Knight of Love

by Catherine LaRoche

  “I don’t believe that she did say,” Callista said slowly, casting her own frown. “Is that a leaf on your dance slipper, dear?”

  Lenora hid her feet under her chair and fought the strongest urge to drain her cup in one long gulp.

  “He’s certainly most impressive.” Bea snapped open her ivory-bladed fan. “Surely one would not forget meeting a man of such size. Did you take note of the width of his chest?” She began to fan herself most vigorously. “And the span of his hands? I wager he covers almost two octaves on the piano! Goodness, he’s most . . . impressive.”

  “I believe you already said that, Bea,” Callista said drily.

  “But can one trust a man of that physical stature?” Bea turned to Lenora and laid a hand on her knee, smoothing out wrinkles in Lenora’s skirts. “Do you plan to see him again?”

  Lord Rexton raised an eyebrow. “Ravensworth has an unimpeachable reputation with the ladies—almost chivalric, in fact. I’d trust my sister with him, were she not already married. I’d probably not trust my mother, for she’d no doubt seduce him in a heartbeat, but Lady Lenora is in safe hands with him.”

  In safe hands.

  The phrase sent a shiver down Lenora’s back, prompting Callista and Bea to renew their worried inquiries about her health.

  But it was her quarrelsome and quixotic Black Knight who had her worried—he and the thought that just when he’d finally reappeared in her life, she might never see him again.

  Chapter 14

  Bea, Callista, there is something I need to tell you.” Lenora took too hasty a sip of tea, scalded her mouth on the fresh brew, and almost spilled her cup as she set it down.

  Bea shook her head. “You’ve been nervous as a cat since the ball yesterday.” She handed Lenora a linen square to blot the drips. “Are you finally ready to tell us what it’s all about?”

  Callista put down her own cup and reached across the settee to take hold of Lenora’s hand. She squeezed it reassuringly. “We’ll help you with whatever it is, dearest. You needn’t be afraid to tell us; we’re your oldest friends.”

  “It’s about your time in Germany, isn’t it?” asked Bea.

  Lenora managed to nod. She rose to her feet on a sharp intake of breath and began to pace the length of Bea’s elegant morning room. The three friends had been gathering most mornings for tea in the sunny chamber with buttercup silk walls and wide windows overlooking the chrysanthemum displays of the autumn gardens at DeBray Hall. While it felt odd not to have the fourth bosom friend of their childhood quartet with them, Genevieve had been out of touch in France for some time. They were all concerned about her welfare, given the furor in Paris, but had been unable to track her down. Meanwhile, Bea plotted her latest ventures for the Society of Love charity, Callista regaled them with tales of married life, and Lenora—until he had appeared back in her life—worked hard to say little of any consequence at all.

  “The story is rather complicated,” Lenora began. She wrapped her arms around her middle as she paced. “And I’m afraid it doesn’t end very well. In fact, it’s not over yet.” She dropped into a gilt-backed chair next to her friends and covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t bring herself to say the next words.

  “Lenora dear, are you . . . in a delicate condition?” asked Callista carefully.

  “No!” Lenora cried, looking up. It wasn’t that, at least.

  “Are you sure?” Callista laid a hand on Lenora’s arm. “Would you know the signs?”

  “Callista, I am not uninformed about such basic matters. My mother took care to fully explain all things related to ‘delicate conditions’ long before we went over to Rotenburg.”

  Callista withdrew her hand. “Of course. Forgive me.”

  Too late, Lenora remembered Callista had lost her own mother—and her father as well—when she was quite young, soon after returning to England some two years ago. She’d had no guidance at all, and she’d endured scandals and the near ruin of her reputation while working as a library organizer for Lord Rexton before their marriage. “No—forgive me, Callista,” Lenora said, sighing. “I didn’t mean to snap. Your guess, in truth, is not far from its mark. I do have a problem. And it does involve a man. And the matter is a rather intimate one.”

  “For goodness’ sake.” Bea, ever impatient, leaned forward in her chair. “Tell us, Lenora! What is this problem?”

  Lenora’s head sank back into the cover of her hands. She couldn’t bear to look at her friends and speak of him at the same time. “I think I am . . . perhaps . . . somewhat . . .”

  “Yes? What?” Bea almost slid off the edge of her chair.

  “Somewhat . . . married!” The word burst forth from Lenora in a weepy howl. She clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified at the sound, but unable to stop the sudden gush of hiccupping sobs.

  She sensed Bea and Callista both move in a flutter to either side of her.

  “Did she say married?” Lenora heard Bea ask the question over her head.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” replied Callista. “Lenora, dear, did you say you are married? To that horrible German prince? But he was killed in the uprising at his castle, wasn’t he?”

  “No, not to him!” Lenora managed to wail.

  “You married someone else whilst in Germany?” asked Callista.

  Lenora sucked in a gasping breath. “I didn’t exactly marry him.” Hiccup. “We’re not truly wed.” Hiccup. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Wouldn’t you know if you married a man or not?” Bea asked, bewildered.

  “Who is this man?” inquired Callista.

  Lenora covered her face with her linen napkin. All she could do was shake her head and cry.

  “Oh, no,” said Bea suddenly. “Oh, my. It’s not him, is it?”

  “Who?” asked Callista.

  Bea traced out a form in the air, raising her arms high and then wide. “Him! You know—the impressive one.”

  “Lord Ravensworth?” exclaimed Callista. “Lenora, my goodness! Did you marry Lord Ravensworth?”

  “Not exactly,” Lenora said, sniffling.

  “But it is to him that you are somewhat married?” Callista persisted, a hint of sternness entering her voice. She gave Lenora a little shake. “Is it to Lord Ravensworth?”

  Lenora drew a deep and shaky breath. She nodded slowly and somehow found the words. “Yes—to him. The impressive one.”

  Bea sank into her chair, picked up a fresh linen, and began to fan herself with it rapidly. “Oh. My. Goodness.”

  It took them another three mornings of tea and plotting to work out a plan. At first Lenora could barely bring herself to talk to her friends about Wolfram and her time in Germany. However, once her confession of the marriage broke her dam of silence, the story began to flow. It proved such a relief to finally be able to speak about what had happened in Germany to friends who didn’t judge her or panic at her tale. Callista and Bea took turns holding her hand or patting her back and pouring out fresh tea. Later, when she got to the parts about the skirmish at Rotenburg that ended Kurt’s life, they broke out the sherry and poured generous glasses for everyone. Callista and Bea asked questions to clarify the time line and details of the sorry tale until the whole mess of it was laid out on the table.

  And then they began to brainstorm what to do.

  “We should consult with one of my solicitors,” suggested Bea. She managed a significant inheritance with the help of trustees and an in-house man of business and had a particular gift for turning new technologies and social reform movements into philanthropic business ventures profitable to communities in need. While it was Bea’s, Callista’s, Genevieve’s, and Lenora’s mothers who had cofounded the Society of Love years ago with a subscription hall and charity projects to help the poor, it was Bea who’d now turned the society into a major London philanthropy. “The first thing we must ascertain is whether you are legally married or not.”

  “But your solicitors are so well connected among the ton
,” said Lenora, worried. “I couldn’t bear it if this got out.”

  Bea laid a reassuring hand on her arm. “A lawyer is sworn to keep the confidences of his clients.”

  Lenora shook her head. “Mr. Barrington, your head solicitor, consults for my father as well. He’s often come out to our country estate. I simply couldn’t explain this mess to him.”

  “I have an idea.” Callista walked over from the windows, where she’d been staring out at a dripping gray sky of rain. “Let’s contact Mr. Timmins. He was my father’s lawyer and handled the will and payments to creditors after Father’s death. He runs a very modest practice, quite unconnected with any of the families of the ton. And he’s a very kindly and tactful man. He helped me out in some difficult moments last year.”

  “Would Mr. Timmins be able to give an opinion as to the legal status of the marriage and my options in regard to it?” Lenora asked.

  “Yes, I’m certain he could conduct the legal research and make appropriate, discreet inquiries.” Callista dropped onto the settee beside Lenora and squeezed her hand. “Let me write to him and request that we pay him a call.”

  Lenora looked to Bea, who nodded. “It is a sound plan,” agreed their hostess. “We first need to understand whether the marriage is valid in the courts and Church. With that information in hand, we’ll be able to devise a plan for how you want to deal with the situation.”

  Lenora rose to her feet, too nervous to sit. More information was certainly all to the good. But Bea had identified the real problem. The question that Lenora had asked Wolfram about his intentions at the ball echoed back to her: What did she intend? How did she want to deal with the situation? Apparently, the time had come to decide.

  For the past six months she’d concentrated on recovering in body and soul from the trauma of her experiences in Germany. She hadn’t quite pretended that her time with Wolfram had never happened. She had, however, tried to push it far to the back of her mind. But now he was back.

  Sky-blue eyes, massive shoulders, and the gallant sincerity of a medieval knight-errant were all well and good—all right, very well and good, she admitted grudgingly—but did she want to be married for life to a man foolish enough to profess belief in love at first sight? A man who claimed her on slight acquaintance as his soul mate?

  Why not? asked some imprudent inner voice.

  The ridiculousness! she tried to tell it. The risk!

  The possibilities, it whispered back. The pleasure.

  Lenora reached for the sherry and refilled her own glass.

  To the brim.

  Mr. Timmins made time to see the three young women the next day. He took copious notes, asked careful questions, and proved to be the very soul of discretion and compassion.

  “A most trying situation, Lady Lenora, to be sure.” The avuncular lawyer rubbed his balding head with a sigh.

  His clerk served tea, and by the end of an hour the women had told him the entire story.

  “I have colleagues at the ecclesiastical courts whom I’ll need to consult, as matters pertaining to Christian marriage span both civil and canon law. These documents”—he shuffled carefully in a large file and pulled out the settlement contract, dower agreement, and wedding certificate that Wolfram had given her in Germany—“will be very helpful in preparing our case. I will gather all relevant precedents and case law and scour the pertinent statutes to prepare our legal arguments. But there is one point that you must clarify for me, Lady Lenora.”

  He paused to remove his pince-nez and polished it with his pocket handkerchief while he regarded her with kind eyes. “Do you want me to prepare a case that Lord Ravensworth is your legal husband, or do you wish to argue that any claim of marriage is null and void under law?”

  Lenora looked to Bea, on her right, and to Callista, on her left. They both raised their eyebrows at her, ready to support her either way.

  That was, indeed, the question.

  One more conversation remained before she could face Wolfram again.

  She dreaded it but saw no way to put it off further. She had to speak to her father.

  According to Callista’s husband, Lord Rexton, rumors were growing that Wolfram held dangerous revolutionary sympathies—that he’d toppled a German principality allied to England and that he might even be planning to continue such action against the government on these shores. Wolfram’s behavior wasn’t helping, as he apparently made no effort to reconnect with old friends at his clubs, but was instead clomping about, bemoaning the slow progress of political change on the Continent and insulting every European aristocrat in exile whom he ran across in London.

  She sighed and arranged her travel plans to be as quick as possible. Bea lent her a lady’s maid and footman for the journey back to Devonshire. On the new Exeter line of the Great Western Railway, opened only a few years ago, the trip from Paddington to the station near the ducal estate took only a full day.

  She waited until after luncheon on the day following her arrival, always a good time to catch her father in a mellow mood in his study.

  After they’d chatted about the masons’ progress on a new bridge over Green Creek and about the season’s likely corn prices, the duke leaned forward across his large mahogany desk. He pulled off his reading glasses. “Lenora, you didn’t travel down from London to talk about estate business. Come on, daughter—out with it, now.”

  She licked her lips nervously and plunged into her prepared speech. “Father, one of the privileges of a duke is direct petition to the sovereign. You have the right, do you not, to speak to Her Majesty on matters you deem important?”

  He cocked his head, clearly not expecting this tack. “The right is seldom invoked nowadays. One doesn’t simply march into the palace and demand to chat with the Queen—not even as a duke. Historically, the privilege of address was meant to protect against despotism and to keep the monarchy accountable to the nobility in terms of petition and redress.”

  She shifted to the edge of her chair across from her father’s desk. “I understand. But if there was an issue of importance, you could find a way to bring it up with Her Majesty, could you not?”

  “You mean other than introduce a bill in Parliament?” he asked her.

  “Yes. It’s a different sort of issue that I have in mind.”

  The duke steepled his fingers on the desktop and fixed her with his steely gaze. It was a gaze infamous at the Abbey for intimidating everyone from tenant farmers balking at an agricultural reform all the way up to visiting peers opposed to one of the duke’s pet political projects. When Lenora was a child, she’d quaked at that soul-piercing look. Now she managed to school her impulse to squirm—although only barely.

  “My dear,” her father said, “I think it time you told me more about what went on in Germany. Your mother bade me not push you on the matter, but it’s related, isn’t it, to this ‘different sort of issue’?”

  She looked down at her clasped hands and sighed. “Father, the matter is somewhat complicated. Can you promise me you will listen first and not become angry?”

  He chuckled. “Become angry at my little princess?”

  She startled in surprise at Wolfram’s term, repeated here by her father. Memories flashed of the duke’s childhood endearment for her. Hundreds of times, it must have been, he’d called her kleine Prinzessin, after her mother, who had been titled Her Serene Highness Princess Astrid von Sigmaringen in her native Prussia.

  “You haven’t called me that in years,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “You’ve been so mature for so long now, daughter. I believe you were a grown woman by the time you turned fifteen, steady and not at all flighty like your brothers. Some days I despair they’ll ever mature, such dramas and wild scrapes they get caught up in. Just this last winter, whilst you were in Germany, James swore he’d found the love of his life, but when he set about to ask for the girl’s hand in marriage, she let it be known that she considered the life of a duchess far too much work and had dete
rmined to set her cap no higher than a viscountess. He moped for weeks—started to compose poetry about it, for God’s sake! You’ve never been such a romantic fool.”

  Lenora took a deep breath. “No, Father, perhaps not. But I fear I’m about to become a romantic fool. And I need your help to do so.”

  He looked closely at her. “You haven’t asked for my help in years. Not since the winter that you mastered the Abbey’s account books and took them over.” He sighed heavily and passed a hand over his face. “Your mother warned me this was coming. And she said it was about a man. But I want you to know first that I will always ensure for your care. My solicitors will draw up trust documents to provide you with an independent income. You don’t need to marry, should you prefer to remain unattached. Now, should I brace myself? Polish my pistols?”

  She felt torn between tears and nervous laughter. “Father, thank you. I do love you. And no, no pistols, but do brace yourself.” She pushed to her feet and began to pace, twisting her hands together. She couldn’t get the confession out while looking at his kind face. “I think I’m married, or at least somewhat married, in a rather complicated sort of way. And we need to talk to the Queen about one of her noble knights-errant. He is badly maligned, and I fear it’s partly by my fault.”

  A long silence greeted her announcement. She finally risked a look back over her shoulder at her father.

  He waited another moment, as if absorbing the tale, then raised a brow. “Sounds interesting, daughter.”

  Thank God for British stiff upper lip.

  Once back in London at Bea’s mansion, Lenora realized that she would have to ask Callista to post a note to Wolfram requesting that they meet. An unmarried woman, such as Lenora was taken to be, could not respectably direct correspondence to a man. A man, of course, could send correspondence to whomever he pleased. Lenora frowned, remembering Wolfram’s speeches to her in Germany about women’s need for greater rights. Now that he’d pointed the issue out to her, she saw the truth of it everywhere.