She narrowed her eyes on the distant spot where she had last seen her brother. “I am never going to see him again, am I?”
“I think you will find him on your threshold someday. He always relied on you more than you did him.”
“So, you bought his life. One hundred pounds is a large sum, even for you.”
“It is a gift, and not to you, but to Reginald.” He reached around and placed the stack of pledges on the sill. “However, the previous debts must be settled now.”
She looked down at his hand lying upon those parchments. He was very close now, warming her shoulder and back.
Didn’t he know that she was his even without those pledges? That settling them had little to do with what would happen?
“I want to burn these, Giselle. I do not want these debts standing between us. I do not want you obligated to me.”
She smiled. It seemed he did know, after all. “Burn them, then.”
“If I do, others will make claims on the house and property. You will lose it all.”
“I have already lost it all.”
“You must know that I would never actually take the house.”
“I do know that, but I would prefer that notions of charity and debt not shadow our friendship. Burn them. If you are willing to take the loss, so am I.”
He moved away, and she turned to see him bending to the low fire that had been lit to remove the evening chill. The parchments joined the flame, making it rise.
Andreas watched the debts disappear. He continued gazing into the hearth long after the fire had died back down.
She went over to him and saw his pensive expression. “What are you thinking?”
His arm embraced her shoulders then slid down to hold her more closely. “I am thinking that a good man would leave now and use the other chamber tonight.”
A good woman would insist that he use the other chamber. She had no obligations to him now. No excuses.
But his embrace already had her blood pulsing faster and her body warming. Memories of last night, of the incredible physical pleasure, swam through her head until the pleasure returned as a real sensation.
He turned so that they faced each other, and the embrace pressed her to him. “I am also thinking that I am tired of being good where you are concerned. I desire you too much.”
She was tired of being good, too. Tired of saving herself for the husband who would never come and for the future that had been a girlish dream. Her past had just disappeared on the horizon, and her future was for tomorrow. The present was here and now. For the next few hours this chamber and Andreas were her whole world.
His gaze and touch stirred delicious excitements, and she did not want to fight them. She did not care about anything but holding this man who made her feel alive and beautiful and safe. The warmth of his embrace dulled the heartache about Reginald and obscured her fears about the new life waiting in London.
Even the knowledge that she could not hold onto him became insignificant as the desire poured out of them both, changing the air. If anything, knowing that she could not have him forever made her want this even more.
The first kiss came slowly. Too slowly. He gave her time to change her mind. Impatiently, she rose on her toes and met him halfway, so the kiss was as much hers as his.
The new Andreas kissed her, but so did the old one. The way his mouth took hers, gently but demanding, and the way his arms dominated her, totally but carefully, contained the friendship of years and the passion of last night. He made her feel precious, something that he valued highly but was determined to possess.
Their bodies pressed so closely that they could not get closer. Kisses, wonderful kisses, heated her lips and skin and neck. Like a spiral of magic, the desire tightened and rose, pulling her to its center, making her senses swirl. She lost hold on her restraint and spun, spun, in the heady excitement.
She loved the way he held her. Touched her. His rough palm, warm and male and careful, on her face. His controlling arm across her back. His claiming caresses through her garments, pressing her hip and waist and thighs and back. She loved the gentle intimacy of his breath on her skin and hair and the alarming intimacy of his invasive kiss. Her body and soul wanted more of both, and the impatience returned. Their closeness wasn’t enough; their kisses weren’t enough.
Soundlessly, she cried her acceptance of the ascending madness. Yes, her mind chanted. Yes, her body demanded. Yes, her heart sang.
“Yes,” her voice whispered when he held her head with both of his hands and asked a question with his eyes that needed no words.
He lifted her and carried her to the bed. Thrills of desire and fear slid down her body in tantalizing streaks.
He sat on the edge of the bed and began undressing her. “You should not be afraid. I know that you are still a maid. I am not going to hurt you.”
Small pauses interrupted his words, as if he had to think to find the right ones in English. It reminded her of how he spoke the language when she first met him. The evidence that he had lost his smooth command of his English sent tenderness streaming out of her heart.
“I am not afraid.” That was a lie. A delicious fear trembled through her, made more exciting by the closeness of his hands. He dragged the lacing of her gown down her body, level by level, until the narrow cloth of her robe parted to her hips, revealing her shift.
He laid his palm flat on her stomach. Its rough warmth seemed to permeate all through her loins, as if he touched her womb. His caress rose up her body, creating a path of arousal. When it passed over her breast, her heart rose to her throat.
“I saw your body once. The second time I stayed at your house. I passed your little chamber while you were washing, and the door was ajar. I wanted you so much that I could not move.”
His memory provoked one of her own. One of her standing by her washstand years ago, with her shift falling around her hips, and the strong sense that someone had paused by her door. A shocking excitement had pounded through her, and she also had been unable to move.
“I knew you were there, I think. I wanted you to look at me like that, I think.”
What else had she wanted? What else had she pretended did not exist?
She looked at his face, handsome and shadowed in the dim light. For ten years her heart had filled with sweet longing as it did now whenever she saw him or thought of him.
She had called it friendship.
His hand covered her breast, gently but possessively. It was a claim of sorts. His expression hardened subtly. She knew there was no turning back.
She welcomed the kiss that demanded new rights. Caresses on her breast teased her toward abandon. He laid beside her, so that the intimacy of their embrace extended their whole lengths. A wonderful madness took possession of her, so that she knew only gratitude when he slid off her garments and exalted in a shocking glory when he looked at her naked body.
Desperate hunger and incredible sensations ruled her. She wanted . . . everything. A closeness that even his hand on her body did not satisfy. An entwining that surpassed their long embrace.
With fingers that would not obey her, she fumbled at his garments, eager to feel the body under them. He broke their eternal kiss long enough to strip them off. The intimacy of holding him then, of having his naked warmth sealing her side and his skin beneath her hands, left her breathless.
That strong, wonderful hand stroked her whole body while he looked at her and kissed her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. He spoke lowly in his native tongue, but she understood the meaning if not the words. Desire and praise and tenderness were in his tone and his touch, and her own arousal developed layers of emotion in response.
He licked the tip of one breast. An arrow of amazing pleasure shot completely through her, making her arch in surprise. He used his mouth to transform that one arrow into a stream of sensation that flowed to a new hunger and desperation low and deep in her body. He slowly palmed the other breast, and she grew more frantic.
When he moved on top of her she clutched him to her, embracing him with her arms and thighs, holding his strength to her entire body. She did not mind the gentle pain at first and only gasped in shock when a sharper one brought an onslaught of glaring clarity.
She blinked and looked up at the face and shoulders above her and absorbed the profound sensation of being connected in ways that nothing could ever undo.
The tightness of his muscles and expression revealed his forced control. Passion lit his eyes, but so did a beautiful warmth. He kissed her carefully and spoke quietly in her ear.
He gazed down and must have seen her incomprehension. “I said that . . .” He paused, searching for his English amidst his body’s distractions. “I said that I have wanted you from the first time I saw you.”
He moved, and she did not mind the pain. It became submerged in a fullness of pleasure and joy that her heart could barely contain. The passion found her again, too, richer than before, deeper and drenched with happiness. When their joining turned less careful and then furious, she opened to the power of it all, holding him to her breast as his thrusts touched her womb and her soul.
He did not leave the bed afterward. The second chamber remained unused. He tucked her under the sheet and into his embrace and fell asleep beside her.
She stared at the night through the window, unable to sleep herself. This new experience, of lying beside him for hours, moved her in new ways. When they made love she had wanted to sing. Now she wanted to weep.
They had called it friendship for years, and tonight he had called it desire. She now knew the real name of the emotion in her own heart, however.
Love.
She was glad that she admitted that. It made the joy bittersweet, but wonderfully so. She was grateful that she had been given the gift of loving a man.
She would lose everything else, even him, but this love was hers to keep forever. She would never be impoverished.
Eight
“I will need a fresh horse, Stefan. Also, take this to the counting house and retrieve one hundred pounds from the trading account that they hold for me.”
Stefan’s mouth pursed as he accepted the note. “Can I assume that these funds do not go to Alberti?”
“You can assume what you like.”
“You must go and see him today. You said that you would two nights ago, and he expects you. You cannot leave the city again and have him wondering . . . that is, he may have heard about this woman of yours.”
Andreas pulled on his boots and swallowed his inclination to remind Stefan of his place. The disadvantage of having a brother as your clerk was that he felt free to speak boldly. “Whatever he has heard, he will not care. Our arrangements are really about a trading network, not a marriage. He understands that. Everyone understands that.”
Even Giselle understood that. Not once had she mentioned his marriage negotiations, although surely she knew of them. All of London probably knew, and Narni had referred to it in her presence.
Of course she had not spoken of it. What could she say? What could either of them say? It was the way of the world. If she had married, it would have been about land, not ships, but it would have been the same.
As he finished dressing in clean garments, he thought about the years ahead, when he would be bound to one woman but hungering for another. He had already lived that life once. It appeared that it was to be his fate forever.
He went to the window and looked down on the city. He peered at the spot of garden several lanes over. The next time he came to London she would not be sitting there. The breeze would not carry the sounds of her lute.
Where would she be instead? Her future was precarious. Burning those pledges had been a gallant but selfish gesture. A necessary one, however, for both their sakes. He had not wanted her owing him anything, least of all her body.
Thoughts of that body, of her warmth and beauty, filled his head. He closed his eyes and experienced again the raging desire and delirious pleasure. But the memory that had stayed with him ever since, that he could not get out of his mind, was the way she looked as she woke in the morning, and the burst of joy that had saturated him when she smiled and snuggled closer.
He would take care of her. He would buy her a different house and arrange an income for her. He would explain it was not payment, that he was not keeping her. He would make her understand that he could not leave her destitute, in the name of their old friendship and not because of last night.
And whenever he visited London, he would once more walk down a lane with the heart of a man who was truly coming home.
“I will return for the coin soon, Stefan. You had better pay two swordsmen to accompany me as well. With that much money, I may need some protection on the road.”
He found Giselle in her hall, standing on a stool in front of the tapestry.
“Help me get this down.”
“Why?”
“You burned the pledge that included it, and no one else had one on it. That means it is still mine. I want you to sell it for me, so that I can give you the money to bring Wolford.”
“I said that will be a gift to Reginald.”
She began heaving the iron bar from the wall. He reached up to take its weight in his own hands.
“I know you said that, but in truth the gift is to me. One more debt. One more obligation.” She busied herself with sliding the tapestry’s looped braids off the bar. “I would prefer to pay the sum myself. I gave myself to you with a pure heart, and I am glad I did. However, after you marry again, my memory of that bed will be all that I keep of you. I do not want what happened to be tainted in the years ahead by any thoughts that I . . . whored. Can you understand that?”
He could, too well.
“Do you know someone who will buy it and give me what it is worth?”
He rolled the tapestry and folded it into thirds. Made of silk as it was, it easily formed a compact bundle. “I know of a man who will be happy to buy it.”
“Not you, Andreas. Please, do not—”
“Not me.”
He kissed her, then carried the tapestry out of the house. Giselle’s resolve to sell it had told him everything he needed to know.
She had told him that last night had been all that he thought it had been, and that she wanted to preserve its memory.
She had told him that she would not lie with him in adultery.
Of course she wouldn’t.
She had also told him that she would face the future on her own. She was not going to let him take care of her.
“One hundred pounds? You are a madman, or else you think I am England’s biggest fool.” John Hastings struck an insulted pose, crossing his thick arms over his chest. He nodded toward the tapestry spread out on his table. “Without the flaw, maybe thirty pounds, but with that interruption you will be lucky to see half that much.”
“There is a poignant story attached to that flaw. The woman who wove it was given in marriage to a man she did not love. The weaving remained unfinished until her husband died and she returned to her girlhood love.”
“Oh, horses’ turds. Traders always come up with sweet tales to explain bad goods. I’ll give you twenty, and only because you are a friend.”
“The lady who owns it was told it is worth a hundred, so that is the price.”
“What idiot told her such a thing?”
An idiot who wanted her to believe she owned something of great value so that she would think she had some security. Andreas began folding the tapestry. “A pity that you do not favor it. I will find another merchant who appreciates its age and quality.”
“I hope you are not angry, Andreas. It is very lovely, just not w
orth such a high sum. Surely you know that.”
“I am not angry at all. Our friendship will continue as before. When I next visit London, I will be sure to come see you. I should be back before winter. I expect to bring in a shipment of flax soon, as well as some furs.”
John’s lids lowered. His mouth twitched. “What kind of furs?”
“Sables from the Rus. They are rare and fetch astonishing prices with the nobility.”
“That is what I heard that worthless fool Reginald was going to bring in with Sandro. No one ever saw a single pelt.”
“I am not Reginald.”
Andreas continued slowly folding the tapestry. John uncrossed his arms and casually paced around the table.
“Have you arranged the sale of these furs?”
Andreas lifted the tapestry and shook it in front of John’s face to remove the wrinkles.
He laid it down on the table and smoothed it with his hand.
“I have been so occupied that I have not had time to strike a bargain with any London merchant yet. Well, it can wait until I come back. There are many men who will want such a cargo.”
He began to roll up the tapestry.
John’s hand descended to stroke the silk, stopping him.
“It really is a very lovely weaving,” John said. “Most artful. Very unique. I find myself growing fond of it.”
“Did I mention the story attached to the interruption?”
“Yes. Touching. I am so moved that I might buy it for myself. How much did you say?”
“One hundred pounds. If you keep it yourself, I might offer to buy it back from you someday. That is how much I favor it, and I am pleased to see that you appreciate its beauty.”
“It is really magnificent. I must have it. Of course, if you should ever want to buy it back, I would be hard-pressed to refuse a good friend. I would be even harder-pressed to refuse a partner in a fur trade.”
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