Stop thinking of her. Protect yourself. You must find out how much she knows and why she lied.

Dizzy, gasping for breath, Katrine stumbled, nearly falling into him. He reached for her, finding through the shapeless wool where the curve of her hip melted into her waist. Steadying her, he pulled her close, until the wool of her dress flowed over his legs.

Desire catapulted through him.

She swayed with him, gently as a banner in the breeze, so slight beneath her shapeless sack that she might blow away.

Deceiver. Her slender form sheaths a will of iron.

And yet she made him yearn for things long forbidden.

Praise for Blythe Gifford

INNOCENCE UNVEILED ‘…absolutely fascinating...enchantingly different… prepare to be transported to another time and place.’ —Cataromance

‘...[a] powerful tale of love and passion. Masterfully weaving in actual historical events with the fictional characters…Ms Gifford keeps the passion and adventure simmering with volatile human emotions.’

—Reviewers International Org

THE HARLOT’S DAUGHTER ‘Blythe Gifford finds the perfect balance between history and romance in THE HARLOT’S DAUGHTER as she expertly blends a fascinating setting and beautifully nuanced characters into a captivating love story.’ —Chicago Tribune

‘Gifford has chosen a time period that is filled with kings, kingmakers and treachery. Although there is plenty of fodder for turbulence, the author uses that to move her hero and heroine together on a discovery of love. She proves that love through the ages doesn’t always run smoothly, be it between nobles or commoners.’

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

‘A must-read for fans of medieval history… brings history to life complete with political intrigue and turbulent passions.’

—Reviewers International Org

THE KNAVE AND THE MAIDEN ‘This debut novel by a new voice in medieval romance was for me...pure poetry!…the sweetness of the ending will have you running for your tissues. Oh, yes, this is a new star on the horizon and I certainly hope to see much more from her!’ —Historical Romance Writers

‘If you believe in love and miracles, you’ll adore this story. It’s a journey of awakening, renewal and heartfelt love. Delightful!’

—Old Book Barn Gazette

After a career in public relations, advertising and marketing, Blythe Gifford returned to her first love—writing historical romance. Now her characters grapple with questions about love, work and the meaning of life, and always find the right answers. She strives to deliver intensely emotional, compelling stories set in a vivid, authentic world. She was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart (™) Award competition for her debut novel, THE KNAVE AND THE MAIDEN. She feeds her muse with music, art, history, walks and good friends. You can reach her via her website, www.BlytheGifford.com

Recent novels by the same author:

THE KNAVE AND THE MAIDEN

THE HARLOT’S DAUGHTER

Author Note

In the fourteenth century, before the great war between England and France that lasted one hundred years, an embassy was sent from England to the Low Countries to gain allies for the King. The chroniclers tell us the delegation included a group of knights who wore eye patches and refused to speak until they had performed some valiant deed of arms against the French.

I could see these fifty knights, riding their horses off the cogs and onto the beach, then gathering for their ceremonial entry into the city. But in my vision one of them took off his eye patch and rode away alone.

This is his story.

For Phyllis, a woman who has never lacked passion or courage.

To C. Dx4

And with thanks to Linda Fildew, who shared my vision for the story and made it better, and Lindsay Longford, who has liked it every time I’ve rewritten it.

INNOCENCE UNVEILED

Blythe Gifford

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Chapter One

Flanders, The Low Countries—Spring 1337

Shadows hid the stranger’s face, but over the pounding of her heart, Katrine heard the threat in his voice, as casual as a shrug.

‘You decide,’ he said. ‘I can get you the wool you need, but if you let the opportunity pass…’ the slight lift of his shoulders blocked the morning sun streaming into her weaving room ‘…there are many other willing buyers.’

‘Every weaver in Ghent is willing.’ Katrine fought the tremble in her tongue.

It was no secret. Deprived of the wool that was its life-blood, this city of clothmakers was starving. So when a stranger had claimed he could find fleece for her looms, she had recklessly agreed to listen. He didn’t need her, but she needed his wool. Desperately.

Arms crossed, the smuggler leaned against the wall, filling the space as if he owned it. ‘Decide, mistress. Deal with me or go hungry.’

Backed against the loom, she felt the wooden upright press against her spine like a martyr’s stake. She stroked the taut warp threads for comfort. They quivered beneath her fingers. Looking up, she tried to read his eyes, but the sun cast him in darkness. She must not yield too easily, or she’d not be able to bargain at all.

‘Your voice does not carry the accent of Ghent.’ She knew nothing about the man. Not even his name. ‘Where is your home?’

A shaft of sunlight picked up a reddish strand in his chestnut hair. He did not speak at first, and she wondered whether he had heard her. ‘I was born in Brabant,’ he said, finally.

His answer seemed safe enough. The neighbouring duchy was one of half-a-dozen fiefdoms clustered near the channel between England and France. She should at least discover what goods he offered.

Fingers hidden in the folds of her skirt, she pinched the fabric, taking comfort in the even weave. ‘My mark appears on only the finest cloth. I buy with care. Is this wool of yours English or Spanish?’

‘English.’

‘Good.’ Clasping her fingers in front of her, she paced as if considering her choices. Best not to ask how he would come by it. The English king had embargoed all shipments to Flanders for the last nine months. ‘Where were the sheep raised? I prefer Cistercian-raised flocks from Tintern Abbey, though I will accept Yorkshire fleece.’

‘Accept?’ Amusement coloured his voice. ‘You will accept whatever I bring you. You have no choice.’

Sweet Saint Catherine, what shall I do?

She had bargained with the larger cloth houses for any fleece they would spare. She had scrambled for the poor stuff grown on the backs of Flemish sheep. She had even directed her weavers to make a looser weave, hoping that the fullers, cleaning and beating the cloth to finish it, could thicken the final product.

She had no tricks left.

She had begged her unsympathetic uncle for help, but she feared, unless she trusted this mysterious stranger, there would be no business remaining if—no, when—her father returned.

At least the stranger’s hands, large, with long, strong fingers, looked reliable, even familiar.

‘How much can you get?’ she asked.

‘Maybe one sack.’

‘A weaver will use that in a week,’ Katrine scoffed, to cover her disappointment.

He did not move from his comfortable slouch. ‘One sack is one sack more than you have at the moment.’

She squeezed prayerful fingers. ‘What is your price? If I agree.’

‘Twenty-five gold livres per sack. In advance.’

‘Fifteen.’ With good negotiation, the pouch of gold her father had left might pay for three sacks. ‘On delivery.’ She gritted her teeth behind a stone-saint smile.

‘Twenty-eight.’

Her smile shattered. ‘You said twenty-five before.’

‘I’ll say thirty tomorrow, if I please. Don’t try to bargain with me, mistress. You have nothing to bargain with.’

The sunlight shifted and revealed his eyes for the first time, the dusky blue of indigo dyed over grey wool. One eye hovered on the edge of a wink.

‘Or maybe,’ he said, softly, ‘you do.’

Something more than fear burned her cheeks and chilled her fingers. Something that had to do with him.

Stifling her body’s betrayal, she folded her arms, mimicking his stance. ‘I bargain only with gold. I want the wool, but I have another source.’ She trusted her uncle little more than she trusted this stranger, but she would not give him the power of that knowledge. The man already had the advantage. ‘If your offer is better, I will take three sacks and pay twenty each—ten in advance, the rest on delivery. If you want more…’ she hesitated ‘…if you want more money than that, find one of your other willing buyers.’

‘It does not matter what you say. It is your husband who will decide.’

Her hand flew to the wimple hiding her red hair. The married woman’s headdress was one of the little lies of her life, so much a part of her she had forgotten it would signal a husband who ruled her every action. ‘I have been given authority in this matter.’

In her father’s absence, the drapers’ guild had allowed her to conduct his affairs, but she was reaching the limits of their regulations. And their patience.

She waited for him to turn away, as had so many who refused to deal with a woman. Yet when the smuggler spoke, respect tinged his words. ‘You bargain like a man, mistress. I suspect you run your business well.’

‘I do.’ She willed her tongue to silence, waiting for his answer. Outside, the sign painted with the trademark of the four-petalled Daisy creaked in the breeze.

He barely moved his chin to nod. ‘We are agreed.’

Her sigh of relief slipped out without disguise. ‘Agreed if my other source does not better your offer.’ Now, she had an option if her uncle failed her. ‘You will have my answer by the end of the day.’

‘See that I do.’ The respect, if she had heard it, had fled his voice. ‘I will not wait on your whim when there are others eager to buy.’

‘If I tell you yes, when will I see my wool?’

He shrugged. ‘I will stay here while I make arrangements.’

‘Here?’ She had been mad to deal with a stranger. Already he was changing the bargain.

‘Unless you want our business on the Council’s agenda. Any hosteller will be glad to collect their coin for reporting my every move.’

She could not argue. England and France were near war. The town was swarming with suspicion. An innkeeper would notice a tall, blue-eyed man speaking accented Flemish. ‘I am paying you twenty livres for the wool. What will you pay me for the lodging?’

No shadow of surprise crossed the deep blue moat of his eyes. ‘Are you re-opening negotiations?’

‘You were the one who did that.’ Her tart words made her feel in control again. ‘If you stay, your room will cost you five pence a week and I’ll provide no board. Take a pallet on the third floor,’ she said, vaguely uneasy at the thought of him sleeping under her roof.

He frowned. ‘With the apprentices?’

‘They left months ago.’ No need to lie. He’d learn that soon enough.

‘No apprentices? How do you operate a draper business?’ He spoke as though he already knew her answer.

She sighed. ‘Without wool, there has been little business.’ Instead of being stacked with red, green and blue woollen cloth bearing the Mark of the Daisy, Katrine’s shelves were bare.

Leaning over, he lifted his sack and slung it across his shoulder without effort. Strong arms, then, and a light load. ‘So, what will you make with this wool of yours?’

Anything would sell these days, but deep blue would fetch a good price. Indigo dyed over grey wool…

He watched her with a half-smile. The thread of her thoughts unravelled. His glance seemed to expose her secrets while sharing none of his own.

‘Indigo-dyed worsted,’ she said crisply. ‘The market hasn’t seen its like since before Christmas and it should fetch at least fifty florins. If, that is, you bring me wool worth weaving.’

‘Whatever I bring, you’ll pay for.’

She bridled. ‘Of course. I’m an honest woman.’

‘So you say.’ Walking past her towards the stairs, he paused beside the loom. His fingers stumbled as he plucked the threads, the first awkward gesture he had made. ‘This is important to you, isn’t it?’ he said, not looking up.

I leave it in your hands, daughter. Guard it well.

‘It is my life.’

He scrutinised her wordlessly, as if gauging what kind of a life it was. She forced herself to remain still, hoping he saw a trustworthy guild wife. He must not suspect who she really was.

The midday bell tolled, breaking the stillness.

‘I must go.’ Her uncle would be home soon for the main meal. If he had spoken to the Count about her wool, she might be able to send this smuggler on his way. ‘I’ll be back before the mid-afternoon bell. Be here when I return.’

He raised his eyebrows and laughed. ‘Do you order your weavers about so, mistress?’

‘When they need it.’ She gave him a final assessing glance as she opened the door, reluctant to leave him there alone. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

One corner of his mouth curved into a parody of a smile. ‘You don’t.’

Saint Catherine, save me from my foolishness. I know nothing about him, yet he called me by name when he entered the shop.

‘At least tell me what you are called.’

‘Renard.’

‘Like the fox?’ Everyone knew the tales of the irreverent trickster Renard the Fox. Their recitation was an evening’s entertainment.

This time, he definitely winked. ‘Exactly.’

As she closed the door, the words of the familiar tale echoed in her head. ‘Renard knows many tricks and ruses. He cheats at any time he chooses.’

High Gate Street was quieter than usual as families gathered behind closed doors for the midday meal. Many avoided the streets these days. Without wool, there was no work. Journeymen, even proud master weavers, lurked on corners, begging, or threatening, for bread or coin.

She lifted the cloth swaddling her hair to let a breeze tickle the top of her head. Then, hair-hidden again, eyes down, she walked with controlled, deferential steps towards home.

You bargain like a man.

Even a stranger could see her failings.

She did not act as a woman should. Now that her father was gone, her uncle told her that often enough. Woman was born weak and sinful. Only by obedience and submission could she attain perfection—leaving home only to go to church, keeping her distance from all men except her kin—

Katrine sighed, suddenly aware that her steps had lengthened to a stride and she had looked the silversmith directly in the eye and said good day.

Starting again with a measured tread, she looked at the ground to avoid meeting any other man’s eye.

It was the world outside her shop that confined her. Within the walls of the weaving room, she was free. But now, a man had invaded her sanctuary and created doubt in the only place she had ever felt certain.

Yet she prayed he would still be there when she returned.

Twenty gold livres, Renard thought, as he watched Katrine walk towards Fish Market Square. He should have forced her to thirty.

Her first steps were small and mincing, but before he lost sight of her, she was striding down the street so confidently that he wondered whether she really did have another source for the wool.

He kneaded the tight muscles between his neck and shoulders and shrugged off his chagrin at the bargain he had struck. What did he care about the price of wool he would never deliver? He could have bested her, had he chosen.

He was the expert negotiator. Always in control, he could hear the nearly indiscernible hesitation in his opponent’s voice that meant he had pushed his rival to the edge, found his weakness, identified what he—or she—most feared to lose. With the power of that knowledge, Renard could complete any bargain on his own terms.

It was a talent the King had used freely over the years.

And she was no challenge at all. A wisp of a thing, breasts and hips, if any, disguised by a shapeless shroud of wool. Not the kind of woman to tempt a man.

If he were a man to be tempted.

Startled to find himself gazing down a street now empty of her, Renard turned from the window to climb the stairs, noting the creak in the third step so he could avoid it later. The house was as quiet as he had anticipated after watching it for three days. In fact, it seemed as if no one lived here at all.

He peered into a sleeping room at the top of the first flight, dusty with disuse, wondering idly where she slept. He would not be here long enough for that to matter.

On the third floor, he ducked as his shoulders threatened to brush the steeply sloping ceiling and dropped his small sack under the eaves. It held little. A fresh tunic. A cloak. A scrap of red silk and a well-worn piece of wool safely hidden at the bottom.

Cistercian wool. What the devil was the difference?

Taking care not be seen, he peered out of the small window overlooking the back garden and gauged the distance to the cherry tree. It was a slender escape route, but it was hidden from public view. He picked up his sack, grabbed a branch of the tree, and eased himself to the ground.

Be here, she had ordered, as if he would wait on a weaving woman’s convenience.

She cared too much, almost burned with it. Soft brown eyes glowing with need, body rigid with fear he would refuse, she acted as if a few sacks of wool were the difference between life and death.

Such feelings led to dangerous mistakes. He should have had the advantage. He should have been able to get fifty livres.

Instead, he had let her win with a fabrication about another source. Well, he got what he wanted. Let her think she would be seeing wool at twenty livres a sack.

By the time she returned, he would be gone, leaving one little Flemish draper waiting a very long time for her wool.

The smell of fish stew greeted Katrine as she opened the door to the snug town house. Until her uncle had usurped her father’s house and the income that paid for it, Katrine had loved its whitewashed walls and tiled fireplaces. Now, since the Baron preferred it to the dank stone corridors of his own castle, the house no longer felt like her home.

The servant girl, Merkin, looked up from laying the plates out on the high table and wiggled her fingers in greeting. ‘Did you hear, milady? An English bishop is coming to make peace with the Count.’

Peace. The very word made her breathless with hope.

The English King and the French King were snarling over the throne of France like dogs over a bone. Each had spent months trying to force Flanders to his side. First, the English King stopped wool shipments. The Flemish Count had retaliated by jailing the English in Flanders. Then King Edward imprisoned all Flemings unfortunate enough to be in London.

Including her father.

Now, Count and commoners were at an impasse. The Count remained loyal to French Philip. The people, dependent on English wool, preferred English Edward.

An agreement with England would end the struggle and bring her father home. ‘When does he arrive?’

‘I don’t know,’ Merkin said, ‘but I heard there’s forty- nine English bachelor knights with him.’

‘Forty-nine?’ An odd number. ‘Why not fifty?’

‘I don’t know, milady, but every blessed one is wearing a red silk eyepatch day and night.’

Katrine shook her head. ‘How can a knight fight with only one eye?’

‘Not only can’t they see, but they don’t talk.’ Merkin’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I heard they vowed to their ladies that they would wear the eyepatches and speak to no one until they had performed some deeds of arms against the French.’ A sigh escaped her grin. ‘Isn’t that romantic?’

‘Romantic?’ Katrine sank on to the bench, cradling her forehead in her hand. At sixteen, Merkin still had dreamy notions in her usually level head. ‘My father is in prison, my coffers are empty, England and France are near war, and the English have nothing better to do than gallop the countryside wearing real eyepatches and imaginary gags?’ Unseemly laughter spilled over her anger. ‘And my uncle harps on the lunacy of women!’

‘Ah, there you are.’ Her aunt Matilda squinted in the direction of Katrine’s laughter as she entered the room. Matilda’s weak eyes could barely see what was before her nose. Her pale forehead was lined from years of trying to focus on things beyond her scope. ‘We were worried. How many times have we told you not to be on the streets without an escort?’

Every day for nine months, Katrine thought, sending yet another silent prayer to Saint Catherine for forgiveness. At least her name saint had always listened to a motherless child. ‘Without apprentices, it is all for me to do.’

Let her aunt think she left the house only from necessity. The woman would hear no ill spoken of her husband.

‘Well, I’m glad you’re back, Catherine.’ Her aunt spoke the French of the nobility and always called her ‘Catherine’ instead of the Flemish ‘Katrine’. ‘I need you to tell the girl that the Baron did not like the wine she bought yesterday and she must always buy Gascon wine in the future.’

‘The girl’s name is Merkin,’ Katrine said, before she translated, softening the rebuff as she did. Her aunt spoke the Flemish of the workers as little as possible, a blessing, since she did not speak it well. Merkin rolled her eyes heavenwards, muttering something that sounded like ‘no wool means no wine’.

Katrine’s lips twitched towards a smile. ‘What was that, Merkin?’

The front door swung open and hit the wall with a dull thump. Katrine’s smile died. Charles, Baron de Gravere, was home.

‘English bastards think loyalty can be bought,’ her uncle shouted as his men swarmed in behind him towards the watered wine set out for the main meal.

Her aunt scurried to help as the squire unbuckled the Baron’s sword belt. Impatient at Matilda’s slow fingers worrying the knot holding his cloak, he jerked it, breaking the tie for her to sew again, and let the garment drop on to the floor. Matilda stooped to pick it up.

‘We leave for Gravere today,’ he said, sitting at the table. ‘The castle must be in readiness should the English actually have the stomach for a fight.’

Katrine’s appetite fled. ‘I thought they came to speak of peace.’

‘Pah! This English Edward acts like a merchant, not a king.’ Her uncle drained his goblet and slammed it down on the table for his wife to fill. The Baron’s wine was never watered. ‘He thinks the Count will break his God-given oath of fealty to King Philip for English gold.’

If the Count’s belly were as empty as those of his subjects, he certainly would. She had heard her uncle admire the Count’s loyalty to the French fleur-de-lys too often. The man cared more for fealty than his people’s stomachs.

A king was necessary, of course. You gave allegiance; he gave protection. Such loyalty was a luxury of the nobility and, she was beginning to think, a foolish one. While the lords battled, the burghers suffered. What did it matter to the dyers who claimed France’s crown? Why should the weavers care whether the throne passed through the daughter or the son? Cold winters grew thick wool all the same.

Her uncle waved his goblet. ‘Here’s to Philip of Valois. Now and for ever King of France.’

The men at arms, mouths full, echoed ‘Valois’ without looking up.

Katrine rested her head on cold hands. Deeds of arms, the English promised. Flanders’s soil would be soaked with blood as red as their eyepatches.

And she might never see her father again.

‘Is there word of my father? Do they want a ransom?’

‘No one cares about him now,’ he said.

Least of all you. ‘Then what about my wool? Can the Count get some from France?’ It would be poor stuff, but she could weave it.

He filled his spoon with fish and vegetables. ‘I didn’t ask.’

‘You promised!’ Her words exploded. The men at the closest table looked up. She lowered her voice. ‘I cannot make cloth without wool,’ Katrine said, angry at the Count, at the French, at the English, at all of them who cared for affairs of state instead of people’s lives. ‘The Count is bad for business.’

‘Catherine, hush. If anyone heard you, you might be imprisoned.’ Aunt Matilda peered anxiously at the knights breaking bread over their trenchers. ‘We all might be imprisoned.’

‘No one cares what she thinks,’ her uncle said with a shrug. ‘Her hair bears the mark of the Devil. She speaks French with a Flemish accent and has calluses on her fingers. No man of noble blood will soil himself with her.’

She winced at his words. He made her ashamed to be alive.

She pushed the pain away. ‘All the more reason for me to tend to my weaving.’ There, at least, she could do something of value.

‘Bad enough that my brother violated the God-given order of things, wielding scissors instead of the sword he was born to.’ At first, the family had tolerated her father’s dabbling in the cloth trade. He was a younger son and gold was always welcome. But with the gold and her father gone, her uncle unleashed his true feelings. ‘He let you grow up like the spawn of that weaver instead of a noblewoman.’

‘That weaver had a name.’ Giles de Vos, her father’s partner, had died childless two years ago and left his share to her. She missed him almost as much as she missed her father. ‘You welcomed Uncle Giles into your house as long as our looms turned wool into gold.’

Her uncle’s temper flared like a poked fire, lifting him out of his seat. ‘Don’t call him that! He was a common burgher. I am your uncle.’

She stood to face him, no longer caring who heard. ‘I wish I shared his blood instead of yours.’

‘Enough!’ He raised his fist.

Her aunt’s hand blocked it. ‘Mind your tongue, Catherine. Apologise.’

His hand wavered. No mealtime noises drifted up from the retainers’ table.

‘I’m sorry I offended,’ she said, to buy time. If only she could be like the smuggler, who let no word pass his lips before considering it. ‘I did not think before speaking.’

‘Now gather your things,’ her aunt said. ‘You heard your uncle. We leave this afternoon.’

Ducking her head, she held her tongue, glad to escape the room. She must leave the house unseen and return to the shop and the secretive stranger who was her last hope.

She sent up a prayer to the saint that he was still there.

Chapter Two

Renard hurried along the towpath, easily passing an uncomplaining ass pulling a boat with lowered mast beneath one of the city’s innumerable bridges. It was different, this city of weavers, with its stairstep rooflines and endless waterways. He missed the air of England.

The goldsmith who opened the door of the stone house facing the canal looked both ways before letting him in. ‘You leave today?’ he asked.

‘Tomorrow,’ Renard replied, as he mounted the stairs to the goldsmith’s private solar.

He sympathised with the man’s nervousness. It took courage to harbour an English merchant in disguise.

It would have taken more had he known he was hosting a king.

But as Renard looked at King Edward, standing at the window, he was amazed the goldsmith had not guessed. Touched by sunlight, his hair glowed like a golden halo painted on a saint. Edward Plantagenet had never needed to seek his place in the sun. The sun had sought him out. Straight, strong, vigorous—surely no man had ever looked more like a king.

Many whispered that Edward and Renard could pass for brothers, both tall, blue-eyed, energetic young warriors. But Edward’s blond good looks and restless, expansive energy blazed like noonday while Renard’s chestnut-brown hair, self-contained air and mysterious past suggested the shadows of sunset.

Renard inclined his neck, a pale imitation of a bow. ‘Your Grace.’

‘Ah, there you are. What have you found?’ Edward looked as if he needed good news.

With the King’s permission, Renard poured some wine for himself. ‘There is no wool in the city, your Grace. Every weaver listened to my offer. I could empty our warehouse in Brussels.’ Or could if he had taken any coin for his promises. ‘The people support you. Only the nobles resist.’

Renard had opposed Edward’s wild trip from the start, but the King had insisted on sneaking ashore with the official embassy to assess the situation personally. Renard had come in advance and in disguise to put his rusty Flemish to work on behalf of his king.

Edward tightened his grip on his goblet. ‘Perhaps I should meet with the Count.’

Renard shook his head. ‘Better if no one knows you are here.’

‘Surely the Bishop can persuade him. He has brought three others to my side already. Only Brabant and Flanders remain.’

Renard wagered that the other duchies supported the King because they were related to Queen Philippa, not because of the Bishop’s persuasive powers, but he held his tongue.

‘I leave for Brabant tomorrow.’ Renard had requested that assignment. It would force him to face his past.

Edward paced the room, tapping his finger against his wine goblet. ‘I must have Flanders. Unless our trade resumes quickly, my wool growers will be just as unhappy as the Count’s weavers.’ He looked at Renard, narrowing his eyes. ‘Brabant can wait. Stay here.’

‘But you need the Duke’s support, too.’ Renard kept his voice calm, but he was weary of living at the King’s whim. Edward knew full well that Renard’s trip to Brabant was about more than diplomacy.

‘Yes, and I trust you’ll produce it, but if the Bishop fails here, I need an alternative. The citizens of Flanders have risen against the French before. If the Count refuses an alliance, you must create a revolt among the workers that will force him to my side.’

Renard swallowed his resentment. The King never controlled the quicksilver temperament they shared. Renard did. ‘I’m not sure I could pass as a flat-footed wool stomper to rally the rabble.’ Though living disguised among the artisans could hardly be more difficult than smuggling a king in and out of Flanders.

Edward sat down in a high-backed wooden chair near the fireplace. Suddenly, it looked like a throne. ‘I don’t expect you to rouse the ryffe and raffe personally. Find someone else who will.’

Renard bowed and sank into the chair opposite his liege, hiding a sigh. The King asked Renard to produce an uprising as if he were ordering a suit of chainmail. ‘I serve, your Grace.’

‘Just make sure the embargo holds. The longer they go without wool, the better for my cause. This should only take a few weeks, then Brabant and then you can come home.’

He longed for home, though he had nothing to return to: no family, no land, nothing that the King did not give. There had been talk of marriage, but as an illegitimate son, Renard had little to bequeath to a legitimate one.

Edward clasped his shoulder. ‘I need Flanders, whether you or the Bishop get it for me, but when you succeed, I’ll reward you with something worthy of all you have done. Something like…’ His face lit with a new idea. ‘Bishop! That’s it!’ He slapped the arm of the chair. ‘Bring me Flanders and I’ll make you a bishop.’

Bishop.

Renard’s heart beat in his ears and blood surged through his arms as if he had just been called to battle, but years of repressing his responses served him well. The reward was everything he could have hoped for. A secure position of power, safe from the temptations of the flesh. Once given, even a king could not take it away.

‘You honour me, your Grace.’

The King smiled. ‘Of course I do. Can’t run the country without money from the Church. Too many of them think their pope is more important than their king. I need bishops I can depend on.’

But as a bishop, Renard’s power and position would no longer depend on the King. ‘It will not be easy, your Grace.’ The King could propose a bishop, but the Pope must confirm him. ‘I am not yet of an age to be a bishop.’

Edward waved away the protest. ‘Ridiculous rule. I assumed the crown at fifteen. You can be bishop before thirty.’

‘And I have not led a life of celibate contemplation.’

Edward rose, impatient, and paced again. ‘Neither have any of the bishops I know, except perhaps Stoningham, and I’ve never quite trusted him.’

At the King’s move, Renard rose, more slowly, and leaned against the wall. Even when they were alone, Renard did not sit while his sovereign stood.

‘You are no lecher, Renard. In fact, I could use some of your self-control, but there’s no need to take up celibacy when you embrace the vows.’

‘Nevertheless, I will honour the vows I take.’ Unlike some, who broke more than they kept.

Thoughtless lust had brought him into this world without name or position. Renard refused to make the same mistake. Over a lifetime, he had battled passion as if it were a well-mounted enemy. If he could not unhorse his opponent every time, he could usually force him to withdraw from the field. As a bishop, he would be safely removed from temptation.

‘Then,’ he continued, ‘there is the matter of my station.’

The King stopped pacing and turned his piercing blue eyes on Renard. ‘I am fully aware that a bastard needs dispensation from the Pope. A letter of recommendation from the Bishop of Clare will solve that.’

He fought the urge to refuse the support of a pompous hypocrite like Henry Billesh, Bishop of Clare. After refusing to support young Edward’s ascension to the throne, the man had changed his tune only after the outcome became clear. Renard would never trust him. ‘He may be reluctant to write on my behalf.’

The King drained the last of his wine. ‘He is a man familiar with human transgression. He’ll understand yours.’

This time, he could not hold back the words. ‘But the transgression was not mine, your Grace.’

The temper they shared exploded. Edward hurled the goldsmith’s best goblet into the fire. Clattering, it bounced on to the hearth, scattering ashes across the floor. ‘You presume on our common blood! Do you forget that you possess only what I give you?’

‘Never, your Grace.’

Had Renard been born the illegitimate son of a prince, he would have had a place in the shadow of the throne. But he was the son of a princess. So the truth of his birth, and her shame, was a secret only the King shared.

As quickly as clouds passed over the sun, a hearty laugh wiped out Edward’s anger and he draped an arm around Renard’s shoulders. The laugh meant he forgave Renard’s insult. The gesture meant he forgave himself for insulting his cousin.

Smiling, the King reached for his wine goblet, surprised that it was not on the table.

Silently, Renard offered his own.

‘You are harsh on those of us who are mere mortals, my friend.’ An unusual moment of reflection stilled the King’s energy. ‘Just once, I would like to see you humbled by passion. You might find the kind of joy I’ve found with my queen.’

Renard shook his head. There was a reason lust was one of the seven deadly sins. Passion made you powerless as his mother had been when she could not resist—who? That secret, neither of them knew. ‘I shall welcome the vows.’

‘Be certain, my friend.’ Edward clasped his shoulder. ‘It is the highest honour I can give, but once bestowed, you will never be Renard again.’

Regret bit him. He had been so intent on controlling his joy, he had not even thanked his childhood friend. Power. Position. It would be everything the secret of his birth had denied him all his life. ‘Forgive me, your Grace. There is nothing I want more.’

Nothing, at any rate, that the King had the power to give. The King could award him many things, but he could never acknowledge his royal birthright.

Edward inclined his head and returned to the window, gazing across the canal as if he could see all the way to Paris. ‘There is something more I want, Renard, and you are going to make sure I get it.’

Renard silenced the growl of jealousy at the bottom of his heart. Edward already had a crown. Why did he need another?

Yet he knew the answer. Edward wanted his birthright, a birthright denied him because it came through the daughter of a king instead of through the son.

That, Renard could understand.

‘Just think, Renard, you’ll have a bishop’s ring as big as Clare’s.’ He laughed. ‘And you won’t have to bow to me any longer!’

Renard smiled for the first time. ‘A bishop bows only to the Pope—and to God.’

Now, unable to leave the city as he had planned, Renard knew he could prevail upon the goldsmith no longer. He needed a safe, inconspicuous haven. Perhaps the weaving woman’s house would serve. In a crowded city, an empty house would be perfect for a man who wanted to hide his comings and goings. But if he were to stay there, he must learn more of the woman with the tart tongue than the name he’d overheard when he followed her from the Cloth Hall. Her house might prove a sanctuary.

Or a trap.

When Katrine returned to the wool house, no indigo- eyed stranger waited at the window. She searched the counting room, then, frantic, climbed the stairs.

‘Renard?’

No one answered her unseemly shouts.

He had threatened to find another buyer. What if he had not waited? On the top floor, Katrine faced a row of straw pallets, long abandoned by apprentices. Had he left his sack here? If so, she could be certain he’d return.

She lifted the first pallet to find only bare wood.

Blinking back angry tears, she kicked aside the next pallet and the next, spewing straw across the planks until the room’s disorder matched her mood.

She lifted the last pallet, ready to hurl it out of the window in frustration.

He was her last hope. What would she tell her father if she failed?

Her pounding heart slowed and she caught a breath, knowing straw littered the floor behind her, stable-deep. Saint Catherine, will I ever master my temper?

When she turned to clean the mess, she faced the stranger holding a dagger.

He loomed taller than she had remembered, his eyes a darker blue. She had expected to feel relief at his return, but the uncertainty in her stomach felt more like fear. Or excitement. ‘So,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘the prodigal returns.’

Renard set down his sack and sheathed his dagger, its silver handle catching a glint of the afternoon sun. ‘You said I was to guard the house. I thought you were a thief.’

She groaned, looking at the floor, feeling the fool. Had he seen her display of temper? She had no excuse, so she would ignore it and treat him as if he were an errant apprentice. ‘I told you to be here when I returned. Where were you?’

The straw crunched as he stepped closer. He towered over her even as he stooped to avoid the rafters.

‘I do not recall, mistress, that reporting my whereabouts to you was part of our bargain,’ he said, in a tone as sharp as his dagger. ‘In fact, we don’t yet have a bargain.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We do not yet have a bargain.’

He reached for her chin with cool, firm fingers, turning her face towards the window, as if to read her by the sun’s light. She struggled for a breath.

‘Did your other source make you a better offer?’

She blinked, betraying herself.

A lazy wink disguised his emotions. ‘Then I take it we are agreed.’

‘Yes.’ She jerked her chin from his hand and started to put the room to rights.

He knelt beside her and shoved a handful of straw into the first pallet. Astounded that he would humble himself to help, she picked up another pallet and scooped the straw inside.

They worked in silence. She tried to study him, but his face was impassive. What manner of man would help clean up the mess she had created? He deserved some appreciation for that.

‘You have my thanks,’ she said, when they were done at last. ‘Why did you help?’

‘If I am to sleep here, I must keep it in order.’

She swallowed. Sleep. Suddenly it seemed much too intimate a word. ‘I have changed my mind. It is not safe to harbour you here. You must find other lodging.’

He shook his head. His eyes were implacable. ‘You cannot change the contract now. You want your wool, don’t you?’

The air around her seemed to crackle like lightning. She was beginning to fear that this wool was going to cost much more than she had bargained for.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Then let’s break bread together to seal our agreement,’ he said.

‘I told you. I offer no board.’ The cupboards were bare.

A smile flickered across his face. ‘I bought my own. It seems only right to share.’ He paused, holding her eyes with his. ‘Please.’

Suspicious, her tongue curved around ‘no’, but her stomach growled. She had eaten nothing of the main meal. Maybe the tickle she felt was neither fear nor ex citement, but hunger.

She nodded.

Finished with the pallets, she led the way downstairs. He settled in front of the fireplace, leaning on one elbow, long legs stretched across the floor, and set out a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and some beer as if the hearth were his own. ‘Join me.’

She sank to the floor, skirt flaring around her. She must put this man on the defensive or he would take over. ‘Have you any oranges?’ She smiled, waiting for his answer. Oranges were dear in good times. In bad, they would be precious as wool.

His lips twitched. ‘There is an embargo, you know.’

Pulling out his eating knife, he cut a slice of the cheese and placed it carefully on the crust of bread. Not even that was done by chance.

‘You disappoint me. I would expect an expert smuggler to supply whatever I want, no matter how costly.’

‘Bread and cheese will have to serve.’

She reached for the bread and touched his fingers instead.

Her glance tangled in his. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Warmth from his fingers crept up her arm, weaving them together. Something sweet and weak happened inside her.

Flushed with shame, she snatched her hand back and popped the bread and cheese in her mouth. He took a swig of the beer, then handed it to her. She sipped it to wash down the cheese, then tried to hide her surprise. He might be a stranger, but he had found the best brewer in the quarter quickly enough.

What manner of man had she allowed under her roof? If she were not more careful, she might lose her coin and more.

‘Tell me of yourself, Renard. You must share our Count’s allegiance to King Philip to go to such lengths to overcome the English embargo.’

‘Kings are nothing to me,’ he said finally. An upraised eyebrow teased his face. ‘What, mistress, are they to you?’

Her gaze travelled over the familiar room. A lonely grey cloud of coarse Flemish fleece floated on one woven basket handle. Hooks were bare instead of piled with hanks of carded wool ready to sell to the spinsters. Empty shelves should have been stacked with ells of cloth ready for market.

She had a sudden, fierce desire for him to see it as it was supposed to be—busy, bustling, shelves piled high with a rainbow of fine woven woollens.

‘As you can see,’ she said, finally, ‘this shop has been one of their battlegrounds.’

‘A battleground? With whose forces do you fight? Valois or Plantagenet? Philip’s or Edward’s?’

She ignored his question, as he had hers, steeling herself this time not to fear silence. The more she talked, the more lies she had to tell. Nibbling her cheese, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. ‘I cannot fight. I am only a woman, not a chevalier.’

‘There are many ways to fight a war,’ he answered.

His words gave her pause. How did he fight?

And for whom?

‘This husband of yours, for example,’ he continued. ‘Where is he?’

Husband. Where is my husband? She took a bite of cheese, trying to think. Aunt Matilda was right. She should be mindful of her tongue. She was creating too many lies to count. She should never have left the man here alone. If he had prowled the house while she was away, he would know no man lived under this roof.

She took another sip of ale. ‘I told you I am responsible. He is away.’

‘Away.’ He pulled at the word as if it were the thread that could unravel a whole cloth. ‘And what is he doing…away?’

What lie is something like the truth? ‘Buying… selling.’

‘Buying and selling what?’

He leaned towards her. Too close. A shaft of late-afternoon sun sculpted his strong cheekbones, softened by an unruly curl of chestnut hair.

The silence grew so large that she had to fill it.

‘He is trying to find more wool.’ That at least was true. But it was her father, not her husband, who had travelled to England on a wool-buying trip.

‘How pleased he will be when he returns to find you have succeeded.’

‘Certainly he will be pleased when you succeed.’

He gave her a lazy smile. She let go of her breath. He was satisfied. There would be no more questions about her husband.

‘Has he been away long?’

She had relaxed too soon. ‘A while.’

‘You must miss him.’

She felt her face melt. Too late, she wondered if her expression was appropriate to a wife. ‘Yes.’

‘And where is your husband looking for this wool?’

She reached for the ale again. Any answer she gave would be wrong.

If she said her husband was in England, Renard would know he was either jailed or a traitor to the Count of Flanders.

If she admitted she had no husband, she would be caught in her lie and exposed as a vulnerable woman at Renard’s mercy.

If she admitted she was under her uncle’s protection, Renard would demand to confer with him.

‘I really don’t know where he is this week, Monsieur Renard,’ she said.

‘You’re unprotected?’

She bit the unguarded tongue that had revealed too much. Once again her impulsive words had led her to the brink of disaster. He must learn no more.

Yet his eyes would not let her turn away. They put her in mind of the things that men and women did. Alone. What would she do if he reached for her?

If he kissed her?

A sinful thought no decent woman would have. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘You will be my protector.’

Did she only imagine his eyes became a darker blue? ‘More demands? You haven’t even paid for the wool.’

‘I said you would have an answer this afternoon, not your pay.’ Her father’s bag of coins lay hidden safe in her chest. ‘I do not keep such sums lying about.’

His smile became a scowl. ‘First you cannot decide, then you cannot pay.’ He sat up, wrapping the last of the bread and cheese as if to leave. ‘I have no more time to waste with you.’

‘No. Please. Wait.’ She grabbed his arm. She must not lose him now.

He paused. ‘For how long?’

How long would it take to get to her uncle’s house and back? ‘’Til curfew.’

The lazy smile was gone and she saw no pity in his eyes. But something shifted inside him.

‘Curfew. No longer.’

She nodded and left the shop, closing the door with shaking fingers. She was still trembling as she crossed the bridge and hurried past the Count’s castle, thrusting out at the junction of river and canal like a mountain looming over the city. But she had no time to think about Renard’s eyes or the uncomfortable feelings he raised.

She must enter and leave the house without being seen or she would not be back before curfew. If her uncle forced her to go with him to Gravere, she would not be back at all.

Chapter Three

Katrine tiptoed up the stairs to her room unseen by her aunt, who was peering carefully at each fork before she wrapped it for travel. But as Katrine opened her trunk to grab the bag of coins hidden under her clothes, she heard the heavy thump of her uncle’s steps.

Wood scraped on wood as he flung open the door. She stuffed the coins back to the bottom of the trunk, then smoothed the folds from her second-best kirtle, re-folding the warm gold wool with damp palms.

‘Don’t turn your back on me.’ He grabbed her right arm and swung her around him. The kirtle tumbled into a golden puddle.

A sour taste cut her tongue. ‘I am facing you now,’ she said, chin up, looking squarely into his eyes. There was a strangeness there that made her shiver. ‘What do you want?’

‘Hurry your packing. We must be well along before dark.’

Think before you speak. But there was only the truth. ‘I am not going. I must tend my father’s work.’

He tightened his grip and shook her. ‘Your place is where I say it is.’ He closed the open lid. ‘With us. Your father indulged you too long. The shop is closed. Now. Today.’

‘No.’ She wrenched her arm away from his grip, rubbing the spot his fingers had bruised. It was too late to placate him and she had never been good at it.

‘Wilful wench. You’re a curse on the name of Gravere.’

Over and over, he had said so, until all she wanted to do was hide from a shame she didn’t even understand. ‘If you think so, then I’ll free you from concern about me. I’ll move to the shop.’

The thought alone brought blessed relief. How wonderful to be away from the reach of his fist.

‘You think to live alone and play the whore?’ His eyes turned hot, wild. She no longer tried to meet them. He looked frantically at her wimple, then at her surcoat, then at her skirts, as if searching for a way inside the layers of clothes concealing everything but her face and hands. ‘You are an evil, red-haired daughter of Eve and the Devil,’ he snarled, at last. ‘A temptation to man.’

By the blessed saint, what have I done that leads him to these thoughts?

‘I am the daughter of Lady Mary and Sir Denys de Gravere,’ she said, wishing again she had told her father what went on when he was away from the house. It had not seemed important when he was gone only a few days. ‘Your brother is no devil.’

His breath came faster. He flexed his fingers as if they itched to move over her body and glared directly at her mouth. ‘You are your mother’s daughter. You have her face. Her body. Her sins.’

‘There was no sin in her.’ She barely remembered her mother, but she knew that.

‘Enough.’ He laid his hands on her and pushed. Unprepared, her knees buckled, hitting the plank floor with bruising force. ‘You will obey me.’

Saint Catherine, give me courage. She swallowed her fear, then stared back, pinching the wool of her skirt so tightly the weave carved its pattern on her thumb. ‘No.’

His fingers hovered close to her throat. Then, his thumbs choked her breath until she could no longer swallow, could barely see, could only claw at his massive arms, desperate to break his hold.

Suddenly, he let go, pulling back as if her hands had burned him.

‘Just like her.’ He threw the words behind him and stomped out of the room.

Katrine sank back on to her heels, coughing, gagging, fighting the nausea rising from her stomach. She was no longer safe in this house. Leaving was no longer a choice. Leaving was a necessity.

At the clink of a sword in the hall, she looked up. Her uncle stood at the door with one of his retainers.

‘Since you want to stay, you will. Here. In this room.’ Her uncle pulled out a key and reached for the door handle, nodding at the man. ‘Watch her here until I return.’

The door shut and the key rattled in the iron lock.

‘No!’ She struggled to her feet, tripping over her gown as she ran to the door.

Her palms were red and stinging before she stopped beating against the unyielding oak.

By the time the vesper bells rang, the household was long gone. Katrine had paced from bed to door to window too many times to count. She had winnowed the pieces of her life to a sack she could carry. A few clothes. A comb. A small round mirror of German silver from Uncle Giles, engraved with a four-petalled daisy. Her mother’s ivory triptych, blessed at the shrine of Saint Catherine.

So few things. What mattered most was in the weaving room.

She weighed her father’s parting gift in her palm. The bag of gold livres carried none of the sentiment of the mirror or the triptych, but it must pay the smuggler’s price and more. It must support her until she sold cloth again.

If she could escape.

She paced back to the window. The roofs glowed orange in the setting sun. She smacked the sill in frustration. She had told him by curfew. It was near that now.

Merkin’s cheery voice emerged through the door. ‘Good evening. I’ve brought her supper.’

The guard mumbled a grunt. The lock rattled and the door swung open.

Merkin, her back to him, winked at Katrine and raised her eyebrows. ‘Go eat, Ranf. I’ll watch her.’

He closed the door. Footsteps descended the stairs.

Merkin rolled her eyes. ‘The man’s as dimwitted as he is ugly.’ She put down the tray and stuffed the bread and cheese in her pouch. ‘Hurry, milady.’

Katrine grabbed her small sack of treasures and her cloak, fingers shaking. ‘How can I thank you? He’ll beat you when he finds me gone.’

A grin split Merkin’s face. ‘He’ll have to catch me first, milady. I’m coming with you.’

There was no time to debate. Katrine gave her a grateful hug and they slipped down the stairs and out of the garden door.

Shadows rippled on the river beneath the bridge and the leftover aroma of the day’s catch followed them through the square. A man in rags crouched on the corner, hand outstretched, muttering a plea or a threat. She pushed Merkin ahead and ran past him, quickly.

As they hurried through the darkening streets, she prayed war preparations would keep her uncle away for a long time. Ranf wouldn’t know what to do without orders.

Katrine drew a full breath only after she had safely closed the shop’s door.

‘Renard?’ she called. Again, there was no answer.

She raced up the stairs, only slightly relieved when she saw his sack still there. Nothing about the man was certain.

‘Why are you calling for a fox?’ Merkin asked, as Katrine came downstairs.

She paused, giving her mind time to catch up with her tongue. ‘I hired a guard. Since the house has been empty, I thought there should be someone here to watch it.’

Merkin rolled her eyes and muttered something about a fox guarding the chickens, but softly enough that Katrine could ignore her. ‘He must be watching from the top of the bell tower, then, milady.’

Katrine smiled, though she knew she shouldn’t. Merkin’s tongue was as forthright as her own. ‘“Mistress,” Merkin, not “milady”. If we are to be safe here, he must think me a simple tradeswoman.’ If he discovered she had run away from a noble family, he might turn her in for an imagined reward.

Merkin sighed just a little too loudly. ‘Yes, mistress.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon.’ She looked at the gathering shadows as Merkin prepared a bed for herself in the kitchen. Truly, she was sure of only one thing: she had come home.

Katrine woke to see a tall, motionless shadow on the wall of the weaving room holding a dagger.

Renard had returned.

She didn’t lift her head, cradled in her arm over the inventory book where she’d fallen asleep, her wimple pillowing her cheek.

Full darkness had fallen, she thought, sure she could hear the echo of the compline bell. The fire’s remaining coals glowed red as the pits of hell.

Slowly, she stretched and yawned, raising her arms towards the rafters, closing her eyes, pretending she had not seen him. Pretending she did not care if she saw him. Yet with this man in it, her shop seemed no safer than the streets.

Her loose-fitting wool dress brushed her breasts through her chemise. She fought the urge to drop her arms and shield herself from his eyes, thankful for once that her breasts were so small.

Surely he could not see them.

As he sheathed his dagger, his shadow fell across her like a caress. ‘I was not expecting to see you when most are abed.’

‘And I was expecting to see you long before now.’

‘Did you meet your money lender?’

She counted out the heavy coins, then handed them across the table without answering. No need to add another lie. ‘Here. Though you’ve yet to earn it. I hire you to guard the house, yet you are never here. Then you persist in showing me your blade.’

Silent, he poured the money into the pouch tied to his girdle without counting. Coins she had recounted ten times. How could a smuggler be so careless with money?

She closed her inventory book. ‘Tell me, Monsieur Renard, what has brought you to this life? Are you a weaver, trying to bring work to your fellow craftsmen?’ The idea seemed absurd. He had the strong arms and chest needed to beat the weft with the reed, but his long legs had obviously guided a horse into battle, not atrophied beneath a loom.

He threw a stray twig of kindling into the coals. A bluehearted flame flared up to devour it.

She waited for an answer, but neither of them feared silence now. She glowed with a moment’s triumph. ‘Monsieur Renard, your namesake, the fox, is never at a loss for words. Has Tibert the Cat taken your tongue?’

He looked at her then, though the shadows hid his expression. ‘Renard the Fox always has a clever word. Usually, it is a lie.’

‘Does that mean your words are lies?’

‘Are yours the truth?’

She blinked, betraying herself again. Is he a priest to know the truths of the confessional? ‘What is your truth, Renard? What do you tell the wife who wonders at your absence?’

She thought a cloud of anger shadowed his face, but his unreadable eyes protected his secrets as fully as a suit of chainmail.

Yet a well-aimed arrow could penetrate even chainmail.

She aimed. ‘Or perhaps the ladies refuse to wed a smuggler?’

There was the slightest hesitation before he answered. ‘I see no need to marry.’

Her lips curved up before she realised she had cared what his answer would be. Reckless with small success, she pushed ahead. ‘Your parents, then? Are they proud of their son?’

His left eyelid slipped into a wink and she sensed the muscles harden to sculpted stone beneath his skin. Though he never moved, the narrow, guarded drawbridge that linked him to the world clanged shut.

‘The less we know of each other, the safer we both will be. It is late.’ In one fluid motion, he bowed and held his hand to help her rise. ‘Since I am to be your protector, I will protect you between here and your bedchamber.’

She held out her hand.

With a stance anything but humble, he pulled her to her feet so swiftly that she had to clutch his solid arms for balance.

Nose pressed against his chest, she inhaled the lingering, smoky-sweet fragrance of the lichens that had dyed his tunic. His chin pressed the top of her head through her wimple.

Surrounded by him, she felt safe. Strange, to feel safe with such a menacing man. More than his arms held her. She was enveloped by his scent. Sharp. Rich. Mysterious. Did all men smell this way?

There was a catch in the steady rise and fall of his chest, or maybe it was a flutter in her own breathing. Then the fleeting feeling of safety was gone, replaced with something altogether different. Dangerous.

She looked up. His blue eyes looked intense now, not at all cold. Her chest tightened around an inheld breath as his steady finger hovered close enough to her lips to catch the sigh she refused to release.

Then, slowly, he traced her eyebrows, leaving a trail on her temple and her cheeks, gradually coming back to her lips, outlining them with a touch as soft as a feather. Finally, his finger slipped over the curve of her chin before tangling in the barrier of the wimple swaddling her neck. His hand encircled her throat, heat burning through the cloth.

He could have caressed or choked her, yet somehow, she knew this man would do neither.

Even if she wanted the caress.

‘And who, my little weaving woman, will protect me from you?’

She ripped herself away from his arms, ashamed. He knew her sinful thoughts, had read her desire for his touch. Men, her uncle told her, always knew. ‘You will need no protection from me. There’s only one thing I want from you.’

She headed for the stairs, not waiting as he lit a candle from the embers and followed. At the top of the flight, she opened the door to the master’s room. Her mother’s ivory triptych sat, comforting, by the bedside.

He was close behind her. ‘This your room, mistress?’

No. It is Giles’s room. She had unpacked her small sack and put on new bed linens in Renard’s absence. ‘Of course.’

‘Strange. It looked different earlier today.’

He did not wait for a response before he mounted the stairs to the third floor. A dismissal. As if she were a servant and he the master.

She closed the door and leaned against it, eyes shut. Above her, his boots hit the floor with a thunk. She listened for the whoosh of his tunic. As the straw rustled with his weight, she envisioned him lying on his pallet, the breeze from the window playing across his naked chest.

Who will protect me from you? Renard had read her secret feelings, feelings that must be sinful, even if she could not quite understand.

But she did not feel sinful. Sin should make you feel full of toads and maggots and bile. Fetid. Festering. Worse than a toothache and a stomachache and her monthly time all on the same day.

Instead, she felt as if it were the first of the twelve days of Christmas.

I must truly be a sinner if I feel no guilt.

Opening her eyes, she jerked away from the door, ashamed of her thoughts. They only proved that her uncle was right.

She tugged at her surcoat, glad she had not rousted Merkin from her kitchen pallet to help her undress. Surely his eyes would not look midnight blue in the sunshine. She had only felt hot and breathless at his touch because she had needed a good night’s sleep. Only felt weak because she needed food.

Surely in daylight, he would look, and she would feel, quite ordinary.

She went to pull the shutters against the night. Glimpsing a man across the street, she blinked. Who was skulking in the shadows so late?

When she recognised the form, she shivered.

Ranf. Her uncle’s man.

With damp palms and a dry throat, she swung the shutters closed, watching through the crack until he was out of sight.

Surely he would not take her by force without a direct order from her uncle.

She shuddered. Perhaps she needed a guard more than she knew.

Chapter Four

Renard rolled from his back to his side, seeking a corner of the thin pallet where straw would not prick his skin. The hum of voices drifted in the window on the cool night air. A neighbouring burgher and his wife arguing in their bed? Or the Count’s men, searching for him? He’d seen someone lurking outside the house. An innocent man-at-arms or a threat?

God’s blood, I make a poor spy.

Every sentence was a trap. Every word could mean his death. But he must play the part. Must convince her he was a rogue smuggler, interested only in money.

Eyes closed, he concentrated on his mission. And on the way the sapphire consecration ring would feel on his right hand when it was over.

Instead, he felt Katrine, small and delicate, in his arms again. He had held her longer than he should have, long enough that her scent, warm and spicy, filled his nose and teased his loins. Somewhere beneath the fabric that covered all but her hands and face, the rhythm of her heartbeat matched his. He knew it.

So with the instinct of a lifetime of practice, he suppressed passion’s pull before he realised that this time, he had not really wanted to.

All the better that his control was second nature.

Who will protect me from you? The words had slipped past the barrier that let nothing escape. An experienced woman would realise what a weapon he had just put in her hands, but this woman seemed anything but experienced. Far from knowing a man’s body, she was not even at ease with her own.

She responded to him awkwardly, as if she were a squire holding her first sword with barely enough strength to control the weapon. The blade wobbled, but it was still sharp, and perhaps even more deadly, because her blow would not be skilful and deft, but accidental. Painful.

Fatal.

As the sky lightened to butter yellow, Renard rose, ready to escape the house unseen. Danger filled the streets, but even these quarters held no safety. Below him was a slip of a weaving woman who wanted nothing more than to break Edward’s embargo.

The tremble in her voice told him she was hiding something. This husband of hers was not searching for wool.

And he had been gone a long, long time.

The mid-afternoon bell was ringing by the time Renard returned to the city after spiriting Edward out and into the hands of the knights who would deliver him to his waiting ship.

Now, instead of moving on to Brabant, he was trapped in hiding. Some of the English knights had arrived, waiting for the Bishop before formal negotiations could begin. He must risk contact to assess the diplomatic situation.

He slipped unnoticed into a house near the Friday Market where Jack de Beauchance had rented rooms.

‘Renard!’ Jack said, clapping him on the shoulder.

‘Keep your voice down,’ he said, though his friend’s cheery words eased his mood. Curly-haired Jack had been knighted beside him on the field in Scotland.

‘Where have you been hiding since we came ashore, you fox? Are you on the King’s business again?’

‘If I were, would I tell you?’

‘Whatever you’re doing, you don’t look as if it’s going well,’ Jack said.

Renard forced a smile, disturbed that his concerns had shown on his face. Such a careless display was dangerous. ‘Look at you wearing that silly red eyepatch when you are alone in your rooms,’ he said, to change the subject. ‘Do you even sleep in that scrap of silk?’

Jack crossed his arms and arched his eyebrows. ‘Handsome, don’t you think? I promise you, the ladies like it.’

‘The ladies like you, with or without it.’ Everyone liked Jack. It couldn’t be helped. A younger son, Jack’s birthright was secure, if not his expectations. ‘Why were you sent ahead while the Bishop tarries elsewhere?’

Jack rolled his eyes to heaven in mock agony. ‘He found me with one of the junior ladies-in-waiting in a very dark corner of the garden.’

‘Let me guess. A lady the Bishop himself wanted?’

‘I don’t think she’ll have him, even with me gone.’ Jack sighed, then the momentary cloud passed and his sunny expression returned. ‘Watch this,’ he said, holding up three cloth balls.

He tossed and caught the first and second, but he stretched so far for the third that he tripped over a stool and crashed to the floor. Three soft balls plopped on his back.

Renard laughed for the first time in a week and reached out to help him up. ‘Is this part of the negotiation strategy? Get the Count to laugh so hard he will switch his allegiance?’

Jack rubbed his right knee and winced. ‘The Count hasn’t even agreed to meet with us. That may be as much of a reason as my lovely lady-in-waiting that the Bishop tarries with the Queen’s relatives.’ King Edward’s wife was related to nobility throughout the Low Countries. ‘He doesn’t want the blame for failure.’

Renard frowned. ‘That bodes ill.’ If official negotiations failed, Edward’s throne would depend on Renard’s success in fomenting a revolt.

‘He sent a few of us ahead to arrange his lodgings.’ Jack winked. ‘And to make friends among the people.’

‘By flinging gold into the streets and stealing a kiss?’ The antics of the English knights were already the stuff of legend. ‘You even managed to enjoy the Scottish Wars. This is much more pleasant duty.’

‘These women have the fairest hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.’

Katrine’s eyes were brown, he thought, suddenly, wondering what colour hair her wimple hid. Her eyebrows had a reddish cast.

He turned the hardness in his loins into a hardness of soul. This time, no muscle flinched in his face. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘You used to enjoy the women as much as I do.’

‘I was younger then.’ And too foolish to truly understand that his lust could get a bastard who would live in the same earthly purgatory his life had been. He would not wish that on any man.

‘It’s a shame you can so easily resist the pleasures of feminine comfort.’

‘Easily?’ he scoffed. ‘You know better. But I did not come to the Low Countries on a mission of pleasure.’

‘Neither did the rest of us, but the Bishop of Clare doesn’t let business, or his vows, interfere with his pleasures.’

‘The Bishop is a hypocrite.’ Renard spat out the words as if he could not bear the taste. He laughed then, so Jack would not think much of it.

‘You need a lady to change your mood. I met a lovely one at the bath house.’ He wiggled his eyebrows with a grin.

Renard laughed again, meaning it this time. ‘If you met her at the bath house, she is no lady.’

Jack pressed a hand to his chest in mock indignation. ‘It’s a very strict establishment. She has such red lips, such smooth skin, such blonde hair, and if you don’t like her,’ he cajoled, ‘I’m sure you could find another who would please. Come with me.’

‘I cannot risk being seen with you.’ He rose. ‘After I leave, forget I was here.’

‘If you change your mind about the bath house, it’s on the fork of the river beyond the Count’s castle.’

After he left Jack, Renard pondered the idea. A bath house was a hotbed of gossip. If he kept his ears open, he would hear the city’s mood and perhaps a name or two that might be sympathetic to Edward’s cause. But instead of Jack’s respectable house, he’d visit one hidden among the taverns near the Square of Forbidden Attractions…

Where no one would ask any questions.

Renard returned to the shop after the compline bell, his jaw aching from a day of framing harsh Flemish syllables. Even a lumpy straw pallet sounded inviting.

In the markets, taverns and public baths, his height and blue eyes were remarkable, but his Flemish, though rusty, was convincing enough for him to pass as a visitor from Brussels.

And fomenting revolt might not be as difficult as he had feared. Angry about the dispute that had snatched the thread from their looms and the bread from their tables, the people were like dry kindling. The right spark might ignite a rebellion favourable to Edward and England.

Unwelcome moonlight chased him into the shadows. The man he’d seen outside the house was missing tonight, but he could not afford to be questioned by the watch. He had taken the risk of staying out past curfew, hoping she would be abed when he returned. He must avoid her questions. And her temptation.

Wrinkling his nose at the lingering scent of cabbage soup, he slipped into the kitchen, the familiar weight of his dagger moulded to his palm. The glow of uncovered embers drew him, cautiously, into the front room.

Katrine slept over her account books again. Her wimple askew, a lock of hair, reflecting red from the dying coals, escaped to caress her cheek. An ink blot stained the middle finger of her right hand, protectively stretched on top of the ledger.

He sheathed his dagger and stepped into the room quietly so she would not wake. The fire’s glow left deep shadows in the narrow room’s corners. The house did not stretch far beyond the firelight. Such a small place. King Edward needed more room than this just to pace.

Yet this was all she had. No fields, no vast estates, no serfs toiling for her outside these walls. Only a cherry tree and a bolt of cloth shielded her from starvation.

No wonder she needs the wool. Couldn’t this husband of hers take care of the woman?

He knelt before her, his face dangerously close to hers. Before he could stop them, his fingers slipped past his self-control to touch the lock of hair on her cheek. When he tried to tuck it beneath her wimple, the strands slipped through his fingers like silk.

At his touch, she woke, brown eyes weighed down by a thicket of lashes and a sleepy smile touching her lips.

A matching smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He spoke softly, the Flemish rough in his throat. ‘Do you fall asleep over your accounts every night, mistress?’

She blinked, suddenly awake, and drew away, leaving his fingers empty. ‘The business is all I have. I will do anything I must to keep it.’

He rose, abruptly, wondering what passion she had left for her husband. If she had one.

Suddenly, it seemed important to know. He had negotiated with kings. He could certainly force the truth from a simple weaving woman. ‘And your husband, will he, too, do anything he must?’

Her dark eyes looked huge in her pale face, framed by the rumpled wimple. ‘Of course.’ She hesitated over the words.

He was certain in that moment she had no husband.

The rush of blood throbbed in his loins before he could summon his control. No man possesses her.

Denial struggled with hot, sweet desire.

He clenched his jaw and felt his eyelid flinch, but he refused to break his gaze, glad to be safely towering over her again. He would resist her, but she mustn’t know that. ‘If you will do anything you must, mistress, will you do anything I ask?’ He must keep her off balance, wondering about his intentions.

A delicate flush—anger or shame?—spread beyond her cheek. She bit her lower lip with small white teeth, inflicting enough pain to steady her resolve. He had seen a knight in battle try the same trick, slashing his forearm to create a new, superficial wound to distract him from the mortal blow.

Staring back at him, her defiant eyes did not waver, but he heard the whisper of inheld breath, as if she had recognised the fire in his eyes and was burned by it. ‘What do you ask?’

Longing rushed through his blood like poison. What he would ask had no words, only the vision of wild joining.

He fought the image. Even if he permitted himself careless pleasures of the flesh, he was hiding in the belly of a country that might soon be at war with his. One unmeasured word uttered in passion could be his death. He gritted his teeth against the feeling. ‘I ask for the truth.’

She rose and slipped into the shadows surrounding the loom. Hiding.

He would not let her. ‘And the truth is, you have no husband.’

She whirled to face him, the wool of her skirt crushed in her fist. ‘I have no husband.’ Angry words. ‘Would you have dealt with me, had you known?’

Yes, but he would not tell her that. He shrugged. ‘Then why wear the wimple?’

Her slender arms crossed her chest like a shield. ‘There is little safety on the streets these days. People are more respectful of a married woman.’

‘But you are not on the streets now.’

‘I still need protection.’

‘I thought I was to protect you.’

She smiled. ‘Who will protect me from you?’

She had turned his words back on him. He had thought to keep her off balance, yet he was the one who felt dizzy. He donned a mask of disdain to blot out all traces of attraction. She must not know his weakness for her. ‘What makes you think you need protection from me?’

Her eyes widened and narrowed in an instant, but he saw his insult had hit its mark. For a moment, he was sorry for it.

‘I am glad to hear I do not.’ She patted the wrinkles from her skirt, now all brisk business. ‘When will I see my wool?’

Uneasiness rippled through him. She had recovered faster than he expected. He had thought her a simple burgher mistress but, so far, this woman was nothing that he had expected. ‘I cannot order contraband wool at the market. If it were easy, you would not need me.’

‘How long must I wait?’

‘As long as it takes.’ As long as it would take to turn the people of Flanders to Edward’s side. ‘Weeks, not days, mistress.’

‘I’ve waited months already.’ Urgency shook her voice.

‘Patience is a virtue you don’t possess.’

‘Patience is no virtue when dealing with spinsters and weavers. I have no patience for sloppy work or I will have nothing fit to sell.’

Her words intrigued him. What would it be like to be so pleased with who you were and what you did? ‘You are proud of your work, aren’t you?’

The smile that transformed her face would have, for most women, come at the mention of a paramour. ‘The Mark of the Daisy is known throughout the Low Countries.’

She sounded lovesick, he thought, irritably. ‘And what makes your cloth so special?’

‘I can recognise the best wool by touch. My spinsters deliver seven skeins a day instead of five. When my dyers are finished, the colour is fast. My weavers’ work is so tight we rarely need the fullers’ craft.’

‘Fullers?’ He followed most Flemish words, but sometimes missed the meaning. ‘What do they do?’

She cocked a suspicious eyebrow. ‘How can you deal in wool and know so little of it?’

‘Do I need to know how to grow wheat in order to trade it? Or how to take salt from the mines in order to sell it?’

‘Well, if you knew wool, you would recognise our mark. Even before I was born, we made a special fabric for the Duchess of Brabant.’

A burning numbness filled him, like a blow from a broadside sword. Duchess cloth. A scrap of indigo- dyed wool carefully wrapped around a dagger of German silver. An orphaned bastard’s only inheritance from the princess who had married a duke.

What terrible fate had drawn him to the very shop that had made the cloth his mother had worn? ‘Duchess cloth? You made that?’

‘You know it?’

He clenched his fist behind his back. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘I’m surprised. It was so long ago.’

‘I was born in Brabant, remember?’ His throat tightened around the words that jarred against each other. ‘Those who have seen it claim only a miracle of God or the Devil’s witchcraft could produce such an intricate design.’

She laughed. ‘Neither God, nor the Devil. Just Giles de Vos.’

He lowered his voice, afraid that he would shout to make himself heard over the blood pounding in his ears. He must ask the question as if the answer made no difference. ‘So he knew the Duchess?’

He was suddenly hungry to hear of her. No one had spoken of his mother since she had died.

‘The Duchess was a great patroness of his,’ Katrine said. ‘He wove a special length and sent it to her every year until she died twenty years ago.’

‘Nineteen.’

She looked puzzled, but did not ask him how he knew. ‘He never wove it again after that.’

‘Why?’

‘He said there is a craft and an art to weaving, and the art must come from the heart. I think he lost heart for it after she died.’

A woman’s romantic notion. The truth was certainly simpler. De Vos was a merchant. The money had stopped. ‘He didn’t even make some for your mother?’

‘My…my mother?’

‘You say your father only made this cloth for the Duchess. Surely he wove some for his wife.’

She shook her head, flinching as if in pain. ‘My mother’s not…’

Her voice cracked again. He wondered whether she had lost a mother, too.

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