Lavender Vows

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.”