The Legacy (35 page)

He still loved his wife. He would never love her. And without love, she could never hold him. But he had spoken vows. So he must be freed from them.

Her voice, when it came, sounded thin even to her own ears.

“Gisel is asleep. I thought you would want to know.”

“Sabina—” they both spoke her name at the same time.

“Please stop,” she croaked. “There is nothing either of you could say that could possibly make it better, so just… stop.”

Wolf and Peter exchanged glances. Sabina turned to Wolf. He looked in agony.

She hurt so very much. Tears threatened to crowd their way into overflowing; her blood pounded vicious and sharp through the channels of her body, causing every part of her to ache. Nevertheless, she would not cry. She was done with crying. She had sworn once she would rather be alone than take less than love from any man. Now was the time to live up to her vow.

Sabina cleared her throat to make certain her voice was steady before she spoke her next words.

“As to the matter of Gisel calling me ‘Mama.’ She started it a few weeks ago, and I did not have the heart to tell her to stop. I will, of course, inform her it is not appropriate, now that I understand your wishes on the matter.”

“I didn’t mean what I said,” he offered hastily. “I was just unprepared, confused. Of course it’s fine if she calls you … that.”

She arched a brow. “Is it? When you cannot even bring yourself to say it? Nay, I think not. Regardless, I believe the issue will be … irrelevant soon enough.”

Wolf frowned. Without taking his eyes off Sabina, he motioned to Peter.

“Out,” he ordered brusquely.

Peter hastened to obey, but Sabina stopped him. “Nay, please. You have more of a right to be here than I do.”

The men exchanged troubled glances.

Sabina folded her hands in front of her, calmer now, almost deathly calm. The sound of her own voice reaching her ears seemed brittle, as brittle as the false smile she forced herself to give her husband. Her hands hardly trembled at all.

“You once gave me a choice, Wolf. I believe I chose wrongly. I would like to change my mind now. Your original intent for this marriage seems more appropriate. A dissolution is acceptable to me after all.”

“It is not acceptable to me. We have already consummated,” he pointed out. “You no longer have cause for dissolution. And we agreed I had a year and a day to convince you otherwise.”

“Yes,” she murmured, “and here it has only been
a few weeks.”

Wolf flushed as she threw his words back at him. Peter looked uncomfortably from one to the other.

“Well, then,” she said, determination steeling her spine.

Let him go. Let him go.

“We will just have to find some other way to achieve it, will we not? We are both so very clever. Surely we can come up with something. Ah,” she said, as though the thought had just occurred to her, “am I mistaken in my belief coercion is also grounds for dissolution?”

“You’re not mistaken,” Wolf answered her. “However, you can put that thought aside as well.”

“And if I choose not to?” she asked.

“If you do, you violate every vow you swore to uphold.”

She narrowed her gaze, resentment coloring her response. “Every vow I was
forced
to make.”

“There is no evidence your vows were made under duress,” Wolf said. “No one here will attest to it. I can guarantee it.” He pierced her determination as easily as a sharp blade through soft fruit.

Peter pushed between them, held up his hands. “This is nonsense. She’s not going anywhere. Both of you cease this at once.”

They ignored him.

“Furthermore,” Wolf said, “if you leave in violation of our vows and of my expressed desire for you to stay, I’ll give you nothing. No coin, no settlement, nothing. If you go, you’ll go with only the clothes on your back. Do you understand?”

She remained silent for a long moment as they stared each other down.

Let him go.

She did not blink. “That seems fair,” she said quietly, and turned and left the room.

W
olf stared at the door through which Sabina had left. Peter started to follow Sabina, then came back to Wolf, obviously torn as to what to do.

Wolf clenched his hands at his sides. They shook. A litany of denial ran through his mind.

She won’t leave me. She has no way to support herself. She loves me. She can’t leave.
His assurances grew more desperate even as he realized their futility.

She would come back now. She would return through the doorway from which she had left, and laugh, and say it was all a mistake. A stupid, horrible mistake. She would forgive him. He would forgive her. They would be happy together. Forever.

He waited, ignoring his brother’s rapid-fire questions; waited, knowing she wouldn’t return.

As he stood in the dining room, the remnants of their meal still scattered across the table, the shaking spread to his stomach, his knees. Still he did not take his eyes off the door.

She would leave him.

Nay, his mind shouted. She must know he didn’t mean what he had said. How could she believe it, after all they meant to each other?

But she was going; he knew it at his core. He would trudge up to their chamber, and open the door, and she would not be there. Just like Beth.

It was what he feared most. To be left alone, again, apart, divided. To be set adrift, hopeless in the dark night. He had always known it would happen if he allowed himself to fall in love again.

Dear God.
He was in love.

Peter grabbed him, worry etching lines on his young face at Wolf’s vacant, silent stare.

“Wolf, talk to me!”

His heart. She had broken his heart. The shuddering possessed Wolf completely, and in a great heaving sigh, his heart cracked in two. He put a hand to his breast as though he could contain the pieces in his palm.

Nay, it couldn’t be. Surely, he had not given her his heart; it belonged to his beloved, so how could Sabina have broken it? It had been broken long ago. He had only just managed to mend it. Now he feared it would never be whole again.

His eyes burned with unshed tears. One escaped, though he tried hard to forestall it. He wanted to vomit from his own weakness. God’s bones, she had reduced him to this. Had he no pride? Had he no self-respect?

Peter stared at him, uncertainty in his expression. “Wolf?” His voice was tentative, fearful.

Wolf looked at Peter, feeling hollow, weary.

“Leave me alone. For God’s sake, just leave me alone,” he rasped, and stumbled away. He bumped into one of the benches and dropped down upon it; he doubted he could stand much longer. His hands dangled uselessly between his knees. What was he supposed to do with them now? He had no Sabina to touch, no Sabina to delight with the pleasure they gave her. What were a man’s hands for if not that?

He took a shaky breath, astonished at how much the thought she did not want him hurt. He would never understand how emotions could translate into physical agony this way. He couldn’t bear this. At least with Beth, there had been no possibility of rejoining. Her death was painful, but final. It was something he had learned to accept because he had no other choice. But Sabina was alive. In the world. He would know this, every day, and he would ache endlessly with want, knowing he could never have her again.

“She’ll come back,” Peter said. He knelt beside Wolf, eyes filled with concern.

“Nay.” Wolf knew it to be true. “And I wouldn’t have her if she did.” And that was true, too. For if she did come back, he would have to open himself up to this soul-destroying anguish once more—and that he would not do.

Peter’s eyes widened in disbelief. Then his face hardened. “Go after her.”

Wolf felt the doors closing inside him once more, locking away his feelings, locking away his heart. Perhaps it was better this way. No more open wounds where his heart used to be. No more yearning for what could never be. He would go on. He would push his longing for her into a very dark, small place in the corner of his soul, and he would keep it there. Forever.

“I won’t go after her,” he told Peter now. “She made her choice.”

Peter grabbed Wolf’s arm, his voice hard and determined. “Go after her, or I will.”

Wolf glared at him. “You have no business here. Go back to the University. I’ll handle this.”

“As you have handled it thus far?” Peter asked. “Nay, I think not. If you’re too dense to see what you’re letting walk away, I’m not.” Peter rose and headed for the door. Wolf rose, too, and swiftly stood in front of him, his larger frame stopping Peter cold.

“I told you, let it be. If she wants to leave, let her go. Better sooner than later, I say. If she cannot understand when a man says something stupid …” His voice caught. He tried again. “If she’s going to run at the first sign of trouble, let her go.”

“The first sign of—Wolf, for pity’s sake, she heard you say you were forced to marry her and you didn’t want her to be a mother to your child. What did you think she would do, throw herself into your arms? She doesn’t understand how you feel. Go after her and explain!”

“Nay!” Wolf shouted. “She should have stayed and given me a chance. She should have understood how hard it is for me to adjust to so many changes after so long. Hell and damnation, she should
know
how I feel about her by now. Why do I have to explain?”

He stared past Peter, and the room swam before his eyes. He blinked rapidly.

“Beth would never have done this to me,” he choked out.

Peter stared at him as though he had grown two heads. Wolf looked into his eyes and could almost swear he saw pity there.

Peter turned from Wolf, walked to the table, and placed his hands on it for a moment. He stared down at Sabina’s nearly full trencher. It had been the same the last several days. He had noticed, because he’d been here. Wolf hadn’t.

Peter leaned his hip against the table, and crossed his arms with a sigh. Wolf seemed overcome, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Peter loved his brother, but perhaps the best thing for him right now was a good swift kick in the buttocks.

“Sabina isn’t Beth. Think how it must be for her, Wolf. Beth had everything,” Peter mused. “All the advantages except, granted, good health at the end. But all her life, she was loved. A warm home, a happy life. She never had to ask for anything any one of us hadn’t already given her freely. But Sabina …” Peter’s voice trailed off, and for a moment he felt lost. “Sabina had no one, yet somehow she survived. Through pride, through stubbornness, whatever you want to call it, she survived—but it has cost her. Dearly.”

Peter was a good judge of people, and he had seen the shadowed hurts and vague haunting in Sabina’s eyes. There were things she hadn’t told him, mayhap even things she hadn’t told Wolf, that haunted her still.

Peter felt drawn to her, as a brother, a friend, and yes, as a man. But his dearest prayer was that she would heal the wounded heart beating in his brother’s breast, for he had watched the devastation Beth’s death had wrought there, and he knew how close he came to losing his brother. Peter had seen in Sabina Wolf’s kindred spirit—the only one who could reach him at his own level because that’s where she herself had once been. Now Wolf was letting her walk away without a fight.

Over his dead body.

If he had to slap a gauntlet across his brother’s face to get him to understand how much Wolf needed Sabina, and how much she needed him, then by God he would.

“She has no idea how you feel about her, Wolf, because you have no idea how you feel about her. Any dunderhead would know the two of you are in love, of course, but if you’re going to be stubborn about this …” he shrugged eloquently.

Wolf clenched his jaw, his shoulders slumping, his chin nearly touching his chest. “I’m not discussing this with you. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Very well, then. If you don’t want her, I hope you won’t be offended when I plight my troth to her.”

Wolf’s head jerked up. “When you
what?”

Peter bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile. “You heard me. She’ll be unattached soon. I thought I would just marry her myself.”

“The
hell
you will!” Wolf exploded, and grabbed Peter by the collar.

Peter seized Wolf’s fisted hand, but didn’t remove it, not that he could have if he had tried.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked innocently.

Wolf looked apoplectic. His other hand went to Peter’s throat, and he lifted his brother as though he weighed no more than a child.

“Why—! Because she’s my wife, you cockscomb!”

Peter smiled benevolently, as much as he could manage when standing on his tiptoes while Wolf was choking off his windpipe.

“I know it’s unusual for a man to marry his brother’s widow,” Peter wheezed, “but I think it’s important to keep these things in the family, as it were. Besides, it’s not even against the law anymore.”

“I’m not dead yet!”
Wolf roared, and slammed Peter down onto the table. Platters and cups went flying.

Peter kicked himself free. “You may as well be!” he shouted. He rolled to the side as Wolf lunged for him, and sprang up. “You not only buried Beth in that grave three years ago, you buried yourself right along with her! So if you want to lie down and die, then do so—but I intend to marry your wife and see your baby has a good home.”

“Gisel
has
a good home!” Wolf shouted, enraged. He lunged at Peter again, catching him and wrapping his hands around his throat, slamming him against the opposite wall. “She has no need of you, and neither does my wife! Sabina is mine,” he snarled, shoving his face into his brother’s.
“Mine!”

“I—wasn’t—talking—about Gisel,” Peter gasped, and then waited for Wolf to understand. Hopefully, before Peter lost consciousness.

It took a moment, but Wolf finally did. His head snapped back as though his brother had struck him, and he dropped Peter and staggered backward. “You mean she’s …?”

Peter rubbed his throat and coughed discreetly. When he could speak again, he said, “Expecting? I cannot be certain, but I believe so, yes. Therefore, if you have no objections, I would like to watch my little niece or nephew grow up. Of course, my room at the University is rather small—I suppose we will have to find some place bigger to live. But these are things we can manage and—”