The Legacy (21 page)

He looked at the jut of her small chin, the mutiny in her eyes. He liked her best, he realized, when she was this way. Strong and spirited.

“Think you we don’t?” he asked. “Then I will declare myself. I have a high regard for you, for your courage in the face of hardship. I’ve become—fond of you in our short acquaintance.”

She looked utterly surprised. Her mouth hung open, and he was reminded of the first time they met. “You’ll catch flies with that,” he murmured, and gently nudged her jaw.

She snapped it shut.

He plunged on. “You’ve been through so much. I’ve felt, since I met you, I would like to take care of you, protect you. Besides my obligation as your husband, it would please me to do so.”

She listened intently now, barely breathing it seemed.

“We have more in common than you might suspect,” he went on. “A fondness for argument, a shared sense of humor. There is even a strong attraction between us. Though we’re very different, I think our union could prove fruitful, in many ways.”

“What are you saying?” she asked softly. “Are you saying you … what you feel is—is it…?”

“Love?” he finished for her. She nodded slowly, and this time he knew she was holding her breath.

He knew it must be said. “Nay, not love.”

Her brows drew together, and he heard her sharp intake of breath while her whole body stiffened against his.

“Sabina, I’m being as honest as I know how. You need to know I will likely never love again. I’ve felt nothing like love for years, and I fear I’m no longer able.”

She hung her head. He saw a tear tremble on her eyelashes and fall. It soaked silently into the fabric of his doublet.

“I’m sorry. I’ve loved only one woman in my life and I don’t seem to have it in me to love another. I tell you this now because I don’t want you to harbor any false hopes, or think this is something it will never be.” He caught a second tear with the back of his finger when it slid down her soft cheek.

“Still, what I feel for you isn’t something I can continue to ignore.” He furrowed his brow. “You occupy my thoughts. I desire you more each day. I wish for you to share my bed as well as my life. What I’m offering you is likely the best opportunity you’ll ever have to lead a normal life. I’m asking you to be a wife and a mother as God intended. The way I see it, you have few options as advantageous as what I am proposing.”

Sabina jerked away. She scrubbed at her face and glared at him in defiance. “So, that is your idea of an attractive offer? A loveless marriage to Saxony’s finest bachelor?”

“Sabina, don’t…” He reached for her again.

She slashed her hand in the air, forestalling him. Arms akimbo, she swept her gaze over him from head to toe, shaking her head and fixing a harsh smile upon her face.

“Mayhap it would be best if you pursued other avenues to satisfy your baser desires. I am not that desperate.” She straightened regally. “Thank you for your gracious proposal, Master Behaim, but if it is the best you can do, I am afraid I shall have to decline. There is no reason for us to remain attached. I will seek to dissolve this union at the first opportunity.”

Chapter
15

S
abina glared at the man who had just destroyed her dreams. Wolf stared back; a dull flush crept up his neck and reached to his temples. He clenched his jaw and took a step toward her, but she darted away, taking his place in front of the hearth. He reached for her.

“Do
not
touch me!” She could not bear to feel his hands on her again.

Something of the violence of her feelings must have penetrated, for he backed away a little. As though he could not trust himself, he clasped his hands behind him again and eyed her from across the angry silence.

“Mayhap I bungled that,” he finally said. “Mayhap I should have found a few tender words to convince you, instead of the truth. I had too much respect for your intelligence to tell you pretty lies. Is that so wrong of me?”

“Why change your pattern now? The weave is already set.” She turned her back to him and bit her lip, trying to stifle the wrenching sobs threatening to fight their way to the surface. She did not know which was worse: the unbearable loss of her legacy or the ruthless destruction of hope that had fluttered within her since their first kiss. Might she have found love with this man some day? She would never know. She would never permit herself to know.

“Sabina,” he said, “You’re not being sensible. Think about it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Nothing to lose but her heart and everything to gain but her happiness. She did not bother to respond.

He was silent for a long time, and she could feel his eyes boring into her back. When he spoke again, there was a new determination in his voice.

“I refuse to accept no for an answer. You haven’t been back in the world long enough to know how things are. You’re my responsibility. You must be properly seen to.” He let out a heavy breath. “Look, it won’t be so unpleasant. I know you desire me. You’ve already shown me that. We can start from there. You
will
stay. It’s for the best.”

She rounded on him. “And so it is decided? Just like that?” She snapped her fingers together. “You act as if I have no choice.”

The muscles of his jaw clenched. “You’re already my wife. This isn’t at issue. It’s settled. Certainly, we will need time to adjust to one another, but—”

“How dare you! How dare you presume to know what is best for me?” She spread her hands across her chest. “I
will be
free. I will take my case to the Elector himself if I have to. I’ll swear I was coerced. I refuse to stay here against my will.”

His eyes glittered, hard as stone. “There is little you could do if I decided otherwise. The Elector won’t believe your word against mine. Even if you are a noble, your reputation precedes you.”

She flinched at the blunt veracity of his remark. It
was
true. Who would believe her after the scandal nine years before? Still, she would not let him see how it affected her.

She flung out her hand. “If the thickest walls in the most secure cloister in Saxony could not hold me, then neither will you. I
will leave
here, I will found my haven, and neither you, nor the baron, nor the Emperor himself will stop me!”

“Cease these dramatics,” he said, wearily rubbing his fingers across his eyes. “I’ve no intention of holding you against your will.”

“Then give me back my inheritance,” she said. “Let me go.”

“Nay,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, I can’t do either of those things. I told you, I don’t have your inheritance anymore. And as to the other … I’m simply not inclined. You will stay, at least for a time. We’ll come to know each other. If, in the fashion of the old traditions, after a year and a day I can’t convince you to stay permanently,” he looked directly at her now, “and there is no child, then by all means, go. I’ll give you my blessings, and a lifetime stipend. It would allow you to live modestly wherever you wish.”

“I
will go,”
she said again, but this time with a thread of steel in her voice even he could not ignore. “And there will be no child, because I would not allow you to touch me again if you were the last man on Earth,” she hissed.

She swept past him to the door and grasped the latch to open it. She nearly pulled her arm off, her exit spoiled by the locked door. Only then did she remember he had the key in the pocket of his doublet. She turned to him.

“Open it,” she commanded.

“Nay,” he said, his voice dangerously soft.

She thought then about what she had said to him, and realized only now how he would consider it a challenge.

She had to get out.

She held out her hand. “Then give me the key and I will open it.”

He arched a brow. “Come and get it.”

The words, low and compelling, sent a shiver up her spine. “Do not play games with me, Master Behaim,” she managed to say.

He stalked closer. “Call me Wolf. And I never play games.”

He had switched tactics, and she was not certain how to battle this new approach.

“I will not,” she said firmly, retreating a step despite her show of defiance, “call you that again.”

His smiled. “Oh, I wager you will, one way or another.”

The smile turned feral, and she knew he was imagining the scenarios under which she would cry out his name. Her mind slipped briefly into imagining one herself. He took another step closer, and she backed away again despite her resolve not to.

His gaze dropped to her mouth. “I like it when you say my name. No one else says it quite like you.”

She had no idea how to deal with him when he was like this. It was a side of him he had not revealed, and she was dumbfounded. She had seen him rude, angry, aroused, laughing … but never like this. She felt like prey before a hungry lion lazily toying with his quarry before he struck.

“I do not know what you are on about with this behavior,” she waved her hand at him, “but I will not be persuaded by it.”

“Nay?” he asked languidly. His eyes traveled over her, lingering on her body in unmistaken possessiveness before returning to her now flushed face. “You may wish to reconsider, Baronesse. Mayhap I didn’t describe the advantages to this marriage accurately enough. One in particular. But then, it might be better to show, after all, than to tell.”

He rested his hands on either side of her on the mantelpiece against where she stood. His stance effectively trapped her between the fireplace and his body. Fortunately, the fire was out or she would be slapping flames from her skirts. She dropped her disinterested veneer and backed up, bumping into the mantel. He hemmed her in. She felt a giddy panic bubbling up within her and firmly tamped it down.

“If you are trying to seduce me, you will not succeed. I am made of stronger stuff than that,” she sniffed.

“No doubt,” he murmured. “Still, permit me my fantasies.” He gazed at her for a long moment. “Let us make a wager, you and I. I will kiss you, and if you succeed in not responding, you win and I’ll give you the key.”

She tried to ignore the jump in her pulse. “That is ridiculous. I will not demean myself by participating in such a farce.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t give you the key,” he said, shaking his head sadly. He tilted it to the side, the way he had done days ago in this very room when he interviewed her after the rainstorm. She remembered the urge to run her fingers through his hair. She dug her nails into her palms to prevent herself from doing so.

How could she even be thinking such thoughts? He had taken from her the only thing of value she had. How could she even consider his wager?

“And if I lose?” she breathed, unable to prevent herself.

His smile was slow and heated. “I get to choose my reward.”

“That is hardly fair,” she complained. “I cannot wager when I do not know what I must sacrifice if I lose.”

“Ah, but you are made of stronger stuff than that,” he reminded her, throwing her own words back at her. “Don’t tell me you fear losing. It hardly matters what my reward is, since you’re so certain to win.”

It was an argument worthy of the snake in the Garden of Eden. If she continued to pursue it, she would reveal just how uncertain she was she would be able to resist.

“Very well, do your worst,” she challenged, then clamped her lips together.

“Come now, we must be fair about it,” he said with a half smile. He stroked a long finger over her quivering mouth. “Relax, sweet. I won’t hurt you.”

The endearment so surprised her, she actually forgot to hold her lips together. The moment they parted, he swooped down, intent on kissing her.

She turned her head away at the last moment. He simply rubbed his cheek against hers, murmuring with pleasure at the feel of her smoothness against his rough skin.

“Did he satisfy you, I wonder—that boy of yours?” He whispered into her ear. “Did he teach you what it really means when a grown man touches a woman?”

She held her breath. How could he know of the disappointment she felt in the marital act? Of the pain she had endured during George’s fumblings in the dark? Though George had tricked her into marrying him with only a false priest as a witness, she had believed their marriage genuine. She had tried to do her duty by him, but she had been giddy with relief when she’d discovered their marriage was a sham. She had not known how she would bear his touch for the rest of their lives, had never desired to engage in the act again.

No, George had never made her feel the way Wolf did: hot and melting and … desperate.

Wolf stroked his cheek against hers again, nuzzled her neck. “Do you have any idea how fine, how exciting it can be when the man is more interested in his woman’s pleasure than in his own?”

She trembled again, and this time it was not from fear.

He clicked his tongue. “I’m right, aren’t I? That careless boy didn’t even teach you the pleasures of desire. I will,” he whispered into her ear. “I and no one else.”

He slowly drew the tip of his tongue across the fragile shell of her earlobe.

She shivered in response, and her insides melted.

When he dipped his wet tongue into the hollow of her ear, she jerked, her nails digging into his doublet. Despite herself, her breath escaped in a soft moan, one she quickly broke off.

She would resist his sensual ploys if it killed her. The best thing to do would be to get it over with quickly.

“Get on with it,” she hissed.

“Oh, I intend to,” he breathed. “But much is at stake. A man shouldn’t rush such things.”

Wolf smiled to himself and captured her earlobe in his mouth. He gently sucked, taking pleasure in the sweet taste of her, the hushed “oh” which escaped her lips, the hungry purr.

She thought herself immune to him, but he knew better. He knew there were countless ways to give pleasure to a woman, and he would enjoy introducing her to every one of them.

Then she brushed her hips against his, and the world tilted.

He gripped the stone mantelpiece for a long moment, regaining his composure. He must take care. If he allowed his hands to touch her, he would lose control. But if he waited, just a little while … her blood ran hot even now, though she might deny it. He was no braggart, but he knew his own skill. She would submit. He would bind her to him with pleasure. Marriages had been built on less. If he had anything to say about it—and he did—she would never be able to leave him.