Emily patted her on the back. “You’re not amusing.”
“Nay, milady, but your comment certainly was.” She coughed to clear her throat. “I’ve seldom known you not to be forward.”
Emily bit her lip impishly. “I know. ‘Tis a terrible thing I’m told.”
“Terrible or not, if milady wishes to catch the raven, she must lay the trap, and no one ever laid a successful trap by being timid with the lure.” Alys stood up and pulled at Emily’s kirtle to lower the neckline.
“Alys!” Emily said insistently.
“Oh, ‘tis just a little.” She smoothed Emily’s veil and pulled one curly tendril of hair free of the linen to drape on the right side of her face.
Alys tilted her head to study Emily’s face, then squinted. “Nay.” She shook her head. “Too nunnish for our intents.”
Reaching up, Alys unpinned the veil from her head, placed the pins in her mouth, then fluffed and smoothed Emily’s hair with her hands.
Again, Alys studied her for several seconds before she nodded and removed the pins from her mouth. “There now. Pretty as an angel, you are. But now remember, ‘tis not angelic thoughts you should be having.”
Emily rolled her eyes at her incorrigible maid.
Alys pinched a bit of color into Emily’s cheeks. “Moisten your lips and be off.”
Emily did as told, then winked at her. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck, milady, and good fortune.”
With a deep breath for courage, Emily went to find Lord Draven.
Five
Night had fallen, and as usual Draven made his way up the winding stairs that led to his bower. More weary than ever before, he felt the familiar burning in his thigh of a wound he would just as soon forget. All he wanted was peace. Solitude. A place where no one would disturb him. A place where he could forget the world and the world could forget him.
He pushed open the door.
Draven took a single step into his room, then froze.
Emily sat in a large, gilded tub with her back to him. She had piled her long golden hair atop her head, and several tendrils of it curled becomingly about her creamy shoulders.
The light from a dozen tallow candles glistened against bare, milk white skin that made his mouth water for a taste.
Unaware of his presence, she lifted one supple arm up and lathered a rag with soap. He could hear her humming a soft, lilting tune as she drew the rag slowly over her arm leaving a trail of suds.
His body afire, he watched as she tilted her head to the side and stroked the flesh of her neck with her long, shapely fingers. He bit his lip as he imagined what that skin would taste like should he take it between his teeth and tease it with his tongue.
His breathing ragged, he couldn’t tear his gaze from her as she started to lather her wet breasts. Her fingers splayed over the tender mounds, teasing the taut nipples, covering them with more suds and making his groin even hotter and harder than it had ever been before.
Draven couldn’t stand it. Instinctively, he moved toward her. The tip of his sword scraped against the doorframe, alerting her to his presence.
Looking up, Emily gasped as she jumped to cover herself with her hands, sending water over the edge of the tub and spilling it across the floor.
Their eyes met and locked, and a slow smile spread across her face as she unwrapped her arms from around her bare breasts. Then to his utter amazement, she rose from the water like the lady of the lake, completely unabashed by her nudity.
He couldn’t move as he feasted on the sight of her creamy body glistening like wet silk in the candlelight.
His mouth dry, he trailed his gaze from the top of her head, to her breasts and then to the smallness of her waist, and then down to the damp, dark blond curls at the juncture of her thighs. By all the saints, she was the loveliest creature on earth to him.
“I’ve been waiting for you, milord,” she said as her face softened.
Draven couldn’t speak. She stepped over the edge of the tub and approached him with the slow seductive walk of a practiced courtesan.
