“You can’t be my husband. I haven’t consented to that!” she reminded.
His bottom lip dropped open. “I don’t care if you consent or not! I already took your maidenhead, Susanna! You are mine! You gave yourself to me willingly, which is a lot more than can be said for a lot of your subjects still within the walls of your castle. Men are drawing straws for some of them. You are with a man who at least cares about your happiness—one who’s put himself at risk of treason to save your life already!” He rolled over, as if that finished the conversation. “You can’t possibly be that picky. No woman could,” he finally said, after closing his eyes as if he meant to drop into a deep sleep.
She narrowed her eyes to slits and stared at him. “You cannot force me to marry you. You were horrible to me, and you let everyone you know be even worse! I will never forgive you for that.”
He looked up toward the ceiling, “Yes, you will forgive me. I have given you everything you ever wanted. Life, freedom.” He turned his head slightly toward her and looked at her. “Don’t you understand, Susanna? The Princess of Hohenzollern died in the river, never to be recovered. You’re only Susanna, now. Susanna is a bride of Hohenzollern that I have claimed as mine—as is my right—and she will be going home with me.”
She had never felt a sensation like this before. On one hand, she had been so frightened for nearly a year that she would end up being executed by the year’s end, and in Gerhard’s estimation, she no longer had to dread that end. She might be able to live to an old age after all, which is something she had never quite believed before. The possibilities which presented themselves as a result of having that many years at her disposal were almost overwhelming.
Yet to say he was extremely presumptuous was a gigantic understatement after she had spent all of yesterday feeling like he had reached into her chest and pulled her heart out. She would have marched out of the wagon right away if she wasn’t completely nude. As it was, she felt trapped.
“You need to rest more, Susanna. You were restless all evening. You will feel better,” he promised, reaching out for her.
“Don’t touch me,” she muttered angrily, pulling her piglet to her chest and scooting away from him the few inches that she could. Their bodies were tightly nestled between towering boxes on each side.
He didn’t listen to her. Even as she squirmed away, he moved closer to her until he rolled onto his side, pulled out his arm, wrapped it around her, and pulled her against his chest. “Be still.”
“Let me go!” she muttered angrily.
“I’m not letting you go, Susanna. Ever. Now be still, or I will chastise you. I’m exhausted and out of good humor to deal with your stubbornness, as sweet as you look to me with fire in your eyes.” His lip curled into an impudent grin, as if he knew full well that she wanted to slap his face and walk right out of the wagon. She squirmed against him and he locked his arm even tighter around her body.
The piglet, apparently feeling too squished for comfort, then took his turn betraying her. He moved from where he was creating space between them and then laid behind Gerhard’s head, as if having decided to warm him. Gerhard opened his eyes just to turn his head and glare at the pig as if he didn’t approve of the act of favoritism, but then hooked his leg around her. “Stop squirming,” he told her sleepily.
She did, but only because she was too weak from the fright last night to fight against him. Soon she would make him sorry. He just didn’t know how frightened he should be yet!
Chapter Five
“Susanna, please come here,” Gerhard asked. He had been traveling with the princess for three days, and although they’d been blessed in that they hadn’t been approached by anyone of the original party that might have been looking for her, she was still silently protesting him. “I want to keep you in sight.”
She appeared, though slowly, back into his line of sight, glancing toward him very briefly before turning her back and continuing to ignore him. If she didn’t stop being so cold to him, he was going to lose his mind. She literally talked more to the damn pig than she did to him. “I’ll show you how to make a fire, eh?”
He tried to send her a helpful smile, but that was only ignored. Since he had woken up the morning after fishing her from the river, she had never seemed to settle in his arms like she had after they’d made love. Every attempt he’d made to be loving toward her led to her immediately drawing away, and even when he hugged her to his body at night, her body went frigid.
Rennio hadn’t joined them yet, but he could almost hear him make a joke about married life beginning already. The night they’d made love, they had fit together like two puzzle pieces. Now they’d obviously spun out of alignment. All he had to do was get her back to looking at him in the right light.
Susanna turned away from where she was washing up in the cold river water, which she had stepped into so that it came up to her bare ankles.
Just as he opened his mouth to try to get her attention again—despite the fact that he was certain that she had heard him quite well the first time—she bent down and patted her pig, who rooted around on the riverbank. “It sounds like the commander wants to start forcing me to do more things today, Grunter. Doesn’t that sound charming?” she asked the pig conversationally, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
He ground his teeth together for a moment as he tried to gather his patience. It was true that he didn’t like anyone opposing him, but she seemed to take a delight in not doing anything she was told. If he asked her to come, she’d stay. If he told her to eat, she’d refuse. If he told her to wash, she’d go to sleep. If he told her to go to sleep, she’d stay up all night, trouncing around outside the wagon with the pig.
She might have called that pig ‘Grunter’ but he had been calling it ‘Bacon’ since the first morning, still upset that she hadn’t let go of it in the river. It had frightened him to death, because he’d had to hold her to him and pull them both out onto shore with only one arm. She’d had both of her arms on the pig.
“Susanna, come here and start speaking to me, or else I swear I will start to lose my temper,” he warned.
Finally, she stomped toward him. “Why would I care a pittance over your temper?” she demanded, which was the first thing she’d said to him in easily forty-eight hours.
At least the silent treatment had ended. “Because you do not want to feel my hand on your saucy little bottom,” he threatened firmly. “That’s why. You’re acting like a child about all this.”
“About all what?” she retorted, putting her hands on her hips, “You wanting me to thank you for freeing me when I’m still your prisoner?”
He rolled his eyes and stuffed pine needles underneath the firewood, then pulled his flint out of his pocket. “If I didn’t go out of my way to mistreat you, they might have expected something. It’s folly to think that I’ll never see anyone in my army again, and when they see you—and they will—I don’t want them to even consider that you and the princess are one and the same. Now they’ll never suspect I married you after how I let everyone treat you. They would look at you and never suspect that you and the princess are one in the same. They’ll just assume you look similar, by some odd chance. That goes with Rennio as well—he had to facilitate your escape, so he made sure that he treated you the worst.”
She shook her head firmly, stubbornly remaining angry. “I think he was just looking for an opportunity to treat me like filth,” she pouted, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “And I’m not just angry because of how you treated me—although it was horrible and you have to be the worst suitor that’s ever been born—I’m angry because you can’t just decide my future for me! I don’t even know where you live.”
He had been clacking his flint against the stone, trying to create a spark that would light the pine needles, but now he stopped. Though he stayed crouched, he straightened slightly. “I’m not exactly a peasant, princess. I may not be a duke or a prince, but I am a man of good means. I’ve had women ch
ase me down, begging me to take them to wife.”
She raised her chin saucily. “Then why didn’t you take one of them?”
“I’m not having this argument,” he sighed, and then continued sparking the flint, eventually earning himself a small flame that quickly spread to his firewood. “Your opinion on this matter is inconsequential! It’s done. You’re with me, you’re under my protection, and I won’t argue about it any further. For God’s sake, you might be carrying my child as we speak!” he reminded firmly.
He looked up and saw her face suddenly turn red. He actually thought it was very cute, because it made her freckles far more pronounced than they usually were, but he could never tell if she was angry or embarrassed. Her silence after his statement was disconcerting.
“Did you sleep with me to bind me to you?” she demanded, wincing at him with what looked like pain.
“Susanna,” he sighed. “No, I did not. Come and sit—”
She spun her heel and quickly began to tromp away, stomping dramatically back toward the water and then down the bank.
For a long moment, he had decided that he wasn’t going to follow her. She would eventually come back, hopefully done with her tantrum.
After five minutes passed and she didn’t return, he began to mutter to himself that he was going to have to give her another—and this time, much sterner—talking to about just walking off in the middle of the woods. It unsettled him to see her go out of sight. Although they hadn’t had an easy couple of days, after all, she was still precious to him. Her presence made him feel at peace, and when she was away from him, he felt so full of unease he couldn’t stand it.
Time ticked by, and he chalked it up to his own paranoia and perhaps the fact that he was, on the whole, too controlling. She might have been his woman, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have the freedom to walk a few feet out away from him.
After nearly an hour without her return, however, he had worried himself into knots. Something had to have gone wrong. The fish he had caught in the river for their breakfast was already cooked, and he had been certain that she would have been back by now. It was cold, and the bank was icy and covered with snow. What if she slipped and hurt herself?
He picked up his sword, just in case, and buckled the leather sheath around his hips before he took off, following her footprints left behind in the snow, jogging to catch up with her.
When he heard the howl of a wolf, the hairs on his neck stood on end and he put the wind under his feet, nearly slipping across the ice and snow in several points as he jumped over logs and bushes to follow the sound and the remaining footprints.
Another low, resounding howl rung out in the cold air, and he heard a loud squeal.
He drew his sword and launched himself into the clearing ahead of him, shouting, “Susanna!” He saw the princess wielding a stout branch in her defense, with the frightened pig running about around her skirts, trying to hide itself away from the four wolves closing in on them.
His entrance drew the attention of two of the wolves, and he didn’t hesitate to charge. He wanted all of the wolves upon him and far away from Susanna, who was swinging her branch back and forth as if it were a sword, crying, “Get back! Get!”
The first wolf wasn’t a problem. It charged him head-on, and he was able to rid the earth of it with a single slice of his sword. The second wolf, however, jumped toward his face. It knocked him to the ground and went for his throat, but he got his sword between them just in time to drive it through the beast’s chest. The whimpers of the dying wolf, which he quickly shoved off his body, attracted the attention of other two that had remained nipping at Susanna’s swinging branch.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Susanna clubbed one hard upon his head with her branch, leaving it motionless on the ground as the last wolf charged at Gerhard. He got his sword back into position and readied his stance. The wolf came at him, snapping his fangs. The beast was quick, but Gerhard was quicker, and a savage stroke from his sword sent the wolf’s head tumbling to the ground, followed an instant later by its now lifeless body.
There was silence in the clearing after that, except for the pig who apparently couldn’t be quieted even to save his skin. Susanna ran toward him and was soon at his side. “Gerhard!” she panted. “Are you alright?”
He was both panting and shaking with emotion as he looked Susanna over. There wasn’t a spot of dirt on the white wool dress he had gifted her just the day before, back when she still wasn’t speaking with him. She looked fine, although pale with a pink nose from the cold chill in the air.
He had never been so thankful that he had moved fast. Four wolves could have torn her apart. He pulled her body to him, wrapping his arms around her and cradling the back of her head as he kissed her forehead.
All of his dreams had nearly died on the ground. He would have done anything for her, and she could have died while she was still angry with him. Now, he was livid that she had been in that clearing in the first place. He hugged her tighter, trying not to shake from his surging adrenaline. He felt her arms wrap around him as well, and he slowly allowed himself to calm.
“You are the most foolish woman I ever met,” he told her, feeling breathless. “You cannot go this far from me by yourself.”
“I am sorry,” she replied, her voice also quiet.
He pulled back from her and shook her hard. “Don’t you know you might have been killed? You had nothing to protect you. You were alone! I told you to stay in my sight!”
She swallowed and shook her head, still looking dazed. “I know, I know, I am sorry!”
Without another word he grabbed her forearm and pulled her firmly in the direction of their camp. His mind was reeling with images of what might have happened to her. How had he ever thought himself paranoid! He knew what could happen—he’d seen victims of wolf attacks many times before. They were all too common, especially in the winter months when their prey was scarce. And Susanna had gone marching away into danger just to pout!
“Gerhard, speak to me,” she begged, and by her tone she had to have known that she’d upset him greatly.
“I’m tired of letting you play the role of spoiled princess with me, Susanna. As I told you, you are no longer a princess. You are mine. You will be my wife, and I will not see you risk your safety. Do you understand me?”
“Y-yes,” she said uncertainly, sounding apologetic. “I said I was sorry, Gerhard, I—”
“You will be sorry,” he gritted. “You’re going to be one sorry girl when I’m done with you. I’m going to give you a whipping you’ll not forget anytime soon!”
She tried to stop and then dug in her heels when she stumbled slightly, finding that he wasn’t planning on stopping until they were safely back at camp. “Gerhard, stop!’ she whined. “Stop, please. Be reasonable—I was upset, I needed air!”
“And now you need a good spanking,” he retorted, yanking her back into step with him. Bacon had no objections—he was leading the way, apparently as eager to gain distance from the wolf attack as he was, oinking as only a living pig could.
She was trying to fight him now, slapping at his arm. “Please, I was grateful! Can’t you just let me be grateful?” she demanded.
“I am very glad you’re pleased with me, sweeting,” he gritted, “but I have to show you that, although I’ll be a patient husband with you, there is certainly still a line that I expect you not to cross. Anything that risks your safety is over that line.”
Again she began to dig in her heels until she had become entirely dead weight to him. With a roll of his eyes, he bent down and, in a fluid motion, hoisted the young woman over his right shoulder and continued to march on. He found this easier, despite the fact that she was pounding on his back with her palms and the side of her fists. She was not the strongest lass, probably since she’d had no reason to develop physical strength in her life. That would surely make disciplining her an extremely easy task for him.
He stepped into the camp an
d then finally put her down near the campfire. She looked like she meant to bolt, but he held her arm firmly and snapped, “Susanna, desist!”
She calmed slightly, looking up at him with round eyes, filled with fear and anticipation. “Look at me,” he said, pointing at his eyes. He didn’t want the woman that he was falling so quickly in love with to look at him with fear. However, he did need her to heed him and to trust him. “I know I’ve done things to you that you are having trouble forgiving me for, but I want you to look at me now and tell me that you still don’t trust that I think the world of you.”
She looked around, back and forth, but then she straightened. She took a deep breath and then put a hand across his chest. “I do know that. I do trust you. I just… wanted you to feel some of the rejection that I felt.”
He picked up her hands and brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I will never forsake you, Susanna. That is my vow to you. I’ve loved you like the sun since I met you. Do you think I would harm my sun, Susanna?”
She blinked at him, seeming to soften, but didn’t answer.
“Trust me to guide you without causing you harm. I will have you cry, and learn, and then we will be done.”
She suddenly chewed her lip, which he had only seen her do once, and that was when they had been making love. It made her seem so uncertain. “Please, why can’t we forget it?”
“Because I will fear that you have not learned this unless I teach you,” he replied, then curled his fingers around her palm.
Ever so slowly, after what seemed like an age of silence, she nodded. Her cheeks were already glowing.
“Please remove your dress, my love, and prepare for your punishment. If you take your punishment well, it will go swiftly, and then we can move on together,” he told her as gently as he could, although her eyes averted with shame.
He let her hand go and turned toward the covered wagon which kept the treasures he had collected during the last few years of service, leaving her to undress by herself. He looked through his trunk, looking for the leather strop he used to sharpen his shaving blade. He had no doubt that she would probably disobey him again in the future and perhaps require even sterner chastisement, but for now he wanted to make sure he had an implement that he remembered from boyhood as having a sting to it without the bruising of wood or firmer leather.
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