Loyal Heart (The Von Wolfenberg Dynasty #1) (12 page)

The trencher provided a welcome distraction. “Can you manage this, or would you like me to help?”

There was that voice again. She was transforming into a flirtatious nitwit. Next she’d be fluttering her eyelashes at him.

“I’d appreciate your help,” he replied.

Something had happened to his voice too. Perhaps the tea had made it huskier. And speaking of eyelashes, his were the longest she’d ever seen, inky black like the hair on his head and chest. She recalled wisps of the same on his fingers. She absently wondered if the narrow line that wandered down his belly went all the way to…

“Sit,” he said softly, patting the bed beside him. “It will be easier for you to feed me.”

No wonder his blue eyes sparkled with amusement. She was leaning over with the spoonful of mashed carrots half way to his mouth, lost in daydreams of attempting some of the attentions her mother had told her men loved. She perched on the edge of the mattress and put the spoon to his mouth, fascinated by the movement of his sensuous lips as he savored the food.

“Tastes good,” he said. “You can relax. I won’t bite.”

Mama says biting can be very arousing.

She shook her head, afraid her mouth and her heart might get the better of her wits. “I don’t wish to hurt you,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t be here.”

He lay his head back against the pillows and inhaled deeply. “I want you to stay, Sophia. You make me feel better. Your reputation is safe. Drogo is here.”

She laughed out loud. “I’m not worried about my reputation,” she admitted, putting another spoonful to his lips. “It’s hardly likely you’ll make advances in your condition.”

Her mouth had triumphed and her face was likely as red as the gown she’d worn at the wedding. “I mean, not that you’d want to.”

He put a hand on her knee, reminding her of their closeness at the waterfall. “I understood what you meant.”

She studied the elegant fingers as his heat flowed up her thigh and thence into her womb. When she lifted her gaze, her eyes locked with his.

“And I do want to,” he rasped.

~~~

Wendelin reappeared abruptly with a large bowl full of steaming compresses. She cocked her head in the direction of the hallway. “It’s all quiet now.
Graf
Dieter has given your naughty brothers strict instructions they’re not to bother the newlyweds.”

Her cheeks rosy red, Sophia rose from the edge of the bed. Brandt instantly missed the warmth of her knee beneath his hand, but the die had been cast, the enchantment woven in the moments they’d stared into each other’s eyes. “You should go,” he whispered. “I’m not a pretty sight swathed in hot green compresses.”

“Knitbone,” Wendelin explained when Sophia frowned. “The tea will help him sleep this night, and you can see him on the morrow.”

“And mayhap I can get up then,” he tried.

The healer wagged her finger. “
Nein
. At least a sennight abed.”

Sophia smiled. “Wendelin is right. Your body needs time to heal.” She fluttered her eyelashes, warming his heart with the innocence of her unpractised flirtation. “I’ll come every day to help you pass the time,” she said.

He beckoned her closer so he could whisper, “Wear your hair down next time.”

She rolled her eyes up at the once elegant coiffure, blew a wayward strand off her face, smiled wryly and took her leave.

Wendelin pulled the sheet from his chest. “
Gut
!” she declared. “Bruises aren’t as red.”

He closed his eyes as she set about placing the compresses on his body. The heat was soothing, but a maelstrom whirled in his mind. He had to devise a plan to make Sophia his, but the obstacles seemed insurmountable. A question arose. He blinked open his eyes. “Is
Fräulein
von Wolfenberg promised in marriage?”

Wendelin eyed him like a tutor eyes an impertinent child. “
Nein
,” she croaked. “Her parents have allowed her to chose her husband. Not a good idea in my opinion. She should be wed by now.”

Brandt drifted off to sleep smiling inwardly. One less impediment. He was confident Sophia would choose him.

DIFFICULT INTERVIEWS

No one expressed surprised that Johann and Kristina didn’t appear when the family gathered the next morning in the small private dining room.

Sophia wished she’d been able to stay abed. She’d tossed and turned all night, drowning in the depths of Brandt’s blue eyes, practising different ways to break the news about her feelings for the
Franken
envoy.

Lute looked pale and out of sorts, Kon not much better. Both stared at the smoked ham and fresh bread set before them, but neither spoke. They weren’t used to imbibing copious amounts of ale and wine and were probably suffering the consequences of the previous evening’s over indulgence.

Her parents also looked tired, but happy, exactly as she’d expected. However, perhaps this wasn’t the best time to…

“I understand you helped Wendelin with our injured guest yestereve,” her father said.

She poked at the ham, reluctant to meet his gaze. This wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought. Last night the future seemed to fall in place, now Brandt’s status as the representative of her family’s enemy loomed large. She decided to put on a brave face. “
Ja
. He is making good progress. We gave him tea and fed him mashed vegetables.”

Lute made a strange choking sound. “May I be excused?” he rasped, fleeing the table before permission was granted.

Kon shifted his weight on the bench, his eating dagger poised in mid-air.

“Do you need to be excused also, Konrad?” their father asked with a smile.

Everyone knew Kon hated to be addressed by his full given name. He nodded, dropped the knife and fled.

Her mother pushed away from the table. “I should go after them.”

“They’ll be fine,” her husband assured her. “It’s a rite of passage. Every young man needs to experience the after-effects of drinking to excess.”

She regained her seat. “You’re right.” Then she looked at Sophia. “What about you, daughter? Any
after-effects
from last night?”

She knows.

Pointless to lie. Her mother knew her too well. She laid aside her eating dagger and clamped both hands on her knees. “I have made my choice,” she said softly.

Her parents stopped eating and pushed aside their trenchers, but said nothing.

She gathered her courage. “You’ve both assured me I would know when the right man came into my life.”

Her father took hold of his wife’s hand. “How do you know Brandt Rödermark is the right man?”

She might have known they’d be aware of her infatuation. “I can’t stop thinking about him,” she murmured, determined not to avoid their gaze. She had an urge to sing out
My love, we’re like that vine and tree; I’ll die without you, you without me,
but thought better of it
.
“When I’m with him, I feel…”

She hesitated. She’d never discussed sexual matters with her father present. How to explain the ache of longing in private places?

“You feel drawn to him,” her mother said.

There was no censure in the words and she was grateful, and emboldened. “I think I am in love with him,” she said.

Her father leaned forward, both forearms on the table. “You only think?”

Here was the point of no return. “I do love him,” she declared, rendered almost giddy by the realization it was true.

“Does he feel the same?” her mother asked softly.

She recalled the longing in deep blue eyes, the hoarse admission he wanted her. “He does.”

“Is he free to marry?”

Sophia suddenly felt like she too had over-imbibed. Her parents had expressed no concerns over Brandt’s allegiance to the Staufens, but it struck her like a bolt of lightning she knew nothing about the man she’d fallen in love with. Surely he wouldn’t have made advances if he were promised to another. She averted her gaze from her father’s probing eyes. “I didn’t ask him,” she admitted.

~~~

Brandt hadn’t slept well, awakened from time to time by the dull ache in his broken bones. However, it was an improvement over the previous night. His preoccupation with Sophia had also prayed on his mind. His cock had taken control of his wits and he’d led her to believe there might be a future for them.
 

He supposed he shouldn’t be too worried. It was unlikely the
graf
would allow his daughter to wed a
Franken
, but the thought of never seeing Sophia again left him empty. The prospect of life without a woman he barely knew loomed like an endless desert. He’d felt more alive in the brief time spent with her than ever before. It was madness, folly, and she’d be devastated when he told her about Dorothea.

The house was strangely quiet after the festivities of the night before. He ate some excellent smoked ham brought by a servant, pleased his appetite seemed to be returning. Drogo helped him to the garderobe. The excursion exhausted him and incurred Wendelin’s wrath when she arrived as he was trying to get back into bed. She packed the young squire off in search of Vidar, administered another dose of tincture, muttered dire warnings all the way through an application of hot compresses, then left in a huff.

Her ire was mildly amusing and he hoped he’d be as feisty in old age. His father could learn a thing or two from Wendelin.

As time dragged by, he longed for Sophia to appear, yet dreaded what he had to tell her.

His hopes rose when the door opened, but fell again when a stern-faced
Graf
Dieter entered.

He was glad Wendelin had propped him up on the pillows. Lying flat on his back would have put him at a disadvantage and he doubted he’d have been able to raise himself up. He wasn’t sure what had put his normally jovial host out of sorts but deemed it better to begin the conversation. “My lord von Wolfenberg, I humbly thank you for the care I’ve received in your house. I’m an inconvenience in the middle of a wedding.”

Graf
Dieter folded his arms. “You were attacked on my lands. I failed in my duty to protect a guest and I apologise. You are not an inconvenience.”

Yet something was bothering him.

“I should have been more careful, listened to Vidar. He warned me not to come to the house without an escort.”

His host unfolded his arms and walked to the end of the bed, his eyes on Brandt all the while. “It pains me to think a man cannot walk from the river to my home without being beaten.”

Brandt got the feeling Sophia’s father was taking the measure of him, seeing how he would react. Had she told her parents about last night?

“Resentments run deep after the war,” he replied. “The men who ambushed me evidently thought they had good reason.”

Von Wolfenberg shook his head. “Or they were drunk.”

Brandt smiled. “That too.”

For the first time a trace of amusement tugged at the corners of the
Graf’s
mouth. “Duke Heinrich’s men?”

Brandt nodded, reluctant to mention the dagger. “Three, mayhap four. I’m not sure.”

“They are long gone, as you know, but the duke will hear of what happened. Bullies are often braggarts and sooner or later we will find the culprits.”

Much as Brandt thirsted to retaliate, what little strength he had was dwindling.

“I’m tiring you,” von Wolfenberg said. “I’ll leave you to rest.”

An urge to blurt out his feelings rose in Brandt’s heart, but what to say? I love your daughter but have a duty to another? He’d be lucky to leave Saxony alive.

An alarm sounded in the recesses of his weary brain. There was something his visitor wasn’t saying.

“By the way,”
Graf
Dieter said, pausing at the door, “Sophia is checking on Mut, and probably your horse.”

“Löwe?”

“
Ja!
Did she tell you I once had a rottweiler by that name? Heart of a lion.”

The
graf
evidently knew Sophia had visited him. No point denying it. “I don’t think she did.”

“Last rottweiler I owned. We breed only hovawarts now, and Armond and Amara are the only two we keep around the house. One saved my life, long ago. They’re not good watchdogs, but a hovawart will give its life in defence of its master. Much like a father will do everything in his power to protect his daughter.”

~~~

On her way to the stables, Sophia glanced across the meadow where scant hours ago dozens of pennants flapped in the breeze atop pavilions. Most had been dismantled or were in the process of being taken down and packed away ready for departure.

She shaded her eyes against the early morning sun, already bright in the summer sky, searching for Duke Conrad’s standard. Her breath caught in her throat when she espied it near the river and realized Brandt’s men were taking down their smaller tents and loosening the guy ropes of the pavilion. Did they intend to leave without their master?

Or perhaps he regretted what had passed between them and decided to flee. Mayhap she’d imagined he had feelings for her.

She hesitated. Hastening unaccompanied across the field would draw unwanted attention from the soldiers and servants striking camp, and she desperately wanted to see Mut.