Chapter 23 ~ Sofie Von Bayern

 

“Sofie, I found a horse for you. Would you like to go riding?”

I shook my head. Lukas was being very kind to me. It had been over three months since our daughter died. I could hardly talk. It hurt my throat when I did. It was already autumn. Where had the time gone?

“It might be the last warm day for a picnic,” he told me.

“A picnic?” The picnic had been where we had made our darling Anna-Rosa. A year had gone by since that picnic. I couldn’t remember if we celebrated our wedding anniversary or not. Had we celebrated my birthday? That meant that I had missed two of them. Birthdays had been so important to us at Werdenfels.

Lukas was constantly trying to get me to smile. I wanted to get better for him. He needed me to give him an heir. There still wasn’t a steady peace. A son would give the realm that peace.

I looked at Lukas and smiled. “I’m not hungry. You can eat without me.”

“Sofie, I didn’t ask you to join me for supper. I wanted to go visit Anna with you.”

I was certain that we had been talking about something else, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

“Of course, but her name is Anna-Rosa,” I corrected him.

“You know I always call her Anna,” he teased me and gave me a kiss on the very tip of my nose.

“Yes, I know. You two were very close. You had a way with her.” When I remembered her, I remembered her as if she had been alive.

“She loved you more, but what baby doesn’t love her mother more?” He took hold of my hand, and we went to visit Anna-Rosa.

Lukas told her that he was still very busy replacing the furniture that he broke. When he told her that, he sounded like a young child, confessing that he had been naughty.

We both felt that she was a good pure soul.

“I got your mother a new horse today. The stable boy is brushing her down so she’ll look nice for your mother. Would you like to see your mother ride her new horse? You can if you look down from heaven. You don’t have to worry about your mother. I’ll take care of her.”

I looked at Lukas surprised. I couldn’t say that I would rather return to our chamber and look out of the window. What would Anna-Rosa think of me? It was clear that a child would rather watch me on a horse than staring out of a window.

“She wants you to go riding with me.” Lukas took hold of my hand and brought me out to the stables. “This is your palfrey.”

He lifted me up onto my horse and got up on his own. He took hold of my reins, and we trotted out of the courtyard together.

The leaves had already started to change their colors, turning brown and falling to the ground. Most of the trees were evergreens. They were a beautiful color of green. “I wish I had a dress in that color of green.”

“I’ll see that’s you get the fabric to make yourself one. It will look lovely on you if you adorn it with silver threading.”

I looked directly at him. “Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t like me, and you think that my family attacked you first.”

“You’re wrong. I like you very much, Sofie.”

“Because I’m your wife?”

“No, that isn’t the reason. You have a good heart, and I know that you love me, even before I ever did anything to deserve your love.”

“Do you love me?” I asked, wondering if he ever would.

“Very much,” he replied with a kind smile on his face.

“But I’m not well,” I confessed with tears in my eyes.

“You’re wrong. Any woman who has been through what you’ve been through would need time to get over the loss too. You’re getting better every day. Soon, you’ll be yourself again, and you’ll have such interesting things to tell our Anna when you visit her. I know that she’s aching for a little brother or sister to watch from heaven.”

I nodded at him. He was right. She would want that.

“Tonight, we will make love and maybe a new baby. Anna would like that.”

I nodded at him. I would do anything for Anna-Rosa.

~

Lukas caught my eye and smiled at me. “I knew that you merely needed fresh air,” he told me after we had ridden awhile.

I nodded at him. The fresh air was helping me a lot. A fog was lifting from my eyes. I inhaled the fragrant air. I could smell ripe apples and wet leaves.

“May I ride on my own?” I asked him.

“Of course, darling, but stay by me.” He handed me the reins, and we rode on together, going faster and faster.

We stopped in a clearing. It was a different clearing than last time, but I could tell by the look in his eye that he wanted me as he had wanted me in the last clearing we had been in.

He slid off of his horse and stood beside mine, reaching up to me. He helped me down and set me down in the grass.

I looked up at him when my feet hit the ground. He towered over me, grinning and smiling. His head lowered down, and his fingers dove into my hair, tilting my head back so I had to accept his lips on mine. He was being aggressive, and I loved it.

“I need you,” I whispered in his ear before I sucked his earlobe into my mouth.

When I released his earlobe, he lifted me into his arms and carried me to a patch of thick grass.

He made love to me tenderly, but it wasn’t enough. I decided that I would grin and bear it.

“Sofie, am I hurting you?” He stopped making love to me and sighed.

I shook my head. I had suspected this before. The problem wasn’t that he was hurting me; it was that he wasn’t. That thought brought tears to my eyes. What was wrong with me?

“Please, finish so we can go back to the castle,” I told him.

“I can’t continue when you aren’t enjoying it.

“Yes, you can. Anna-Rosa wants to have a little brother or sister,” I insisted.

“No, I can’t. Sofie, I need you to come back to me. I miss you.” He pulled out of me and helped me to my feet. “We’ll try again this evening.” He helped me onto my horse and rode back to the castle.