The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 12

Elene smiled proudly at the gasps of awe, envy and delight as her wedding garments were laid across the bed. The undertunic with its tight-fitting sleeves was of a soft, wine-coloured wool, exquisitely stitched but unembellished, a plain foil for the overgown of moss-green silk. The hem, throat and hanging sleeves of the gown were trimmed with bands of the red and both were oversewn with thread-of-gold in a tapestry of intricate detail. Foxes, leopards, sheep and horses curved around trees that stood against keeps, stylised to represent Ravenstow and Woolcot. In a garden stood a man and woman, hands clasped together, the man’s tunic embroidered with tiny foxes, the woman’s with grazing sheep.

The women wedding guests stroked, examined and exclaimed over Elene’s skills and a warm glow lit within her at their praise. A laughing remark was made about the couple in the garden. Elene blushed, unsure now that she wanted that particular part of the garment on public display and knowing that it was too late to unpick the stitches.

Despite the braziers and the fire in the hearth, the room was still cold. The heat imbued to Elene’s skin by the bath water was fading, and, clothed as she was in nothing but her short shift, she started to shiver. Judith, her eyes dark-shadowed by permanent worry and lack of sleep, was preocccupied, but Heulwen noticed Elene’s chattering teeth and with a concerned exclamation picked the undertunic from the bed and helped her to don it, followed by the gorgeous wedding gown.

‘If Adam and I ever find anyone rash enough to take on our hoydens, I hope we can call on you to sew their gowns too,’ she said as she fastened the lacings.

‘Of course.’ Elene smiled at the two girls, both in their best dresses, who were watching her, eyes round and awestruck as a veil of gold tissue was arranged over her hip-length cloud of black hair.

‘You look like a princess!’ Juditta breathed.

‘Will Uncle Renard look like a prince?’ Rhosyn enquired, and wriggled away from Dame Adela who was trying to tweak her chaplet straight.

Heulwen laughed. ‘You know he will. He’d look like one if he were clothed in rags; he has that way about him. But then he’s the grandson of a king, and nephew of an empress.’

‘Henry is the one who most resembles his grandfather,’ Judith said neutrally.

‘Physically yes, but not in terms of presence,’ Heulwen argued, then bit her tongue and lowered her eyes. ‘I am sorry, Mama. It’s not fair to keep holding up Henry and Renard for comparison. They’re so unalike.’

Judith sighed and set another pin into Elene’s veil. ‘I suppose it isn’t, but I know what you mean. Henry’s nature is far too simple to have come from that side of his breeding. Your father says that he’s like his Great-uncle Gerard, without the brains.’ Her voice shook slightly.

Elene touched her gently. ‘At least he hasn’t taken the wound fever or stiffening sickness,’ she tried to comfort her. ‘I know he has been hot, but nothing that willow bark and feverfew cannot contain. And if his nature is simple, it’s also cheerful. He will make a good recovery, I know he will.’

Judith’s preoccupied expression sharpened into focus on Elene, but she found no platitude. The girl believed what she was saying. ‘I’m sure you are right,’ Judith said in a softer voice and tenderly embraced her, wondering at the same time if Renard, less familiar with Elene, would see the pride and stubbornness of spirit, or just the surface docility. After Olwen, Elene could either be as uninterest — ing as plain bread at a feast, or a welcome relief from a highly spiced diet.

Thomas d’Alberin’s plump wife simpered and giggled like a silly girl as she helped one of the other women scatter herbs over the bottom sheet of the bed, the sheet that tomorrow would be blotched with the scarlet proof of Elene’s virginity. She paused, her hand full of dried forget-me-nots, and called cheerfully to the bride, ‘Which side will you be sleeping tonight? Nay, but I don’t suppose you’ll actually do much sleeping. When Thomas and I were wed, I couldn’t sit comfortable for a week afterwards!’ She winked and scattered the forget-me-nots. ‘You be sure to lie just here if you want to bear your lord a fine son before next Michaelmas.’

Elene gave her a fixed smile.

‘Pay no heed,’ whispered Heulwen. ‘It’s all in jest. Just answer back and stick out your tongue.’

‘That’s as difficult for me to do as sewing is for you,’ Elene said ruefully.

Heulwen considered her with a frown. ‘You’re not scared about tonight, are you? I mean after what happened?’

For a moment Elene thought that Heulwen was talking about the embrace in the wall chamber two days since and belatedly realised that she was in fact referring to the attempted rape.

‘What? Oh no … well, only a little. More butterflies than terror.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘Renard’s skilled at dalliance, isn’t he? There’ll only be one fumbling innocent in that bed tonight — me.’

Heulwen exchanged a glance, surreptitious as she thought, with her stepmother, but Elene was quick and caught it. ‘I may be innocent,’ she said with dignity, ‘but I’m not ignorant. I know there were women at court and at home before he left for Antioch, and I do not for one moment believe he was celibate while he was out there … What is it? What have I said?’

Heulwen avoided Elene’s bright hazel stare.

‘Child,’ Judith murmured. ‘If you know my son’s nature then you will be prepared for whatever the future may throw at you … and strong enough to weather it, I pray.’

It was a strange thing to say and Elene felt a tingle of alarm run down her spine, but had no time to examine or probe further because a squire came enquiring if the bridal party was ready for church and there was a sudden flurry of giggles and last-minute adjustments and the sweeping on of thick, furred cloaks. The thought was pushed from her mind, but hovered to one side of it with the indignation of an unwelcome wedding guest left standing in the cold.

In response to Henry’s croaked command, Renard turned in a slow circle. ‘What do you think?’ he grinned. ‘Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t mock,’ Henry said weakly and then pointed to his pillows. ‘Prop me up, will you?’

Renard obliged. As he moved, he heard a seam in his wedding tunic give a slight crack and was almost relieved to know that it was not perfect.

The main colour was a deep red wool with cuff and hem trimmings of green and the whole of it decorated with a twining forest of thread-of-gold among which foxes ran, sat, played and fought. Elene’s skills as an embroideress were without question. It would make a superb court robe, but Renard was not entirely comfortable with such ostentation no matter the amount of thought and care that had gone into its creation.

‘I wasn’t mocking,’ he said as he sat down on the stool at the head of the bed. ‘It is awe-inspiring. If King Stephen sees me in this, he’ll think I’m using the claim of my grandfather’s blood to set myself up as another contender for his crown — and that I’m a popinjay into the bargain.’

Despite himself Henry chuckled, then caught his breath as the movement in his chest and shoulders sent pain coursing through his wound. ‘You don’t wear rings or perfume your hair like the Bishop of Winchester, and you don’t stuff the toes of your shoes with horsehair and decor — ate them with bells,’ he said.

‘Ah, but these are early days yet,’ Renard grinned, and then sobered to study his brother. ‘At least, even if you’re not well enough to be stretchered to church to witness the wedding, you’re on the mend. No wound fever, so the women say. How do the arm and shoulder feel?’

‘I’ve got some movement there, but it’s weak and it hurts like all the devils in hell to move it. I’ll have to toast you with my left hand.’

‘At least you’ll be at the feast. Last week we did not know if it would be held to mark your funeral instead of my marriage.’ Renard rose to leave.

‘Renard …’ Henry’s voice was husky. He did not yet have the strength to raise it. ‘You’re a lucky bastard. Don’t abuse it.’

Even enfeebled and distorted by physical pain, the emotion in Henry’s voice came through, and Renard stared at him in dawning astonishment.

‘Go away.’ Henry closed his eyes.

For a moment Renard remained where he was, just staring. He supposed that it was not so unlikely. Henry’s was the kind of nature to thrive on Elene’s gentle domesticity. All too easy for brotherly affection to deepen into something more dangerous.

‘Does Elene know?’

‘I’m not that stupid. Besides, it is you she has always loved.’ His eyelids tightened. ‘If I wasn’t so sick I wouldn’t be telling you this. Private … none of your concern. But if you forsake her for that dancing girl you brought home with you, I’ll kill you myself!’

‘How did you know about …’

‘I’ve got ears to hear. People talk over my head and think because I’m ill that I’m unaware … You didn’t come back last night until well after compline, did you?’

Renard was by now heartily fed up with people telling him to be kind to Elene. He could not, however, in the present circumstances, vent his irritation in a bad-tempered outburst on Henry. Composing himself he said, ‘I’ll do my best by Elene but I’m not going to give you reassurances about my “dancing girl” because I’d probably not honour them. I’ll explain later when you’re in a better condition.’ He looked round as Adam came into the room holding out a cloak.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

Renard nodded and swinging the garment around his shoulders stabbed in the round Welsh pin.

Adam looked from one to the other, sensing the tension. A frown was scoring two deep lines between Renard’s brows and Henry’s skin was beaded with feverish sweat. A maid came from the corner of the room with a bowl of lavender water and began gently to wipe him down.

‘What’s wrong?’ Adam demanded.

‘Nothing,’ Renard said lightly. ‘What could be wrong on a day of joy such as this?’ His brow cleared and he smiled, but his expression was as cosmetic as the fine wedding garments masking his hard, warrior’s body.

‘Wassail!’ The traditional cry echoed round the hall in the English tongue.

‘Drink, hail!’ came the response, and cups and goblets were raised and drained and not for the first time or the last.

Elene stared round Ravenstow’s great hall at the progression of her wedding feast. Flown with wine, Rhodri ap Tewdr, Welsh prince, wedding guest and family friend, was subjecting them all to an impromptu rendition of Dingodad’s Speckled Petticoat, much to Juditta’s and Rhosyn’s delight. It was at least a child’s song and a deal less explicit than some of the others that had been requested of the professional minstrels in the gallery.

Renard grimaced as the notes quavered towards the beams. ‘If I were a maid and he serenaded me thus, I’d run for my sanity,’ he leaned over to murmur in her ear.

‘It certainly doesn’t seem to have done him any harm by his wife,’ Elene contradicted. ‘How many children do they have now? Ten in as many years?’

‘It’s probably the only way she can get him to shut up,’ Renard said, then muttered an oath under his breath and started to get up as fighting broke out between one of Rhodri’s Welsh and a knight of Leicester’s household.

Rhodri was too far in his cups to do anything except stare reproachfully at the commotion interrupting his song. William plunged into the midst of the melee to separate the combatants before fists could become armed with knives and a full-scale war developed, and hauled the Welshman away by the scruff of his leather jerkin.

John quickly set about calming the knight to a muttering simmer. Renard subsided on to his chair. Brawls were a not uncommon hazard of wedding feasts when the wine was plentiful and people were brought together who would not always choose to be in each other’s company. Stephen’s Christmas court would likely be beset by similar or worse problems.

Elene watched Renard reach to his cup and swallow. The evening was well advanced and although mellowed by the wine he was by no means drunk, staying sober with an obvious purpose in mind. She picked up her own cup and drank to try and dispel her anxiety about their wedding night, and she continued to sneak glances at Renard. The tunic suited his darkness and she had been deeply satisfied by the responses of the guests when they first saw the bride and groom together, uncloaked at the wedding mass — two halves making one whole.

Renard turned his head and caught her looking at him. Her breath quickened and shuddered. Down the hall, shouts once more rose towards a crescendo, and with difficulty were subdued, the culprits dragged out into the sleety night to literally cool off.

Renard decided that it was time to set the next act in the charade into motion, one to which he was not averse. Elene looked very fetching. The crimson and green suited her well and the tight lacing of undergown and tunic accentuated her figure. The looks she had been giving him, full of tense curiosity, along with the warmth of the wine had stirred his blood. She might not have the skills that Olwen used to such exquisite effect, but her very innocence was stimulating.

Next time she glanced at him, he trapped her with his own stare and, leaning forward, kissed her. Elene’s eyes closed. So did Henry’s where he sat propped upon cushions in a high-backed chair and his good hand dug into the plaid of the blanket covering his knees. Renard’s own eyes were open and he saw his brother’s reaction. On a surge of pity, he withdrew from the kiss, for its signal had already been recognised by the more eager of the wedding guests. A raucous cheer went up. He felt Elene stiffen and draw away from him, her pupils so widely dilated that her eyes looked black. Giving her a reassuring smile, he rose to leave. The women converged upon her, led by Judith, and bride and groom were separated for the bedding ceremony.

Henry declined to be carried upstairs by some well-meaning but drink-fuddled guests to witness the ceremony. He said that he was tired. He said that he did not want to be jostled about. He said that he would rather wait downstairs in the company of a flagon.

Elene shivered as the women stood her on a sheepskin rug near the hearth of the main bedchamber and began disrobing her. First the tunic, then the undergown, followed by soft shoes of gilded leather and the fine woollen hose and garters, and finally her chemise so that she stood naked, bathed in the fireglow, her hair crackling around her hips.

Some of the women were eyeing her dubiously and discussing whether or not her hips were wide enough for successful childbearing, their voices over-loud with the wine they had drunk. Heulwen silenced them crossly while Judith draped a bedrobe around Elene’s goose-fleshed shoulders and drew her to the bed.

Memories of her own wedding night crowded Judith’s mind. She had been a couple of years younger than Elene and terrified of the coming ordeal, never having known anything but abuse from men. It had been this very chamber and a night like tonight with snow threatening in the wind and the women around her offering advice that was meant to be practical and kind but that had only increased her dread. One of them had given her a pot of dead-nettle salve, telling her that it would soothe her abused female passage. Another had told her not to worry; the bigger the man and the more it hurt, the more likely she was to conceive a boy. By the time the men had come into the room, Guyon naked among them, she had been almost insensible with terror.

Elene’s situation was different. The girl had known since childhood that she would marry Renard. Her father had been strict with her but not brutal, and when he died she had grown to maturity among her future family at Ravenstow. The fear was bound to be less, but even so, Judith knew that at this precise point in the proceedings, it was all too easy to become overwhelmed.

Elene grimaced and wriggled on the strewn, dried flowers. The scent of lavender rose from the bolster and pillows and there was a strong herbal smell from the crushed plants beneath her. She looked at Judith and smiled ruefully but said nothing. Her throat was too tight and she felt a little sick.

‘It will be all right, I promise you,’ Judith said as she prepared the traditional cup of spiced hippocras — another aid to potency and fertility. She shook her head at the loudest of the other women. ‘Take no notice of them unless it’s to feel sorry. They’d take your place if they could.’

‘I’m not worried,’ Elene croaked. ‘I only wish that …’ She stopped speaking and clutched at the coverlet as noise sounded in the antechamber, approached the inner room, until suddenly a cluster of less than sober men, burst upon the women Renard jostled among them.

Robert of Leicester was laughing so hard that he could scarcely finish the joke he was in the midst of telling. ‘… And the squire says to the whore, “The priest told me that if I ever sinned with a woman I’d be turned to stone, and look, it’s started happening!”’

Loud guffaws and drunken bonhomie. Someone slapped Renard so hard between the shoulder blades that he winced and staggered.

‘Steady on!’ cried another man. ‘It’ll be your blood that flows, not the bride’s if you render him incapable!’

More laughter. ‘It’s a blessing that bitch yesterday didn’t bite him any higher up!’ chortled de Lorys, and then howled as Adam dug an elbow viciously into his ribs to silence him.

Naked among the throng, Renard shrugged himself free of their grasping hands. ‘The only blessing I want now,’ he said, ‘is that of a priest on this bed. Where’s John?’

‘Eager to get to business, are we?’ grinned Ancelin.

Renard looked round, both amused and irritated. ‘Not “we”, Ancelin … At least I don’t understand from the vows I took that you’re to be involved in this.’

The remark was greeted with ribald shouts of laughter and Ancelin became the recipient of the shoulder slaps.

‘Send him to Hawkfield in your stead!’ slurred de Lorys at the top of his voice. Adam dragged him out of the throng and elbowed him again, this time in the diaphragm.

John thrust his way to the forefront, complete with silver vessel of holy water and a sprinkler. Although not drunk, he was very merry and his brown eyes were aglow with mischief.

‘What’s the remedy, Father, if Renard should find himself turning to stone?’ asked Leicester, nudging his chaplain.

John rubbed his jaw and pretended to consider. ‘Well now,’ he deliberated. ‘A dipper of cold well water blessed by a priest and poured over the offending member works wonders, but the best remedy by far is to put it in a warm, dark place and leave it there all night … if you know where to find one.’

De Lorys was too busy being sick in the antechamber to mention Hawkfield a third time. Leicester screwed up his face as if pondering the problem, then looked at Elene in mock, exaggerated understanding, his act greeted by loud guffaws. Elene blushed a fiery red and refused to raise her lids beyond the hands that tightly gripped the coverlet.

Judith caught Renard’s eye and made a small gesture at the doorway. He saw that she was desperately hoping he was not as wine-flown as the rest of the men. Merry he certainly was, but nowhere near intoxication, and his mother’s concern and Elene’s strained expression recalled him to responsibility. The trick was to know how far to go without stepping off the edge, although sometimes other people pushed you over it. He thought of the bite mark on his thigh, Olwen’s deliberate branding. The wavering candlelight concealed the worst of it, thank Christ, but he would have bruising for days to come, and not just of the flesh. Olwen knew how to set her claws into a man’s soul and tear it to shreds. He shut her from his mind and abruptly stepped forward, hands held palm outwards to the chuckling crowd. ‘Enough!’ he cried. ‘I have to leave it in all night so the good father says and it’s halfway to cockcrow already.’

There was more laughter at the innuendo placed on the word ‘cockcrow’ and jests about rising at dawn, and then rowdy cheers and barracking advice as Renard climbed into bed beside his flustered new wife and John solemnly blessed and thoroughly sprinkle-soaked them with holy water.

Guyon’s voice was hoarse tonight, and he was unable to raise it and clear from the room the reluctant revellers who wanted to squeeze the last drop of enjoyment from the situation. William’s light baritone was useless and John had developed a severe attack of hiccups. Robert of Leicester, however, had a bellow on him like a rutting stag and muscle-thickened arms that gathered up, swiped into line, and ushered most effectively.

‘I trust you’ll remember this favour,’ he twinkled ambiguously at Renard as he stood on the threshold.

‘I’ll ask you to stand godfather to any child that comes of this night,’ Renard said drily.

Leicester chuckled. ‘I’ll hold you to that, with all these ladies here as witnesses.’

‘Was that wise?’ Judith murmured as the women kissed Elene and filed out.

Renard jerked his shoulders. ‘He’s Chester’s counter — balance, equally powerful. If I don’t cultivate him then I’ve got to cultivate the other. Besides, I like him.’

‘But he is firmly committed as Stephen’s man.’

He looked at her keenly then veiled his eyes. ‘Yes, Mama, I know.’

‘But …’ Her lips tightened.

‘It is my wedding night,’ he reminded her.

Judith looked away. Renard had taken his father’s black leopard as a blazon for his own shield, but adapted it from the couchant to the snarling rampant. If she had ever had her hand on its leash, the beast had long since torn free and now confronted her, narrow-eyed and dangerous. ‘Yes, so it is,’ she agreed softly and leaned to embrace Elene and then more tentatively her son. She wished them well, and left, her step slightly unsteady, although Elene could not remember having seen her drink more than two cups of wine all night.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked Renard as the curtain dropped behind Judith, and they were suddenly and silently alone.

‘Oh nothing.’ He eased the pillow against his spine. ‘She doesn’t like to see my hand hovering over a chessboard knowing that she cannot influence my next move. We’ve always argued. She can’t wrap me around her little finger the way she can my father and it worries her.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Still, it’s thicker than water. If we fight, it’s not through hatred, rather the opposite.’

The silence settled, as heavy as the curtain and the door that separated them from the rest of the keep. Renard picked up the cup of spiced hippocras and grimaced. ‘Do you want some?’

She took it from him. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Loathe it,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know how my father can drink the stuff.’

‘It’s supposed to warm your blood.’ She took a quick sip. It was sweet, spicy with cinnamon and nutmeg and not unpleasant to her own palate. She took another swallow and stopped. My lips will taste of it, she thought, and he said he loathes it.

‘My blood doesn’t need warming,’ Renard said softly, watching the candlelight play over her skin and smiling at the way she kept the bedclothes modestly tucked around her breasts. She was shivering and as he touched her arm and took the cup from her, he felt the slightly rough texture of gooseflesh along her arm. ‘But yours does.’ Setting the cup down on the coffer, he turned and gently pressed her down on the mattress.

‘Oh,’ said Elene, wide-eyed, and swallowed.

He drew the coverings over and around them, swathing them in linen and thick, stitched-together furs, and putting his arm across her cold body, drew her close to share his warmth.

She made another small sound as she felt his heat, and then a movement between their bodies, a sleepy stirring against her abdomen and thighs. She tensed, trying to flinch away from its growing hot intrusion but constrained to stay where she was by the weight of Renard’s forearm on her hip bone.

‘Lie still, Nell,’ he murmured. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘I know … It’s just that …’

‘Hush.’ He kissed her gently and stroked the sensitive valley of her spine and the curve of her buttocks. ‘There is no cause for haste. You have to learn to walk before you can run.’

The coldness started to melt from her limbs. Renard’s hands and voice were soothing. She relaxed against him, and then a little more as she realised she was not about to be pounced upon and devoured. The wine swam in her blood and drowsiness began to steal upon her as he stroked her spine. She closed her eyes and her breathing slowed and deepened as she lazed in the pleasure of his fingertips.

Renard brushed his lips over her throat and the silky curve of her shoulder. He encountered a thick strand of her herb-scented hair, and raising his head to look into her face saw that he had soothed her too far. She was hovering on the verge of sleep if not already over its first threshold. He imagined the response of the wedding guests could they but witness this scene and laughed to himself at the irony. All the jesting, the knowing looks. No hope of a warm, dark place now. His mother would be pleased. No child for Robert of Leicester.

‘Oh Elene,’ he said helplessly to her unconscious form, and, shaking with silent laughter, put his head down beside her, his arm still across her body. His half-curious erection subsided. He was not in any need; Olwen had seen to that. At the time he had thought it was better so. In hindsight, perhaps not. Too late. He closed his eyes and matched the rhythm of his breathing to Elene’s, and within five minutes was himself asleep.

Pain woke Elene with a jolt, and when she tried to escape from it, it only hurt the more. The night candle was still burning on its pricket and the fire in the hearth was a dull red glow through grey logs of ash. Unable to get up, and still more than half asleep, she started to struggle and cry out.

Alarmed, Renard shot up, thus removing his weight from her spread hair and the cause of her pain. ‘What is it?’ he stared round blearily.

Elene gasped with relief. ‘I couldn’t move. You were lying on my hair and I dreamed that I was trapped.’

Renard grunted and lay back down to recover his senses. He glanced at the night candle. It had burned well down on its pricket but not far enough for dawn. ‘Is there any wine?’ he asked. ‘Not the hippocras, something honest and ordinary.’

‘I’ll see.’ Shrugging into her bedrobe, she padded over to the table that stood near the narrow window slit. He watched the heavy swing of her blue-black hair and yawned.

‘It’s watered,’ she said as she poured from flagon to cup and tasted it on her way back to him.

‘No matter.’ Sitting up, he took it from her.

Elene gave him a look from the corner of her eye before stooping to brush the scratchy fragments of dried herbs from her portion of the bed with the flat of her palm until the sheet was smooth and white — an ordinary sheet, its very blankness significant. By now it should have been stained with the proof of her virginity.

‘I can say with complete truth that this is the first time a woman has ever gone to sleep on my attentions,’ Renard said lightly, trying to dispel the strain he could sense in her.

She bit her lip. ‘I didn’t realise how tired I was. I did not mean to.’

Renard swirled the wine reflectively in his cup. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I suppose I could have been more persuasive, but I didn’t want to frighten you, and besides, I was tired myself.’

Her gaze fell on the telltale bruise marring his thigh and she found herself unable to look away. The remarks de Lorys had made about a bitch biting him fell into place with what Judith had said earlier when they were dressing for the wedding.

Made uncomfortable by the quality of her stare and feeling the sting of guilt, Renard shifted and drew up the covers. ‘Get back into bed, Nell, it’s cold,’ he said.

She cast him a bright, almost challenging look. ‘It was after the hunt, wasn’t it?’ Her voice was raw with pain. ‘You were late returning and I could smell attar of roses on you.’

Renard bit the inside of his mouth, aware that there was no point in denying the accusation. ‘I needed the release,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to be rough with you tonight.’

‘I see,’ she said in a choked, defensive voice. ‘You were only thinking of my welfare. You are very kind.’

‘Oh, in the name of Christ!’ he muttered as she started to cry. ‘Elene, don’t.’ He turned her face so that he could brush away her tears on his thumb. ‘I admit it was stupid of me, but at the time I thought it was right.’ Slipping his hand beneath her thick sweep of hair, he stroked her neck, drew her against him, and kissed her gently. Her lips parted, responding even while she wept and her hands came up to clutch at him, fingernails scoring his shoulders. The pressure of the kiss increased at her insistence and when he made to pull away, her hold tightened.

‘Now,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘For the sake of my pride, now, before there is nothing left.’

Renard felt her trembling against him, the rapid shaking of her breath and heartbeat, the coldness of her skin as she shrugged out of the bedrobe. His body responded to the frantic demand of hers, and putting his hand on her breast, he covered her with his warmth.

Elene’s eyes had been squeezed shut against the pain. It had eased a little now, but it still hurt. Releasing her breath, she tried to relax her tense body. She was aware of Renard’s similar tension beside her. He swore, but whether at himself or her she could not be sure.

‘It isn’t always like that,’ he said after a moment, his voice sounding weary. ‘I thought you were ready.’

Elene shivered. The weak pleasure that had coursed through her limbs two days ago had been entirely missing. She had felt nothing at his touch, only a desperate need born of insecurity to unite their bodies, one within the other — and it had been a disaster. She had tried not to cry out as he entered her, but a whimper had caught in her throat and she had tensed at the pain.

At least it had not been prolonged. About the same time, she estimated, that it took a ram to mount and fertilise a ewe. Elene wondered if she had conceived and hoped so. After this he would not want to bed with her again, nor did she relish the thought herself. She raised the covers to see if the sheet was stained with sufficient proof of her virginity, and discovered the linen damp beneath her.

‘If there’s no blood, I’ll go surety for your innocence,’ Renard said wryly. His foreplay had been met with wild impatience, almost desperation, and she had writhed beneath him, not just inviting, but demanding. It was then that he had discovered she was far from ready; so tight and dry that penetration had been excruciationg for her, painful for him, and after the first few thrusts, he had seen no sense in continuing the torture and had withdrawn, the act incomplete. Elene was too inexperienced to know the difference and he was not about to maim either of them with a demonstration.

Elene grimaced at the red smears on the inside of her thighs, the blotched sheet, and let the covers fall. ‘I suppose I am not a patch on her,’ she said in a low voice.

‘What?’ He looked at her blankly.

‘The other woman; the one at Hawkfield who bit you.’

Renard’s eyes were gritty with fatigue. All he wanted to do was turn over, go back to sleep and pretend that tonight had never happened. It had and he couldn’t. His conscience would not let him. Sitting up, he groaned. ‘I was going to tell you about her before, but I didn’t want to spoil the wedding for you. Skeletons have a way of leaping out of cupboards at the most inappropriate moments, don’t they?’

Elene felt trembly and cold. ‘What is she to you?’ she asked.

Renard grimaced. ‘A thorn in my side.’ He took his half-finished wine from the coffer. ‘If she hadn’t been with child, I’d never have brought her from Antioch in the first place.’

Nausea added itself to Elene’s other discomforts. ‘She’s with child?’ she repeated numbly.

‘Not now. She miscarried on the road from Brindisi, but I couldn’t abandon her in the middle of nowhere, given the state she was in, and she was still determined to travel to England.’ Briefly he told her about himself and Olwen, paring the narrative down to the sparsest details.

‘So you brought her back to England and installed her at Hawkfield,’ Elene said in a dull voice.

‘Would you rather I kept her at Ravenstow?’ His gaze flashed.

‘I would rather neither.’ She busied herself with finding and donning her crumpled bedrobe. That was bloodstained too, she noticed with distaste, and wondered why she was fighting. Leaving the bed she went to sit before the hearth, her back to him, and rubbed her cold shoulders with equally cold hands. Marriages were made for convenience, she knew that. She and Renard were joined for the sake of their lands, and if begetting an heir to those lands was even half as painful as tonight’s experience, then this Syrian gutter-slut was welcome to all his attentions.

‘It can’t be neither,’ he said. She tensed, hearing him leave the bed. ‘It has gone too far for that, Nell. Just don’t read too many portents into it. You are my wife.’

‘Hah!’ she spat bitterly. ‘Bought and sold for a meaning — less vow and a parcel of land!’ She clenched her jaw as his hand came lightly down on her shoulder.

‘I don’t blame you for being angry, but it’s late, and we are both tired. Can we not start afresh in the morning?’

He was used to cozening women, she thought, stiffening herself against the light touch of his hand and the tone of his voice. Staring into the fire, she watched it fall into ashes. ‘As you wish,’ she replied in a blank, dutiful voice ‘… my lord.’