The Earl's Entanglement (Border Series Book 5)(83)

Garrick swept his lips across hers, careful to keep the touch chaste lest he forget his vow to allow her to heal.

“As proud as I will be to call you my wife,” he said when he pulled away. “And now, I fear, I really must leave. Perhaps then you can get some rest.”

She yawned and shifted down, under the coverlet. Garrick kissed her forehead and dressed, glad at least one of them would sleep this night.



“Lady Emma!”

Emma sat up in her bed as the door burst open.

“’Tis so very exciting,” Edith said, nearly running to the hearth. “Everyone is talking about it. I am so very happy for you.”

She placed a log onto the fire and picked up Emma’s discarded chemise, draping it across the trunk at the foot of her bed.

“I told ’em you do like to sleep in the morn, and your man just smiled. Lord, he is a handsome devil. I can see—”

“Edith.” She sat up in the bed. “What precisely are we speaking of?”

“Why, your wedding, of course.”

“My . . .”

“The banns were posted this morn. Lord Clave spent the entirety of the morning meal speaking with my lord and Lady Sara. They must be hungry, having missed—”

“Wedding?”

“Oh, aye. You’ve missed much, slumbering away as you will. Faye is nowhere to be seen.” Edith smirked. “Sir Hugh arrived just as the announcement was read, and well, they’re ‘reuniting,’ it seems. I can hardly stand to think of it. ’Tis like thinking of your grandparents—”

“Edith . . .”

“Oh, aye. Well, it seems Lord Clave has not waited for you to rise to make arrangements. Reginald heard from James, who heard from—”

“Edith!”

“Beggin’ your pardon, my lady, for gossip’n, but I heard your future husband is most anxious to see the deed done.” Edith wrinkled her nose. “Deed isn’t the right word. Well, not for a weddin’ anyway. Though mayhap ’tis for what happened in here last eve.”

Emma peered under the covers, the evidence of their “deed” very much apparent. “Help me dress, if you please.”

When she swung her legs around the side of the bed, Emma groaned. Edith’s cackling did not help, and though she loved the maid dearly, this was one morning she would have preferred to have been left alone.

“And now I see why he’s in such a hurry,” Edith said.

After more comments like that one, and a bit of cleaning up courtesy of the fresh bowl of rosewater Edith had brought with her, Emma was finally ready for the day—and ready to find Garrick.

“Don’t you worry, my lady. I’ll clean this all up—”

“Edith.” She spun around and took the maid’s hands. “It just occurred to me. I’ll live at Clave.”

The look on Edith’s face said she’d already thought that.

“You’ll come with me?”

But rather than the excited agreement she’d expected, Edith hesitated.

“Edith?” Emma couldn’t tell if her maid wanted to smile or weep. “What is it?”

She dropped the other girl’s hands and waited. And then she remembered her affinity for Reginald.

“You’ll be staying here at Kenshire.”

When Edith looked down at her feet, Emma lifted her chin up. The maid was waiting on her answer. She’d miss her dearly, but Emma knew all too well the heart’s pull. “You will visit Clave often?”

Edith’s face brightened. “I would like that very much, my lady.” And then she pushed her toward the door. “Go . . . ’Tis late already.”

When she arrived in the hall, the meal had already ended. As Edith had said, Garrick was nowhere to be seen.

The hall was empty.

Not one servant was present. Aye, it was late, but not this late. Where had everyone gone?

Emma went to the kitchens, for that was the one place Cook and her maids could always be found. But that too was empty.

She ran to the lord and lady’s chambers, and the solar, but everywhere she looked there was not a person to be found.

Finally, she made her way back to the hall, where Edith was calling frantically for her.

“Oh, my lady. I couldn’t find you. I forgot to tell you something.”

“Did you forget to tell me where everyone has gone, perhaps?”

Edith wrung her hands. “Of sorts,” she said. “I was supposed to tell you to go to the chapel when you were ready.”

The banns. Edith’s extra care with her dress.

She smiled, remembering something that Garrick had said the evening before.

I’ll not leave Kenshire again without you as my wife.

She had not thought him to be serious, but it seemed he was quite so. Emma hurried to the main door of the keep, threw it open, and ran to the chapel. And for the first time in as long as she could remember, no silent voice told her to walk instead.





Epilogue





A missive for you, my lady.”

Emma took the message from Mable.

“Thank you.”

The steward left her alone in the solar. She opened it, read the contents, and placed it atop the table. She heard Garrick enter but didn’t look up until he was standing over her.