“Here, Bea, perhaps you had better—” He waved the cloth helplessly at her.
“Why, yes, Master Wolf, of course.” Bea took the cloth and toweled the girl’s hair vigorously. Everything Bea did, she did vigorously. A heavy-set woman of obvious Viking descent, with rosy cheeks and a booming voice, she constantly reminded Wolf of the legendary warrior women of the Valkaries.
When she finished with Lady Sabina, he said, “Mull some of the wine and bring it at once. I’m afraid she’s chilled to the bone.”
Bea obeyed, bringing him a steaming cup of
glühwein,
the cinnamon-spiced scent drifting in the air.
He motioned to his brother to assist him, and Peter finished drying off and knelt again at Lady Sabina’s side. He slipped his arm beneath her to hold her up while Wolf brought the wine to her lips. Her head lolled at first, but then she struggled to sit up.
Wolf spoke softly into the pink shell of her ear. “My lady, I have some wine for you. Can you drink it?”
Her lids fluttered open and he was struck anew by the deep, rich blue of her eyes. He heard what he took to be a murmur of assent and gently pressed the cup to the generous curve of her lips. She drew the edge of the cup into her mouth and swallowed a sip. As the spices flowed across her tongue, she closed her eyes and emitted a husky groan. She placed her hands over his, tilted the cup back, and took deep, greedy gulps.
At her lusty sound and sailor-worthy chugging, Peter’s eyebrows shot up, his ears practically twitching in male interest. Impressed, he shot an appreciative glance at Wolf.
Wolf was not unaffected. There was something guilelessly sensual about her, and at the unanticipated sound a hint of masculine hunger snaked through him.
She drank so fast a trickle of wine trailed down her chin and dripped onto her throat. Wolf felt a sudden urge to lick the drops from her ivory skin. All this was followed by a prick of irrational jealousy due to his half-naked brother’s proximity to her. He wanted to knock Peter’s hands away, even though Wolf had asked for his help.
Appalled at himself, he reined in his unruly impulses. The woman was ill, for God’s sake. He barely knew her. She wasn’t even the sort who attracted him. What was wrong with him?
She suddenly coughed, as if the wine went down the wrong way. She gasped for air, and Peter pounded on her back. At this rate, she would likely return the wine up on both of them. What was wrong with
her?
“Take slow breaths or you’ll make yourself sick,” Peter soothed.
Her breathing slowed. She appeared to recover herself with an effort of will causing her hands to shake, but then her eyes slowly rolled back into her head. Once again unconscious, her hands dropped from the cup.
Wolf set the cup aside. A suspicion flickered at the edges of his mind, but he couldn’t yet grasp its meaning. In his mind, he pieced together a pattern he didn’t want to believe. With determination, he pushed open the rug. Shielding her body from the servants’ view, he reached for the tight sheath of her sleeve and tried to yank it up. The wet fabric refused to give.
Peter looked at him in confusion. “Er, Wolf …?”
Undaunted, Wolf pulled at the laces binding her sleeve to the bodice until they popped. The sleeve slid off … revealing a bracelet of angry welts decorating her wrist.
“Christ’s bones,” he whispered.
Peter drew in a sharp breath, and they both stared. Wolf had seen such marks on prisoners paraded through the streets, but he’d never seen them on a noble lady. Bruises higher up on her arm spoke of other abuse.
God in heaven, what had she endured? Who could do such a thing to a gentlewoman? His instincts to protect, to defend, rose up; the urge to find and pound the animal who had done this to her was almost overwhelming.
She groaned softly, drawing their notice. She was waking. He quickly re-laced her sleeve and replaced the rug around her. The silent glance he shot Peter forestalled any further comment while they waited for her to awaken.
Wolf noticed the wine drops still on her chin and neck. He dabbed at the spots with a cloth until his fingers made accidental contact along her jaw, and without thinking, stroked slowly down the tender column of her neck. He lingered for a breathless moment until her eyes opened wide in alarm. Definitely awake, she struggled to sit up.
Wolf snatched his hand away, staring at it as though it belonged to someone else.
Peter caught his eye and pursed his lips. “Would you two like to be alone?” he whispered, amused.
“Shut up, Peter,” Wolf said absently. His skin still tingled where it had touched hers, as though he had held it too close to a flame.
Wolf looked pointedly down at his brother’s hands, which yet supported Lady Sabina’s slender shoulders, until Peter, stifling a knowing grin, understood and removed them, allowing her to sit up on her own.
Wolf looked back at the girl—dammit,
Sabina
—and tried to concentrate.
“My lady, when did you last eat?” he asked her.
She stared up at him, her eyes widening when she took in his state of undress. She dropped her gaze to his bare chest, blinked, then shifted it to Peter—and just as quickly shifted it back again. She cleared her throat and stared off into an inoffensive corner of the room.
“A real meal? I am not certain. A Sabbath day, I believe,” she managed.
Franz, once again impeccably dressed, returned, and stood quietly at the ready. Wolf gave Sabina the wine. Her hands shook only a little when she raised it to her lips.
“It is mid-week,” he said. “Are you telling me you haven’t eaten in three days? What was the date of your last meal?”
She seemed to be trying to recall the information even while she pursued another gulp. “The third?” she offered around the rim of the cup.
Bea clutched her apron to her ample bosom. “The third! But today is the sixteenth!”
Everyone started speaking at once. Wolf hissed for silence. Sabina glanced around at them, surprised.
“You haven’t eaten in nearly two weeks? Why not? Were you fasting?” He needed to know, needed to confirm his worst fears although he already knew the answer.
“Nay,” she said slowly, as if she contemplated how much of the truth to reveal to him. She cast her gaze downward, hiding her eyes from view. Finally, she answered.
“The baron—refused me all food but a little gruel each day until I agreed to—” She stopped, plucked at the fur with her ragged nails.
“Until you agreed to marry?” he guessed.
“Yes,” she said. Silence filled the room. She seemed to be counting the bricks in the far corner of the wall.
And Wolf had thought the pressure brought to bear against him had been terrible. The pieces began to fall into place.
She bit her lip, and at last she offered, “It is not so many days. Our Lord was without food for forty days in the desert. I at least had oats. For almost the whole time.”
Wolf cursed under his breath. She was either stupid or brave, and she didn’t appear to lack wit. Most noblewomen of his acquaintance—and granted they were few—would have been reduced to tears at the idea of going without dessert. Yet, if she was telling the truth, this one had survived on so little for so long. A glimmer of unwilling respect winked in his breast.
Peter, quiet until now, finally found his tongue.
“Wolf,” he hissed. “What in Hades is going on here? You could have chosen nearly any woman in the region. Why pick one whose father had to abuse her to get her to marry you?”
Wolf glanced at the servants, then back at Peter. “I’ll explain everything later,” he murmured.
“Yes, you will,” Peter agreed with a pointed stare.
Wolf turned to Bea. “Bring bread. And stew if we have it, something not too heavy. And Franz—”
The older man snapped to attention when Wolf turned to him.
“Prepare a hot bath for the baronesse. She’s still chilled, and it will help to warm her up.”
Franz nodded, but hesitated when the housekeeper brought the bread.
Wolf, still kneeling beside Sabina, handed her the entire braided loaf, which she raised hungrily to her mouth. She stopped, lowered her head, and made the sign of the cross over the bread, then began to devour it in wide, gulping bites. Bea hurried off to heat the stew, all the while muttering under her breath.
Lady Sabina closed her eyes, chewed, and sighed in sheer sensual pleasure. When she pulled another chunk of the bread off with her teeth, a few stray crumbs clung to her plump lower lip. Wolf absentmindedly reached over to wipe them off, sliding the pad of his thumb over the silk of her mouth to dislodge the crumbs. She stopped chewing. Their eyes met and held.
A warm tension dominated the moment, and it stretched languidly between them. Everything became magnified: he heard her shallow breaths, saw the muscles in her throat work when she finally swallowed, observed the rise and fall of her breasts …
As though the storm had reached inside the house and charged the chamber with sudden lightning, everything around him ebbed. Sound stopped. Activity ceased. He looked down. He had no idea how her hand had found its way into his, but he was no more able to release her than to prevent the rain from falling where it willed.
He scowled.
What in hell was happening to him? His eyes returned to hers, and the scalding sparks between them left him feeling open, exposed. Her lids widened, and drifted down while she gazed at his mouth. She absently licked her lip, in the precise place where his thumb had touched. His heart stuttered to a stop, then slowly started up again. With absolute clarity, he knew she was wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by him. He was about to oblige her when somewhere in the far reaches of his mind he heard a discreet cough.
He blinked. Sound rushed in again—the rapid pace of her breathing, the patter of the rain, his own heart pounding. He heard the cough a second time. He realized Franz had been trying to get his attention for some time. Wolf had forgotten there was anyone else in the room. He released her hand and leaned back on his heels, battling the fierce surge of lust she had inadvertently inspired.
He tore his gaze away from Sabina’s and saw Peter also watched him curiously. Wolf stood up.
“What is it?” he asked Franz, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“Master Wolfgang, where would you like me to place the bath? The bedchambers are nearly ready, but I was unclear what your, ah, preferences might be?”
He realized Franz was delicately asking whether his new wife of short acquaintance would be sleeping in his bed tonight.
Chapter
4
W
olf held up a finger in a bid for time. He needed to recover his balance.
“A moment,” he told Franz, and paced away. He noticed fresh shirts among the pile of linens Bea had brought; he put one on and tossed one over to Peter as well, who caught it and drew it over his head.
He hadn’t given much thought beyond the wedding ceremony, other than his unswerving belief he would return Lady Sabina to the cloister at the first opportunity. If this were any normal marriage, she would of course be sleeping in his chamber for the bridal night. He would likely even have bestowed a morning-gift on her after he had bedded her, assuming she pleased him enough. However, this wasn’t any normal marriage, and he had no intention of bedding her.
A period of abstinence was usually expected after a death in the home. While the gossips would whisper about the haste of his marriage to her so soon after his father’s sudden end, no one would expect him to take a new wife to bed while he still mourned Papa. He had thought it would be a simple matter, then, to return her to the cloister, induce her to retake her vows and thereby free him from his. He realized now it wouldn’t be practical to return her at once, the way he’d planned. She needed rest, food—security.
He would still need to convince the Wittenberg Marriage Council he had not consummated the marriage, without revealing the full circumstances, and petition for a dissolution.
But not if he bedded her. If he bedded her, a child might result and he would be forced to keep them both. He hadn’t thought it might be a problem—until now.
Ah, Beth,
he silently asked his beloved’s spirit, always with him,
what am I to do?
He glanced over at Lady Sabina again. She appeared to be gripping the loaf of bread in a stranglehold, and she stared distractedly into the corner. Wolf had no idea why the girl affected him so. He wished he didn’t have to discuss this in front of Peter, who awaited his response with avid curiosity.
Wolf turned to Franz.
“Put everything in the chamber across from mine,” he ordered. He could keep an eye on her that way, and yet she would be far enough away not to be a temptation to him. “Tell Bea to bring her stew upstairs.”
Franz nodded. “Yes, Master Wolfgang. It shall be as you wish it.” The manservant turned from him.
Wolf suddenly remembered something and stopped him. “There was a problem with the baronesse’s trunks. She has no belongings with her. Have Bea find something for her to wear.” Her dress was ruined, and he couldn’t have her walking about naked.
At least not until she filled out a little …
That errant thought brought up a host of images, each of which he stomped down with a mental iron boot.
Franz bowed smartly. “Of course, Master Wolfgang. I will see to it.” He glided from the room.
Wolf noted Sabina chewed again, though she gave no hint she’d overheard his orders.
Peter pulled him aside.
“Handily done. You got rid of the servants, who will probably know everything by the morrow regardless. I, on the other hand, am completely in the dark.
Baronesse
Sabina? Do I assume this is Baron von Ziegler’s prodigal daughter?”
Wolf nodded in response, jaw clamped tight.
Peter blew out a breath and raked back the locks over his forehead with an impatient hand. “Wolf, what were you
thinking?
She’s a noble! And from what I remember of the gossip, no better than a—”
Wolf’s steely glance stopped whatever Peter was originally about to say.