Innocence Unveiled

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.