Chapter 19 #2
Unlike the day her sister married, Hugh’s mood was somber and dark. Draven wished he could find a way to lay aside their differences for the sake of Emily and their child.
Their child.
He paused at the thought. She had given him more than he had ever expected to have. And he loved her for it.
“Ah, she comes,” Henry said.
Draven turned to see Emily entering the small room where they stood with a priest.
The ceremony was brief with Hugh hesitating before he finally gave his approval.
Draven had no more kissed her then Henry called for his guards to escort him outside to the yard.
“Nay,” Emily said as she reached out for him.
Draven kissed her hand reassuringly, and let go of her. “It’s all right, Emily. For you I would bear a hundred such beatings.”
He gently pushed her back into her father’s arms.
Emily watched as Draven calmly followed the guards outside, his head held high.
Twisting away from her father, she went after them through the hall and to the small courtyard out back. She came to a stop as her gaze fell to the king’s executioner who waited with a barbed whip in his hand.
Her father stopped by her side and tried to pull her back. “You shouldn’t see this.”
She set her jaw stubbornly. “He is my husband and my place is by his side.”
She watched in awe as Draven unlaced his tunic and bared his back. By Henry’s face she could tell he enjoyed the event even less than she did.
The executioner used the frame of the gallows to tie Draven’s hands above his head. When Draven was prepared, the executioner looked to the king.
“Begin,” Henry commanded.
Emily cringed as the hooded man brought the whip down across Draven’s back. Blood dappled the man’s clothes, but Draven made no sound whatsoever.
“My God,” her father breathed. “Does he not feel it?”
“Aye, he feels it.” She wanted to scream as another blow was dealt him. Her throat tight, she felt her tears fall down her cheeks.
When all twenty lashes had been given, the executioner cut him down. Draven stood an instant on his feet before he staggered.
Simon caught him against his chest. “I’ve got you, brother.”
Draven swallowed as Simon draped Draven’s arm over his shoulders and helped him walk toward her.
“Like old times, eh?” Draven whispered.
The look Simon gave her father the most hate-filled glare she had ever beheld.
Emily touched Draven’s face as they passed by her.
“Simon,” Draven said hoarsely. “Tell her I’ll be all right.”
“I think she knows.” He walked Draven toward the castle.
Halfway across the yard, Draven lost consciousness.
Emily led Simon up to her room and helped him lay Draven on the bed to keep his back from being hurt any more than what was necessary.
As gently as she could she washed the blood from him. She frowned at the marred and puckered skin left behind by the beating.
“What did he mean ‘twas like old times?” she asked Simon.
Simon placed Draven’s tunic by the bed. “His father used to beat him like this on a regular basis. When it was over, I would help him back to his bed.”
“Is that why he didn’t cry out?”
“Aye. His father would add five lashes for every sound he made.”
Her heart lurched.
A knock sounded on the door. “Enter,” Emily called.
To her surprise, her father came into the room with a small vial in his hand. “‘Tis a linseed salve. It will help take the sting from his back.”
“Thank you, Father.”
He nodded, then left.
Once she finished Draven’s back, she draped a light cloth over him.
She looked to Simon who stood against the far wall. His face beleaguered and pinched.
“How long will it take to heal?”
Simon sighed heavily. “He’ll be back on his feet by the morrow.”
“Nay!” she gasped in disbelief.
Simon nodded. “He won’t be swift, but he will be up and about.” With one last look at his brother’s sleeping form, he moved for the door.
“Simon?” she asked as he reached for the latch. “Tell me, if you are the one who is illegitimate, why did his father abuse him and not you?”
“He never knew I wasn’t his while I lived in his hall.” Simon cast a look back at the bed. “And it wasn’t from his father’s lack of effort so much as it was from Draven constantly putting himself between us.”
Simon took a deep breath and looked at her. “You know his limp?”
She nodded.
“I was but five and tilting the quintain when I fell from my horse. His father tried to run me down on his horse as punishment for my incompetence. One moment all I saw was his massive warhorse bearing down on me and the next I was lying to the side of the field with Draven beneath the stallion, his leg broken in four places.”
Emily closed her eyes at the horror. She couldn’t imagine how either one of them had borne it.
“How did you learn of your birth?”
Simon shrugged. “Our mother told it to Draven not long before she died. She wasn’t able to contact my father, but she knew Draven traveled enough with his father that he could find someone to send word to my father to come for me.”
“Did he?”
“Aye. My father came for me the day after she died and reared me in Normandy.”
In an instant everything made sense to her. “Miles de Poitiers?”
He nodded. “He was my father.”
Now she knew how Draven had come to serve his king. “Draven went to Normandy to find you. That was how he became your father’s squire?”
“And we have been together ever since. I owe my brother my life in more ways than one and I refused to leave him in the lonely shell where he has spent most of his life.”
“You’re a good man, Simon.”
Simon shook his head. “I pale significantly in comparison, for he was the one who faced his father while I was always the one who ran away in fear.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Perhaps, but I am truly grateful to you for reaching him when I couldn’t.”
“I could never have done it without you.”
“Then we are eternal allies.”
Emily smiled as he left her alone with her husband.
This was not the way she had imagined her wedding night. But she wasn’t about to complain, for she had what she had always wanted. A husband she could love, and even more than she had dared dream, he was a man who loved her back.
And now that she had him with her, she would never let him go.
Hours later, the king sent his physician to check on Draven. And once the castle had quieted, she curled up next to him and watched him sleep while she brushed her hand over her handsome face.
“You are mine forever,” she whispered, then closed her eyes and slept.
In the morning, true to Simon’s prediction, Draven was on his feet.
Emily cringed as she helped him to dress. Surely the clothing had to hurt as it rubbed against the massive cuts and welts on his back. Yet he said not a word about it.
“I can’t lie abed all day.”
“You need to,” she insisted.
He shook his head, took her hand, then led her to the hall below. Her father looked up at their entrance and gave Draven a hard glare.
Emily sighed. After he had brought the salve she had hoped her father might be softening, but by the frown on his face, she could tell her father was a long way from ever accepting his new son-in-law.
Draven went to greet Simon and she made her way to her father’s side at the table.
“If you could accept Niles as your son after you caught him in Joanne’s bed, why can you not at least spare a smile for my husband?”
“Because I know his mettle.” Her father cast another menacing glare to Draven. “‘Tis far beyond your ken, Em, for you see the good in people. I know the truth of him.”
Shaking her head, she took a seat at the opposite end of the table, far away from him while she broke her fast. She could feel her father’s stare on her, but she gave him her back as she ate bread and cheese.
Draven came to her side at about the same time she realized she shouldn’t have eaten anything.
Her stomach heaved.
“Emily?” Draven asked, his face concerned.
She tried to leave the dais, but stumbled. Draven caught her against him, and she heard him suck his breath in as she inadvertently touched his back. Still, he said nothing to her as he helped her toward the back of the room. They didn’t make it far before she emptied her stomach all over him.
Draven let go of her with a groan.
Emily clamped her hand over her mouth as she stared at the damage she had wrought to him.
“Oh, Draven, I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll wash,” he said, but at the moment he looked even greener about his gills than she felt. “Are you better?”
She nodded. “‘Tis the babe.”
Draven wrung his hands out. “How many more mornings should I prepare myself for this type of greeting?”
“I know not,” she answered truthfully. “My mother’s sickness lasted throughout all her pregnancies.”
She looked past his shoulder to see her father standing a few feet behind Draven.
“Fetch a bath for Ravenswood,” he called to one of the servants. “And a strong bar of soap.”
Emily stifled her laughter.
Draven sighed. “Go ahead and laugh. I would if I weren’t the one covered.”
Guilt consumed her as she led him back upstairs to bathe and change his clothes.
To his credit, Draven said nothing more about the incident as she helped him bathe and redress.
They had just rejoined Henry and her father in the hall when a peasant came running into the hall, panting.
The youth gasped for breath, his brow split and bleeding. “My lord,” he said to her father. “You must come quickly. Falswyth is under attack.”
Her father shot to his feet. “Who dares such?”
“‘Tis the earl of Ravenswood.”
Every eye in the hall turned to Draven.
Her father looked back at the messenger. “And how do you know?”
“I heard one of his men address him as such right before I was struck.”
“Prepare my troops,” her father called, seizing his sword from its resting place above the mantle behind him. “We will find the one who claims to be Ravenswood and put a stop to his activities for once and for all.”
As her father’s men scurried from the hall, Draven gathered his own knights.
“Wait.” She seized his arm. “You can’t go. You’re hurt.”