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“Speaking ill of your best friend again, Lord Clave?”
“’Tis an early morning for you,” Garrick said. “You’re just in time to help me plan a council meeting.”
“At Clave?” He popped a morsel of cheese into his mouth.
“Aye.”
“And invited Kenshire, I assume?”
“Aye.” He tried to ignore the sound of Conrad loudly chewing.
“And kept the invitations to the lords and ladies of each family, I assume?”
He forced himself to look directly at his friend as he said, “Nay.”
Conrad sighed. “You invited their families.”
“Aye.”
“Including Lady Emma.”
His silence was affirmation enough. He no longer wanted to discuss it. If anything, his resolve had been strengthened by his restless night.
If he could not go a day without her, how could he possibly spend a lifetime without seeing her smile? Without knowing Emma Waryn, both her luscious curves and her beautiful soul, as only a husband could do? It was unthinkable.
Impossible.
Garrick would make this work.
He had no other choice.
* * *
It was never going to work.
Sara couldn’t leave the babe, and since the attack, Geoffrey had been more protective than ever. When Emma approached him in the great hall after he received the missive, the one she only knew about from Sara, her brother refused to so much as consider the possibility.
“Until we know who was behind the attack, I think it’s best you remain here.”
Lord, save her from older brothers.
“Besides, haven’t you had enough excitement for the moment?” he continued. “What could you possibly hope to achieve at Clave?”
They stood in front of the mantel in Kenshire’s great hall. This winter was more bitter than most, and the crisp air seemed to have permeated the stone walls of the castle, forcing everyone closer to the fires that burned in every occupied room.
“Achieve?”
Only two days had passed since she’d last seen Garrick, but it was two days longer than she would have liked. She spent most waking moments remembering their brief time together, the intimate moments that seemed so otherworldly now that she’d resumed her regular habits. How had it happened so quickly?
“A gathering of pompous old men sitting around trying to solve the border problems,” he quoted her. Emma couldn’t help but smile at Geoffrey’s poor imitation of her voice.
“I do not sound like that at all.”
Although the words were familiar.
“By your own criterion, there will be no marriageable men in attendance. This crowd is much too ‘titled’ for my baby sister.”
Geoffrey was quite familiar with her thoughts on men with titles. Although he considered her reasoning absurd—he and her other brothers had only been a mite protective, to hear him tell it—he nonetheless accepted that her goals were different than most women’s. He, of course, disagreed that she’d been coddled as the younger sister. They were only trying to protect her, after all.
