Emily bit her bottom lip to keep from saying she’d personally rather clean the cesspit and garderobes.
He stepped in time with her, cutting off her escape. “Come now, sweet Emily. I know how lonely you are here. Surely you dream of a man to come and claim you for his own.”
The key word was man. Since she could barely classify Theodore as a bed bug, he would never be the one she dreamt of at night.
He reached out and touched her veil to the side of her face in a familiar gesture that made her cock her brow in censure. He disregarded her look. “You’re fast passing your prime, milady. Perhaps you should consider doing as your sister did in order to find yourself a husband.”
Emily didn’t know what part of that offended her most. The insult to her age or the reminder of her sister’s shame at being caught abed with Theodore’s cousin.
“I can find my own husband, thank you,” she said icily. “And without any help from you.”
Anger darkened his gaze.
“I will have you.” He wound his fist in her veil.
Emily clenched her teeth in expectation of pain as she stepped out of his hold. The pins that secured the veil to her head tugged at her hair, but luckily released their hold and allowed her to escape. She rushed across the bailey, hoping to reach the crowded donjon before he caught her again.
She was not so lucky.
Theodore tossed her veil to the ground, and this time grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop.
Emily winced at the way his fingers dug into her upper arm as she tried to pull away. For the first time in her life, she wished her father home. No man ever dared such insolence while looking at his fierce countenance, and wherever Emily went, her father’s watchful gaze always followed. Never before had she been grateful for her father’s unwavering attention. But right now, she would welcome it with relish.
“I will have a kiss, wench.”
She would sooner kiss a leprous mule! Panicking, Emily looked about for some way to escape him.
A flock of chickens rushed out just then, gathering about their feet. As Theodore kicked at them, she was suddenly hit by inspiration.
She turned to face her pestilence with a charming smile as she recalled Alys’ earlier advice about men and their codpieces.
“Theodore?” she said in her softest voice.
It worked. The anger left his face, and he released her arm to take her hand and place a slimy kiss on her palm. “Ah, Emily, you’ve no idea how many nights I’ve lain abed dreaming of you and your soft sighs. Tell me, how much longer must I wait before I sample the fruit of your succulent thighs?”
Until the devil’s throne turned into icicles.
Emily barely caught the words before they escaped. She couldn’t believe her luck, she finally found a man to whisper poetry to her, and it was the most offensively obscene poetry she could imagine, and came from a man who was barely one step up from a warted troll.
Not even a full step at that.
Emily forced herself not to let her distaste show on her face as she wrested her hand from his cloying grip.
She heard horses approach. Assuming they were her men-at-arms returning from patrol, she didn’t even bother to look behind her as they entered the bailey.
Instead, she coyly wiped the slime on her hand off on her skirt. “At last, you have won me over, milord.”
The arrogance on his face was unbelievable as he postured before her like some pathetic peacock. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me, milady. No woman ever has.”
He must make it his habit to stay in the company of women who’d lost their ability to see, their ability to judge. And most of all, their ability to smell.
“Close your eyes, Theodore, and I shall give you what your tenacity deserves.”
A sly smile curved his lips as he closed his eyes and leaned forward with what she assumed he thought was a seductive pucker.
Wrinkling her nose at the awful face he made, she seized one of the red hens at her feet and lifted it to his lips. Theodore gave a loud smooch as he kissed its neck.
Then it must have dawned on him that his lips were against feathers and not flesh, for he opened his eyes and met the curious gaze of the hen.
