"You should rest, my lord," she murmured now, still peering at the hands she was so busily wringing in her lap.
"I have slept for three days," Amaury responded irritably, peeved that he could not see her expression.
"Aye, but Lady Emma is right," the bishop murmured now, a hand dropping to her shoulder. "You needs must rest to continue healing, and so must you, my lady," the bishop added sternly, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze as he spoke. "You have not slept these two nights and three days."
"He is right, my lady." Alden peered at her across the bed. "Ye've not left his Lordship's bedside since he was injured. You will make yourself sick do you not rest soon."
Amaury perked up slightly at that news, then frowned over it. "Aye, wife. You will rest. I will not have you sick."
Emma glanced up at that, but her expression was not what he had hoped for. Rather than being pleased by his recovery or his concern, she looked vastly annoyed. "Why is it that everyone is always ordering me to bed?"
Rolfe grinned at her disgruntlement. "Because, sweet cousin, you appear ne'er to have the sense to go there on your own."
"Why is he called Little George?" Emma asked the following morning as she joined her husband's friend at the table in the Great Hall.
Blake glanced up from the bread and cheese he had been breaking fast with to follow Emma's gaze as she took a seat beside him at the table. He smiled slightly when he saw the way the servants were giving the huge man a wide berth and nervous looks where he sat at the table with the other men. "Because he is so large."
Emma frowned at that. "That makes very little sense, my lord."
"Life makes very little sense, my lady."
Emma raised her eyebrows at that.
Blake shrugged. "Explain to me why your first husband did not see to his duty by you." He had meant the question as proof of little sense, for truly, anyone would wonder at a husband who did not find this woman attractive enough to bed. He realized the moment that her face flushed in shame, then paled, that he had made a mistake.
"Perhaps he found me ugly," she whispered unhappily, and Blake fairly goggled at her. Not for the words so much, for many was the time that women had said similar things to him in an effort to elicit compliments. His shock was due to the fact that this lady truly seemed to believe the words.
"My lady, has no one ever told you you are pretty?" he asked now.
Emma sighed again. "My father . . . and my cousin, of course," she murmured quietly. "But then they loved me and would say it because they thought it would please me." She obviously did not believe it was true.
"No one else?"
Emma shook her head, her eyes trained on the trencher before her as she played with a piece of cheese in it.
"Well." Blake straightened in his seat and gave her his most brilliant smile, despite the fact that she wasn't even looking. "Allow me to tell you, Lady Emma. You are quite a lovely creature. Your hair is the color of spun gold. Your lips as sweet as the petals of a newly bloomed rose. Your eyes as large and dewy as a deer's. Truly you are . . ." He paused uncertainly when she suddenly turned to him and patted his arm soothingly.
" 'Tis very kind of you, my lord, but you need not lower yourself to lie."
" 'Tis no lie," he returned quickly.
"Then why did Fulk not bed me?" she asked simply. Before he could answer that, she got to her feet and quit the table.
Emma was halfway across the room when her cousin met her. Smiling, he bent slightly to kiss her forehead in greeting.
"Good morrow, sweet cousin. I trust you slept well?"
"Aye," Emma sighed. "And you?"
"Like a babe."
" 'Tis good," Emma murmured, moving past him and toward the door to the kitchens.
"Where go you?"
"To get Lord Amaury some tea. His head is most like still paining him. The tea will ease the ache and help him sleep."
"He is already sleeping," Rolfe told her at once, falling into step beside her. "I have just left from seeing him. I stopped to tell him that the Lord Bishop and I intend to leave today."
"Today?!" Emma paused abruptly and turned back at this news, her expression dismayed. "But you have only just arrived."
"I have been here four days," he reminded her gently.
"Aye, but we have not yet had a chance to visit."
"Aye." Rolfe smiled wryly. "I had hoped we might have a chance to do so on the way back to court. However, with your husband being injured, it does not appear you will be able to travel back with us."
Emma blinked at that. "Why would Amaury and I have traveled to court with you?"
"He must pledge his fealty to the king as the new Duke of Eberhart."
"Oh, aye." She peered at the floor unhappily, then perked up. "Could you not delay your return until my husband is well enough to travel? We could--"
"Nay." Rolfe shook his head gently. "The king is no doubt already fretting over the delay. He most likely thinks that Bertrand succeeded in arriving before the wedding and disrupted his plans."
"Send a messenger."
"Nay. None but those involved must ever be trusted with this information, Emma. Bertrand must never find out that the king planned it this way. He would make much trouble." Smiling at her woebegone expression, he gave her a brief hug. "I shall give the king your greetings and your gratitude and tell him to expect you and your husband to follow us in . . ." He raised one eyebrow. "Two weeks?"
Biting her lip, Emma peered down at her hands uncertainly. She had only been to court the once, when she had gone to have her audience with the king. Her father had not cared for court life, calling it promiscuous and corrupt. He had refused to take her there as a child. On her first visit as an adult, Emma had found him to be right. She had arrived the day before her audience and planned to stay for two or three days after, but had changed her mind the first night. Truly, she had never thought to see so many peacocks in one room, and such spiteful birds they had been too. They had taken great delight in trying to humiliate Emma her first night at dinner, tittering loudly behind their hands about how dowdy and unsophisticated she was.
It was the truth. Next to them she had probably appeared a dull little wren in her plain unfashionable clothes. But then she spent most of her time in the country, and who had she to impress? Still, it had not been their comments and insults that had upset her and changed her mind on staying over. It had been Rolfe's furious reaction. He had been offended on her behalf by just one of the comments of a less cautious lady. Had Emma not stopped him, she suspected he would have replied scathingly to the unfortunate creature, but she had stopped him and soothed his temper with a slightly amused smile.
Emma probably had more wealth than all of them put together. That was what made the ordeal almost amusing. She could surely afford raiments ten times more fine than their own, or at least equal to them. Emma had not brought land or livestock to her husband as dower; those had remained behind for Rolfe. Emma had brought riches, all those she had inherited from her mother, plus more added by her father. She now suspected that that was the only reason Fulk had married her. Eberhart Castle had been in sore need of an influx of monies when she had arrived. It had not been far from crumbling down around the ears of its lord and his people. Some of that money had been put to good use on her arrival, rebuilding and refurbishing the estate until it once again resembled its former glory, but the amount of funds it had taken to do so had been a mere fraction of her dower. Which was no doubt why Lord Bertrand had been so eager to claim her along with the estate. Such riches were not easily turned away.
Sighing, Emma peered at her cousin, recalling the anger he had displayed at the slight at court. She had decided then that it was not worth it for her to remain after the audience. She'd had no wish to shame her cousin, or see him upset by such petty behavior. Now she had to consider her husband as well. She had no wish to shame h
im . . . Or to see him belittled and shamed as well, she thought suddenly as she recalled Alden informing her that his lord had only the two tunics: the one he had worn to his wedding and the one he had been wearing the day he was attacked, a worn old tunic that was even more worn now with its new rip at the arm.
Amaury was a duke now, and the Duke of Eberhart should not be so poorly garbed, she decided grimly. Aside from that, there was the worry that he would surely die of a chill if he slept unclothed every night.
"Make it a month," Emma told her cousin now. "And pray, do me a small favor when you reach London?"
Rolfe raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"Find the finest tailor in the city and send him out here. Tell him I will make it worth his while and tell him to bring his finest fabrics."
" 'Twas Fulk's doing, Amaury. The poor girl has absolutely no confidence thanks to his neglect. She thinks herself ugly. Did you know? I talked to Rolfe, her cousin, about it. I like him by the by, he seems a fine fellow. At any rate, he claims her life was much sheltered. There were few visitors to Kenwick. His uncle, her father, had little heart for company after the death of his wife, it seems. He lived his whole life from then on for Lady Emma and her cousin."
Amaury frowned as he watched Blake pace back and forth beside the bed. It was very rare that he saw Blake this worked up. Amaury had half a mind to tell him to shut up and sit down. He didn't like to see the man he had heard many a woman call as beautiful as an angel this worked up over his wife, even out of indignation for her hurt feelings.
Shifting against his pillows with disgruntlement, he tugged a wrinkle out of the bedclothes with a peevish flick. His wife had insisted he stay abed today to rest. He had blustered and fretted over it at the time, but given in in the end because he was frightfully tired. He had spent another restless night last night, tossing and turning as he avoided touching the woman in the bed beside him. She had intended on taking a guest room for the night when she had finally given in to his and everyone else's wish that she sleep, but he had forbidden that, ordering her to sleep in the bed with him. She had complied with the order most dutifully, waiting until everyone had emptied the room before quickly changing into that god-awful black nightgown again behind the screen and slipping into bed.