Knight of Love (15 page)

He groaned. “No, lady”—he shook his head from side to side in protest—“don't make me stop—not this close.” His sides heaved, blowing hard, like a stallion indeed nearing the end of a long ride. A sheen of sweat glistened on his chest, slicked his hair. A wildness shone in his eyes.

She dug her nails into his chest until he flinched and focused his gaze on her. “Yes,” she hissed. “You are in my bridle. I hold the reins. You come home at my command only.”

She leaned back, testing the pull and fullness as she shifted on top of him, searching, finding,
there
—she moaned as the pressure and friction came together just where she wanted them. She watched his face as she brought her hand to that same spot.

His blue eyes glowed against his sun-darkened skin. “Lenora, lady—yes, touch yourself. You're so beautiful.” His hips shifted, tried to pump again under her.

She reached with her other hand to pinch his brown nipple. “Stay—you move only when I tell you.”

He arched and hissed. “You don't know what you do to me, lady. You slay me.”

“Not tonight, I think.” Her laugh came out strangled as she rolled her flesh between her fingers in time with his nipple in her other hand. What strange, exotic pleasure—so spiky and intense! What a mystery that her body could feel like this—tingly, tight, light enough to float away if he were not anchoring her with that thick root to his belly.

That part of her was slick with their juices. She lifted up from him just enough to touch where he entered her and encircle his girth. A ridge along his shaft intrigued her. If her own passion wasn't coiling up so tight, she'd take the time to explore the meaning of that line.
Next time,
she thought, before the echo came:
There will be no next time
. Some part of her rebelled, cried no, didn't want to give up this play, with this man.

Don't think of it, Lenora, not now
.

She distracted herself with rubbing circles around that crux of her pleasure and flicking at it as she ground her hips back down onto him. Thought fled, sensation grew, filled her up, carrying her away outside herself. Some instinct had her reach back behind her—another curiosity, that heavy sac of his, pressed tight now against her bottom. She gathered it in one hand as the fingers of her other flicked back and forth across her own flesh.

He groaned. She gripped tighter. “Don't move, not yet.” She was panting now, so close, that peak rising. She rubbed her knuckles into the base of him between his legs, rolled him in her hand. The feel of him in her palm while she rode him and rippled her muscles around the length of him inside her—controlling all that glorious male animal power—fanned the sparks within to hottest fire. She felt the flames about to burst.

She released him from her palm and fell forward onto his chest. “Now, hard, a fast gallop—all of it, home!” she commanded. Gripping his arms, she sank her nails into him and held on for dear life as her hair curtained their faces.

He thrust furiously into her. He had the bit between his teeth and was stopping for nothing.

A scream ripped from her throat as her passion crested. Her back arched and her muscles tensed as she ground her pelvis down hard onto him. He reared up and roared. She looked at his face in time to see it contort with the intensity of his pleasure.
Mine,
came the thought, before she turned her head to bite the thick muscle pad of his shoulder.

Then they both lay panting, gasping for breath on the bed. Aftershocks arced through her for long minutes. When her breath settled, she reached up to loosen his bonds. His wrists were reddened where he'd pulled at the linen.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured, suddenly chastened by their play. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“Lady,” he said, laughing, as he rolled her under him, “you can hurt me like that any day.”

Chapter 10

T
he carriage stood ready to roll, the horses jangling their harnesses, and still Lenora had no idea how to say good-bye.

Was this the end, then, of the strange connection she shared with Wolfram, whatever it was? Certainly not a marriage; she refused to accept it as such. Although what then to make of her behavior last night? She'd never thought of herself as a woman who would engage in lusty bed play before marriage. If she wasn't married to the man, why had she bedded him with such abandon?

And what now? She was returning home to England, and he was staying to fight in Germany. It was entirely possible she'd never see him again. He could die here, as so many were dying in the protests flaring across Europe this spring. The thought filled her with a sudden anger, and sadness, at the senselessness of it all.

Or what if he did make it back to England? Would he pursue his claim as her husband?

She thought it strange, ominous even, that Wolfram had brought up none of these questions last night or this morning. After their lovemaking, he'd fetched her brandy for her. She'd sipped it in bed as he'd straightened the bed linens. Then he'd tucked her in his arms for her best night's sleep in months. When she'd awoken this morning, he'd already quit the room, leaving her with his scent on the pillows and an odd sense of disappointment.

She hadn't expected a morning romp, had she?

She sighed, fidgeting with her gloves outside the grand entrance of Schloss Dremen under the porte cochere. Wolfram still hadn't shown up to see her off. Surely he didn't plan to let her go without offering his farewells? He'd been absent at breakfast, also—verifying final travel arrangements with Count von Dremen, the butler had informed her.

But what to say to him? How did one take one's leave of a man who'd forced her into marriage and into his bed, but had then treated her as his princess and allowed her to tie him up and act out shameless fantasies until she'd collapsed on top of him in a boneless heap of pleasure? Her head whirled. She had no experience by which to judge or understand this situation.

“It's time to go, Lenora.”

She jumped when Wolfram's deep voice rumbled from behind her.

“Come, let me hand you into the carriage,” he continued, taking her arm to walk her down the steps.

“But . . .” She paused, frowning, casting around for some way to express the muddle of her feelings. “What will happen to you?”

A sad smile lifted the corner of his mouth.
Goodness, that mouth.
She wanted to kiss it again. A shiver rippled through her frame as her body remembered their climax together last night.

“You needn't worry about me, lady,” he was saying. “You'll be safe on your way home to your parents. The count and I have gone over all arrangements with Herr Weisstagen”—he nodded at the man coming toward them from the hall—“who will serve as your steward for the trip. He's a good man; you may put your faith in him.”

But she did worry. Surely one didn't share with a man what she had done with Wolfram and then think of him no more! And there was something disturbingly fatalistic in how he avoided all discussion of his own return to England.

“Will I see you again, Wolfram?” She looked up into those clear blue eyes of his and saw a shadow pass over their depths before he looked away.

“You have the copy of the marriage contract and my dower settlement documents. Make use of them once you return home.”

She frowned. “You sound as if you don't intend to return to England. As if you don't expect to emerge from these skirmishes.” She couldn't bring herself to say,
As if you expect to die,
although the phrase echoed in her head. Why, after all, should she care?

“One can never predict the future, Lenora.” He handed her into the waiting carriage—bundled her in, in fact, far too quickly for all the questions and fears running through her mind—and settled her on the front-facing squabs. “I, for example, would never have guessed a month ago that I was about to meet the princess of my dreams. That she would ride into my camp in muddy boy's breeches and steal my heart.” He picked up the hand she held clenched in her lap and brushed a kiss across her gloved knuckles. “That I would be forced by the situation to steal in return from her, in ways I would never wish. That I would so lose my heart that I'd sell my soul to the very devil to make up for the hurt I caused.”

A sob escaped her as he tucked her hand back into her lap rug. “Farewell, my beautiful Lenora,” he said. “My lady wife, my princess.”

She drew breath to speak, to say—what? But he quickly shut the carriage door and signaled for the driver to take off. Herr Weisstagen, a maid assigned to her for the voyage, and a trunk containing a travel wardrobe supplied by the countess followed in another carriage. A small troop of hardened soldiers rode alongside both vehicles. As the party rolled down the long castle drive, Lenora opened the carriage window and leaned out to look back. Wolfram, already growing small, stood alone on the castle steps.

She waved and bit back another sob. Stupid man. Romantic fool.

And her stupid, stupid heart.

They had traveled uneventfully clear across the border into the Kingdom of the Netherlands before Lenora had figured out the switch.

The Netherlands was one of the few European states free from turmoil this spring. Lenora prayed the other monarchs would follow the example of King William II, who had staved off revolution by supporting a liberal constitution with elected representatives and limiting his royal power. Her retinue headed for the country's port of Amsterdam to arrange passage to England.

The Royal Oak Inn accommodated them for the night. After a surprisingly fine dinner in the ladies' parlor, she'd disentangled herself from a pair of nervous sisters seeking to pass through the chaos of the revolution to reach the lying-in of their youngest sister in Antwerp. Lenora ventured to the inn's common room to seek information from her guards about the road conditions ahead. The voices made loud by ale froze her to the spot before she rounded the corner.

“If you ask me, he's a stupid fool to die for a woman when Germany needs good men like him to fight,” growled a man to the sound of someone dealing cards. She recognized the voice as belonging to one of her armed escorts.

“Married not even a fortnight, I heard,” replied a gravel-voiced companion, “and already gone to his death in a trade for her. Are you cocking on this draw?”

“Do you remember that wheelwright from the last inn, where we changed horses?” asked another. “He told me that wool merchants stopped over the day before who had just come from Rotenburg—ha! a doublet of eights!—and that the merchants said
der Wolfram
had ridden straight up to the
Schloss
.”

Her guards played faro in the inn's common room—and they spoke about her and Wolfram!

“They said the Black Knight turned himself in to Prince Kurt,” continued the speaker, “and that the prince threw him in the dungeon. The execution is expected next week.”

Execution!
The world swam as blood drained from her head. When her legs worked again, she marched into the room.

Four men shot to their feet. “
Freifrau,
” said the dealer, “you shouldn't be in here! The company is not fit for a lady.”

“Bother that!” She dropped onto the bench at their table. “Sit, good men. I overheard you speak. Pray tell me what you know about
der Wolfram
.”

The men exchanged wary glances. “We dare not,
meine Dame
. Count von Dremen made a bargain with your husband that we would see you safely home to England.”

She looked from one to the other. “I don't understand. You say Freiherr von Wolfsbach went to Rotenburg—voluntarily?”

The men glanced again uneasily at each other. “Lady, it's not for us to discuss the count's business or that of the Black Knight. Our master charged us with your safety. Our business is to that duty alone.”

She frowned. She could probably browbeat these guards into telling her more, but she wanted no other servants punished for aiding her. Her conscience carried enough guilt for this unending fiasco of a Germany voyage. “Where is Herr Weisstagen?” she asked them. The steward that Count von Dremen had put in charge of her return home was a steady and honorable older man; he'd handled all their travel arrangements over the past week with calm competence.

“He took his pipe outside after supper,
Freifrau
. You'll find him in the courtyard.” The men escorted her out of the taproom, nodding and smiling in their relief to be rid of her.

The sweet aroma of burning tobacco led her past the inn's gas lamps to a dark corner of the stable yard where Herr Weisstagen stood puffing quietly at his pipe.

“
Guten Abend, meine Dame.
” He greeted her with a companionable nod. “Is all satisfactory with your ladyship's accommodations?”

“Yes, thank you, all is fine.” She stopped in front of him. “I am, however, in need of some information. I realize my request might put you in a difficult situation with your master, but it has come to my attention that all is not what I believed it to be, in terms of my departure from Schloss Dremen.”

Herr Weisstagen sighed. He drew hard on his pipe before speaking. “
Freifrau,
what difference would any of it make to you now? I know enough of your story to realize you have sought to return to England ever since leaving Rotenburg. You're going home; surely the rest doesn't matter?”

She swallowed, felt a sweat start to break out despite the cool evening air. The guards had been right: something was amiss. “It matters,” she said, twisting her hands.

The sinking feeling in her stomach confirmed it to be true. Despite all that had happened, she didn't think she could stand to have Wolfram's death on her conscience. But what choice was there, if Kurt already had him in the dungeon?

“Does Lord Becker know what has happened? Perhaps you could get a message to him and the militiamen who were fighting with the
Freiherr
 . . .” She trailed off under Herr Weisstagen's steady gaze.

Weisstagen was Dremen's man, and Dremen had apparently betrayed her. The count was not the ally she'd believed him to be, but stood fast with the other aristocrats fiercely opposing the revolutionaries with every means at their disposal.

What a dim-witted fool she'd been. She had trusted the count, and now Wolfram stood to die because of it. He'd allowed himself to be imprisoned by Kurt in exchange for her.

Herr Weisstagen's sad eyes lit with the red glow of his pipe as he pulled on it again. “Did you know I had a son?”

“No, I didn't.” She frowned at his phrasing. “You
had
a son?”

“
Ja, Dame.
He worked as undersecretary to Count von Dremen's cousin, the bishop of Tübingen. Until my boy became involved with the revolutionaries.”

“What happened?” Dread pooled in the pit of her stomach. Dear God, would the stories of suffering never cease?

“The bishop imprisoned him for spreading insurrection. Gustav died of typhus while awaiting a trial they never bothered to schedule.”

The steady glow and dimming of the pipe mesmerized her. Save for its radiance, the courtyard surrounded them in darkness and quiet. “Herr Weisstagen, where lie your sympathies?” she whispered.

When he didn't answer, she moved closer. “I can't leave Lord Ravensworth to die in another prison. Perhaps his men could do something if they knew where he was.” She swallowed, felt a sweat break out across her brow despite the cool evening air. “Perhaps I can do something.”

Herr Weisstagen bent over to tap out his spent tobacco against the courtyard wall. “Did you also know, Dame Lenora, that I have a daughter, still very much alive?”

A prick of hope tickled down her back. “I am very pleased to learn it.”

“Her name is Helga Stanfeld. She's one of the head maids at Rotenburg, a widow recently engaged to be married to Herr Blumthal, the gardener of the
Schloss
. Perhaps you knew her?” The steward straightened back up and fixed his gaze on hers. “Perhaps she can help you.”

Dear God—she would have to go back.

Back to Rotenburg.

Back to Kurt.