Figures in Silk (14 page)

“Ha ha ha!”

Isabel was smiling in her corner, almost with them, in the quiet way of someone not sure whether they’re invited to join in.

This display of back-slapping camaraderie that clearly stretched back half a lifetime—she was almost sure now that the man called Will must be Will Caxton, who she knew was now a merchant venturer based in the Low Countries or maybe Cologne, and who’d once been a mercer’s apprentice with Alice in this house—was making her feel left out of life, in just the same way that her creeping feeling that Jane must only be telling her half of what had been going on with her husband had. She despised herself for the prickle of self- pity she suddenly felt—the sense that her own life had become small, dull, lonely and closed. But she couldn’t help herself. She found herself longing for eyes to light up with glee when they saw her face, for girls to twitch maypole ribbons round her while she kicked up her heels, for men to pull her excitedly into groups of laughing friends and buy her lengths of green velvet.

“Ahhh . . . ,” Alice Claver sighed, putting her head in her hands. The laughter was fading.

Isabel shifted a foot. She shrank shyly back as the Venetian turned a surprised head toward her, clearly only just becoming aware of her. He must be forty, like his friends, but he was so tall and muscled that he seemed in the prime of life. Under his black, rumpled hair she could see a powerful face, with laugh lines running from hooked nose to strong mouth. And there were more laugh lines at the edges of the dark, thickly fringed, dramatic eyes that were now fastening on her. But perhaps that was just because he was crinkling his eyes again in the beginning of a delighted smile. At her.

“So,” he said, holding her eyes for so long she could see the tiger flecks in his, so long that she felt warmth wash right through her at the slow, glowing happiness the sight of her seemed to be giving him, not looking away even though his question, in rolling, flirtatious, lustrously foreign English, was for Alice, “
who
have we here?”

And before she knew where she was, he’d paced over to her, taken her hand, bowed over it so close she could feel his breath on her fingers, and, straightening up, put his other hand round her waist and propelled her forward to join Alice and Will. Isabel looked up at him; he was close enough to kiss her as he looked merrily back down. She’d never been looked at like this before. “Please, join us,” she heard him saying, and he gave a playful half- bow. “I can guess who you are. Alice’s new apprentice; we’re waiting for you. She’s told us all about you.” He stopped and corrected himself. “Not quite all.” He grinned; she liked the impudence of it. “She never once mentioned your eyes.”

“ Well, why not spend time with a beautiful woman?”

Dickon was saying. He swung himself into his saddle. “Nothing wrong with that, if it makes you happy.”

Still on foot, with his hands grasping his own saddle, ready to mount, William Hastings looked searchingly up. But Dickon was a black silhouette against the sharp morning sun. He couldn’t make out the expression in the younger man’s eyes. He shrugged.

It didn’t really matter what Dickon thought, anyway.

It was only once the horses were walking at a slow clop out of the Westminster gate, with the knights and squires all clattering along behind, that Dickon spoke again.

“Though of course it would make more sense if the beautiful woman you loved so much could actually be your mistress,” he added prosaically. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Hastings sighed. He’d known, right through the previous day’s feasting, that Dickon wasn’t warming to Jane. He’d danced with her, once; he’d listened to her play the viol and sing, and had smiled, coolly; he’d admired the green velvet gown; and he’d laughed in approximately the right places when she made her heart-stoppingly innocent little comments, so full of wit for those who knew how to appreciate them. Yet Hastings had been aware that Dickon’s eyes hadn’t ever filled with the soft fire he felt in himself when he looked at Jane, and saw in the face of the king or Thomas Dorset. Dickon had no finer feelings, Hastings thought regretfully. He was a fighter without equal; a resourceful planner; a tireless campaigner; an entertaining, cheerful, unpretentious companion; and faultlessly loyal. But all his virtues were warrior virtues. He was made for war. He just didn’t understand the softer joys of peace and music and love.

As if confirming Hastings’s unspoken judgment, Dickon’s deep voice broke into his reverie. “Knights pining for the unattainable lady in the ivory tower—crossing forests and slaying giants to give her a token of their devotion, and all the rest of it—it’s just stories; romances,” the voice said, with ruthless cheerfulness.

“You know that. Let’s face it, Will. She’s spoken for. You’ll never have her.”

Suddenly relieved, Hastings laughed and raised his hands in mock surrender. Dickon’s certainty was catching, and he was right, after all. Hastings knew himself to be trapped in moonbeams. He wasn’t the kind of man who couldn’t laugh at the foolishness he’d got himself into; he’d always been a clearheaded man of war too, until now.

“Seriously,” he said, for it was hard to stop talking about her.

“What did you think of her?”

Dickon paused to marshall his thoughts. Hastings’s mind flashed back to the one snippet of conversation he’d heard between Jane Shore and the duke. Dickon had asked after the sister who’d got married at the same time, and Jane had dimpled exquisitely and replied, with a hint of mischief: “Ah, my serious sister! She’s widowed now.” He remembered Dickon’s head leaning toward hers, his faultlessly courteous condolences. And he remembered Jane going on, with mockery beginning to twist her face; it must have embarrassed her to have to explain what had become of her sister. “Well, it was only an arranged marriage . . . though she’s gone a bit odd since he died.

Apprenticed herself to her mother- in- law—terrible woman—fire- breathing dragon. Insisted on it. My father was furious. So now she’s spending her life winding threads in markets . . . poor thing.” Perhaps she’d realized she sounded spiteful. She’d dimpled again, but not sweetly enough to take away the sting. Hastings had felt sorry for her, but he’d been aware of Dickon drawing quietly back, with a look of distaste.

Dickon had the same look on his face now, remembering her.

“Pretty,” he said briefly. It wasn’t altogether a compliment. He added: “But not as soft as she likes to seem.” After a silence, broken only by the creak of leather in sunlight and the jingle of metal and the breath of horses, he spoke again. He said, “My honest opinion?” and Hastings nodded. Dickon said: “Well, then. Too fond of being the center of men’s attention. And too many men.”

“Immoral, you mean?” Hastings queried; but Dickon was too good a companion to be drawn too far into insulting a friend’s love. He only laughed, and spurred his horse on.

“ You know there's no harm in Goffredo,” Anne Pratte said, following Alice’s baleful stare. “Let him be.”

Goffredo D’Amico had been coming to the house for a week, sweeping his cloak, flashing his eyes, and clasping Isabel too close as he guided her from room to room, house to garden, and back again, along paths that, in Alice Claver’s view, Isabel knew quite well enough for Goffredo to be able to refrain from putting one hand on hers and the other round her waist and practically dancing her along the corridors. Especially when there was no need anyway for all those tête-à-têtes that were now so closely spaced they were in danger of becoming one long murmuring tiger- smile conversation. Now, the house had sprouted all kinds of unlikely dainties. There were so many baskets of figs, raisins, prunes, capers, pomegranates, oranges, spices, and lampreys in the kitchen that someone was almost bound to end up with a foot in one of them. There were bunches of flowers on every table. Isabel had a new lawn coif and Holland cloth for kerchiefs. Goffredo, twinkling cheerfully as he paid his lavish but not quite improper compliments in the full gaze of all his friends, had taken to mixing up hippocras and coming to the house with a boy trotting along behind, trying not to spill from the jug. “Sweets to the sweet,” he’d say, flamboyantly offering round the next bowl of almonds or dates, or “homage to beauty,” or “eyes like dewdrops.”

“It’s all very well,” Alice Claver said grumpily. “And the turtle doves do sound lovely in the orchard. But what in the name of God are we going to do with this popinjay he’s bought?”

Anne Pratte ignored the rhetorical question. “He’s enjoying himself,” she answered unflappably. “It’s a game, Alice. And it’s about time that girl had a bit of fun. It’s not stopping her doing well at her work with me. And you can’t deny you wanted her to start making a relationship of her own with him—”

Alice Claver harrumphed. “A
trade
relationship! Not a great overblown rrroses- and- a-moonlight- and- a-can- a-you- hear- a-da-nightingales flirtation!” she said indignantly.

But when she saw Anne Pratte put her hands on her hips, she stopped. It was true, she thought, deflating suddenly. Venetians might be sly; but handsome Goffredo’s charm was so practiced and inoffensive that she really didn’t think he would risk damning his immortal soul, and damaging his best partnership in London into the bargain, by trying to seduce her apprentice. Not really. Not that that would stop her keeping a careful eye on his carryings- on, of course. You couldn’t ever really be sure with an Italian.

Dusk. Roses swooning on the windowsill. Gnats dancing near the flame. The two Williams on their bench, going through Goffredo’s hippocras and oranges while William Pratte brought Will Caxton up to date on London gossip. The story he was telling was the one in which King Edward’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester, had—perhaps—secretly killed old King Henry in the Tower last year. “We’ll never know, of course. All we can say for sure is that the official explanation wasn’t half good enough. Who would be naive enough to believe Henry died of ‘pure melancholy and dis plea sure’?” William Pratte was saying. “Do they take us for fools?”

There was an answering gleam of mischief from Will Caxton.

Alice was out of the room, closing up the workshop. Anne Pratte, reluctant substitute chaperone, was keeping her eyes studiously on her work and shutting her ears to every subversive bit of gossip and flirting Alice Claver might have been listening out for.

Goffredo was setting out the chessboard with long, brown fingers and a lazy smile. “Chess: a game for lovers, they say,” he murmured, looking at Isabel through hooded eyes.

She half closed her eyes in return, feeling quietly irritated, as she did more and more often with Goffredo, but trying not to let it show. His attention was welcome in one way—it had gained her admittance to the charmed circle of evening visits by Alice’s mercer friends. No one was surprised to see her at this table anymore.

For the first time, she belonged with the powerful, and she was grateful. But did he have to be quite so intrusive—constantly touching her as he drew her from one sight to the next; laying his hand on hers, for too long, at every opportunity; whispering at her, too close, and laughing if she drew her face back? It wasn’t just that she could see it irritated Alice Claver almost to snapping point whenever he sidled up. The sight of him, the knowledge that he’d be whispering and winking and stroking her before she knew where she was, made her uncomfortable on her own account. She didn’t know how to respond.

Here he went again: turning Will Caxton’s neglected chessboard into an instrument of flirtation. As he passed her the ivory pieces—as if he thought she knew how to play or could set up the board—his fingers were brushing against hers. She blushed and moved her hand back a fraction, then felt foolish when she saw Will Caxton glance up from his conversation and notice her flustered look. Goffredo was unabashed by her small rejection; he just murmured, “If the Lady plays her Beauty, the Lover counters with his Regard.” Will Caxton was looking at them properly now.

Ignoring him, Goffredo murmured persuasively: “Or his Desire.”

“Venus and Mars,” Will Caxton chimed in, apparently following their conversation. “Venus plays with honor, beauty, modesty, 1 disdain; Mars with . . .” Isabel was impressed by the way he was outdoing Goffredo at thinking of fanciful bookish allusions. But Goffredo began shuffling sheepishly. Will Caxton gave him an accusing look across the table and said: “Goffredo, you’re shameless.

You’ve been reading my
Scachs d’Amor
. You’re quoting.”

Could a man as swarthy as Goffredo blush? Isabel wondered, laughing at the deft way Will Caxton had discountenanced the Venetian without giving offence, smiling at the usually smooth Goffredo’s embarrassment. His hands went up in defeat. “I admit it,” he said. “It caught my eye. It sounded impressive, though, didn’t it,
cara
?” and his fingers brushed hers again, and his eyebrows danced. She didn’t mind anymore, now Will Caxton had his eye on him. She grinned back. There was nothing to be frightened of, she thought. It was just Goffredo’s game.

She hadn’t paid much attention to Will Caxton, mercer turned import- export venturer. She hadn’t had a chance to, with the handsome Venetian laying such energetic siege to her. Will Caxton was the kind of man who faded into the background. She’d just been aware of him as a friendly, sandy presence; someone with clever eyes; a man soaking up the endless talk of London town as though he felt homesick.

But she warmed to him now as he came up to their end of the table, sat down next to Goffredo, clapped the other man warmly on the back, and, turning to her, said: “You must think Goffredo a clown,” then, turning to his old friend, adding, though so affectionately that there was no sting in the words, “because you’ve been acting the clown, D’Amico, admit it.” Caxton kept his arm on Goffredo’s shoulder, but turned back to Isabel and looked more seriously at her. “But I hope you’ll forgive him his Italian ways when you see more of him,” he added.

She liked the simplicity of that appeal, just as she liked Goffredo more now he was looking mildly ashamed of himself, not making the advances she’d found just a little threatening. She nodded and smiled, rather uncertainly. “He’s a better man than you’ll have had a chance to see, so far,” Caxton said, and grinned at the Italian. “The only reliable Italian in London, for one thing.