“I’m a beast, Emily, not a bastard.”
She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “At the moment, milord, you are neither, but rather a wonderfully, sweet man.”
He tensed at her touch, but didn’t move to toss her away from him. It was a small victory, but one she gladly took.
Emily bit her lip and pulled away. “Give me a moment and I shall be right back.”
“A moment or an hour?”
“One moment,” she said, laughing. “I promise.”
He nodded and she rushed up to her room to retrieve her cloak.
In her room, she saw Alys looking pleased. “Are you surprised?”
“Why did you not tell me?”
Alys shrugged as she helped her fasten her cloak. “I wanted you to know ‘twas his lordship’s doing and not mine. He was the one who asked the date of the wedding when we returned from Lincoln.”
“That’s what you were doing last night?”
Alys smiled sheepishly.
“Thank you, now grab your cloak and let us not keep him waiting.”
Draven couldn’t believe his eyes when Emily appeared just a few minutes after she had left. Happiness pinkened her cheeks and there was a lightness to her steps as she drew near him.
She was truly lovely. And though he knew he had no business going to her father’s, he decided her happiness was well worth whatever discomfort he felt.
If there was anything in life he respected, it was those who loved their family.
“Help her mount,” he said to Simon.
Simon hesitated. “You certain?”
He nodded.
Once they were mounted, Draven led his small group out of the bailey.
They would reach her father’s just after sunset.
Oh joy, he thought morosely.
But it would make Emily happy, and for some reason that didn’t bear thinking on, her happiness was more important to him than his solitude.
Though in truth, he was weary of running from her. The weeks past had been hard to keep her out of his sight. For every time he saw her, he wanted her more. Even now all he could do was imagine how it would feel to lay her beneath him and plunge his swollen shaft deep inside her.
Night after sleepless night, he had imagined the scent of her hair on his pillow. The feel of her breasts against his chest. The sound of her pleasurable sighs in his ear as she wrapped her legs about his waist and welcomed his body with her own.
He cursed beneath his breath as every pore of his body ached for her.
And if that weren’t bad enough, there was Beatrix in his home as well. His heart heavy, he tried not to think about the last time he had seen her.
He didn’t want to remember. It was easiest to banish all memories of kindness to him. To banish all memories of being loved and held.
And most of all, he had to banish all thoughts of Emily before she drove him insane.
Emily kicked her horse forward as the walls of her father’s home came within sight. She raced up the hill to the gate.
