Read an Excerpt
From
Chapter Four
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 molded 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 atop 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 serfs, no vast estates toiled 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 this
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 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 recognized 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, was sorry of 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
would it 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 Four-Petaled Daisy is known
throughout the Low Countries.”
She sounded lovesick, he
thought, irritably. “And what makes your cloth so special?”
“I can recognize the best wool
by touch. My spinsters deliver seven skeins a day instead of
five. When my dyers are finished, the color 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 recognize 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 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 made the cloth his mother had worn?
Excerpt from INNOCENCE UNVEILIED
Copyright © 2008 by Wendy B. Gifford
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. and
Harlequin Enterprises Limited. All rights reserved.
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