Knight of Love (7 page)

“My strength is for your protection,
Liebling
.” He cupped her cheeks in his hands, raised her head to stare hard into her eyes. “I'd never use it against you, I swear.”

That blue light in his open, guileless eyes shone with sincerity.

But men lied all the time.

He must have seen something of her struggle. “Don't let him win, Lenora.” His hands slid down to her arms and tightened to match the intensity of his voice. “Don't give him that power. You're too smart to let him make you believe what he did is normal. He taught you lessons about how a bastard abuses a woman. He did it because he's cruel and weak, not because that's how a man treats his wife.”

“How do I know you wouldn't be like that also?” she whispered. “Maybe not at first, but later.”

He huffed out a breath. “I suppose there's no absolute way to know for sure. But I take you for a good judge of character. What do your instincts tell you about me?”

The question was an interesting one. She'd had two encounters with him: today and that day at the flogging post. Even posing as a blacksmith, he'd exuded authority. He was a leader who commanded loyalty from his men—not from fear, but out of respect and common cause. A good sign, she supposed. But surely a man could treat his comrades and horse well enough, then head home to beat his wife. He possessed an old-fashioned streak of gallantry for the nineteenth century. But hopeless romanticism could easily go sour if the damsel refused her role.

And Lenora was no wilting flower. She decided to test him.

“You seem to be a strong leader, but I would want to be an equal partner to my husband. Input on estate dealings, business negotiations, important family decisions—I would seek to be involved in all such matters.”

He cocked his head, considering her. “You wish to spend your time managing these affairs?”

“I did so for years at Sherbrooke Abbey.” She raised her chin. “I am good at such work. My father allowed me significant authority with the stewards at the home estate.”

He nodded. “Then you shall have such at Wolfsbach and Ravenhold as well. You don't yet have faith in me, and rightly so. But
I
know me. I will make you a good and loyal husband. I will honor you all the days of my life and give you pleasure in bed.”

Her face flamed hotly at this scandalous mention of
pleasure
and
bed
.

He traced her blush with a finger down her cheek. Then he sighed. “We are out of time, Lenora. Were circumstances different, were we back in London, I would dance attendance on your hand all the length of the Season. I'd woo you at balls and with drives in the park. I'd fight off challengers for the right to squire you about town. Your father's ducal mansion would overflow with my bouquets of love: asters, balsam, and thornless roses in fullest bloom.”

He stopped, shifted her off his lap, and pushed to his feet. “But this is not London and it is not the Season. We're caught in the midst of the German Confederation's collapse. The revolution grows across Europe every day. In Paris, people are rioting in the streets. Things will get worse—much worse—before some new order emerges. Innocent people will die in the chaos.” His mouth tightened. “You will not be one of them. I am sorry, lady, and I will spend our lifetime atoning for it, but I am taking the decision out of your hands. We are marrying,
now
.”

“Without my consent, no marriage is valid and, and”—she swallowed hard—“any bedding is rape.” She narrowed her eyes to stare up at him, towering over her from where she sat on the cot. “Is that what your fine words of chivalry come down to?”

“The marriage will be valid enough for the chaos of the moment. If and when you need the protection that the shelter of my name affords, you will have it. And the bedding”—he took her hand for one last kiss across her knuckles, his gaze blue and hot—“will be what you make it.”

He moved to the tent flap. “My quarters are yours for the night. You will not be disturbed. Do not make the mistake of thinking you can escape. Tomorrow, we wed.” He bowed. “May you sleep well, lady.”

And then he was gone.

Chapter 6

T
he ceremony was mercifully quick.

The minister arrived from the village around noon the next day, brought by the earl's man Schafer. Lenora marched up to the short and plump man before he even dismounted from his pony.

“I am held here by force,” she announced to the startled
Pfarrer
. “Any wedding ceremony”—she narrowed her eyes at the earl, who had come up behind her—“would be entirely against my will. I demand to be released and brought to British authorities.”

The minister wore a black cloak and a puzzled look. His gaze shifted nervously between her and Lord Ravensworth. “A Christian marriage,” the man said as he pulled at his clerical collar, eyeing Ravensworth's heavily armed men, “is not valid unless entered into freely by both parties.”

“Come, Herr Pfarrer,” said the earl with a respectful bow, “let me explain to you the situation.”

The past week's rain had finally stopped and bright sun warmed the day with the promise of spring. Ravensworth sat the vicar and Lenora on a bench pulled up to a table by one of the camp's bonfires. Gunther fetched her hot cider and offered the minister a stein of ale.

She listened as the earl recounted her whole sorry tale to the minister, along with the earl's reasoning for the proposed marriage. To Ravensworth's credit, he presented her objections to his plan and her alternate suggestions and invited her to speak and add her side of the story. But by the time the minister emptied his stein, he was nodding at Ravensworth's every point. “
Ja, Freiherr,
I see your reasoning. This marriage protects Dame
Lenora in these turbulent times, better than any other solution. And you clearly make a fine husband. Indeed, she is lucky you are willing to go so far to see to her safety.”

She rose up off the bench at that. “Lucky?!” she sputtered.

Ravensworth quickly cut off her protest of outrage. “The fortune is clearly all mine to win the hand of such an exquisite bride as the Lady Lenora
,
” he said, casting the minister a hard glance.

The hapless man scurried to his feet and bowed to her. “Forgive my poor choice of words,
meine Dame
. I do agree, however, that this marriage is your best choice under the circumstances. The rebels are surrounded by government and military forces in this part of Germany. The roads to Frankfurt and Berlin are blocked by Prinz Kurt and his allies. Should you attempt to get through to the British, you are almost certain to be recaptured by his men.”

“If the situation is indeed so dire, Lord Ravensworth is likely to be killed in battle,” Lenora said. “I would be a widow then, and the prince could reclaim me as his bride.” The thought of the earl's battlefield death was oddly disturbing, unlike the prospect of her former fiancé's demise. Should
that
good fortune befall her, she might dance a country reel.

“That is a risk we run,” Ravensworth allowed. “But a widow still has more options and power than a maiden, and you'll have the resources of my estate as well in that case. Besides, we're not defeated yet.”

The minister reached for her hand and patted it kindly. “I know of the sterling reputation of
der Wolfram
and can vouch for his honor. Everyone in this part of Germany knows of the Black Knight. The people revere him. The House of Wolfsbach is one of the most ancient and respected of all the German noble families.”

She waved a hand in the air. “Yes, yes, I've heard—free imperial knight, and all such,” she replied.

The good vicar straightened with a disapproving look. “Perhaps you don't realize,
meine Dame,
but
der Wolfram
is the last living male descendant of one of the most ancient lines of
Reichsritter.
His family has served Germany as noble warriors for almost eight hundred years. It is precisely because the title is so ancient that the last emperor couldn't let it go extinct,” the minister explained earnestly. “You see, Joachim, the previous Freiherr von Wolfsbach, fathered only one child, his daughter Baroness Magdalena. Luckily, unlike you British, we follow the Semi-Salic law here, whereby descent is possible through the female line in cases where not even the collateral lines offer a legitimate male heir.”

“How fortunate for the earl,” she muttered.

“Exactly,” the
Pfarrer
agreed. “His grandfather was able to pass the title through his daughter to her son”—the vicar gestured proudly across the table—“to
der Wolfram.
None uphold the values of loyalty, faith, courage, and honor better than the Wolfsbach knights. They are the very embodiment of the courtly Christian warrior.”

“The very embodiment, you say? How lucky we
all
are to even sit in the
Freiherr
's
presence, never mind be commanded to marry him.” She cocked an eyebrow at the earl, daring him to take offense.

“Indeed, Dame Lenora.” The minister nodded vigorously, oblivious to any irony in the exchange. “The
Reichsritter
held a privileged status under German feudal law. While other nobles fell under the authority of their local prince or grand duke, the knights reported directly to the emperor alone. Of course, the House of Wolfsbach lost this imperial immediacy when the Holy Roman Empire ended after Napoleon. But although the title was mediatized, the other sovereigns of the confederation all agreed that in compensation the knights should be elevated in noble stature to full equality with the sovereign rulers. So if it's the
Freiherr
's rank that concerns you, you may be assured that his title is much more ancient than that of Prinz Kurt and that their stature as nobility is equal.”

She let the minister prattle on. Her eyes locked with the earl's. That open blue gaze of his seemed so guileless, warm as a cloudless summer sky. The edges of his eyes crinkled up in an amused smile as the minister continued to expound in scholastic detail on the glorious history of the long line of Wolfsbach
Reichsritter
knights and on the rights and privileges of the title today.

The earl uncurled her fingers from around her mug of cider to warm them within his hands instead. Her own hands quite disappeared within his large grasp. In the daylight, his battered knuckles showed the torn red skin of yesterday's skirmish, as did the long scrape already scabbing over on his skull. He'd come to their wedding with a sword scabbard strapped around his waist.

This man fought hard. But a giant warrior-knight, no matter how chivalric, was not what she'd planned for in a mate.

Nor what she wanted in her bed.

She pulled her hand away.

None of this discussion mattered. She was willing to admit that the earl—the knight—held an ancient and exalted title. Were the circumstances different, her father might well deem him a fit suitor. But the point was that she did not seek a husband. She did not trust this particular man as husband, no matter how well recommended he came as protector of the people. And she refused to accept the argument that she needed a husband. She preferred to take her chances with fate and the German revolution.

She turned to the vicar. “Herr Pfarrer,
I did not ask for this man's protection. And I cannot accept the terms under which that protection is offered.”

“But what is there to doubt?” the man asked, clearly baffled by her continued refusal. “He is
der Wolfram,
the Black Knight of Wolfsbach!”

With a muffled curse at the minister's blind loyalty, she pushed to her feet and made one last try. “I wear breeches and a boy's shirt,” she said, waving a hand across her toilette. “You gentlemen cannot wish the shameful disgrace of a wedding ceremony with a woman dressed as a street boy. We must wait until we reach some town where I can acquire a proper gown.” A town where she might slip away in a crowd and escape these madmen.

The earl stood as well. He bowed to her with a grace that belied his size and a flourish worthy of a foppish French courtier. “You could be dressed in sackcloth and I would see only your beauty,
Liebling
. We will not wait.”

She glowered at him, at them all, knowing when she was defeated. “My opinion clearly counts for naught in this discussion. Go ahead, then, with your sham ceremony. If ever I get out of this godforsaken land, my family's lawyers will undo this mockery.”

The minister's eyes rounded at her blasphemy. “
Meine Dame,
I assure you that God has not forsaken Germany. The revolution brings God's justice back to the people. Sainted men like your husband here do the Lord's work.”

She rolled her eyes. Knight errant and saint now, too?

Lord help us, indeed.

The earl motioned to Lord Becker, who presented her with a document that it apparently amused the earl to call their marriage contract. The single sheet of paper signed over to her as dower the entirety of Lord Ravensworth's nonentailed wealth. The wording made the sum total, minus entailments to the title, of all his investments, rents, properties, and goods—both in the German Confederation and in England—hers as dower upon his death for the duration of her lifetime, thereafter to revert to their heirs. The quarterly allowance he assigned her was of similarly unusual generosity. She laughed upon reading the clauses, not believing a word. An easy document to draft on a battlefield and then to pretend never existed. She continued to roll her eyes as Ravensworth had Becker and the minister witness copies and as the earl made the minister solemnly promise to file copies in the village church registry and at the town hall.

Ravensworth then called to all of his men who were scattered around the encampment practicing their battle drills and cleaning weaponry. The men gathered with much curiosity and good-natured ribbing to witness their
Freiherr
recite his vows. Ravensworth arranged his senior officers Lord Becker, Müller, Horwitz, and Krause in two flanks next to her and the minister. The earl waved the
Pfarrer
through the preliminary bits of the ceremony, but then insisted that he, as groom, recite for all to hear his full marriage lines:

“I, Wolfram Charles Randolf von Wolfsbach und Ravensworth, seventh Earl Ravensworth, Free Imperial Knight of the House of Wolfsbach, take thee, Lady Lenora Trevelyan of the Duchy of Sherbrooke, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

Ravensworth started to add lines of his own: “I pledge thee my sword arm— ”

“Here he goes again,” Becker muttered to no one in particular.

“—as thy protection. I take thy honor as my own. I dower thee with all my worldly goods not entailed to the title. I swear to be faithful to our marriage bed. I pledge thee these vows in front of God and these witnesses, with a free and loving heart, from this day forward, as long as we both shall live. All this is my word of honor.”

Lenora drew breath to protest such ridiculous drama, but Becker laid a restraining hand on her arm. “He can't help himself,” Becker whispered in her ear, shaking his head. “He's
der Wolfram
, riding to your rescue. Let him have his say.”

When they got to her part, Ravensworth leaned in toward the minister. Lenora caught the phrase
Just the one line.

The minister cleared his throat and faced her. “Dame
Lenora, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband? Wilt thou love him, honor him, cherish and sustain him, in joy and in sorrow, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, and be faithful unto him, so long as you both shall live?”

A hush fell over the men gathered as witnesses.

She planted both hands on her hips and tapped a foot. “I think that's a bit much to ask under the circumstances, don't you?”

Ravensworth swept his sword to one side and dropped down to his knee in front of her. He caught her right hand in his grip. “Will you have me as your protector and champion?”

“Oh, for God's sake, man! Must you be such an ass?” she exclaimed.

Becker choked back a guffaw behind a quickly raised fist.

“
Meine D
ame!
” exclaimed the minister. “We might not be in church, but we are still assembled in the sight of God for the holy estate of marriage!”

“This ceremony is a sham, and well you all know it. Now, get up!” She tried to shake her hand free from Ravensworth's grasp, but the man would not release her.

“Not until you answer me, Lenora.” He knelt at her feet, looking up with that clear blue gaze, a happy smile softening his fierce warrior's face. The man was enjoying himself! She considered slapping him again with her free hand but had the absurd thought it would rank with abusing a puppy.

“Why do you need my agreement anyway?” She tugged hard at her hand. “You'll see your will done no matter what I say!”

He rubbed his lips across her knuckles. “Say yes, Lenora. Be my wedded wife, my cherished bride. Allow me to be your protector.”

She flushed, flustered. “Oh, fine, then! But, no—I don't know!”

He heaved to his feet and brushed off his uniform breeches. She stumbled back at his abrupt release and would have fallen had not the minister steadied her.

“I think that will do, then. Let us move on,” Ravensworth said smoothly. He lifted her hand to slip onto her finger the fine gold band that Becker hastily handed him. “With this ring I thee wed.” Ravensworth brushed another kiss over her knuckles.

For good measure, she supposed—the silly fool.

The minister rushed through some final benediction before slamming shut his black leather Book of Worship and scurrying back to the village on his pony.