Silken Threads (35 page)

He hobbled after her on his crutch and
closed a hand around her waist as she stepped on the first rung. “I
know you care what becomes of Ada le Fever
—
otherwise you
wouldn’t visit her every morning as you do.”

“What of it?” She lowered her foot, her back
to him, her hands still gripping the ladder. He felt the tension in
her, and curled his arm around her waist, telling himself it was
because he didn’t want her dashing upstairs, where he couldn’t
follow her. Her belly was warm and flat through the slippery silk;
her scent made him light-headed. He wanted to pull her warmth
against him, bury his face in her hair, press against her, into
her.

Graeham swallowed hard, striving for some
command over himself. “You bring her food every day. I know it’s
because you’re worried that she’s being poisoned.”

“Let go of me, serjant,” she said a little
breathlessly.

He tightened his arm around her, moved
closer, felt the heavy satin of her hair against his face, the
silken glide of her wrapper brushing his bare legs. “You’ll just
climb that ladder if I do.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Graeham released her reluctantly, letting
his hand slide slowly around her waist and linger momentarily on
the firm curve of a hip before he backed away. It had been almost
like holding a lover; he’d never have an excuse to hold her that
way again.

She turned without looking at him and rubbed
her arms. “I did think about poison in the beginning. I thought if
she only ate what I brought her, she might recover. But she
didn’t.”

“You suspected her tonic, too, didn’t
you?”

“At first, but it’s just an infusion of
yarrow.”

“If Olive was telling you the truth.”

Joanna looked at him sharply. “Olive is no
murderer, serjant.”

“Olive is an impressionable young girl,
mistress. And Rolf le Fever is not above using her to his own
ends.”

“Those ends being murder?”

“I heard her speak that very word
tonight.”

Joanna studied him for a long moment, then
crossed to the bench at the table and sat. “Tell me.”

“There was something he wanted her to ‘take
care of, and soon.’ He told her it was taking too long, that she
knew what needed to be done and should just do it. She said it was
murder.”

“Oh, Olive, Olive...” Joanna murmured,
absently crossing herself.

“She agreed to it because he said it was the
only way they could marry.”

Joanna closed her eyes and rubbed her
forehead.

“With Mistress Ada out of the way,” Graeham
said, “Olive and le Fever
—
”

“He would never marry her. He’d choose
someone who could advance his station
—
a girl from the
minor nobility, or perhaps the daughter of a rich and respected
merchant. Not a humble apothecary’s apprentice.”

“Olive doesn’t know that. She’s entirely in
his thrall.”

“Poor Olive.”

“‘Poor Olive’ may be over there right now
concocting a fatal dose of whatever it is they’ve been slipping to
Ada le Fever all along. Le Fever had probably wanted it to look
like a slow, natural death, but now the time has come to finish her
off.”

Joanna shook her head resolutely. “I can’t
believe it. I don’t believe it.”

“Nevertheless,” Graeham said, coming to
stand over her, “le Fever sent her back to the shop to ‘prepare the
mixture,’ as he put it
—
before she lost her nerve. He said
by this time tomorrow, it would all be over. I assume he means for
Olive to put the final dose in the tonic she brings tomorrow
afternoon.”

Joanna was still shaking her head. “‘Tisn’t
possible. It can’t be. Olive...she couldn’t do such a thing.”

“I’m all too afraid she could.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked
woodenly.

“Go to the apothecary shop and see what
she’s up to,” Graeham said.

“Just show up there in the middle of the
night?”

“Tell her you need something...a sleeping
powder. Look around, take stock of what she’s doing and how she’s
acting. Question her, if you can do it without raising her
suspicions.”

Joanna’s brow furrowed. “I’d feel so
treacherous, misleading her that way.”

“I can’t go myself,” Graeham said. “There’s
my leg, and
—
”

“I know, I know.”

“Would you rather I sent for the sheriff?”
Graeham asked, although he’d prefer to avoid that until it became
absolutely necessary, lest it compromise the secrecy of his
mission.

Joanna shook her head and stood.
“Nay
—
not yet. If this isn’t what it looks like
—
if
Olive is innocent
—
I don’t want the sheriff getting
involved.”

He’d hoped she would feel that way. Joanna
plucked her mantle off its peg and pinned it over her wrapper.
Graeham followed her into the shop, where she slipped on the wooden
pattens she kept by the front door.

After she left, he held the door open a
crack and watched her sprint across the street and knock on the
door of the apothecary shop, which glowed from within. The door
opened. Olive looked surprised to see her; even from this distance,
Graeham could see that the girl’s eyes were puffy, her nose red.
She had something in her hand
—
a wooden pestle. Joanna said
something to her. She held the door open for Joanna to enter, then
closed it behind her.

Graeham stood watching the shop until his
leg began to ache. It was hot for this time of night, even in July.
Sweat trickled beneath his shirt, which clung damply to his chest.
Manfrid, who’d been outside, came and rubbed against his legs
before squeezing between them and into the shop.

It was taking too long. Why was it taking so
long? Something was wrong. He should never have sent her over
there. She was in danger. There was murder being planned, and he’d
thrust her right in the midst of it without sparing a thought for
her safety. He’d been complacent because it was just Olive, and he
couldn’t see her hurting Joanna, but if the girl was capable of
poisoning Ada le Fever, she was capable of anything.

He opened the door and stepped into the
street just as Joanna came out of the apothecary shop. Hurriedly he
ducked back inside. When she reentered the shop, let out a sigh of
relief. “I was worried about you.”

“Not too worried to send me over there.” She
pulled off her pattens and swept past him into the salle.

Graeham followed her, his leg throbbing. He
sat at the table and leaned his crutch against it. “Did she tell
you anything?”

“Nay. She was too distracted. She prepared
the sleeping powder as if she were in a trance. I’d be afraid to
take it in case she made a mistake with the ingredients.” Joanna
tossed a little parchment-wrapped packet on the table.

“What was she doing when you arrived?”

“Grinding up herbs.”

“Did you recognize them?”

“Nay.”

Graeham cursed inwardly.

“Do you?” Withdrawing an arm from beneath
her mantle, she held up two bundles of dried herbs tied with
string.

“You...you took them?”

“Aye.” She laid the bundles on the table;
one had large leaves, one small. “If these really are the
ingredients of a poison, I thought ‘twould be best to get them away
from Olive before she...does something foolish.”

Graeham lifted first one bundle and then the
other, bringing them to his nose; he didn’t recognize them either
by appearance or smell. “She may have more than just these two
bunches.”

“I know.” Joanna unpinned her mantle and
hung it on its peg, wiping a hand over her damp forehead. “I
thought of that after I took them. Still, it might give her pause.
She might rethink what she was about to do.”

“Or she might go to le Fever tomorrow and
report the theft, whereupon he might decide you’re a threat to his
little scheme.” Graeham shook his head. “I can’t fault you for
taking these herbs
—
I might have done so myself. But I hope
you haven’t put yourself in any danger because of it.”

Returning to stand over the table, Joanna
lifted one of the sinister bundles and twirled it slowly. “It’s Ada
le Fever I’m worried about. We should send for the sheriff first
thing tomorrow morning.”

Graeham sighed, then nodded grudgingly. He
no longer had any choice but to enlist the sheriff’s aid if he
wanted to ensure Ada’s safety. If he weren’t a damned cripple, he
would go over there right now and take her out of that house, but
as it was... “You’re right,” he said. “I hate to do it, but...”

“Why?” she asked. “‘Tis the sheriff’s
responsibility to investigate matters of this sort. Why would you
hesitate to summon him?” She looked down at him in obvious
confusion, the firelight making sparks of gold flicker in her brown
eyes.

“When I was sent here to bring Ada le Fever
back to Paris, I was cautioned to proceed with discretion.”

“Ah, yes.” She plucked off a leaf and
crushed it under her nose. “The things you’re ‘not at liberty to
reveal.’”

Graeham’s ears grew hot. He was ashamed, he
realized, of having withheld so much from her while enlisting her
aid to the extent he had. She’d resisted being his pawn, yes, but
in all respects, save one, she’d proven herself completely worthy
of his trust and confidence. The one exception was her
prevarication about her husband’s death, but it was an innocent
lie. She was a beautiful widow living alone. He couldn’t blame
her
—
or her brother
—
for perpetrating a falsehood
meant to keep the young soldier under her roof at a distance.

But he could blame himself for keeping
things from her that she had every right to know, given the extent
to which he’d involved her in this complicated little intrigue.

“I haven’t been fair to you,” he said.
“You’ve earned the right to know more than I’ve told you. You’ve
earned the right to know who sent me here.”

Joanna grew very still and quiet for a long
moment. She laid the herbs back down and sat
—
not opposite
him, as usual, but right next to him on his bench. “Who sent you
here, serjant?”

“‘Twas my overlord, Baron Gui de
Beauvais.”

Her brows drew together. “Why did you not
want me to know that?”

“Because
—
” Graeham took a deep
breath “
—
Ada le Fever is Lord Gui’s daughter.”

She still looked puzzled.

“His illegitimate daughter,” Graeham said.
“No one knows
—
aside from the girls themselves, and their
uncle, who raised them in Paris.”

“The canon,” Joanna said softly. “Ada told
me her uncle is a canon of Notre Dame.”

“That’s right. And, of course, Rolf le Fever
knows. He found out shortly after the wedding. ‘Tis why he hates
his wife so much, why he started heaping threats and abuse on her.
The marriage was meant to reflect well on him, and all it brought
him was
—
as he puts it
—
a shameful little secret to
keep.”

Joanna nodded. “Yes...that makes sense,
knowing him. So Lord Gui began to worry that he’d go beyond mere
threats and abuse
—
as, indeed, it seems he has
—
and
enlisted you to rescue his daughter before real harm could come to
her.” She shook her head. “Rotten timing, those robbers smashing
your leg before you had a chance to get her out of that house.”

“I don’t think they were mere robbers.”

“Nay?”

“I’d been to see le Fever that afternoon. He
was reluctant to let his wife leave with me, but I talked him into
it with a bit of blackmail and the promise of fifty
marks
—
or so I thought. He told me to return at compline
and he’d have her ready. Olive was there, delivering Ada le Fever’s
tonic. I asked her to prepare enough for the journey and have it
there by compline.”

“Olive was there? She saw you, then, and she
knew you’d come to take Ada away. That’s why you didn’t want her to
see you here, because she knew you weren’t just some fellow who ran
into a bit of bad luck on his way to Oxfordshire.”

“That’s right. I went back at compline, of
course, only to be lured into the alley by some knave representing
himself as Byram, who knew why I was there. He and his two cohorts
had been lurking about waiting to smash my head in and take the
fifty marks. They got the silver and my mount, and if it weren’t
for your brother, they might have sent me to my maker that
day.”

“You think le Fever hired them to ambush
you?”

“Aye. I think he wanted the money without
the indignity of losing his wife.”

“One would think he’d have been eager to see
her go, regardless of the indignity.”

“Don’t forget, he’d been having her poisoned
since Christmastide, just waiting for the right time to finish her
off. He wanted her dead, so he could remarry someone more
suitable
—
not packed off to Paris, with everyone wondering
why her father had felt the need to fetch her back.”

“Pardon me for saying so, serjant, but it
strikes me as awfully poor judgment on the part of your Lord Gui to
have married his daughter off under false pretenses.”

“It was. He admits as much himself. And I
must confess to some measure of disappointment with him when he
told me what he’d done. The very fact that he’d kept two daughters
tucked away in Paris all those years was rather sobering. I
wondered if all important men had secret bastards hidden away.”

“
Two
daughters? Oh, that’s
right
—
Ada has a sister. She mentioned her once.
Phillipa
—
isn’t that her name?”

A thrumming panic gripped Graeham at the
sound of his future wife’s name on Joanna Chapman’s lips. “Aye,” he
managed. “Phillipa. They’re...they’re twins.”

“Does Phillipa’s husband know the truth
about her birth, or was he kept in the dark, as well?”