Chapter 19 #3
Draven shook his head. “I will not stay here while someone mars my name. I will have the villain’s head for this.”
She wanted to argue, but the stubborn set of his jaw told her it would be a waste of breath.
Instead, she went to her father. “My husband rides with you. I pray you to guard his back.”
Her father nodded grimly and touched her arm.
Side by side, the two men she loved most strode from the hall, leaving her alone with the king and his entourage.
Draven felt Hugh’s mistrust as they neared their horses. “You still think me responsible?”
“Until I see otherwise with my own eyes, aye.”
Draven clenched his teeth. Her father would never accept him. So be it. He’d never been one to ask for acceptance.
To the devil with Hugh.
Draven pulled himself up carefully into his saddle. His back throbbed in protest, but he had fought with worse wounds than this.
Indeed, his father had once broken his arm apurpose then forced him to use the broken arm to sword fight.
Setting his heels to the flanks of his horse, Draven led his men to Falswyth.
When they reached the small village, the carnage made him ill. Most of the homes and buildings were burning while bodies laid scattered about. He heard a woman screaming. Draven leapt from his horse and kicked open the door to one of the few building still intact.
The woman had been tossed onto the table and was being held by four men as a fifth lifted her skirt to rape her.
Unsheathing his sword, he set upon her attackers with a vengeance. As he killed the last of them a shadow fell over him. He turned, sword raised, to find Hugh behind him.
Hugh nodded in approval, then turned about and left.
Draven lowered his sword and took a moment to make sure the woman was still intact.
“Thank you, milord.” She sobbed uncontrollably.
He said nothing, then went to join the men fighting outside. It was then he saw Hugh facing a man wearing a surcoat that bore a striking resemblance to his own. But worse than the fact that someone dared impersonate him was the fact that the imposter was about to kill Emily’s father.
Hugh fought hard, but he was not match for the younger, more agile knight.
Draven ran toward them, his sword raised. He reached them just in time to deflect a blow that would have surely separated Hugh’s head from his shoulders.
Hugh stumbled back as Draven engaged the knight. The man was strong, but even so if Draven had been well, he would have been no match for him.
As it was now though, Draven felt himself weakening with every blow. He could feel the wounds of his back opening up and blood oozing down his back.
His attacker caught him an upward blow that caused him to stagger back. Before he could recover, another blow sent him reeling to the ground.
Draven landed hard on his back. He gasped as pain exploded throughout his entire being. He could scarce draw a breath, let alone move his limbs.
His opponent lifted his sword straight up. Draven prepared himself for the death blow, but just as the knight plunged the sword down, Hugh caught him about his waist and knocked him away.
Awkwardly, painfully, Draven rolled to his side then and forced himself to stand. Yet it was hard. Every part of him ached.
He staggered toward his horse where he grabbed onto his saddle to keep himself upright.
He glanced back to where Hugh still fought the imposter and saw the second attacker moving for Hugh’s back.
Without thought, Draven grabbed his dagger from his girdle and hurled it with fatal precision into the attacker’s back. Hugh saw the man fall, then with renewed strength he finished off the man he fought.
His strength gone, Draven tried to pull himself back into his saddle. It was no use.
He sank to his knees.
“Ravenswood?”
He heard Hugh’s voice as if it came from a great distance. Someone removed his helm, but Draven couldn’t be sure who it was. The pain was too great.
He looked up into Hugh’s face as it swam above him.
“Boy, don’t you die out here. You hear me?”
Draven couldn’t respond. Closing his eyes, he let the darkness take him.
Emily ran to the steps as soon as she heard the men returning. Her sister Joanne joined her by her side.
Joanne had arrived not long after the men had left. Her sister’s face had been brutalized by her husband, and she had run away in the night to return home to her father.
But all concern for her sister vanished as she saw her husband draped over his horse.
Emily felt the blood drain from her face as terror consumed her. But even worse than the site of Draven, was the fact her father refused to meet her gaze.
“Oh, God, nay,” she choked.
Simon and her father pulled Draven from the horse and carried him toward her.
“Move, Em,” her father snapped. “We needs get him inside before he dies.”
She closed her eyes in relief. “He’s not dead?”
“Nay, child,” her father said in a more tender voice. “Now move.”
Still trembling, she opened the door for them, offered a prayer of thanks, then followed them up the stairs.
Hours later, Emily sat beside Draven on the bed. He had only just awakened.
“You scared me,” she scolded him.
His look bore into her. “I scared myself.”
“How do you mean?”
He reached out and took her hand in his.
“Until today, I never cared in battle whether or not I lived. Today, I learned that now I care. When I hit the ground, my only thoughts were of you and of the babe. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to die.
I wanted to return here to see you. I wanted to be here to see our babe born. ”
She cupped his cheek in her hand. “I love you, Draven.”
“And I love you.”
The door to the room opened. Emily looked up to see her father hesitating in the doorway.
Never before had she seen him look uncertain.
“Father?” she asked.
He cleared his throat and stepped into the room. “I didn’t expect you to be awake,” he said to Draven.
“Haven’t you ever heard the devil never sleeps?”
She saw the shame in her father’s eyes as he approached the bed. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
Draven frowned. “Make what easy on you?”
“My apology.”
Emily sat in shock. Her father had never apologized to anyone in his life.
“I’m a prideful man. I admit that, but I’m not so prideful that I can’t admit when I’m wrong.
I was terribly wrong about you, boy, and I’m sorry for it.
” Her father swallowed. “All I can say in my defense is that I knew your father well, and I know I don’t have to tell what kind of man he was.
” He met Draven’s gaze levelly. “I don’t know why you saved my life today. I wouldn’t have done it for you.”
“I wouldn’t have expected you to.”
Her father nodded. “I think that might be the most painful part of all this. But I want you to know that had I been blessed with son, I would want him to be just like you.”
Draven gave a bitter laugh. “Then you should be grateful you had daughters. If you recall, I killed my father.”
Her father’s gaze gentled. “And today you saved his life. For whether you acknowledge me or not, from this day forward I will always claim you as my son.”
Emily smiled at her father, never had she been prouder of him, and by the look on Draven’s face she could tell how much her father’s words meant to him.
“My thanks, Hugh.”
“Father,” he corrected.
Draven nodded. “My thanks, Father.”
Her father turned to leave.
“Hugh?”
Her father turned back with an exasperated sigh. “I can see you’ll have to practice the father address, eh?”
“I will work on it,” Draven promised. “But I was wondering who it was you killed today.”
Her father looked to her, his gaze troubled. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I didn’t have the chance.”
He nodded and looked back at Draven. “It was Niles who wore your surcoat. The man you threw your dagger into was his cousin Theodore.”
Draven looked back and forth between them. “But why?”
“According to Joanne, he married her wanting my property. And his finances were such that couldn’t wait for me to die of natural causes. Since he didn’t dare kill me for it, he devised a scheme to set us at odds so that you would do it for him.”
“Why did he not marry a rich heiress or widow?”
“He tried, but since he was out of favor with the crown, he could never get Henry’s approval.
It seems his reputation for brutality was well known to all save myself.
” Her father clenched his teeth and she saw the sorrow on his face.
“I’ve been such a fool. I welcomed the son who was unworthy and turned my back on the one who was decent. ”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Hugh.”
“Father!” he snapped.
Draven’s gaze mellowed. “Father.”
“Good boy, now rest yourself. My grandson needs a father of his own.”
Emily couldn’t resist teasing her father. “How do you know it’s a boy?”
“After having three daughters, I figure the good Lord owes me a boy.”
Emily laughed.
Her father bid them a good night, then left them alone.
She turned back to Draven and gasped as she felt a slight stirring in her belly.
“What?” he asked.
Joy filled her. “‘Tis the quickening. I just felt the babe for the first time.”
And to her even greater delight, Draven smiled.