‘She likes strong-minded women who rule their men,’ he said drily and raised his lids to flash her a look full of brooding amusement. ‘I was not altogether flattered, although I suppose it might be true. You’re just not as obvious as Mama, are you?’
Elene was slightly taken aback. It had never occurred to her that she might be able to rule Renard, or that the Queen might think her capable. ‘She had the advantage of your father’s devotion,’ she said, and began to pluck at the sodden leather laces of his coif.
‘Ah now, that is fishing with either a very subtle or a very foolish bait, Nell,’ he smiled, and wrapped his fingers around one of her braids to draw her down to him again, adding just before he kissed her, ‘I’ve missed you.’
Her palm was against his throat and she felt his pulse surge rapidly. He slipped his hand beneath her cloak to stroke her body, revelling in a luxury that had been six weeks absent from his life. The camp whores had proved no trial to celibacy. Most of them stank worse than the surrounding fetid marshes and he was still smarting too much from the wounds Olwen had inflicted on his pride to seek a whore for the mere easing of boredom.
He closed his eyes again, savouring. Elene’s lips were as soft and cool as damp silk. Her fingertips traced a delicate, fiery pattern over his throat and her body, pressing upon his, made him groan. ‘Oh Jesu, yes, I’ve missed you.’
Elene caught her breath. From the way he had taken fire at such preliminary stimulus, she surmised that he had not been with other women whilet on campaign, and that acted as a spur to her desire. ‘Me?’ she asked. ‘Or this?’ And boldly sought beneath his hauberk and gambeson. At which embarrassing juncture Judith returned. Elene snatched her hand away, her face poppy-scarlet.
Renard was sufficiently graceless to guffaw for all that he tried to stifle it behind his hand.
‘You will do that on the other side of your face!’ his mother warned. ‘I’ve had Elflin prepare you a tub in your chamber and to get there you’ll have to walk on that foot — unless of course you intend hopping across the hall like a mad heron.’ Ignoring his scowl, she turned to Elene. ‘Child, his father and I were often interrupted on occasions far more intimate than this one. If my mind had not been so full of housing and feeding that untimely rabble out there, I’d have given you due warning.’
Her words had been meant to comfort, but made Elene realise that in her haste to reassure herself of Renard’s safety, she had been remiss in her duties as chatelaine. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left it all to you. I’ll …’ She started towards the doorway.
‘Don’t apologise.’ Judith waved her hand. ‘Your place is with your husband, undeserving wretch though he be, and it keeps me busy.’
‘Rabble?’ Renard protested as he levered himself carefully to his feet, assisted by the two women. He had seen Elene’s hesitation and the pain underlying his mother’s response, and knew when to steer the conversation into less turbulent channels. ‘They’ve been working their backsides off for the last six weeks and in conditions only a frog would enjoy. Don’t salt your tongue too liberally while you see to them, Mama.’
Judith’s lips twitched. ‘As if I would!’ she said.
By the time Renard sank into the steaming tub that had been prepared for him, he was grey with pain, all thoughts of chaffing anyone erased from his mind by the pain from his foot, muffled curses the limit of his ability. Through a throbbing haze he was aware of Elene and his mother consulting low-voiced about the best method of bandaging his damaged toes.
Judith departed. Silence fell, punctuated by the small sounds of Elene returning to his coffer the few items of clothing in his baggage that did not require laundering or discarding.
The pain eased and his knotted muscles relaxed in the hot, herb-infused water. Elene came to the tub and examined him with a critical eye but could see no other signs of injury on his body. There was a shallow scratch on his face between eye socket and beard, but it looked like a scrape from a tree branch that would heal quickly of its own accord. Unstoppering the jar of stavesacre lotion she was holding, she knelt beside the tub and handed him a cloth. ‘Cover your eyes.’
The smell of the lotion was pungent and familiar. He did as she bid and said in a muffled voice, ‘I hope you have plenty. We’re all alive with lice.’
‘Heulwen had a surplus. She sent some over last month knowing how likely that would be.’ She worked the lotion into his hair and left it while she barbered off his beard and its occupants.
‘I didn’t see Henry when I arrived,’ he remarked, and when she did not reply, lowered the cloth and looked at her piercingly. ‘Gave himself away, did he? I thought he might.’
Elene paused in her ministrations to lean back and return his stare. ‘You knew?’
‘I’ve known since our wedding day.’ And then, defensively, ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? Swell into a jealous rage and swathe you up in black cloth like an infidel would do to his wife? Throw Henry half-dead with wound fever out of the keep?’ The bath water churned. Somewhat grimly he set about the motions of a wash. ‘What happened?’
Elene said hoarsely, ‘He was struggling to undo his sword-belt. I went to help him and he … he told me how he felt.’ She shook her head. ‘He came to apologise later, and then he left.’ There was no point in telling Renard the full story.
Renard sighed heavily and shook his head.
‘What are you going to do?’
He squeezed his eyes shut against the sting of the stavesacre lotion. ‘Nothing. Certainly I’m not going to chase after him rubbing salt into a bleeding wound. Let him heal a little first.’
Elene took the cloth from him to wash his back, positioning herself so that without a violent contortion of his body he would not be able to see her face. ‘I never dreamed for one moment that Henry felt more than brotherly towards me,’ she said.
‘He always was shy with women,’ Renard replied, feeling his way towards understanding. ‘I suppose he has known you since childhood and therein lies the difference. He has long been familiar with you in a family atmosphere. My father should have betrothed him years ago before the mould became too firmly set.’
‘But he betrothed you instead — to me.’
Renard tried to swivel and look at her, unsure of her slightly breathless tone, but found that with his injured toes propped over the far edge of the tub, it was not physically possible. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘he did.’
‘That is not all I have to tell you,’ she said hesitantly when Renard was finally deloused, dry, and dressed for comfort in a loose robe, his injured foot smeared with salve and bandaged.
‘Ranulf of Chester hasn’t …?’
‘No,’ she reassured him quickly. ‘There has been some minor raiding, but more opportune than of any grand design. You’ll have all the reports as soon as you’re ready for them.’
‘Then what else?’
Elene looked down at her clasped hands. ‘I’m with child.’
He stared at her, his surprise reserved not for the fact of her pregnancy — sooner or later it was bound to happen — but because he read more apprehension than excitement in her expression and the tone of her voice. ‘That’s excellent news,’ he pronounced with guarded enthusiasm. ‘When?’
‘Mid-autumn, I think.’
Renard continued to study her. He remembered that her mother had died in childbirth when she was very small. Even women who longed for children and had a strong maternal instinct could be terrified by the prospect of giving birth, for it was also the prospect of death if anything went wrong. ‘Come here, Nell,’ he said gently.
Obediently she came, and sat down as he indicated, but when he put his arm around her, he could feel the violent vibration of her body. ‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid?’
She buried her head against his shoulder and breast. He felt her lips against his throat and the flutter of her eyelashes like small moth wings. ‘Only of losing you. A ram takes little interest in a ewe save to keep other rams away once she is in lamb.’
‘You think that of me?’ he asked, stricken.
‘I
He tightened his embrace. ‘If you were ever a duty, Nell, you’re much more than that now. If I call you love, or sweetheart, it is because I mean it.’ He sought her lips and kissed her, tenderly at first, but with a growing tension that was interspersed with murmured endearments and then breathless entreaties. Elene yielded herself to the sweeping needs of her body and his, and thought with a pang that the difference was that while he called
