An Interrupted Tapestry Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Teaser chapter

  Ravishing in Red

  Provocative in Pearls

  Sinful in Satin

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jove titles by Madeline Hunter

  Ravishing in Red

  Provocative in Pearls

  Sinful in Satin

  Dangerous in Diamonds

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Previoulsly published in the anthology Tapestry, published by Jove Books.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author third-party websites or their content.

  AN INTERRUPTED TAPESTRY

  A Jove eSpecial Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove eSpecial edition / April 2011

  Copyright © 2002 by Madeline Hunter.

  Excerpt from Dangerous in Diamonds copyright © by Madeline Hunter.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-52564-7

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  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

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  Dear Readers,

  I am delighted that Jove has decided to release my novella from the Tapestry anthology as a stand-alone Special! I have received many letters from readers asking when this would happen, and now here it is.

  In An Interrupted Tapestry I returned to the world of my first novel, medieval London. Andreas is a member of the Hanseatic League who has been nurturing a long love for a woman he met in his youth. As the story opens, she reenters his life in a desperate bid to save her wastrel of brother, and the sensual tension crackles immediately. Intrigue, secrets, danger, and a long-unrequited love—all that and more will be found in this novella.

  Although I write in another time period now—the early nineteenth century—my voice has not changed. Nor has the way I build characters and stories. So if you enjoy this story, I think that you will also like my current series, The rarest Blooms. The books currently available—Ravishing in Red, Provocative in Pearls, and Sinful in Satin—are all available as eBooks. And Dangerous in Diamonds, the fourth book in the series, will be released on April 26, 2011. A sneak preview of Dangerous in Diamonds can be found at the end of this novella. Dangerous in Diamonds features one of my most compelling heroes, the incorrigible Duke of Castleford. Readers have been writing to me asking for his story ever since he first appeared in the series.

  So sit back and enjoy An Interrupted Tapestry. I am thrilled to be transporting you to another time and place, and to be introducing you to two of my favorite characters and their beautiful love story.

  Happy reading!

  Madeline

  One

  Giselle had ample time to practice swallowing her pride.

  She spent most of the afternoon doing so, while she paced Andreas von Bremen’s luxurious hall. She came to know his carved furniture very well and memorized every image in the four tapestries adorning his walls.

  Occasionally, she paused to gaze through the unshuttered windows at the yard surrounded by stables and storage buildings. Wagons kept arriving from the docks, carrying the products that secured Andreas’s wealth. As a member of the Hanseatic League, the network of Germanic traders whose famous cogs plied the northern seas, Andreas von Bremen was no ordinary merchant.

  Which was why she had come.

  She strove to quell not only her pride but her growing resentment. In a way, it was Andreas’s fault that she was here at all. For that reason alone, he might be more gracious and not keep her waiting so long. They had an old friendship, too. That should count for something, even if they had not spoken in four years.

  Irritation spiked again, colored by disappointment and hurt. She itched to stride right out of this house.

  She didn’t. A deeper emotion kept her waiting.

  Fear.

  She had to see this through. Andreas was her only hope. If he refused her, she had nowhere else to turn, and her brother would be lost to her.

  Boot steps on the stairs and voices speaking lowly penetrated the noise rolling in from the yard.

  She swung around. Two men’s bodies lowered into view as they descended from the upper level of the house.

  The short one of middle years, the one wearing a richly tucked and embroidered robe and a hat festooned with drapery, did not interest her. The other one, the young one of commanding height and lean strength, with thick dark hair and beautiful blue eyes, riveted her attention.

  Other than distant glimpses in the city, she had not seen him in a long time. She had forgotten how easy it was to smile whenever he arrived. Even now, despite her worries and pique, the old joy sparkled through her.

  As he escorted his guest through the hall, Andreas became aware of her. He glanced over and the light of recognition flared.

  Snatches of the men’s low conversation reached her ears. They did not speak in English, or French, or even Andreas’s language.

  She suddenly realized who the other man was. The Venetian galleys had arrived in London a few days ago, and he must be one of the powerful traders from that city.

  The Venetian took his leave. Andreas stood at the threshold, watching until the horse trotted through the gate.

  He turned his attention to her.

  “Giselle.”

  He did not say anything else, but just looked at her with those blue eyes. The lights of his youth still sparked in them, but other, deeper ones did, too. At twenty Andreas had possessed good humor
despite his natural reserve. Now, ten years later, his silence had grown more complex.

  And dangerous. It made no sense, but she could not escape the sensation. As the pause stretched, she grew increasingly unsettled.

  “My apologies, Giselle. My man said that a woman was here. He did not explain that it was you.”

  “You are very busy when you visit London. You could hardly ask your guest to wait while you spoke to me.”

  “That would have been difficult to explain, I will admit.”

  He smiled with wry amusement as he said it. Giselle realized that she had arrived during some very special trading.

  It was rumored that Andreas had come to London to negotiate a new marriage. Not with an English family, it appeared. He was looking for a more ambitious match than that and had timed his visit to coincide with the galleys from Venice.

  Years ago he had confided to her a mad dream of linking his family’s network to that of a Venetian’s. It appeared he was about to make the dream a reality.

  Small wonder he had kept her waiting.

  He moved two chairs to the windows on the side of the hall that faced the garden. He came back to her. “Please sit. I am happy to see you. It has been too long.”

  She hesitated. Something in his manner made her want to make a quick retreat. This was the Andreas she had known so well, but also an Andreas she had never met.

  His hand almost touched her back as the other gestured to the chairs. With a phantom embrace, he guided her to the window.

  A prickle of excitement and caution scurried up her spine.

  They sat facing each other, their knees separated by an arm’s span. Soft northern light gently illuminated the face that she knew well. Many times she had admired at close range the square jaw and straight, feathering eyebrows. None of the details had changed, but the countenance had. Youthful softness used to mute its chiselled severity but no longer did. Mature precision revealed the intelligent, shrewd mind of the man who owned it.

  Despite the change, for an instant it was like old times. They might have been sitting together in her own home, by her windows, during one of his visits to the city. When he was younger and his trading brought him to London, he did not live in this grand house, but in hers, as a guest and friend of her brother, Reginald.

  The joy sparkled again, reminding her of how much she had enjoyed his company back then.

  It had been thus from the first time Reginald brought him home and announced that he would use the tiny, spare chamber that jutted out over the street. She had looked at Andreas’s astonishingly handsome face that day and immediately seen warmth in his eyes despite his cool manner. They had formed a quick bond during that first visit. Over the years the connection had grown deep and steady and full of unspoken understanding.

  And then, abruptly, four years ago, Andreas had severed the link to Reginald, the house, and her.

  Remembering that insult made the joy disappear.

  “You are looking well, Giselle. You are as beautiful as ever.”

  The Andreas she had known had never flattered her. It appeared that with his success and wealth he had assumed courtly airs.

  It did not help that at twenty-eight she was no longer as beautiful as ever. The first bloom of youth had passed, and she knew it.

  “It is kind of you to say so. You also appear well, and happy in your success. I always knew that you would rise high in the Hanse.” She could not keep her gaze from drifting over the deep green garment he wore. Its cut and fabric spoke of his ascending status, just as her worn, mended blue gown revealed how debased her own had become.

  Her gaze moved back up and met his. Her breath caught as the years fell away. She might have been seeing him at her threshold, so familiar was what passed between them. The instant bond, the promise of a quiet intimacy—it flashed through her with an intense, vital reality, just as it had when they had been friends.

  No, it was not quite the same. Those reunions had never made her uncomfortable, and this one did. Something new simmered in the familiarity. As if a gauzy veil had been lifted, certain aspects of her reaction sharpened and demanded her attention. A sly, alluring disturbance wound its way around her other emotions.

  She had intended to beg for his help, but his manner provoked her, and she decided to change her approach. There was no point in pleading in the name of a dead friendship. She would speak in a language he would understand and respect.

  “I have not only come to visit, Andreas.”

  “No, I expect that you have not.”

  He sounded resigned. She thought that took some gall. After all, she had not dropped his friendship.

  “I am in need of money. I will repay it,” she said.

  His gaze shifted to the garden out the window. The old Andreas completely disappeared. Suddenly she was speaking with a stranger who had heard petitions like hers before. Too often.

  The humiliation of what she was doing overwhelmed her. She gritted her teeth and forged on.

  “I need one hundred pounds.”

  He kept looking at the garden. “Your brother sent you, didn’t he? It was cowardly of him not to come himself and to use you in this way.”

  “He did not send me. This was my decision.”

  “The hell it was.” His gaze snapped back to her. “Since this is about trade, I must respond as a trader. I regret to say that I must refuse you. There is no way that this loan will be repaid, and I would be a fool to make it.”

  His abrupt denial astonished her. Her heart wanted to sink down to her toes.

  “It will be repaid. If you doubt my word—”

  “One hundred pounds is a great sum. You have not seen that much in the last five years combined. You may promise to repay it with an honest heart, but your brother never will.”

  “It is my promise, not my brother’s. I will pledge property as surety. Our house is not worth that much, but there is also a small farm in Sussex, and together they should secure this debt.”

  A bit of curiosity passed in the gaze piercing her. “Are you saying that the farm and the house are chartered to you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then they are not yours to pledge and of no value to this discussion.”

  She could not believe his cold indifference. Panic began beating in her heart. She was going to fail. She would not be able to save Reginald.

  Andreas appeared angry with her. That made her own ire spike. He had probably agreed to such things often before and with people he knew less well. And if not for him, she would not be in this situation.

  “Since you are convinced that my word will not do and that my brother will not honor my pledge of the property, let us make this an outright sale. I see that your love of tapestries has not abated.” She gestured to the rich hangings adorning the hall’s walls. “I still have mine. You often admired it and told me yourself that it was worth at least a hundred pounds. I will sell it to you now.”

  It sickened her to say it. That tapestry, woven of silk and brought back from a crusade by an ancestor, was the only thing of value that she owned.

  It would break her heart to give it up. Losing it would finally obliterate her small hold on a life she had once led. She would never let go of it to save herself, but now, faced with the need to save her brother, she had no choice.

  She thought that she saw Andreas’s expression soften. She was sure that he would agree. Instead, he turned his attention once more to the garden.

  “I cannot buy it, Giselle.”

  “My attachment to it is long over, if that is your concern.”

  “A man does not buy what he already owns. Reginald pledged that tapestry as surety against a loan years ago. The loan was not repaid.”

  Shock numbed her for a ten count. Then fury crashed into her stunned mind—fury at Reginald and fury at this man sitting here in his damnable self-possession.

  How dare her brother pledge her property. Bad enough that Reginald had depleted their meager wealth with ven
tures always ruined by unforseen misfortune. Bad enough that he had left tallies all over London to pay for garments he could not afford and wine long ago drunk. To have procured coin by using the tapestry was an inexcusable betrayal of their heritage.

  Andreas knew what that weaving meant. He should have never agreed to such a thing. He only had because he coveted the tapestry.

  She rose, barely controlling the anger trembling through her. “I can see that I have wasted my time and yours. I have nothing else to sell except my virtue, and I am sure that a great man like you will not consider that worth one hundred pounds.” She almost spit the words and did not care that her tone sounded bitter and sarcastic and imperious.

  His gaze, full of sharp alertness, swung to her. The old warmth and connection entered it, along with that other, frightening intensity that had so unsettled her today.

  She had intended to make a grand retreat, but suddenly she could not move.

  “Actually, Giselle, the pledge of your virtue is the only one that I might consider.”

  “You insult me, Andreas.”

  “You raised the possibility, my lady. Not I.”

  She dragged the remnants of her dignity around her like a shredded cloak. “I apologize for intruding on your household. It was a mistake. I knew that my brother and I were no longer of use to you, but I had not realized just how proud and arrogant you had become. I see now that you despise us. Good day to you.”

  Somehow she tore herself away from his blue eyes and his irritating, compelling presence and retreated with all of the nobility that she could muster.

  Andreas threw open the window shutters beside his bed. His chamber was at the top of the tall house, under the steep pitch of the roof. It was neither the largest nor the most comfortable chamber, but it was the one he had chosen for himself. From this window he could look down on the rooftops of London and peer into gardens and streets.