The Leopard Unleashed tor-3 Read online

  ‘Ah.’ The Queen’s attention was suddenly diverted from Elene. ‘Here come the men from their sport.’ Her eyes lit on her husband and her breathing quickened. So did Elene’s as she looked at Renard, although her emotions were more ambivalent.

  He was wearing the blue tunic she had made for him, already a firm favourite of his and worn frequently in marked preference to the wedding tunic. She had taken note, and a new robe begun for him in charcoal-grey wool was trimmed with thread-of-silver in sparse circumspection.

  One of the Queen’s ladies, a vivacious russet-haired beauty who had been standing near the door, stepped across Renard’s path, and with a sly look over her shoulder at Elene, held a mistletoe kissing bunch over his head. Not being aware of her until the last moment, Renard stopped so abruptly and so close that he almost knocked her over. Elene saw a look of irritation flicker on his face before the courtier’s smile concealed it. Setting one arm around the girl’s waist, he drew her to him for an obligatory but perfunctory kiss. She said something to him. He arched his brow and murmured a curt reply that sent her flouncing away.

  ‘Heloise can never resist other women’s husbands,’ one of Malde’s older ladies whispered wryly to Elene. ‘Particularly when they are as dangerously charming as yours.’

  Elene blinked. Dangerously charming? Was that how other women saw Renard? She had never really examined the thought herself. In childhood she had looked up to him with adoring awe, the ten years between them a vast gulf of expectation and experience, their daily exchanges those between adult and child. As her body matured she had dreamed unsettling dreams that left her hot and restless, seeking she knew not what. At one and the same time Renard had become more accessible and more distant, and her marriage had only consolidated the contrasts.

  She looked at him as he approached. His strong bones, thick, black hair, his eyes the colour of a winter sea. His smile. Was that what the woman had meant by dangerous charm? He had stopped smiling now and she could tell from his bearing that he had recently been very angry.

  His greeting to the Queen was civil enough but he made it obvious that he had no intention of dancing attendance on her and her women for longer than was strictly necessary. Even so, the tale of the horse race and all its accompanying drama had been related and embroidered upon at least twice by other barons before he finally succeeded in making his escape.

  ‘Did you really knock Ranulf de Gernons off his feet?’ Elene enquired as he lifted her down from the palfrey in the courtyard of the house they had rented for the duration of the Christmas feast.

  ‘I’m afraid I did. It has gone too far and too fast.’ His hands rested a little longer on her waist than was necessary, but when Elene glanced up at him, his gaze was preoccupied and she might as well have been that russet-haired court hussy for all the notice he was taking. ‘Stephen should never have tried to make us give each other the kiss of peace.’ Shaking his head, he released her and turned towards their dwelling.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll be returning to Caermoel?’ Her voice was neutral as they went up the outer staircase to the small solar and bedchamber. They had rented the house from a merchant, who had transferred himself and his family to his wife’s parents for the Christmas period, temporarily relinquishing his home for a tidy profit.

  The merchant’s sharp business brain was attested to by the trappings of prosperity that adorned his home. A tapis rug hung on the wall and the furniture had obviously been constructed by a master craftsman. Elene paused beside a beautiful cherrywood cradle and gently tapped the rocker with her foot.

  Renard sat down on the bed they had brought with them on the baggage wain and watched her at the crib. Her expression was guarded and he could not tell whether it disguised regret and longing, or if she just did not care. ‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘it means I’ll have to go back to Caermoel. I can stay a few days at Woolcot if you want, and of course we’ll travel by way of Milnham and Ravenstow.’

  ‘Is war imminent?’

  He lay back, tucking his arms behind his head. ‘I’m not the only thorn in Ranulf de Gernons’s side, and certainly not the largest or most painful. More than Caermoel, he wants Carlisle from the Earl of Huntingdon. I have a little space of time I think, at least until spring. Sieges in winter are always more demoralising for the attackers than the attacked.’

  ‘How will you raise the money?’ Elene asked. ‘Go in debt to the Jews?’

  He looked thoughtfully at the scuffed toes of his boots. ‘There is enough income from the market and river tolls at Ravenstow and Ledworth to cover the initial cost, our marriage relief helped to swell the coffers, and Stephen has just given me a more than generous amount of silver from the Bishop of Salisbury’s fortune against the future services of Gorvenal on some of his mares.’

  Elene’s stomach lurched as she stared at his lean length stretched out on the bed. ‘Will you visit Hawkfield too?’

  He frowned. ‘I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose I will visit to see how she’s faring, more for Hawkfield’s sake. She called it a poky, back-of-beyond byre and threw a temper because I wouldn’t bring her to court.’

  Elene turned away to remove her cloak, shielding her face from him.

  He studied her rigid spine. ‘I won’t stay long, I promise you.’

  ‘Just long enough to …’ She bit her tongue and wrenched the pin out of the cloak, bending it.

  Renard left the bed. ‘We’re back where we started, aren’t we?’ he said wearily, ‘with the ghost of our wedding night.’ He stretched his hand towards her. ‘Look Nell …’

  Elene’s maid knocked on the door and poked her head around it. ‘My lord, there’s a Fleming here to see you. Pieter of Ypres. He says you have invited him to dine.’

  Renard’s outstretched hand went to his forehead. ‘God’s teeth, I’d forgotten! That affair with de Gernons put it right out of my head. All right, Alys, give him some wine and tell him we’re coming.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  They heard her wooden pattens clattering back down the stairs.

  ‘Pieter of Ypres?’ Elene asked.

  ‘I met him this afternoon at the horse fair, although I knew of him already from his distant kin, William d’Ypres.’

  Elene paused in a swift tidy of her veil, to regard him with surprise. ‘Isn’t he one of the King’s senior captains?’

  ‘ The senior captain,’ Renard corrected.

  ‘You want him for Caermoel?’ Elene guessed.

  ‘No.’ Renard gave her a look glinting with mischief. ‘I want him for you.’

  ‘For me?’ Elene stared at him. ‘Why? Do you mean as a body-guard in your absence?’

  ‘No, not as a body-guard. He isn’t a soldier, Nell, he’s a master cloth finisher — in exile for murdering his daughter’s husband. Apparently, he caught him thrashing the girl in a fit of drunken temper and gave him a taste of his own medicine. He went too far and the young man died. The lad’s family are influential among the merchant fraternity and Pieter had to flee here and take shelter with his cousin.’ Renard kissed her cheek and went to the door. ‘I told him that if he wanted employment in his own trade, you had a useful proposition to put to him.’

  ‘What!’ Elene gasped.

  Renard laughed, highly pleased with himself and came over to slip his arm around her shoulders and draw her towards the door. ‘Was I wrong? You said that you needed people of the trade.’

  ‘No, not wrong,’ Elene said vaguely. ‘It’s just that you sprang it on me.’ Her mind raced with sudden possibil — ities. A master cloth finisher …

  ‘If the fish bites, you pull him in,’ Renard said as they went down to the main room on the level below. ‘I didn’t know myself until this morning when we were chance-introduced. ‘I wanted to please you.’

  Elene stammered a reply she was not later to recall and felt her face grow as hot as a furnace.

  Master Pieter was a florid, stocky man and probably well-fleshed when less worried. He spoke excellent F
rench with only the slightest Flemish accent, and although he deferred in courtesy to Renard’s rank, he was not cowed by it.

  A man of his hands, he was accustomed to the presence of women in everyday trade too and scarcely checked at the hurdle of accepting that Elene was the driving force behind the wool project.

  Peeling an apple with a silver knife, Renard sat at the board and listened to his wife and Master Pieter discuss the intricacies of the wool trade.

  ‘Yes,’ Elene responded to a point raised by the Fleming. ‘I can see that these new mills for fulling the cloth would be better than treating it in tubs as we do now. We have a good stream to hand at Woolcot and I think I know an ideal site. Would it cost a great deal to build one?’

  ‘No more than a standard flour mill, my lady.’

  ‘I dare say we could run to the expense,’ Renard volunteered, watching the apple peel spiral towards his trencher. ‘The clip was good last year. I could probably spare masons and carpenters from Caermoel for a couple of weeks in the early spring.’

  ‘Might I also suggest, my lord, that you bring in some of the new Flemish looms too? The best houses in Flanders have started to use them. Two weavers to a loom instead of one, and the size of the frame makes the cloth that much broader.’

  Renard made a noncommittal sound, but when Master Pieter raised his cup to drink, bestowed a swift wink on Elene. She smothered a smile.

  Master Pieter took a long swallow from his cup. ‘What about alum for mordanting? I know where to obtain it for a bargain price. Of course you’ll have to pay transport costs, but if you can arrange to bring in other items on the same galley, you can offset those …’

  And so the discussion progressed, covering abstracts and hard points of fact. Elene spoke of wages, working terms and responsibilities with such hard-headed acumen that Renard’s proud amusement gradually gave way to astonish — ment. He stared at her with his jaw hanging slack, and only remembered to tighten it when he raised his cup and missed his mouth.

  Later, when Master Pieter had gone, having accepted employment and as pleased with himself as Elene was at hiring him, Renard stood in their bedchamber and in thoughtful silence pulled off his day tunic. The evening at the palace was to be a formal affair in full splendour and he had perforce to dress for the occasion. His older brother, Miles, who had drowned on the White Ship, had always enjoyed gilding the lily, and Adam was not averse to striking a pose if the occasion demanded, but Renard always felt like a fop.

  A maid was laying out the finery — their wedding garments with the fox and sheep theme. The thread-of-gold twinkled in the light from the candles. Renard unlaced his shirt and watched Elene as Alys, her personal maid, helped her to remove the chemise and gown she was currently wearing.

  ‘Will he do?’ he enquired.

  ‘Oh yes, more than that!’ Elene advanced on him buoyed up with confidence. ‘I think I’ll be able to trust him to run the weaving sheds at Woolcot.’

  Renard nodded. ‘That’s what I thought — although I never realised you had so much knowledge yourself.’

  ‘I suppose I’ve been garnering it since I was little,’ she said with a dismissive shrug, then added impulsively, ‘Renard, thank you.’

  She had called him by his name, not a careful ‘my lord’. Her face was sparkling with enthusiasm, becomingly flushed. The low neckline on her short shift displayed the shadowed hint of the cleft between her breasts. Her hair was a black cloud, crackling around her shoulders with a life of its own and he was suddenly surprised into wanting her, his physical response a direct result of his interest in the intricacies of her mind.

  Cautiously he stepped closer. ‘Your good is mine if profit comes of it.’ He smiled and played with a tendril of her hair, following it slowly and lightly down her body.

  ‘But you have matters more important on your mind. I never expected you to …’ Elene stopped speaking as Renard’s knuckle brushed like a feather over her breast. His hand travelled down her lock of hair, stopped at the curling end, and transferred to her hip. Fingers extended, he pulled her against him. ‘Don’t live by expectations, Nell, they’ll let you down every time.’ He kissed a line down her temple and cheek until he reached her mouth. Setting his lips on hers, he stroked them gently with the very tip of his tongue.

  Elene shivered but did not freeze or draw away. His hand was warm through the fine linen of her shift as it lay on her waist. Her own hands were pressed lightly against his chest. He was holding her gently and she had only to push at him to break the contact. Remembering the pain and humiliation of her wedding night, she hesitated. His touch on her waist was nice, the tickling sensation of his tongue pleasant in a disturbing kind of way. She spread her fingers, encountered the linen of his shirt and then the warmth of his skin through the unfastened laces. Moving her hand higher, she circled his neck. Her other arm dropped to his waist, sought under his shirt for the springy muscles of his back. Her lips opened beneath his.

  He stroked the side of her breast, increased the pressure of the kiss and rubbed his thumb lightly back and forth over her nipple. Elene made a small sound in her throat and pressed herself closer to him, revelling in the feel of his skin against her fingertips. Fear trembled through her, but it was a minor ingredient in a brew of equally elemental emotions. The room was cold but she was warmed by the heat emanating from their joined bodies.

  After a moment, Renard reached to the ties on her shift and delicately unplucked the knot. His mouth left hers and trailed down her throat to the pulse beating rapidly on the verge of her collarbone. He sucked on it, then explored lower, fingers gently drawing the linen aside.

  Elene gasped at the sensations but was not yet totally in thrall to them. ‘Renard, wait!’ she said breathlessly. ‘The maids!’

  ‘What?’ He raised his head. She could feel the rapid thud of his heart against her cheek. He made a peremptory gesture and the two women curtseyed and hastened out of the room, one of them stifling a giggle against her cupped palm.

  ‘I …’ Elene blushed a fiery red. ‘Everyone will know,’ she hissed, imagining the looks as they descended the stairs afterwards.

  ‘And expect it,’ he answered, smiling. ‘We’re a newly wedded couple.’

  Elene swallowed and pressed her hot forehead against Renard’s throat.

  ‘You look good enough to eat when you blush like that,’ he said, and returned to what he had previously been doing, lips questing down over her milky skin. Moving his hand down to the hem of her shift he placed it lightly on her thigh, describing tiny circles, radiating outwards and upwards beneath the linen.

  It had been a long, long time since he had had to use the skill of slow persuasion to seduce a woman to bed. With Olwen there had never been any need. She had always been ready and it had always been a battleground, the limits set by the amount of stamina that each of them possessed. This was another discipline entirely, calling for the same skills, but a completely different method of application.

  Enjoying the novelty and the slow arousal of his own senses, he played with her, kissing, nibbling and stroking. Elene’s breath caught in her throat and she made small sounds, twisting against him. His fingers travelled further up her thigh and sought inwards. He felt her stiffen as he touched her. Murmuring reassurances against her ear, he nuzzled and nipped at her lobe and coaxed her gently, his other hand rhythmically pressured on the curve of her buttocks, holding her against him. When she began to gasp and clutch at him convulsively, he stopped what he was doing and brought her to the bed.

  Elene bore Renard’s weight, that which was not taken on his forearms, and with eyes closed, savoured the dwindling ripples of a pleasure so intense that it had twice driven her to the edge of oblivion. The potential still hovered in the background. She rotated her hips beneath him, searching out the last quivers of sensation.

  ‘Greedy,’ he murmured, kissing the tip of her nose.

  She smiled lazily. ‘I’m fattening myself against the lean times.’


  ‘Fattening?’ He ran one hand lightly over her hip bone, waist and ribcage to the swell of her breast.

  Elene realised that there was more than one interpretation and in the next moment decided that she did not mind if he misconstrued it. ‘That as well. I might be more fortun ate this time.’

  She felt him tense slightly. ‘Yes, you might,’ he said after a pause, his tone neutral, and rolled over on to his back.

  Elene lifted her lids to look at him. His expression was wry, but he had relaxed again. Her own body felt languid, satisfied if not replete. He had been right, it did get better. There had been some pain, but of the kind that only added to the pleasure.

  On the last occasion — her wedding night — Renard had been in complete, cold control of every faculty even though it had been she who forced the pace. This time her body had moulded smoothly around him and she had heard his sigh of pleasure and the catch in his breathing as she arched her hips and thrust to meet him. Later, surfacing from the intensity of climax, she had been aware of his ragged breathing, the fierce grip of his hands, and had known that somehow she had pushed him beyond refinement and into the last driving moments of need.

  There was more to be learned. She knew that she was innocent, but she was shrewd enough to realise that her very innocence was sufficient to hold Renard for now, but what of the future? How did she compete with a tavern dancer whose livelihood was pleasing men? Remembering the expertise of his foreplay, she wondered what would happen if she touched him instead. Her eyes roved over his body. She knew what she wanted to do but was afraid of his re action to such boldness.

  Watching her expression, a mingling of tension and sensuality, Renard was stirred to new arousal. ‘We don’t have to go to court,’ he said, brushing a strand of hair from her shoulder. ‘Ranulf de Gernons will be there, and we’ll only quarrel again or worse. I danced attendance on Stephen all morning and you suffered interrogation by the Queen. I think we are entitled to a little time to ourselves.’