Knight of Love (21 page)

Lenora caught the tension in Wolfram's left side and his slight grimace as he bowed to her and her friends. A buzzing filled her ears as memories flooded back of that horrible last day at Rotenburg. Dear God, his blood pooled even now in her imagination, soaking both the floor and themselves.

She looked down at her hands, clutched dangerously tight around the stem of her champagne cup. Her ears cleared in time to hear Wolfram's words: “. . . had the pleasure of attending in years past the famous Society of Love ball, hosted by Lady Beatrice's much-missed parents. Have you taken over the duties of that charity ball, Lady Beatrice? I've heard you are the real power now directing the Society of Love.”

He exchanged further pleasantries with Bea and expressed his belated congratulations to Rexton over his marriage last spring, wishing Lady Rexton a lifetime of happiness.

Then he stepped around Bea's chair to face Lenora.

“And, yes, I had the honor of meeting Lady Lenora when our paths crossed a few months ago in Germany. A most tumultuous time. I trust you are enjoying better the peace and security of our native England, my lady?”

She managed to nod and mutter some inanity in greeting.

“You were involved with the revolution, weren't you, Ravensworth?” asked Rexton when Lenora made no further move to speak. God's truth, she'd never felt more tongue-tied in her life.

“Here and there, yes,” the earl replied stiffly. “There was a particularly vicious prince abusing his people not far from the ancestral lands of my mother's family. The people had risen up against him. I was pleased to join in his defeat.”

Lenora finally broke in with a forced laugh. “For shame, sirs! Are we ladies not enough to distract you from such gruesome talk? How can you dwell on stories of battle when a waltz is starting up?” She batted Wolfram's arm with her fan and cast him a simpering smile. “Would you not much prefer to dance?”

It was a blatant move, almost worthy of a Drury Lane doxy. She was practically begging the man to dance with her. Even Bea looked rather startled.

Lord Rexton saved the day with his usual charm. “In the presence of such beautiful ladies, Ravensworth, we certainly shouldn't waste our time with talk of battlefield and revolution. And, most fittingly, I believe it's to be a German waltz next.”

Lord Rexton's flattery would normally have annoyed her for its condescension, but she silently thanked him for it today.

Left with little choice, Wolfram held out his hand to her. She took it and rose to her feet, all without taking her eyes off his cold blue gaze. Lord help her, she
wanted
to dance with him, wanted to be in his arms again.
But only for the chance to talk,
she told herself fiercely, breaking their gaze.

“Are you well enough to dance?” she asked him in a whisper as they took leave of her friends. “You are limping, I see.”

He stared straight ahead, his face a mask. “I will manage, thank you.”

“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 never 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.”