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?’
‘
‘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 French 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
