Chapter 17
Seventeen
“Why do you weep?” Hugh asked as Emily wiped at her cheeks, but ‘twas useless. She couldn’t seem to stop crying.
They had only been home a few hours, and she had headed straight way to her room. Now she sat before her dressing table with her head laying on her folded arms as she wept.
“I have freed you from your captor.” Her father placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You should be happy.”
“I didn’t want to leave, Father.”
“What?” he roared.
“I love him.”
“Are you mad?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t raid Keswyk.”
“‘Tis a lie he told you. I saw his colors myself. He was even riding that damn white horse of his. Think you I don’t know my enemy when I see him?”
“It wasn’t Draven,” she insisted, looking up at him.
His look of hatred burned her. “And how do you know where he was in the middle of the night?”
“I...” Emily stopped herself just in time. It wouldn’t do to tell her father the truth. He needed time to calm.
In a day or two she would make him see the truth.
She had to, for the thought of living without Draven was too bleak to even contemplate.
Two days later, Emily went to seek her father. His manservant halted her at the door of his chambers. “Forgive me, milady, but a messenger just came from the king and they are together.”
Her heart stopped beating as she stared at the closed door. Dread consumed her.
“What did you say!” her father roared, his voice carrying with ease through the thick oak and stone.
She jumped in alarm.
“How can he be in Normandy?” her father demanded. “Send for him forthwith.”
Emily moved to the door and placed her ear to it.
“Word has been sent, milord,” she heard the messenger. “But ‘twill not likely reach King Henry for several weeks. But the matter will be brought to his attention, and you can rest assure he will deal with it.”
Several more angry words were passed between them before she heard the messenger approach the door. Emily stepped back as he swung it wide.
The messenger muttered something foul about her father beneath his breath as he swept past her, and Emily decided this might not be the best time to convince her father Draven wasn’t so bad.
Stepping backward, she took herself back to her room to wait out his distemper.
Days turned into weeks as she waited for her father to calm, but as each day passed with no word of Henry, he grew more and more restless.
Worse, he began fortifying the hall by hiring knights and soldiers. No matter how much she tried to say otherwise, her father was convinced Draven was after his lands.
“He’ll be coming to take us while Henry gallivants about,” he said over and over. “Damn him.”
Emily barely spoke to her father. She didn’t dare. In his present state she knew not what he might do and worse as her first month home passed and she had no flow, she began to suspect something that was guaranteed to cause war between her father and Draven.
That night, Emily sent her own messenger to the king, and she prayed that this time Henry might actually bother to show himself.
“Draven?”
Draven didn’t move as Simon entered the room behind him.
“There’s a messenger come from the king.”
Draven sighed. He had been expecting as much. In truth, he was amazed it had taken so long. “Send him in.”
The herald entered wearing the red and gold lion of the crown.
“Draven, earl of Ravenswood, the king bids thee come to his counsel. He will be in Warwick in a fortnight from Saturday. Your attendance is mandatory.”
“Tell his majesty I will be there.”
The herald nodded, then left.
Draven still hadn’t moved. He merely stared out the window as he had done much of late. It was as if all his energy had left him and he had no strength to move.
No will, no desire.
Nothing.
For days following her departure, Simon had tried to engage him in conversation. But as the weeks passed and Draven spoke no words to him whatsoever, Simon had finally learned to just leave him be.
Draven wanted no one near him.
In fact, he wanted nothing at all except for the king’s executioner to come and finish off what was left of him.