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.”
About the Author
Colleen Gleason is the international best-selling author of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy series about a female vampire hunter who lives during the time of Jane Austen. Her first novel, The Rest Falls Away, was released to acclaim in 2007. Since then, she has published fifteen novels with New American Library, MIRA Books, and HarperCollins (writing as Joss Ware). Her books have been translated into seven languages and are available worldwide.
She loves to hear from readers, and can be contacted through her website:
or via Facebook: