The Legacy Read Free

beauty, after all. Still, there was something about that mouth …
    The baron drew her outside and whispered into her ear. She grew paler, if possible. She seemed … afraid. Wolf resisted the instinctive urge to come to her aid. She had likely put the baron up to this scheme when she decided to return home and found she could not snare a husband on her own.
    He shook his head. Forced to marry a noblewoman. And a nun! No matter the Reformers had practically taken over Wittenberg, despite his misgivings about the rampant corruption in the Church, he was still a faithful Catholic. Yet they expected him to soil a bride of Christ with his touch?
    She was no innocent, but virgin or no, she had taken vows and belonged to God. After they completed this transaction, he would convince her to take up her vows once more—return to the convent where she belonged. He had no intention of risking excommunication by going against the Church’s strictures on clerical marriage. For the time being, however, he was caught as surely as a fox in a snare.
    Christ’s wounds, how had this happened to him?
    He knew how, and it was his own damned fault. Still, if it weren’t for Papa’s rash act, and his own …
    He ground his teeth in impotent fury. Franz eyed him, probably watching the play of emotions shifting across Wolf’s face, try as he might to hide them.
    “I do not mean to pry, Master Wolfgang,” Franz said, “but are you quite certain this is the match for you?”
    Wolf gave him a wry glance. “Well, it’s a little late to change my mind, isn’t it?”
    Franz nodded his head gravely. “Yes. Yes, it would be, at a certain point. But if you were coerced in some way, perhaps the Wittenberg marriage council could be convinced to dissolve the union, provided there was no, ahem, consummation, if I might say the word. A coerced marriage is not binding, either within the Church or outside of it.”
    Wolf clenched his fists at his sides and held his tongue.
    Franz inched closer and lowered his voice. “The lady’s reputation, Master Wolfgang. We did not have time to converse about it this morning. You were away in Nürnberg at the time the incidents occurred. Perhaps you were unaware—”
    “I’m aware of her reputation. The entire city of Wittenberg is aware of her reputation.” He turned narrowed eyes on Franz. “We will speak no more of it from this point on. No gossip with the others. Understood?”
    “Of course, Master Wolfgang. It shall be as you wish it,” Franz said, and withdrew.
    Yes, Wolf knew all about her past. Franz might not remember, but he had been visiting from Nürnberg nine years before, where he had opened his first printing shop, when the gossips whispered the tale in the local taverns and sewing circles.
    At sixteen, headstrong and full of vinegar, the young baronesse had defied her father and secretly married a poor young noble who turned out to be a fortune hunter. The shrewd lad probably decided the surest way to make a solid claim on her family’s fortunes was to get her with child, though as far as anyone knew, none had resulted. When Baron von Ziegler wouldn’t pay him a dowry, the lad promptly cast her off, claiming no accord of marriage had ever existed between them. Eventually von Ziegler relented, but by then she had refused to be lawfully wed to the schemer, swearing she would marry her father’s hunting hound first. “At least,” she had declared famously, “he is loyal and earns his own keep.”
    No other suitor would consider her afterward. She had left town in disgrace, consigning herself to a convent until recently.
    Wolf glanced back at the pair. He would finish this. He approached the baron, who thrust his daughter from him and took Wolf aside.
    The baron glanced over his shoulder at his daughter and spoke in hushed tones. “Since I know you are a busy man, we will conclude our transaction here. No need to return to my castle. The documents I promised.” He handed several sheaves