Silken Threads (25 page)

Or there would be, if it weren’t for the
lady Margaret.

Thinking to return the mantle and glass
phial to Olive, Joanna didn’t head directly home, but went instead
to the apothecary shop. The shop window was open, but there was no
sign of Olive. Joanna entered the stall and looked around; it
wasn’t like Olive to leave things unattended. Setting the phial and
her bag on the work table, she unpinned Olive’s mantle and hung it
on its peg by the doorway that led to the back of the house.

The deerskin over the door was open just an
inch or two; through this gap, Joanna could view the length of the
house to the rear window that looked out onto the walled medicinal
garden in back. Elswyth, in her grimy night shift, was kneeling in
the garden, clawing away at the dirt.

Joanna turned to leave, stilling when she
heard whispers from beyond the curtained doorway, a feminine
voice
—
Olive’s voice
—
saying,
“No...please...no.”

Joanna unsheathed her dagger, drew a
fortifying breath, and whipped the deerskin open. Olive gasped. She
was standing against the wall, pinned between the arms of a
dark-haired young man in black
—
Damian.

“Mistress Joanna!” Olive gaped at the
dagger.

“What’s going on here?” Joanna asked.

“Nothing. Please...put that away. He’s not
hurting me.”

“
Hurting
you! Oh, Christ.” Damian
turned and paced away from her. “I can’t bear this any longer,
Olive. Sneaking about this way
—
”

“Then stop coming here, Damian,” the girl
pleaded.

“I can’t. I love you.”

“Damian, please...”

“Come away with me.”

“No, Damian, please.”

“Olive
—
”

“It’s impossible. You know that.”

“Because of Father? My betrothal to
that...that child?”

Olive glanced uneasily toward Joanna. “Not
just that.”

He closed the space between them swiftly,
taking Olive’s face between his hands and saying softly, “I’ve told
you before
—
I don’t care about that. You weren’t to blame.
You were coerced. ‘Twas
—
”

“Please, Damian.” Olive closed her eyes, her
hands fisted in her kirtle. “Please go.”

“Olive
—
”

“Please.” Opening her eyes, she laid a hand
gently on his cheek. “Please. Please.”

A tear slid from her eye. He brushed it with
his thumb, lightly kissed her damp cheek, her forehead. “I won’t
give up, Olive,” he said, and left.

Olive slumped back against the wall, her
eyes closed, tears trailing down her face. Sheathing her dagger,
Joanna plucked her handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to
Olive. “Are you all right?”

Olive nodded as she dried her face. “It’s
impossible. He’s just having trouble accepting it.”

“Judging from those tears, so are you.”

“It can’t be that way between us.”

“Has he tried to...take advantage of you?”
Joanna asked. “Does he want you to be his mistress?”

“Nay. He’s never touched me. He wants me for
his wife.”

“Verily?”

“I can’t marry him. It’s impossible.
Impossible.”

“What was it he said you weren’t to blame
for?”

In a teary whisper, Olive said, “Something
that can never be undone, much as he would like to think it can.”
Sighing, she folded the damp handkerchief in a neat square and
handed it back to Joanna. “How did you find Mistress Ada?”

Joanna let Olive change the subject, knowing
she would just withdraw further if she pressed her. “Very ill.”

“That’s a bad head cold she’s got.”
Smoothing her hair, Olive returned to the storefront.

Joanna followed her. “That’s no head
cold.”

“Well, Master Aldfrith says she’s
melancholic, too, like Mum.”

“Perhaps.” Joanna lifted the empty phial
that had contained the tonic and inspected the few drops remaining
in the bottom. “Master Aldfrith prescribed this medicine, did he
not?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you mind telling me what’s in it?”

“‘Tis an ordinary cold remedy
—
an
infusion of yarrow with a bit of mint and honey to soothe the
throat. We sold a great deal of it over the winter
—
I
brewed up four pintes at a time.”

“Yarrow? That’s all?” There were few more
benign or commonly prescribed herbs than yarrow.

“That’s all.”

“Is it possible to consume so much yarrow
that it would...make someone even sicker?”

Olive shook her head. “Yarrow’s not like
that. Wormwood is, and valerian and...well, many herbs will sicken
you if you get too much
—
kill you, even. But not yarrow.
Why?”

Joanna shook her head. “No reason. I just
thought perhaps...but obviously I was wrong.”

“‘Tisn’t my tonic making Ada le Fever sick,
mistress. ‘Tis an overabundance of black bile doing that.”

“Perhaps,” Joanna said. But if Master
Aldfrith was so sure of what was ailing Ada le Fever, why couldn’t
he manage to cure her?

* * *

Not wanting to appear too interested,
Graeham waited until after supper, when Joanna sat down at her
embroi¬dery frame, to question her about her visit to Ada le
Fever.

“How did it go today?” he asked as he
lowered himself onto the chest against the front wall, a cup of
wine in his hand.

She sighed as she took her seat, inspecting
the orange tree painted on the silk, and the knotwork border with
which it was embellished, with a critical eye. “Not well.” Plucking
a needle off its parchment card, she threaded it with brown
silk.

She’d kept her veil on tonight, for he’d
made the mistake of telling her at supper that he’d be joining her
again. He missed seeing that extraordinary hair glimmer in the
lamplight, like rippling waves reflecting a fiery sunset. But even
with the veil, it was, as always, a struggle to keep from staring
at her like a besotted youth.

“No one commissioned anything from you?” he
asked, although he’d surmised as much from her solemn demeanor when
she came home this afternoon. She hadn’t even smiled when he’d
suggested she take up burglary, so ingeniously had she gained
access to le Fever’s house.

“Nay, no commissions.” She retrieved a
leather thimble from the basket and fitted it over her finger. “I
never even got to show my samples.”

“What happened?”

She pierced the silk from underneath, on the
edge of the orange tree’s trunk. “Mistress Ada is too ill to have
any interest in such things, and Mistress Rose was preoccupied with
trying to soothe her husband’s temper.”

“Ada le Fever is ill?” He raised the cup to
his lips, watching her over the rim.

“Aye, very ill
—
thin, wasted,” she
said, swiftly tracing the outline of the tree with a line of neat
stitching. “She’s confined to a bed in her solar. A rheum of the
head, supposedly, plus an excess of black bile, according to
Aldfrith.”

“Aldfrith
—
the fellow who set my
leg?”

“The same. Her husband thinks she’s just
looking for attention and pity.”

Graeham took another slow sip of wine. “What
do you think is wrong with her?”

“I think if she has an excess of anything,
it’s exposure to Rolf le Fever.”

“You don’t think he’s...doing anything to
harm her, do you?”

“Not unless...” She frowned; the needle
flashed. “Nay, I have no business speculating on
—
”

“You can speculate. Is he doing her
harm?”

She looked at him curiously before returning
her attention to her orange tree. “His mere presence in that house
must worsen her melancholia
—
perhaps even cause it. But
there’s no reason to think he’s actually hurting her. She showed no
sign of bruising. And she said he hadn’t even been up to the solar
since before Lent
—
that would be over three months
ago.”

“How did she appear to you?” he asked.

Joanna shrugged without looking up. “As I
said, very thin
—
although I know she’s getting nourishment.
There was a bowl of broth on the table, and she’d eaten it. She was
deathly pale, with dark circles beneath her eyes. Despite that,
she’s a pretty little thing. Enormous brown eyes, raven hair.”

Graeham’s gaze lit on the gleaming raven’s
quill in Joanna’s basket. It hadn’t occurred to him that Lord Gui’s
twin daughters might be black-haired. Lord Gui had only described
Phillipa as comely. The baron’s legitimate issue
—
like he
and his wife
—
were quite fair, so Graeham had always
pictured his future bride with golden hair and sky-blue eyes.

“She’s very petite, very delicate,” Joanna
continued, well into the painstaking process of outlining the
orange tree’s drooping branches. “I felt like an ox next to
her.”

Laughter burst from Graeham at the notion of
Joanna Chapman comparing herself to a draft animal. Never in his
life had he known a woman more exquisitely graceful, more innately
feminine.

More desirable.

More unattainable.

Don’t think about her,
Graeham
scolded himself.
Think about Phillipa
. He could summon a
mental image of his betrothed now, thanks to Joanna. It was an
appealing image. She was petite; small women could be quite
attractive. And although many men seemed to prefer blond women,
some of the prettiest women Graeham had ever known were
black-haired. Her eyes were brown...

Like Joanna’s.

No. No woman had eyes like Joanna’s. When
Graeham married Phillipa, he would have to forget Joanna’s eyes. Or
try to.

Refocusing on his inquiries, he asked, “Is
she in any...real danger from this illness, do you think?”

“You mean, do I think she’s going to
die?”

Graeham took a deep breath and tossed down
the rest of his wine. “Aye. She’s not...I mean, she didn’t
seem...”

“As if she were on her deathbed?
Nay
—
not as yet, anyway.”

Graeham sighed with relief.

“She was conversing with me fairly
comfortably,” Joanna said as she methodically stitched the
branches. “And she’s still eating. And she takes her medicine
without complaint, even though she doesn’t like how it makes her
feel afterward.”

“She doesn’t? Do you...happen to know what’s
in it?”

Joanna glanced briefly in his direction.
“According to Olive, ‘tis but an infusion of yarrow.”

“Yarrow,” he mused. “That should do her no
harm.”

“No real good, either, if she’s as ill as I
think she is.”

The severity of Ada’s illness could be a
problem. “Does she ever get out of bed?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I doubt it.”

“But if she had to...” he began. “If she had
to, say, travel...”

“Travel? Where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. Say she had to take
some sort of journey. Do you think she’d be up to it?”

“On that palfrey you brought for her?”

“Hugh sold the palfrey. I’ll have
to
—
”
Shit.

Joanna stuck her needle in the silk and
turned on her stool to face him. She was not smiling.

Graeham closed his eyes and sank back
against the wall. “I suppose I was a bit too obvious.”

“More than a bit.”

He opened his eyes. She still wasn’t
smiling.

“Did you suspect,” he began, “before
tonight...?”

She pulled the thimble off and absently
fiddled with it. “Nay, you were very smooth. Some men are skilled
at deception, serjant. You’re one of them.”

“Mistress...”

“Granted, there were hints that things
weren’t as they seemed. There was that palfrey. No soldier rides a
palfrey. It’s a lady’s horse. And before that, I remember thinking
it was awfully strange for you to be searching for an inn in West
Cheap when you already had accommodations, seeing as you were just
passing through London on your way to Oxfordshire. But you don’t
even have any relatives in Oxfordshire, do you?”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Nay.”

“You were in West Cheap because of Ada le
Fever. You came to London because of her.”

“Aye,” he said hesitantly, loath to reveal
more than he absolutely had to.

“You came to take her away. Back to
Beauvais?”

“To Paris.”

“Are you in love with her?”

He sat forward. “Nay!”

“You crossed the Channel to steal her away
from her husband,” she said impassively. “You’re still trying to
find a way to do it, despite...” Her eyes narrowed on him. “That’s
why you wanted to live in my house. That’s why it was worth four
shillings to you. You needed a convenient lair
—
a place to
hide out while you planned a way to abduct Ada le Fever from her
home. You’ve been using my storeroom as a hunting blind!”

“Mistress...”

“You have, haven’t you?” she demanded
furiously. “Tell me the truth for once, damn you.”

He sighed heavily. “Save for your somewhat
sinister insinuations, yes. You’re right. I’ve been keeping watch
on that house for the reasons you’ve surmised
—
I need to
get Ada le Fever away from there. But not because I’m in love with
her.”

She regarded him skeptically.

“I’ve never even met the woman.” He rubbed
the back of his neck as he pondered how much to tell her. “I was
sent here,” he said carefully, “by a kinsman of hers, someone who’s
troubled about her welfare. He has reason to believe that her
husband may be mistreating her.”

“Why?”

“She stopped writing letters about six
months ago.”

“That’s when she took ill,” Joanna said.
“I’m sure she simply hasn’t felt up to it.”

“There wouldn’t be such concern if it
weren’t for le Fever himself. He regrets the marriage, and has done
naught but heap abuse on his wife since bringing her back to
London.”