“It’s just jitters, isn’t it?” Judith asked. “You’re just afraid of leaving here tomorrow?”
Joanne swallowed. “I guess.”
Emily knelt before her chair. “You don’t have to marry him, Joanne. You know that. Father will understand.”
“But the guests?—”
“Won’t care,” Emily interrupted. “They came for free food and drink and they’ve been served.”
“Emily!” Judith chastised. “How discourteous of you. I’ve never heard you say such before.”
Emily inclined her head sharply to Joanne to let Judith know what she had said she had said for the benefit of their older sister.
Joanne pulled back and stared into Emily’s eyes. “Promise me you won’t let Lord Draven take your virginity.”
Emily frowned. “What?”
“I don’t want him to hurt you, Em. You can’t imagine what it feels like when a man buries himself in you. And they don’t stop, not even when you cry from the pain.”
Emily sat stunned as Joanne’s words sank into her. Surely if Joanne was right, Christina and Alys would have told her?
Wouldn’t they?
Either way, she knew something needed to be done about the coming wedding. “I don’t want you to marry Niles.”
Joanne looked at her aghast. “But?—”
“Nay,” Emily said firmly, “we shall go to father and?—”
“Em, I’m with child.”
Emily closed her eyes and held her sister’s hand tightly. If she didn’t marry Niles, Joanne would be ruined. The child would be stigmatized.
God help them, it would ruin both lives.
“Then let us pray,” she whispered. “Surely God knows what is best.”
Draven leaned against the crenelated wall and stared at the moonlight dappling on the moat far below. The late-night wind blew a chill through the air, but he didn’t feel it.
His thoughts were on a winsome maid with hair of gold and eyes of dark green.
He heard footsteps to his right.
Glancing, he did a double take as he saw Emily approach as if his thoughts had summoned her. “Emily?”
She offered him a timid smile as she paused by his side and duplicated his pose of folding her hands and leaning on her arms against the stone wall. “I thought I would find you here, milord.”
Draven didn’t bother making an excuse. She had learned weeks ago that he haunted the parapets at night like a troubled spirit seeking redemption.
“I fear I couldn’t sleep if I had to. Simon snores like a charging boar.”
She laughed, but he noted the hint of sadness in her eyes.
“What troubles you, milady?”
“I need someone to talk to and there’s no one here I can trust.”
He didn’t know why her words surprised him so. But they did. “You trust me?”
