Silken Threads (7 page)

“You’re the daughter of one of the most
powerful knights in England, Joanna. You should be doing needlework
for pleasure, not to put food in your belly. God’s bones, you
should be wed to a nobleman, living a life of leisure.”

“I made my choice six years ago,” Joanna
said grimly. “I didn’t choose a nobleman. I chose a mercer. Now I
must pay for that choice.”

“You’re how old now
—
twenty?”

“One-and-twenty.”

“That’s too young to resign yourself to
perpetual widowhood, sister. You’re a beautiful woman, and
accomplished. You can marry again
—
a man of your own
station this time, a knight or the son of a knight. Someone with a
good heart, who’ll love you
—
not some handsome devil with
too much charm and too little honor, who’s just out to use
you.”

The words “handsome devil” conjured up for
Joanna the image of Graeham Fox, half-naked on Prewitt’s cot,
watching her with a drowsy intensity that made her shiver. Prewitt
had been handsome, too, deadly handsome with his coal-black hair
and deceptively soulful eyes. She’d been powerless to resist him;
so, it seemed, had a good many other women.

“It’s late,” Hugh said, rising from the
table. “I must go.” He stole back into the storeroom to fetch his
satchel, then Joanna walked him to the front door.

“You lock yourself in at night, don’t you?”
he asked, standing in the open doorway. Wood Street was dark and
quiet, most folks having retired for the evening.

“Of course. Do you take me for a fool?”

His expression baleful, he said, “I take you
for the kind of careless wench who leaves the latch string hanging
out the back door when she steps out to the cookhouse.”

“Ah,” she said sheepishly. “I learned that
lesson well tonight. I won’t do that again.”

“I fret about you, Joanna.”

“I know, but you mustn’t. I’ll be fine.”

He paused, as if weighing his words. “You
haven’t ruled out remarriage, I hope. I mean, if the right fellow
happened along, a man of rank who could offer you the kind of life
you deserve
—
”

“I take it you have someone in mind.”

He scratched his stubbly chin, that lopsided
smile tugging at his mouth. “Perhaps. Do you remember Lord Suger’s
second son, Robert? We were boyhood friends. His father settled a
grand manor on him
—
Ramswick, just south of London.”

“Of course.” She’d always liked Robert, even
entertained a childish infatuation with him for about a fortnight
one summer.

“A splendid fellow,” Hugh said.

“A splendid
married
fellow.”

Hugh shook his head. “Joan drowned in a
boating accident last summer, along with their eldest daughter,
Gillian.”

“Oh, no.”

“He told me yesterday
—
I stopped to
visit him on my way here. Gillian had been only ten, and he’d
adored her. He pulled her body from the river himself. He wept,
telling me about it.”

“Oh, how awful. Poor Robert.”

“On the whole, he seems to be holding up
fairly well. He said he can’t afford to dwell on what happened, or
he won’t be a proper father to his other children. There are two of
them, younger than Gillian, both girls. He was telling me how they
needed a mother, but the right sort.”

“Then he’d hardly be interested in me.”

“By ‘right sort,’ he doesn’t mean a pampered
heiress. He told me he wants a kind, compassionate woman who will
be good to his daughters. He’s a fine man, Joanna, a devoted
father. And I know he was a faithful husband to Joan. Perhaps I
should...bring him round...” He shrugged.

Joanna sighed. “You’d have to supply your
own wine.”

“But of course.”

“And you’d have to give me advance notice so
I can bathe and...” She looked down at her shabby kirtle with
distaste.

“A bit of brotherly counsel?”

“Aye?”

He tugged on the scarf wrapped around her
head. “Leave this off when I bring him by. Your hair’s your best
feature.”

“What kind of widow leaves her hair
uncovered? I’ll look like a harlot.”

“You’ll look like an angel.” Hugh grinned
and kissed her on the cheek. “Good night, sister. I’ll see you in
the morning.”

As he was walking away, she said, “You won’t
forget the cart, will you?”

He turned and cupped a hand to his ear.

“The cart,” she called out. “To take the
serjant back to St. Bartholemew’s. You won’t forget, will you?”

“I won’t forget. After tomorrow morning,
Graeham Fox will be completely out of your hair.” Hugh waved
cheerily and continued on his way.

“Good,” she whispered, shivering.

* * *

Where the devil am I?
Graeham
wondered as he opened his eyes. He lay beneath a blanket on a
narrow bed in a room awash with moonlight from two small corner
windows, one on the wall to his right and one behind him.

His head pulsed when he turned to look
around him; his mouth tasted sour. He’d been drinking; that’s why
he didn’t know where he was.

He saw bolts of silk stacked on a shelf,
shimmering in the half-light, and it began coming back to him...the
silk merchant’s wife, her brother, the surgeon, his leg...

His leg. Oddly, it wasn’t until he
remembered having broken it that it started hurting again. The pain
was intense, but not so overwhelming as to mask the reason he’d
awakened in the middle of the night this way. He needed to relieve
himself.

He sat up too quickly, forgetting about his
cracked ribs and swallowing down the groan that rose in his chest.
On the floor next to the bed he saw a clay jake with a lid. She
must have placed it there for him before retiring for the night.
Thoughtful of her, but there was something about the lovely
Mistress Joanna having to empty and clean his chamber pot that
didn’t sit well with him. She wasn’t some maidservant, and he
wasn’t her guest. He was a stranger who’d imposed himself on her.
She owed him nothing, yet she’d not only tolerated his uninvited
presence in her home, she’d done so with considerable grace.

She’d held his hands while they set his leg,
and whispered reassurances to him in that soft, throaty voice of
hers. She hadn’t had to do that.

He’d get up and use the privy. It shouldn’t
be too much of a challenge making it there; he remembered having
seen the little shed right outside the back door.

The sledge-hammer that had both crippled him
and served as his cane leaned against the wall next to him. Graeham
reached for it and propped it on the floor. Clenching his teeth, he
hauled himself by excruciating degrees to his feet
—
no easy
task, with his left leg splinted from hip to ankle.

His leg was on fire now. The pain pounded
through his entire body; it was all he could do to stay on his
feet. With one hand gripping the handle of the sledge and the other
buttressed on the wall, he gradually limped around the perimeter of
the tiny chamber, through the leather curtain, and down the utterly
dark hallway. He was still woozy from the wine, making the trek all
the more arduous.

Graeham leaned against the back door for a
moment to catch his breath and get his bearings, then fumbled in
the dark for the bolt, lifted it out of its slot and pushed the
door open. By the light of the almost full moon, he saw the white
cat, Petronilla, watching him impassively from the thatched roof of
the kitchen hut. Shaking now from his exertions, he staggered into
the little privy shed and somehow managed to empty his bladder
without tumbling into the pit.

He had to rest his weight against a wall of
the shed to get his drawers retied, and then he lurched back
through the door, managing not to stumble at the drop-off to the
sunken floor. But as he was pulling the door closed behind him, the
cat darted inside, a blur of white fur that collided with his legs.
He pitched forward, splints and sledge-hammer clattering as he
fell. There were no rushes back here to cushion his fall. Pain
exploded in his leg; he cried out once, then hissed a stream of
invective at the cat as she bolted away.

He lay panting on the hallway floor, waiting
for the pain to subside enough for him to move, when he heard a
squeak of wood. There came another squeak, and another; feet
descending a ladder.

“Serjant? Are you all right?”

Still facedown, he pushed himself up on his
elbows, groaning as pain shuddered through him.
God, please
don’t let me have ruined my leg. I don’t want to lose it.

“Serjant?” He heard her footsteps in the
rushes, and the leather curtain to the storeroom being drawn back.
“Serjant?”

“I’m here,” he said unsteadily, and
collapsed onto the floor again, wishing she didn’t have to find him
like this. “In the hall.”

The footsteps neared, and then he heard her
sandy, just-awakened voice, much closer. “What are you doing back
here?” There was no light in the hallway to see her by; she was but
a nebulous shape in the enveloping darkness.

“I fell,” he ground out, “coming back from
the privy.”

“The privy! You got up and
walked
?
Are you mad?”

He felt her hands in the dark, reaching out
tentatively to gauge his position. Her fingertips, warm and
pleasantly work-roughened, skimmed his face, a shoulder, an
arm
—
her touch so featherlight that he might almost have
imagined it.

Something brushed cool and sleek against
Graeham’s side as she crawled between him and the wall to his left.
Silk. She was wearing something made of silk
—
a night shift
or wrapper, he supposed. It surprised him for a moment that a woman
in such modest circumstances would own silken night clothes, but
then he remembered that she was, after all, the wife of a silk
merchant.

Graeham felt her airy touch on his back and
his good leg, gentle and inquisitive as she took stock of his
position. Trails of warmth lingered wherever her fingers brushed.
He closed his eyes to savor the sensation, thinking ruefully that
perhaps it had been too long since he’d lain with a woman.

“We must get you into the storeroom,” she
said. “Can you roll onto your back, do you think? Away from me,
taking your weight on your uninjured leg.”

“Aye.” Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself
onto his back while she carefully shifted his splinted leg.

He felt the liquid whisper of silk as she
hovered over him, and a ticklish softness against his chest that
could only be her hair. She must sleep with it loose.

“Can you sit up?” she asked.

He tried to, but grunted and fell back. “My
ribs...I don’t think that fall did them any good.”

“I’ll help you.” She moved closer, gliding
an arm around his neck. Her hair tumbled around him, slick and
heavy where it fell onto his shoulders and chest, and infused with
a sweet green scent that made him think of a meadow gone to
seed.

Bracing one hand on the floor, Graeham went
to curl an arm around her. He misjudged her position, and his hand
brushed a weighty softness beneath the silk that could only be a
breast. Her indrawn breath was barely audible; she stilled. He
retracted his hand, but slowly, slowly, his fingertips lingering
over the supple curve of flesh as they withdrew. His heart thudded
hard against the bandage wrapped around his chest.

Would she get up and leave? She didn’t.

Should he send her away? He didn’t want
to.

Presently she took his hand and guided it
over her shoulder, draped in the satin ripples of her hair. “Hold
on to me.” He held his breath while she pulled him slowly into a
sitting position. “Did that hurt?”

Everything hurt. There was nothing but hurt.
He slumped forward as the breath left him in a harsh gust, his
forehead touching hers. “I’m all right. Just give me a moment.”

He felt the heat of her body through the
smooth, thin silk and it struck him that it was the middle of the
night and they were virtual strangers, embracing each other here in
this dark, confined place like lovers.

Perhaps it struck her, too, for she drew
away from him and rose. “I’m going to help you to stand.”

“I’ve got a sledge somewhere that I’ve been
using as a cane.”

“You’re better off holding on to me.”
Hooking her hands beneath his arms, she urged him slowly to his
feet. “Are you all right?”

“Aye.”

“Put your arm around me, and hold on to the
wall with your other hand.”

They made their way slowly and haltingly
into the storeroom, clutching each other, as she murmured
encouragement. When they got to the cot, she lowered him gradually,
trembling with the effort of supporting his weight.

He positioned his splinted leg with both
hands and fell back onto the pillow, chest heaving.

“Do you think you did any more damage to
yourself with that fall?” she asked.

“By God, I hope not.”

“Let me get the lamp. I’ll be right
back.”

She retreated to the salle, leaving the
leather curtain open. He watched her, a spectral figure in the
moonlight, as she struck a little fire iron repeatedly against a
piece of flint, trying to light the charred rush sticking out of
the lump of fat in the dish.

A servant should be doing that for
her.
The thought coalesced spontaneously out of Graeham’s
wine-soaked, pain-addled musings, but he knew why it had come to
him. The bits and pieces of Joanna Chapman simply did not add up.
There was a refined quality to her speech, for one thing, that was
more typical of a noblewoman than a merchant’s wife. And despite
her air of practicality and competence
—
not traits that
Graeham normally associated with wellborn ladies
—
she
comported herself with a gentility that spoke of breeding. And then
there was her brother, Hugh of Wexford, with his aristocratic
bearing and fine sword.