The Leopard Unleashed

Chapter 8

Renard sighed, tossed the quill on to the heap of parchments beside him on the table, and rubbed his eyes. The hound dozing beside the brazier raised its head and thumped its tail on the floor. Renard snapped his fingers and held out his hand and Cabal padded over to nuzzle him with his moist, black nose. He thrust his fingers into the wiry grey coat and made a fuss of the dog. It was a brief comfort, a momentary diversion from the difficult task of sorting out which of their vassals owed what and when in terms of military service, and making up for the inevitable shortfall around harvest time, which was nigh on impossible. Some lords, taking a page out of William’s book, were not averse to sending the most shoddy goods they could get away with.

A dull ache of fatigue throbbed behind his eyes. It was the middle of the night, everyone asleep but himself and Cabal, and he had to be up at the crack of dawn to take out another patrol. Later it would not matter, he could delegate the task, but for the moment he needed to make himself known as a leader, had to impose his own codes and methods on men who either did not know him, or still thought of him as a feckless youngster. He ruffled Cabal’s coat, and reaching across the table to the flagon, refilled his cup with the indifferent Norman wine. Then, with another heavy sigh, he drew a fresh sheet of parchment towards him and began to set down the results of his rough calculations in a neater hand that FitzBrien the Constable would be able to understand and act upon. He knew that there were bound to be disagreements and he would have to prepare himself for some hard negotiating. At least, he thought, as he drank the wine and wrote, his forthcoming marriage to Elene would be a convenient meeting ground for all the vassals and tenants to air their opinions, form new ones and pay their dues.

The wedding day had been set for the first of November. It had been mooted in a letter taken up the march by Adam when he went to collect his wife from Woolcot, and his return had furnished Elene’s reply — brief this time and to the point, in full agreement on the date and welcoming him home.

Pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead, he leaned his elbow on the trestle and continued to write. The dog lifted its head and a soft growl rumbled up from the depths of its throat. ‘Quiet, Cabal,’ he commanded, frowning in concentration.

A shadow passed before the candlelight. Startled, he looked up.

‘May I?’ Without awaiting his reply, Olwen picked up his cup and took a swallow of the wine. Her hair, pillow-tousled, tumbled over her unfastened chemise. The silky skin of one shoulder gleamed, as did the smooth upper curve of her breast. Perching herself on the table’s edge, she put her free hand down to balance her weight and leaned sideways and slightly forwards to give him more than just a glimpse of her cleavage.

He put down the quill, carefully set the inkhorn out of reach, and folded his arms to regard her warily. ‘What do you want?’

‘Do you not know?’ She tossed her head. The wine glistened on her lips. She licked them slowly.

She said, ‘You have been avoiding me.’

‘I’ve been …’ He cleared his throat and started again. ‘I’ve been too busy seeing to the affairs of the estate. I cannot just walk into your chamber as you have walked in here now. It is a matter of common courtesy to my mother and father.’

Yawning, she slipped from the table, but only to come round and sit down next to him. ‘You’ve been trying to pretend you don’t want me, but I can see straight through you.’

Renard looked rueful. ‘You’re wrong. I haven’t been pretending at all. I do want you, Olwen … too much.’

‘Ah,’ she murmured, stalking him with claws unsheathed. ‘Proving to yourself that you can abstain if you have to.’

He shrugged, conceding her the point. She looked at the parchments and tally sticks strewn upon the table, and then through her lashes at Renard. ‘This man you all keep talking about — Ranulf de Gernons? Is he very powerful?’

‘Yes, on his own territory. He wants some of ours to add to it and there is a personal grudge between us going back ten years.’

She teased her hand up his thigh, kneading gently. ‘Do you fear him?’

Renard hesitated. Her hand moved higher and his senses swam. ‘I fear his ambition,’ he said in a distracted voice. ‘And his greed. The man himself … No, I do not acknowledge him my master.’ Gasping, he caught her hand. She gave him a bone-melting look and slowly eased her fingers from his grasp and pushed down her chemise, baring herself to him. Round, full breasts, the nipples puckered by the cold of sudden exposure, slender waist, taut belly and generous hips framing the gate to heaven … or hell. Renard could no more resist the lure than a wasp could resist the jar of honey in which it would ultimately drown.

He grasped her naked shoulders and crushed her against him, fingers seeking and tightening in her hair, mouth taking hers. She yielded utterly for a moment, then clawed him and tried to make her escape. He caught her back by the wrist. She tried to bite him. On both sides it was more battle than play. Growling and stiff-legged, the dog circled them. Then he barked. Renard stopped, aware that in a moment they were going to have an interested audience of disturbed sleepers and summoned guards.

Carefully he released Olwen and turned to command Cabal down and into a corner, then, breathing hard, he looked at her. Olwen returned his stare and a slow smile parted her lips. Her eyes were as dark as liquid sapphire as she laid her palms on his chest and pushed him gently back down on to the bench and straddled herself across his thighs, lips descending on his.

Heavy-lidded, breathing once more on the level, and mind now functioning above instinct, Renard watched Olwen don her chemise and shake her tumbled hair. She was avoiding his eyes as if embarrassed. He had had to stifle her scream of pleasure against his hastily raised palm. It was as if she resented the violence of the response he evoked in her — no less violent than his own. His teeth ached from gritting them against his own voice and his body was still boneless in the aftermath.

‘God’s life,’ he said sombrely. ‘Olwen, you turn me inside out.’

She flicked him a brief glance full of caution and something deeper. ‘Will you say the same thing to your wife?’

He snorted. ‘I doubt it very much. Nell’s too innocent to remotely imagine the things you do to me — or I hope she is.’ The smile became a wry chuckle.

‘But you could teach her?’ Olwen licked her finger and rubbed at a flea bite on her wrist.

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I don’t know what sort of pupil she would make. Not jealous, are you?’

She gave him a withering look. Renard’s eyes narrowed in amusement, some of it at his own expense. Rummaging among the heaped parchments on the trestle, he picked one up, glanced at it and handed it across to her.

‘What is this?’ She looked at the detailed capitals of a professional scribe, the strong brown ink strokes beneath it and the attached seal. To her unlettered eyes they were meaningless patterns on a page.

‘A charter granting you lifetime rights to the manor and demesne of Hawkfield and an annual sum of twenty-five marks to be paid each year at Michaelmas. It’s all couched in legal terms but I’ll read it to you if you want.’

Her eyes became huge and dark and still. ‘Please,’ she said, with a gesture.

Renard almost made a sarcastic remark concerning her lack of trust, realised what her retort would be, and contented himself with a pointed look before reading to her the fine details of the charter. It had been his mother’s suggestion, and he would have thought it inordinately generous of her had she not declared that the sooner Olwen was out of Ravenstow, the better for all concerned, particularly herself.

Olwen stared down at the document in her hands and felt disturbingly ambivalent. A manor, servants, money — distant stars longed for from the gutters of Antioch, but now that she held them in her hands, she felt more desolate than triumphant and did not know why.

‘It still needs witnessing,’ Renard said when she did not speak. ‘Your cross or thumbprint and mine and my father’s signatures. It can be done tomorrow and I can take you to Hawkfield as soon as you’re ready.’

‘In haste to be rid of me?’

‘You know I cannot keep you here at Ravenstow.’

‘And what is to be my payment for all this generosity? Accommodating your needs whenever you choose to take a diversion while out hunting or on patrol?’

‘By mutual consent.’ He smiled. ‘I won’t constrain you to anything you don’t desire of your own free will.’

Her colour was high. ‘Stabling for a mare, occasionally to be ridden?’ she demanded. ‘Do you expect me to hang over the paddock fence quivering for your approach?’

‘Knowing you,’ he said drily, ‘I’m more likely to find myself bucked off in the midden.’

Olwen gave a half-smile, as she remembered their first meeting in Antioch and how he had said they would never get any further than the stable yard until they had decided who was the horse and who was the rider. He had yet to learn that a parameter set for one occasion, unlike a charter, was not binding for a lifetime.