The Legacy (40 page)

“Nay. We want no more of him or his kind. He’s yours to do with as you will.” Wolf frowned. “Why are you traveling with merchants?”

Günter opened his mouth to reply, but Sabina stirred against Wolf. He gazed down at her. A soft breeze brushed her hair against her face.

“I must go,” Wolf murmured, tucking her scarf around her more closely. “She needs caring for. I’ll see to it myself.” He glanced up again to find his brother watching him with a curious expression. “Will I see you later?”

Günter said nothing for a moment, then nodded his head. “I finally understand what it is about you and your women, brother. You must be faithful to one and only one at a time.” He looked down at her, and he cleared his throat. “She’s a fine one. Reminds me of… my own.”

Wolf looked up in surprise. “What is this? Has the mighty warrior been felled by love?” He marveled at the embarrassed flush on his brother’s face even as he hoped their ill will over Beth might finally be put to rest.

Günter brushed off the question with a shrug. “As you say, there will be time for answers later.” He glanced at Sabina again, though, and his brow furrowed. “Do you ever worry about becoming too attached? These are hard times. Even strong women may not survive. What would you do if the worst happened … again?”

Wolf could not help feeling as though Günter asked for his advice. “I would go on. Or perhaps I wouldn’t.” He looked down at Sabina and smiled faintly. “But the memory of her fragrance would linger either way.” He realized how inane that sounded and glanced back up at his brother sheepishly.

Günter’s brows beetled together. “What nonsense is that?”

“Nothing,” Wolf said, and it was his turn to be embarrassed. “Something she once told me about a flower. Never mind.” He shifted her in his arms. “Go. I’ll be here when you return. God speed.”

Günter nodded, and then walked his horse closer to his brother. Their eyes met. Günter leaned down and clapped a hand on Wolf’s shoulder in a wordless gesture of farewell, then wheeled his horse about.

Wolf watched him go and turned toward the door. Franz and Bea awaited them anxiously within.

“A bath for my wife,” Wolf called out. “And food. Now.”

Sabina glanced up at Wolf. The steam from the water rose in placid curlicues above her body. He seemed subdued as he washed her hair with Bea’s fragrant soap, rinsing the long tresses with meticulous intensity and then wrapping the heavy mass in a long cloth. She lay quietly in the bathing tub while he washed her with careful tenderness, his hands lingering on her softest places, then moving determinedly away. His fingers skimmed over her belly, where he hesitated for a moment before resuming his gentle strokes.

Sabina flourished under his caresses, content to be with him, content to be touched in this way, with no demands. At least she thought she was, until his hands slid between her parted thighs, and he began to wash her there as well. Though his contact was almost impersonal, as a nurse might bathe a babe, still she found herself aroused by the touch of his long fingers as he went about his task.

She lifted her hips, seeking him, seeking his caress. His eyes met hers and in them she saw hesitation and—uncertainty?

“Please …” She answered his unspoken question, and his gaze drifted down. His fingers slid in, completing her, caressing that part of her belonging only to him. She leaned her head back against the rim of the bathing tub and surrendered herself with a sigh.

Emerald eyes watched her pleasure, gauged her response, sought to satisfy her with an unhurried tempo, a soft sweep of his thumb. Her release, when it came, was sweet and slow, all the more powerful as a result. She gasped, threw back her head, and let out a soft, keening wail, the roll of her hips causing gentle waves to lap over the side of the tub.

When it was over, she grasped his arm as he sought to withdraw his hand from the water. She stood, water streaming in hushed sheets from her body, and reached for him, bent on uniting with him in the ultimate act of possession and gifting. He stood, too, but to her surprise, he held her body away from his.

“Sabina,” he began, and the note of sadness in his voice struck her. “We must talk.”

“Now?” she asked, sharp need permeating the one word.

He nodded his head reluctantly. “Yes. It wouldn’t be right for me to do as you wish without…”

“Without …?”

He passed a hand across her brow, slid it against her cheek. “Without telling you everything.”

She frowned. “Everything about what?”

“Me. Us. Why we wed. What I’ve done.”

Sharp fear replaced sharp need. “What are you saying? What have you done?”

“I realized, tonight, when I nearly lost you … You must be free to choose. And freedom comes with truth. It’s the only way.”

Sabina did not understand, and her unblinking stare made him look away. He bent, lifted her out of the tub, and then wrapped a warm drying cloth around her. “Come. Sit. I’ll explain everything. And then you will choose.”

“Choose what?” she said, her voice rising in a squeak. She could not help it. She was genuinely afraid now.

He blinked, and in the depth of his eyes she saw his despair. “Choose whether to stay or go.”

“I choose to stay,” she answered immediately.

“Nay. Not like that.” He laid her on the bed, and then sat down next to her with a heavy sigh. He fiddled with the cloth around her, adjusting it unnecessarily. “You know I love you. That cannot be denied. After you’ve learned what I have to say, I only hope you’ll remember, and also that I want you to stay with me, as my wife, in every sense of the word. But if you choose otherwise, I’ll respect your choice and do everything in my power to grant you your freedom.”

“Wolf, you are frightening me,” she whispered.

“Forgive me. I don’t mean to.” He took her hands in his, stared at them. “Very well. Out with it,” he said, almost to himself. “I once said as man and wife, we should have no secrets between us. There is still one left, however. It’s about my father.” He lowered his head and looked away. “His death was no accident. You are aware he had gotten himself into trouble, serious trouble—heavily into debt to a degree to which he couldn’t overcome.” He raised his head now, looked directly at her. “What you don’t know is, unable to bear up under the strain of his commitments, unable to bear the shame of his failures, he—he took his own life.”

She gasped, shocked, and sat up. “Nay. Wolf, are you certain? Mayhap there is some mistake—”

He shook his head. “There is no mistake. He did not fall from the White Cliffs accidentally in the rain, as everyone supposed. He flung himself off. He left a letter in his pocket. I was the first to reach him when the search parties went to look for him. I brought the letter home and burned it in the fireplace. Then I sinned and lied to the priest to have my father buried in consecrated ground against the Church’s edicts on suicides.” He ran a hand through his tangled hair. “To worsen matters further, the baron saw my father jump, and came to me later, threatening to make it public knowledge if I didn’t agree to his schemes. I couldn’t bear the humiliation it would bring, or the effect it might have on my family’s future.” He lifted one shoulder in a gesture of hopelessness. “At the time, I believed Peter wished to marry Fya—her family never would have agreed to such an alliance if this had become known.”

He pressed the heels of his hands wearily to his eyes, and dropped them to dangle between his knees. “And I thought of Gisel, too. What hope for a marriage contract might I have for her if it became known her grandfather had died an unsanctified death, and her family didn’t pay its debts?” He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “That’s why I agreed to take you as my wife.” He stood, moved restlessly away. “At least, it is what I told myself.”

“They were the best of reasons,” Sabina said. “I only wish I had known earlier.”

“But they were not the real reasons I did what I did,” he said quietly.

Sabina lifted her hand to him, but let it fall when he moved out of reach. She pressed her lips together and folded her ankles beneath her on the bed, trying not to be hurt by this small rejection. “Why, then?”

He hunched his shoulders, and his gaze slid away. “The real reason is I was ashamed. Not of Papa, but of myself. He came to me. Asked for my help. I… refused him. I didn’t want anyone to guess what I had done. I was terrified the family would find out.”

That stopped her. Wolf, the man who rushed to everyone’s aid, the man who took on responsibilities not even his own, who fought deadly enemies with aplomb?

“That seems … unlike you. You must have had a very good reason,” she said, and tried to keep the question out of her voice.

Though his heart filled with sadness, Wolf smiled at the woman who even now sought to absolve him of his despicable deed. “I thought so at the time. He had an idea—a wild one, one that would have plunged both our businesses into ruin if I had aided him in the way he wished. I had worked so hard, saved for so long to start my own print shops.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’d given years of my life to them. They had only just begun to find real success. They are the only things that sustained me after Beth died, that and my daughter.”

He recalled the argument with his father that day in vivid detail …

“I will print a newer, better Bible than Gutenberg!” Papa exclaimed, slamming his hand on Wolf’s desk. “On vellum, not cheap pulp useful only for the privy.”

“Papa, it will never work.” Wolf stood up, facing his father from the other side of the desk he used while at his Nürnberg press. “The size of the frame is too large. You have no buyers, and vellum costs a fortune.” Wolf waived a hand in the air in exasperation. “Vellum doesn’t even accept the press well. It’s for scribes, not presses. For special commissions only, and you have none. The time for such bibles has passed!” He laid both hands flat on the desk, trying to bring his feeling of alarm under control. He took a deep breath. “Besides, where would you get the coin for materials?”

Papa’s eyes glowed. “You will give it to me. Invest in me, my son, and I will make us both rich. You will see! We will hire the finest scribes to illuminate the sheets for the large press books, only the finest. We will build a new press if we must, but it will be worth every guilder in the end!”

Wolf clenched his jaw. He had to reason with his father. “Any printer with sense knows the market favors bibles that are portable and affordable. Anything else is far too expensive and only for the wealthiest of patrons. Without a commission, it is madness to try anything larger.” He leaned over the desk and stared his father in the eye. “You’d go into unrecoverable debt trying to accomplish such a thing, and so would I.”

“You are wrong, my son. I will prove it to you if you will only loan me the coin.” Papa’s eyes glittered with the mirage of his vision.

Though he knew he must try, Wolf knew nothing he said would dissuade him.

They’d argued for hours. Wolf remembered now the last words he had ever spoken to his father.

I’m sorry, Papa. I love you, but I will not help you destroy yourself.

“Papa went ahead without me,” he said to Sabina. “He didn’t have my resources, however. He fell heavily into debt, tried to gamble his way out of it, but could not. My refusal led him on the downward spiral that would eventually result in him taking his own life.”

“Oh, Wolf,” Sabina said softly, and touched his hand.

Wolf saw again his beloved father’s face on that last day, pleading with him to invest in his dream. “He was my father. I had an obligation to do what I could to help him. Instead, I put finances over family. I finally realized what I had done and sought to make amends, but by then it was too late. Papa was already dead.”

His voice broke on the last word, and he looked away from her so she would not see the tears in his eyes.

“So, now you know I am a coward and a dishonorable son. And so, I was responsible for my own father’s death. I felt it was only right for you to know the sort of man you had married before you made your decision to stay. If you choose to disassociate yourself from me now, I will understand.” He went to the window and splayed his hand against the cold glass, waiting for her judgment.

Sabina looked at her husband’s profile, so full of grief and pain, and understood what his refusal to help his father had cost him that day. What it still cost him. He trailed his fingers over the window glass and then turned his face away to rub his cheek against one sleeve, the dejection in his strong shoulders and the stiff line of his body expressing his expectations. He squared his shoulders and turned back.

“But I pray you won’t leave,” he said. “There are many reasons I wish for you to stay. But the most important one, the only one that matters, is that I love you more than my own life, and I’ll spend the rest of it trying to earn my honor back. So you can be proud of me. I want you to be proud of me,” he said, his voice barely audible. A yearning etched itself into the weary strength of his face. He gazed down at the floor. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks if I can earn your respect.”