Knight of Love

by Catherine LaRoche

  “The truth, Wolfram,” she hissed, annoyed at his bravado. “You’ve lost so much weight and you favor your left side. Did the wound not heal properly? Was there infection?”

  “Dare I hope you exhibit wifely concern?”

  “Shush!” She looked frantically at the other dancers gathering on the ballroom floor for the waltz. “Someone might hear you.”

  “And someone might notice your upset and wonder at its cause. I suggest you school yourself to calmness.” His words chipped like ice, in tones more frigid than she’d ever heard him use.

  She curtsied to him for the dance’s beginning, forcing herself to ignore the hurt of his response. “Do you intend to make a claim on me?”

  He bowed in turn. “I will do nothing against your will, lady. I made you that vow and intend to keep it.”

  He took her in his arms to the strains of Johann Strauss’s “Homage to Queen Victoria,” written ten years ago for the Queen’s coronation. “Such a charming air. Harks back to a happier time when our two countries were on friendlier terms. It is good to be home, isn’t it?”

  She was puzzled by his strange mood. “What do you intend, Wolfram?”

  He managed to shrug while leading her into a series of twirls. “To tend my acres and mind my own business.” He murmured a verse in German: “Den Himmel überlassen wir den Engeln und den Spatzen.”

  She frowned until she made the connection. “I know my Heine as well. Yes, we can ‘leave heaven to the angels and the sparrows.’ But that great German poet didn’t give up on his country or the cause for freedom! His point was precisely that we can forge our own heaven here on earth.”

  “Such a philosopher you have become, lady, and such a romantic. You used to chastise me for spouting nonsense like that.” He twirled her again. “And are you well? You look pale and rather wan, if I may say so.”

  “I am fine, thank you.” With a mocking smile she returned his words to him.

  He inclined his head, acknowledging her touché. Then his gaze softened. “You will at least tell me this, Lenora: Was there a . . . consequence to the time we spent together?”

  When she looked at him, puzzled, he rubbed a gloved finger against her waist where he held her for the dance. “Did you fall with child?”

  She stumbled over the steps, and he tightened his hold. A child? His child? From those two beddings? She’d barely considered the possibility at the time, so overwhelmed was she by the revolution raging around them and how he pushed his way so insistently into her life. Back in England, her monthly flow had started again before she had time to worry about a consequence.

  “Think you I hide a pregnancy under this corset? No,” she managed to say, “there was no such consequence.”

  “I wondered if perhaps you might have miscarried.” His mouth worked in a little grimace. “I am glad you didn’t have to bear that as well. It is, I am sure, for the best.”

  She didn’t know what to make of the image he’d introduced, save that it tangled up her emotions worse than ever. “Wolfram, there are matters we must discuss, and this is hardly the proper time or place. Let us head to the terrace outside after this dance. We’ll have some privacy there, to talk.”

  “I don’t see what there is to discuss.” He fixed his gaze above her head again.

  “Stop being so stubborn and obtuse!” She almost stomped her foot in the pattern of the waltz. “Of course we must discuss what lies between us.”

  He stared at her, unblinking, those blue eyes so cold now, then gave the barest of nods.

  They danced silently for the remainder of the waltz. At its conclusion, he led her through the ballroom’s French doors to the stone terrace lining the back of the mansion.

  The cool night chill sent a shiver down her spine. Or perhaps it was the feel of Wolfram’s large hand at her waist as he steered her toward a dark corner away from the few other guests seeking fresh air.

  She’d been in Wolfram’s hands before, and had had him in hers. She still wasn’t sure what to make of any of it. Their past contact had done such strange things to her heart—and to her powers of reason, apparently, if she was now importuning the man into private conversations in the dark.

  Wolf glanced over to see Lenora’s throat work as she swallowed hard and clutched at the stone balustrade in front of her. He didn’t care that he was making her nervous.

  Let the little princess sweat.

  “You’re the one who demanded this encounter,” he said, scowling. “Speak away.”

  “Very well.” She fidgeted with the lace trim on the rather daring off-the-shoulder neckline of her pale-pink evening gown. He would not think about how the silk’s color set off the deep-forest beauty of her bewitching eyes. He would not think about her jaw-dropping, cock-twitching, soul-filling beauty at all—Christ! He dragged in a breath and forced himself to look away. What had Becker said, long ago in Germany? They were just eyes; she was just a woman.

  But what the fuck did Becker know?

  The princess was launching her lecture. “Explain to me, please, what is wrong. Quite miraculously, you escaped with your life from Germany. The new constitutional assembly meets in Frankfurt, freely elected and uniting all Germany for the first time. The Prussian king grants fresh liberties every day.”

  Wolf paced restlessly across the end of the terrace, rubbing a hand across the soreness in his thigh where it was healing still. “Friedrich Wilhelm grants as little as he can, and the leaders of the revolution lose through their squabbles what they gain from that king. The promised new order is already falling apart. I wouldn’t be surprised if the assembly dissolved by the end of the year.”

  “But what did you expect?” she asked, puzzlement in her voice. “Instant success on all fronts?”

  He raked his hands through his hair. “I thought we were making a difference!”

  She looked around worriedly. “Wolfram, keep your voice down! Come,” she said, pulling him down the terrace’s side steps.

  He allowed her to lead them onto a flagstone path. The path wound into dark gardens, wet with the day’s rain. She shouldn’t be out here with him—with anyone—but the stubborn chit never would listen to reason or give a damn for her own safety.

  “Real change will take time.” He heard the effort at patience in her voice and resented her all the more for it. He didn’t need the woman’s pretty-princess condescension. “It might be a hundred years before the revolution bears its full fruit,” she continued as they walked. “This universal enfranchisement of voting rights that you support for all men and women won’t happen overnight.”

  She tried to lay a hand on his arm, but he shrugged her away. “I don’t have one hundred years. I want change now.” He limped off deeper into the garden.

  Behind him, he heard her draw a long breath, as if slowly counting to ten, before the soft footfall of her dance slippers followed him.

  He knew his mood to be ridiculously sour. His disillusionment with the revolution and the months of racking pain as his body had slowly mended were bad enough. Even worse was the bitter tangle of loss and shame over the disastrous ending of things with Lenora. When Becker had finally brought him back to England last month before returning to the revolution, Wolf hadn’t wanted to face her. Even now, standing so close to her provoked him almost more than he could bear.

  Her scent inflamed him like a memory of home.

  She was his soul mate. He’d loved her at first sight.

  And yet she was not his.

  “Such petulance is beneath you, Wolfram,” she said as she caught up to him. “Much good has been accomplished. You should be happy.”

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “Happiness is for fools.”

  “Then I repeat.” In the pale light of the crescent moon, her lips thinned in a tight smile. “You should be happy.”

  He stopped beside a summer teahouse and mirrored her sour smile. “How clever you think you are, Lenora. But you understand nothing about the revolution. You neve
r supported it in the first place.”

  “I understand that you thought it was some glorious cause! Did you want to die a martyr in it? Is that why you’re pouting?” she said, jeering.

  “I am not pouting. And many good men did die in the fight for freedom. I honor their sacrifice. What’s wrong with that?” he asked. He felt himself fall on the defensive as Lenora’s temper gathered steam.

  She was the one pacing now, on an area of damp gravel in front of the teahouse. “Did you want revolutionaries storming the barricades in your name? Composing Lieder in your honor to sing your glory? How you would have loved that!”

  He glared at her, his fury rising. “You think I did this for my own glory?”

  She stopped and turned back toward him, hands on hips. “Then why did you do it?”

  Her question cut to the quick of all that he’d been raised to defend. “It’s what my mother wanted,” he said tightly.

  “Your mother?” she repeated, eyes widening.

  “My mother—Baroness von Wolfsbach, they call her in Germany—loves her homeland. More, I’m afraid, than she ever loved my father, or than he loved her. My father liked to yell and bully and have his way in all things. He sent me and my sister to our grandfather in Germany every summer, but forbade my mother from leaving England. She nearly died birthing me, so he used that excuse for why she shouldn’t travel. Truly, I think he was afraid she wouldn’t come back if she set foot in her homeland again.” Wolfram shrugged. “He may have been right.”

  Lenora frowned. “Surely she wouldn’t have abandoned you and your sister?”

  He scuffed at a grass verge with his polished leather shoe. “She could have seen us during the summers at Wolfsbach. Mother is much happier as a widow, although she’d never admit it. She thought it her duty to be the obedient and supportive wife.”

  “And you think it your duty to die under the banner of the revolution?”

  He looked down, hating the flush heating his cheeks and glad of the night’s darkness. “No, but a country needs its soldiers. A mother can take pride in her son’s sacrifice.”

  “You imbecile!” she nearly shouted at him. “You wouldn’t make her happy by getting yourself killed in a stupid uprising.”

  “The revolution is not stupid—it’s important! My mother supports it. Her father and the line of Wolfsbach men before him fought to protect Germany as free imperial knights for centuries. The soul of the German people is crushed by the abuses of the ruling class. I have a duty to serve!”

  “Yes, yes, of course”—she waved him down in angry dismissal—“I’m sure your family is all very noble: benevolent and enlightened toward your people, responsible with the power entrusted in you. But guess what, my romantic, nostalgic fool? Violent revolutions only breed more violence. They become an excuse for angry young men to thrash one another and light things on fire. Nothing’s going to change that way. Do you think the French Revolution last century brought freedom and equality and brotherhood to France?” she scoffed. “No. Blood ran in the streets, and a lot of innocent people got their heads chopped off.”

  He didn’t want to hear any of it. “You should never have gone back to Rotenburg, Lenora. You shouldn’t have risked your life like that. I had you traveling safely back home. And you shouldn’t have killed Kurt.”

  “Indeed,” she spat. “Then you’d be dead and I’d be spared this conversation.”

  “I will still honor our marriage contract, of course,” he said stiffly.

  “I don’t need your condescension, thank you very much. Let’s rip it up and pretend the whole disastrous episode never happened!”

  He considered it. The offer was tempting. And yet . . . there she stood, glowing in the moonlight. Furious. Proud. Unyielding. Rather . . . glorious, one had to admit. Something stirred within him, a tendril of desire. It flickered back to life in a way he hadn’t felt since their time together at Dremen.

  He took her by the shoulders and tried to make her understand. “Don’t you see? You could have died that day! You put yourself back in his hands; he hurt you again.” He shuddered at the hazy memories. Nightmares still gripped him most nights, not of his own near death, but of Kurt’s sword almost cutting down Lenora, of the man’s sick cruelty to her, and of Wolf’s own inability to protect her.

  “What I did that day was save your life!”

  But the guilt of it ate at him: he hadn’t kept her safe, hadn’t kept the sick bastard’s hands off her. His shame came out as a taunt: “Doesn’t it bother your conscience that you killed a man?”

  She raised her chin. “Is it supposed to bother me that I killed a wicked man whom I know to have abused many a woman and child before me and who used his sovereign power to deny all modern freedoms to his people?”

  “You needn’t be bothered for my sake, although I suspect many gently bred highborn ladies would be.”

  She paused and stared hard into his eyes. “At that moment I killed Kurt to save your life. Not to free the people of the principality. Not to wreak revenge for what he did to me. Not to stop him from hurting another woman. I simply could not stand by and let him hurt you.”

  Her words almost cut through his guilt and shame. He stepped closer, his shoes crunching the gravel. “Why couldn’t you stand by, Lenora?”

  But panic flitted across her features. “If it’s a tender declaration you’re after, you won’t get it from me, knight.” She looked away. “Maybe saving your life wasn’t worth it.”

  He skittered away as well. “You were supposed to let me save you! You’re supposed to be a delicate princess!”

  She drew a deep breath. “You are like talking to a brick wall. A huge, infuriating brick wall. You can’t see me at all! Where did you get this nonsense about a delicate princess? When you met me, I was covered in mud from having ridden through a warring countryside, surviving on my wits and stolen turnips.”

  A muscle ticked along his jaw. “When I first met you,” he ground out, “you were tied to a lashing post, being beaten by your fiancé. But you stood up to him. I saw your strength right away, Lenora, and I loved you at first sight. I’ve never denied that iron core of will; it’s what allowed you to survive and fight back.”

  The angry tapping of her toe against the gravel showed her little mollified. “And so where, may I ask, does the delicate princess part fit in?”

  He saw the absurdity of it himself, but couldn’t think his way out of it. “You were my princess,” he repeated stubbornly. He’d built her up into the very image of docile sweetness, a doll for him to carry, a soul mate to protect. He didn’t know what to make of a wife who planted a knife between a man’s eyes.

  “You sound like a sulky child,” she said, her eyes snapping green fire.

  “You shouldn’t have had to kill Kurt,” he muttered. “That’s not how it’s supposed to go.”

  “So you’re angry at me because I saved your life, and you’re mad at yourself and the fates because you couldn’t pull off an entire revolution all on your own.”

  He looked at her with something close to loathing. “Are you always so bloody superior?”

  “Are you always so bloody stupid?”

  “Stupid, am I?” He dragged her to the side of the teahouse and pressed her back against it, looming over her, bracing his arms on either side to trap her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  At least her voice held irritation rather than fear. If she turned afraid of him now, he’d be truly furious. “Proving how stupid I am,” he growled. He kissed her—a hard, angry kiss—slanting his mouth across hers. He feasted like the starving man he was, after months without the taste of her. He lifted his head to nip down her neck. “You like your Heine? Here’s a line for you: ‘I have remained a wolf, my heart and my fangs are wolfish.’”

  She squealed, tried to wriggle away. “There are people around!”

  He laughed without humor, holding her in place with his bulk. “Silly wench. Is discovery your only compunction? D
on’t you disdain the touch of a traitor?”

  “You’re no traitor,” she scoffed.

  “According to the ambassador, I am. And the foreign secretary called me to accounts last week. They’re threatening me with the lord chancellor next. A traitor, a fool, and an oaf: isn’t that what you called me at Rotenburg as well?”

  “Goodness, you enjoy feeling sorry for yourself.” She wrapped fingers in his hair and tugged. “Why don’t you kiss me again and cease your prattling?”

  He kissed her until her cheeks glowed rosy in the moonlight with it, her lips pouty and her eyes wide and unfocused; pushed his weight into her until her little moans drove him to near distraction and to contemplate the most ungentlemanly behavior in a garden.

  Bloody Christ.

  He blew out a breath and forced himself to drop his arms from her. “I need to think this matter over. I will contact you at Lady Beatrice’s town home once I’ve reached a decision.”

  As with the cold snap of winter, the focus came back to her eyes. She reached up to pinch his chin between her fingers. “I, however, do not need to think the matter over. Shall I have my solicitor contact you at your town home? We could end this farce once and for all.”

  “Fine,” he spat out, flaring to provocation again. He grabbed her wrist and towed her back toward the house, cursing his damn leg, the dark night, and pampered princesses. “You’re right—I don’t know what I was thinking, to call you a princess. You’re obviously a common harridan and fishwife under those fine threads.”

  If a quick glance over his shoulder caught a flash of whitened mouth or the glisten of tears, he wasn’t pausing to see more. Best to end it here and now.

  A body might mend—just barely—but not a heart.

  Not when a princess had been lost forever.

  Seated back among her friends and Lord Rexton, Lenora endured their most interested looks at her rather damp and ruffled toilette. She felt her cheeks redden and hastily reached for a cup of champagne from the tray of a passing footman.

  “Where did you say you’d met Lord Ravensworth, Lenora?” Bea asked, frowning at her.