her words, the muscle-bound Saxon effaced himself. Geoffrey let out a breath and his hand fell from his hilt.
Damn right I am going to help you, Richard thought. But not perhaps in the way that you are expecting. Grasping her hand, he led her past the tables, past outstretched legs, past the dogs lazing at the hearth and out into the night. He could not let her continue on this course; his friend Adam would never forgive him.
‘No cloak,’ he muttered as the inn door snapped shut behind Geoffrey and the chill March air rushed into his lungs. ‘We have left your cloak behind.’
‘My cloak?’ She gave a wild laugh and jerked against his hand. She was trying to break free and she would no doubt have succeeded if Richard had not maintained the firmest of holds. The moon was up, the stars were visible behind the roofs of the houses, and her pink veil glowed palely through the dark. Something—a stray?—brushed past Richard’s leg.
‘Please, my lord.’
She tried to shake him off, but he would have none of it. ‘You are coming back with me.’ Swiftly, he removed his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. When he set off at a brisk pace for the castle, she began to struggle in earnest.
‘No, no!’ Slim fingers twisted and wriggled within his. ‘Please…’ Her voice cracked. ‘I must go back. You don’t understand.’
‘Don’t cry, I am not going to hurt you. I just want to get you away from…that place.’ He stopped dead at the crossroads where what was left of Golde Street met Market Street. Her breath was agitated; her veil lifted as she peered over her shoulder towards the darkness surrounding the market cross.
What, or who, was she looking for? Richard could see little. Here, a few cracks of light crept round the edge of a shutter; there, a slash of yellow escaped through a slit in some planking, but as to the rest—black night.
‘Please, oh, please.’
As she pulled at him, the moonlight fell directly on her cheek where a single tear gleamed like a pearl. Hell.
‘He will find him, I know he will. He will find him and—’
Richard lost patience. EitherAdam’s sister-in-law was a madwoman or she was in desperate trouble. In their interview that morning, she had not struck him as mad. He swept her up in his arms, a struggling armful of woman who smelt charmingly of roses. Closing his mind to the twinge in his shoulder, to the stab of awareness of her as a desirable woman, he made for the castle drawbridge.
‘Calm down, my lady. Emma, calm down. I know you are not an innocent, but really, you cannot be allowed to continue on this course. You were lucky with that Saxon rebel.’
‘Lucky? What do you mean?’
‘You were lucky not to have had a child. How would it be if you had to suffer the shame of having a rebel brat clinging to your skirts?’
Silence. Perhaps he was getting through to her. ‘You may not be so lucky the next time. We are going somewhere warm where we may talk, and you are going to explain what you think you are doing.’
As they waited for the guard to lower the drawbridge, she kept her face averted. Her fists were clenched under her chin. Quiescent in his arms, but resisting him with every fibre of her being.
While the chains rattled and the drawbridge lowered, Richard exchanged glances with his squire.
‘Your shoulder, sir?’ Geoffrey said.
‘It is fine.’
She was quivering, not from fear, Richard hoped. ‘Geoffrey?’
‘Sir?’
‘Help arrange my cloak over her properly. She’s cold.’
Emma’s mind seemed to have frozen and she barely saw where he was taking her. Judhael, Henri, Azor, Sir Richard…it was too much. She was also digesting the fact that Sir Richard didn’t realise she already had a child, a bastard child. If only she could be certain that Judhael didn’t know, too.
Dimly, she recognised she was being carried across the torchlit bailey. Excited barks skirled through the air, and several dogs raced out of the stables—Sir Richard’s wolfhounds, the white mongrel.
Sir Richard ducked into a doorway at the base of one of the towers and started up a curling stairway.
Emma would not demean herself by struggling. The man was over six foot tall and his build, well…since she was pressed close to that muscular chest, she could not help but notice that Sir Richard was a powerfully built man. As one would expect of one of King William’s officers, a knight and a commander.
It might be disturbing to be held so close, closer in fact than she had been to any man since Judhael, but Emma’s mind was fixated on her son.
Did Azor know about Henri? Did he know that Henri was asleep upstairs at the inn? Had Azor perhaps followed them when they had brought their things from the mill to the Staple? Was Azor even at this moment snatching Henri from his bed?
But Emma did not struggle. If she were to engage in a physical fight with Sir Richard, she could only be the loser. He took the stairs in brisk strides, a small entourage trotting at his heels—his squire, the three dogs. No, a physical struggle with this man could only result in ignominious defeat; he had the build of a champion.
She did not speak, either. For this man, this friend of her sister’s husband, Sir Adam, did not know the full extent of her fall from grace. He had not heard about her illegitimate son. How would it be if you had to suffer the shame of having a rebel brat clinging to your skirts?
Perhaps—Emma slanted him a swift look through her lashes—perhaps other tactics might work here…
Saints, but this Norman was handsome in a strong-jawed masculine way. His hair was thick and brown. A torch in a wall-sconce cast a shadow from his straight nose across one lean cheek. A cheek that this close Emma could see was dark with stubble. His lips—she bit the inside of her cheek; she would not look at his lips—but surely they were too well-shaped for a man?
He paused to draw breath on a landing, or so Emma thought, until his squire pushed past him to open the door.
‘That is all, Geoffrey.’ Sir Richard gave a curt headshake as the boy made to follow them into the room. ‘I will call you if I need you.’ The white mongrel almost tripped him. ‘And take the damn dogs with you.’
Chapter Five
‘Yes, Sir Richard.’
Emma found she was holding her breath as the squire called the dogs to heel and the door closed behind him. Sir Richard’s cloak fell away and she was set, none too gently, on her feet. His breathing was uneven. So, too, was hers.
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