then clenched his teeth at the stiffness in his knee. He hadn’t realized his wince had been audible until he met Emily’s gaze.
The concern on her face surprised him. “How did you injure your knee?”
His first instinct was to set her back on her heels with a smart retort. But before he could think of one, the truth came out. “I was run down by a horse in my youth.”
Her brows drew together into a deep v. “You are lucky it didn’t make you lame.”
Draven leaned heavily against the joint as the pain lessened ever so slightly. “‘Tis only by the effort of my will that it hasn’t.”
“It must have hurt terribly.”
“It certainly didn’t feel good,” he muttered.
From the crowd they heard a small child crying. “Mama?” the girl wailed.
Emily looked past him. Before he knew what she was about, she headed off for the little girl a few feet away.
She knelt down before the child and gently touched the girl’s cheek.
By the ragged dress, and unkept hair, he surmised the girl was a peasant’s child. But Emily didn’t seem to notice. She took a corner of her cloak and dabbed at the girl’s wet cheeks.
“Have you lost your mother, sweetling?” she asked.
“Aye!” The girl wailed. “I want my mama.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mama.”
Draven rolled his eyes as he moved to stand over them. That was certainly helpful.
Emily gave a gentle laugh. “Well, I daresay there are quite a few women here today who answer to that. What does she look like?”
“She’s beautiful,” the girl said with a sniff.
Emily cast a glance up to him over her shoulder. “A beautiful woman called Mama. Do you think we can find such, milord?”
“In this crowd, who knows.”
Then Emily did the most unexpected thing, she reached out and chucked him on his good leg. “Milord, please. I am trying to comfort the girl. Not frighten her more.”
Draven clamped down on his tongue. No man or woman had ever been so at ease in his presence that they would just reach out and touch him so recklessly.
Not even Simon.
“What’s your name, little one?” Emily asked the girl.
“Edyth.”
“Come, Edyth. Let us find your mother. She must be looking for you, too.” Emily rose to her feet and to his utter amazement picked up the girl and rested her on her hip.
“Milady, she’ll no doubt soil your gown.”
“The tears will wash out, as will the dirt.”
The girl laid her head on Emily’s shoulder and encircled her neck with her arms. He felt something strange in his gut as Emily cradled the girl to her side.
The feeling was something he didn’t truly want to identify as he watched Emily give the girl her sweetened nuts and carry her through the crowd as she stopped and asked people if they knew the girl or her mother.
They hadn’t gone far when he noted Emily growing weary of carrying the child, but she refused to put her down.
“Here,” he said before he thought better of it. “Let me take her.”
The little girl’s eyes widened in fright as she shirked from his touch. “Will he hurt me, milady?”
“Nay, Edyth. His lordship is a good ogre.”
The girl looked doubtful. “Mama says noblemen hurt little peasant girls they find.”
Emily stroked her hair back from her face. “Your mother is no doubt right and you should avoid them as a rule, but this one is different from the others. I promise you he’ll not harm you one bit.”
“But he’s so big!”
Emily cast a glance at him over her shoulder. “He is at that, but I bet you’ll be better able to see through the crowd in his arms and find your mother.”
The girl bit her lip, then nodded. She let go of Emily and held her arms out to him.
As gently as he could, Draven took the girl. He froze for a moment at the odd sensation of holding a child. He’d never done such in his life. But it felt good to have those spindly little arms of hers around him and to hear her young laughter in his ear.
“He’s hard! Not soft like you, milady.”
Emily patted the girl’s back, her hand brushing his as she did so.
Longing hit him so hard in his chest, he lost his breath for a moment. ‘Twas the longing one felt from a remembered dream that had been banished and forgotten.
And for a moment, he allowed himself to think of what life would be like if he dared take a wife. Of what it would be like to carry his own child.
But as soon as the thought entered his mind, he heard the echoed memory of screams in his head. Felt the pain of his knee and knew in his heart that he could never dare take such a chance.
“Edyth!”
He turned at the cry of alarm.
“Mama!” the girl shouted, kicking her legs against him.
Draven set the girl down and she ran to the peasant woman who opened her arms to scoop her daughter up.
“Oh Edyth, I feared I’d lost you forever! I told you not to wander off.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I won’t do it anymore again. I promise.”
Draven stood back as Emily approached them.
“Look, Mama!” Edyth held the sheepskin bag up to her mother. “The lady gave me sweet nuts.”
The woman looked from the girl’s hand up to Emily, then averted her gaze back to the ground. “My sincerest thanks, milady.”
“It was our pleasure. You have a most wonderful daughter.”
The woman nodded, took Edyth’s hand and led her away. As Emily turned back to face him, he saw the sadness in her eyes.
“What is it, milady?”
“I doubt you’d understand.” Her happiness dampened, she wended her way through the crowd at a much more subdued pace.
Draven said nothing more, but after a few minutes she spoke again. “She was a sweet child, wasn’t she?”
He shrugged. “Having never been around one before, I have no basis for comparison.”
An unhappy smile curved her lips as she again brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve been around many. Everyone of them is precious in his or her own way.”
“Then why haven’t you married?”
“My father refuses,” she said wistfully as she walked onward. “No matter how I beg or plead, he won’t have it.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “He’s afraid of being alone.”
“Then why not take another wife?”
“You’ve never been in love if you ask that.
” She sighed, paused and looked up at him.
“I know you don’t think much of my father, but he is a good man in spite of his faults.
And he loved my mother more than anything else on this earth.
Since the day she died, he has blamed himself for it, and he will take no other wife lest he shame my mother’s blessed memory. ”
Draven frowned at the reasoning. “But for his own selfish ends, he would deprive you of what you want. That hardly seems fair.”
“I know.” She wrapped her arms about herself and walked onward again. “And on days such as this ‘tis almost enough to make me curse him. But I know he means no pure malice. He acts out of love, and I could never find fault with him for that.”
“I suppose I can understand that.”
She glanced up at him. “At first, I was grateful to him as I watched my friends marry men who were so much older than they. But as the years passed, I started feeling this hole inside me.”
Draven wondered why she was telling him this. He was hardly the type of person one saw as a confidant. But he remained silent as she talked.
“Every time I see a mother with a child, I can feel it more profoundly. And now I wish....” She shook her head. “You think me foolish?”
“I think you are a woman who knows what she wants.”
She met his gaze. “And what of you?”
“Me?”
“Do you not crave a family?”
“I have my sword, my shield and my horse. ‘Tis all the family I require.”
She frowned. “What of Simon?”
“Unlike your father, milady, I don’t cling to people. For the most part, I enjoy my brother’s company. But I know the time will come when he will leave. ‘Tis expected.”
“Are you not afraid of being alone?”
“I came into the world that way, and ‘tis the way I shall surely leave it. Why should I expect the years in between to be anything else?”
Emily just stared at him. The calm acceptance amazed her. “Do you not wish it otherwise?”
“If you don’t wish for something, then you can’t be disappointed.”
His words sent a shiver over her. How could he live with such a reality?
“‘Tis a cold place where you live, milord. And the fact that you seem to like it so well makes me pity you.”
“You pity me?” he asked incredulously.