A heavy fear settled over him as he prodded the door open with his toe, uncertain of what he would find. The door swayed open, silently, baring the chamber to his gaze. Bernard stepped onto the threshold and saw that the room was in shambles: stools overturned, the bed empty, clothing strewn about, the only light from a sputtering fire.
He started into the dim room, fear clutching him. Joanna was nowhere to be found, nor was Maris….
He did not know what alerted him, but aught ca
used Bernard to swivel just as something dark and fleeting whooshed toward him. Instinct propelled him out of harm’s way, and Bernard groped, one-handed, for the dagger that he wore at his waist.
“Whoreson!” Ralf’s grating voice reached his ears just as the man made his appearance from behind the door. “You thought to steal my wife from beneath my nose!” He brandished a long sword that gleamed in the flickering firelight. “Bastard—you will learn better from me now!”
Rage and satisfaction surged through Bernard…. at last he would have his opportunity. They were well-matched—Ralf with two working arms and a sword, and Bernard with one arm, a dagger, and the might of chivalry on his side. He would relish the opportunity to fight the bastard to his death.
The slice of the sword cut through the air, stirring Bernard’s hair, even as he drove a quick thrust of his short dagger at Ralf’s shoulder. A squeal of rage told him he’d hit his target even as he whirled from the sword’s upswing, narrowly missing being caught by it.
Spittle flecked the corner of Ralf’s mouth as he charged toward Bernard. Fury drove his movements, making him careless, and ’twas simple for Bernard to feint aside at the last moment and allow Ralf to lurch past. The man turned and Bernard was waiting with his dagger poised, just ready to bury it in the man’s throat, when there was a choking cry behind him.
Bernard saw his beloved…and it distracted him only for an instant…but it was enough for Ralf to bring the flat of his sword down, knocking the dagger from Bernard’s hand, sending it clattering to the floor.
Joanna shrieked again, but Bernard had seen that she stood sagging in the doorway and knew that he could not be distracted again. The sword came down, slicing through the tunic on his good shoulder, and with a roar of pent-up rage, Bernard launched himself at Ralf whilst the sword was on that downswing.
His timing was perfect, and the two men fell to the rough stone floor, the sword pinned between them. Bernard was at a disadvantage, now, with one arm bound to his side, and Ralf, fueled by crazy rage, drove his knee into Bernard’s middle, then with a great shove, pushed him off. Bernard rolled to one side with a grunt, gasping for air, and his head slammed against the stone wall.
He struggled to roll back, but Ralf had already leapt to his feet and retrieved the grip on his sword, trapping Bernard against the wall.
“Prepare to die, whoreson. ” He raised the sword with both hands, and drove it down.
At the last moment, Bernard pushed away from the wall, knocking into Ralf and unbalancing him just as the sword’s point slammed into the floor, shattering. A scream of rage erupted from Ralf and he slashed the broken tip of the sword down again just as Bernard caught sight of his dagger lying on the floor. Joanna saw it, and staggered forward to kick it toward him.
The sword missed Bernard’s throat by a hairsbreadth and, pulse thrumming wildly, he rolled again, closing his fingers over the coolness of his knife.
He became dimly aware of newcomers to the scene, crowding in the doorway, but Bernard was too ensconced in the fight for his life to note who they were. He tightened his grip on the dagger and prepared to strike.
Ralf towered above him, brandishing the sword—all the more deadly now with its jagged edge—and Bernard tensed, ready.
It happened at once. The sword came down, Bernard thrust up, his dagger found its mark, and the sword clattered helplessly to the floor. Ralf screamed and collapsed in a heap next to it.
Bernard leapt to his feet and, bracing himself, looked down at the fallen man. He lay unmoving, blood oozing from the wound in his neck, his eyes closed in death.
“Joanna,” Bernard said, never taking his eyes off Ralf, but opening his arm for her. She moved swiftly, nearly falling into his embrace, and she clutched him as they stood staring down at her husband.
A loud clearing of the throat brought Bernard’s attention to the audience that had clustered in the doorway.
“Aye, Merle, it appears that our plotting has all been for naught. ” Bernard’s father, Lord Harold, coughed into his hand. “My son has a mind of his own. ”
“Aye, and my daughter, too,” responded Merle of Langumont, tucking said daughter’s arm through the crook of his elbow. “Now, let us help Bernard in ridding himself of the remains of this vermin. ”
VII.
After all of the events during Ava’s wedding celebration, Lord Wyckford represented himself as the outraged father, angry at his son-by-law’s treatment of his daughter—much to Bernard’s disgust.
However, the man made no argument when Bernard informed him that he would wed Joanna, for Derkland’s lands would be a valuable asset to the lands Wyckford already controlled through his own demesne and those of Swerthmore.
Lady Maris stood witness to the wedding a se’ennight later, and Bernard’s brother Thomas performed the ceremony. Bernard’s other brother, Dirick, was absent from the ceremony as he still traveled with the king…but Bernard hid some hope that mayhap he would some day meet Lady Maris of Langumont.
He suspected she would be more than a challenge for his wild, devil-may-care brother.
When he wed Joanna, Bernard refused to allow a bedding ceremony, for he would not subject his wife to the indignity of being stripped. But in the privacy of their chamber, when he gently lifted the fine linen undertunic and bared her body for the first time, he nearly wept at the sight of her green and blue bruising, along with the barely-healed cuts from Ralf’s leather whip.
“If he weren’t already dead,” Bernard breathed, his trembling fingers sliding lightly over her hip, “I would make him wish he’d never laid so much as a breath on you. ” His face was stricken, for this was the first he’d ever seen the full extent of her injuries. “Joanna, how can you suffer any touch? Does it still pain you?”