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“You didn’t tell Lady Sara we’d already met,” she observed.
Garrick poured them ale from the pewter pitcher. “You had the opportunity as well, my lady.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Emma. I thought we’d established as much in the stables.”
“That was before I knew—”
“Knew what?” Her question, asked innocently enough, brought a rush of desire as fierce as the edge of a Saracen’s blade.
Knew you were his sister. Knew you were untouchable.
“Before I knew your identity,” he said.
Garrick shifted his attention to their modest meal. Two trenchers, roasted rabbit, and an unidentifiable soup that look edible enough.
“An earl.” She shook her head in apparent distaste. That was a first.
“You don’t approve?”
Something in her expression answered him before she uttered a word. “I’m sitting in a storeroom with you, am I not?”
He glanced around the room. “You could not have dined in the hall.”
“I disagree.” She took a drink, her eyes peering at him from above the rim of the mug.
By God, she is lovely.
“I heard from the men earlier that you’ve been to Acre?”
He didn’t comment on the change of topic. “Aye. I have.”
“What was it like? Did you meet the king?”
“It was bloody and hot. Not unlike King Edward.”
She laughed. Not the kind of laughter he was used to hearing from a lady but loud and unselfconscious. It was the kind of laughter that made a man want to join in. Even Edward would not have been immune, though he was not the sort of man to laugh at any kind of joke that featured him as a punch line.
The thought made him oddly uneasy. Edward was known to enjoy the company of beautiful women.
“Tell me how you came to be at Kenshire, Lady Emma.”
When she took a bite of rabbit, he spied, for the briefest of moments, the pink tip of her tongue as it darted out to catch the spiced meat.
“’Tis a short tale, really. When Clan Kerr took Bristol, my brothers and I went to live with my Uncle Simon and Aunt Lettie. They could hardly support us all, so Geoffrey and my other uncle, Hugh, took to reiving while my other brothers complained about staying behind with me. Then Sara’s father sent for Hugh, and Geoffrey went along . . . and, well, you know the rest. Everyone in England has probably heard the story.”
“You’ve never grieved.”
She went so still that Garrick wished he could retract his words. “I don’t condemn you for it. I understand it all too well.”
Her head, slightly bowed, snapped up.
He’d uttered the words unthinkingly, leaving himself with little choice but to share his own story. “I lost my father in battle.” They’d fought many battles together before that fateful day in a foreign land, in a foreign war. “In Acre,” he clarified.
Emma didn’t say a word after that. They ate in silence. When they finished the meal, Garrick was about to stand, to escape the confining space that brimmed with her presence, her smell, the draw of her soft skin. But Emma stopped him from pushing his stool away.
“Nay,” she said. “Not yet.”
7
