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?”

“Your touch is a most welcome balm,” she told him, her gaze steady and calm, easing his fears. “Though if you tell Maris I have compared you to her medicines and found them lacking, I must deny it.”

A little chuckle at her jest surprised him. “Lady Maris is rather serious about her medicinals, is she not?” Bernard said, still trying not to think of what had been done to the delicate woman next to him. Surely his very touch would be nothing but pain!

Smiling, Joanna pulled him close, pressing a sweet kiss to the corner of his trembling mouth. His eyes closed and he relaxed into her.

“Ralf is gone,” she murmured against his moustache, “and in the best of ways, he brought us together. Can we not celebrate this new life and forget the evil of my old one?”

“Aye, beloved,” he said, gathering her into his arms. “There is nothing else I would rather do. Now and forever.”