She shrugged. “He’s afraid of being alone.”
“Then why not take another wife?”
“You’ve never been in love if you ask that.” She sighed, paused and looked up at him. “I know you don’t think much of my father, but he is a good man in spite of his faults. And he loved my mother more than anything else on this earth. Since the day she died, he has blamed himself for it, and he will take no other wife lest he shame my mother’s blessed memory.”
Draven frowned at the reasoning. “But for his own selfish ends, he would deprive you of what you want. That hardly seems fair.”
“I know.” She wrapped her arms about herself and walked onward again. “And on days such as this ‘tis almost enough to make me curse him. But I know he means no pure malice. He acts out of love, and I could never find fault with him for that.”
“I suppose I can understand that.”
She glanced up at him. “At first, I was grateful to him as I watched my friends marry men who were so much older than they. But as the years passed, I started feeling this hole inside me.”
Draven wondered why she was telling him this. He was hardly the type of person one saw as a confidant. But he remained silent as she talked.
“Every time I see a mother with a child, I can feel it more profoundly. And now I wish....” She shook her head. “You think me foolish?”
“I think you are a woman who knows what she wants.”
She met his gaze. “And what of you?”
“Me?”
“Do you not crave a family?”
“I have my sword, my shield and my horse. ‘Tis all the family I require.”
She frowned. “What of Simon?”
“Unlike your father, milady, I don’t cling to people. For the most part, I enjoy my brother’s company. But I know the time will come when he will leave. ‘Tis expected.”
“Are you not afraid of being alone?”
“I came into the world that way, and ‘tis the way I shall surely leave it. Why should I expect the years in between to be anything else?”
Emily just stared at him. The calm acceptance amazed her. “Do you not wish it otherwise?”
“If you don’t wish for something, then you can’t be disappointed.”
His words sent a shiver over her. How could he live with such a reality?
“‘Tis a cold place where you live, milord. And the fact that you seem to like it so well makes me pity you.”
“You pity me?” he asked incredulously.
“‘Deed I do.” Emily sighed. There was no need to further this discussion. He was a stubborn man, and it would take some thinking to get past those prickly defenses of his. But she would succeed.
One way or another.
“Come, milord.” She took his hand again. “Let us not dwell on such serious matters while we are in the midst of merriment. I can see them getting ready for a wrestling match and something tells me that you would much rather watch that than hear another minstrel’s tale.”
Draven nodded.
And so the rest of the afternoon went. Though Lord Draven never really took part in any of it, he seemed content enough to watch her as she enjoyed herself fully.
Emily tried time and again to get him to loosen up a bit, but it was futile.
“Come, Lord Draven,” she chided at the maypole. “Would you not like to kick up your heels and dance?”
