Chapter Twelve #3
Addax and Essien rushed in as Claudius, pulling Gavinton and his colleagues with him, rushed out. The blow had stunned Maximilian, and Emmeline managed to strike him again before Addax pulled the shovel out of her hand.
“Tend to him,” he barked at Essien. “I will tend to the lady.”
With that, he pulled Emmeline out of the solar and rushed her to the steep mural stairs that led to the upper floors of the keep.
He wanted to get her away from Maximilian, who would have every right to beat her for doing what she did, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing Addax could do to stop him.
He’d already interfered in their marriage far too much, and he didn’t want to have to show his true loyalty if Maximilian pushed him into it, so the best thing to do was remove Emmeline.
He didn’t take her back to her bedchamber, however.
He knew Maximilian would go looking for her, and he didn’t want the man to find her, so he pulled her into the section of the keep that he’d been sleeping in.
His chamber was on the top floor, up two more flights of angled stone stairs.
When they reached it, he shoved her inside, pulling the door shut behind them and bolting it. Only then did he let her go.
Addax was more rattled than he’d realized.
He was standing about five feet away from Emmeline, looking her in the face and realizing Maximilian’s slap had cut her lip.
He could see blood on the corner of her mouth.
With a heavy sigh, he went to her and lifted a hand to her mouth to see how bad the wound was.
But Emmeline batted him away.
“Leave me alone,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth. “I’m well enough. He didn’t hurt me.”
Addax watched her back away from him. “You are bleeding,” he said.
She wiped the hand over her lips, looking at the faint smudges of blood on her skin.
“It does not matter,” she said. Then she lifted her eyes to him.
“I will not let him humiliate me and strike me, Addax. He has been doing it since the beginning of our marriage, and I made the decision a long time ago to treat him as he treats me.”
Addax knew that. He sighed heavily. “I do not like it any better than you do,” he said.
“But there will come a day when I am not around to protect you, Emmy. You know this. I cannot remain at Alston for the rest of my life. I was due back on the tournament circuit three months ago, but still, here I am.”
She lowered her bloodied fingers from her mouth. “I did not ask you to remain here,” she said. “Nothing is forcing you to remain. You can leave any time you wish.”
He snorted, without humor. “And wonder when Max will finally kill you?” he said, shaking his head. “Nay. I could not live with that on my conscience.”
Emmeline didn’t know what to say to that.
He’d hinted before at hidden feelings, but only once.
He had too much honor to do anything else.
But now, it seemed that he was hinting at it again.
As if he cared for her, personally. Why else would she weigh on his conscience?
Since nearly the day she’d met him, Addax had been on her side in anything to do with Maximilian. A man who was his friend.
Yet… Addax always sided with his friend’s wife.
But it was more than that. It was their conversations, the games they played, the way he behaved toward her.
Never anything inappropriate, but he was always friendly and kind and gentle.
There was warmth in his eyes when he looked at her.
How could a man show a woman such attention and not feel something for her?
Aye… she had indeed suspected all along that there was more to it.
Emmeline moved over toward the bed, sitting heavily, facing the lancet window as a cool breeze blew in.
It lifted her hair as she thought on Addax and the fact that he was due back on the tournament circuit.
But the Black Dragon had remained at an unimportant castle mediating the marriage of unimportant people. Perhaps it was fear, as he’d said.
Or perhaps it was something more he wasn’t willing to admit.
God knew, she longed to hear those words.
“So you remain because of me,” she said after a moment. “You remain because you are afraid that Maximilian will kill me.”
“Aye.”
“Is that all?”
“Is what all?”
“That you only remain because you fear for my safety?”
“What else could there be?”
“Because you love me?”
Even as it came out of her mouth, Emmeline regretted it. She had no idea why she said that, only that it came out before she could stop it. She longed to hear the words, but she didn’t want to force them out of him. Immediately remorseful, she bolted off the bed and looked at him, wide-eyed.
“Forgive me,” she whispered quickly. “I did not mean it. I should not have said that. I do not know why I did.”
He just looked at her. She could see his jaw working, those dark eyes glittering with unspoken words, unspoken thoughts. A thousand different emotions rippled across his face, but still, he didn’t say a word. He just looked at her. After a moment, he simply shook his head.
“I do not love you.”
Those five words made Emmeline suck in her breath as if he’d just done something horribly painful to her.
As if he’d shoved a dagger between her ribs, straight into her heart, because even now, that heart was broken into a thousand pieces of pain.
She was having trouble catching her breath, trying not to seem as if those five words had shattered every hope, every bit of light, she’d ever had.
I do not love you.
“Of course you do not,” she said, her voice trembling. “I do not know why I said it. We are friends, and your actions toward me have only, and always, been chivalrous. It was arrogant of me to even think it was anything else.”
Quickly, she moved toward the door. He was standing next to it, but she wouldn’t look at him. The moment she put her hand on the latch, he put his big hand on the door, preventing her from opening it. He was looking at the side of her head as she looked down at her hand on the latch.
But he wouldn’t let her open it.
“I do not love you,” he repeated in a husky whisper.
“A word has not yet been created in your language for what I feel for you. It is more than love. It is as ageless as the stars, as powerful as the heavens. In the language of my land, it is called zahid. It means worship, devotion, adoration, fondness, passion, and reverence. Love is a limited word, Emmy. What I feel for you is more than love.”
There. He’d said it. Addax couldn’t believe that he’d said it, but it had all come out so easily. Terrifyingly easy. He could see that she had begun to tremble, and as he watched, she closed her eyes and tears streamed down her cheeks.
A river of tears for a river of longing.
“That is everything I feel for you and more, also,” she murmured. “But I told you when I married Maximilian that I would not take a lover even if he did. He may be unfaithful to his vows, bodily, but I will not. I cannot.”
“Nor can I,” he muttered. “I will not cross that boundary. But I cannot help what I feel.”
“I cannot help what I feel either,” she said. “Surely… surely you have known this.”
“I have suspected.”
Emmeline took a step back, away from him, before turning her tear-stained face to his.
“I would give everything I owned if this child I bear was yours,” she whispered.
“I hate that it is not. I hate that I shall bear the child of a man I hate with all my soul. A man who has only shown me loathing and fear.”
“I know.”
“It is not fair.”
“Nay, it is not.”