Silken Threads (38 page)

“What’s wrong, Graeham?” Bracing herself on
an elbow, Joanna tenderly stroked his face, her breasts lightly
brushing his chest.

He closed his eyes, still so deeply moved
just to hear his name on her lips at long last...awed to finally be
able to take her in his arms and unite his body with hers.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he lied. “Just keep touching me and everything
will be all right.”

She shifted just slightly, which brought the
silken curve of her hip in contact with his quiescent manhood. As
she kissed and caressed him, her subtle movements against him
rekindled his former arousal. He stiffened, rose. Joanna felt it
and sat over him, straddling his lap and guiding him to her damp
little entrance. She sighed, her head thrown back, as she lowered
herself onto him in increments, her womanly chamber stretching
gradually to accommodate him.

She looked so golden and enchanting and
provocative making love to him this way
—
but it was
dangerous. “You should let me be on top,” he said. “Otherwise I
won’t be able to pull out.”

“I’ll take care of that,” she said. “You
tell me when.”

“What a capable woman you are,” he said,
threading his fingers through her hair to pull her down for a kiss.
“How did I ever get along without you?”

“Are you happy?” she asked as she tupped
him, the bedropes squeaking with each slow, luxurious stroke, her
body undulating gracefully atop his, her hair cloaking both of them
like a silken mantle.

Once it had been his “presumptuous
question.” Now it was hers. He smiled, caressing her back, her
hips, her firm round bottom as it rose and fell, coaxing him closer
and closer to an ecstatic crisis of the senses. “Aye. Deliriously
happy. Are you?”

“Oh, yes. God, yes. If I could stay like
this forever, here, with you, just like this, no past, no future,
just the two of us, I think I’d be happy forever.”

“So would I,” Graeham said, wishing with all
his heart that it could be so and wondering for the thousandth time
how everything had gotten so wonderfully, terrifyingly
complicated.

* * *

“There’s something I’d like to ask you,
Ada,” Joanna said as she spooned the last of the porridge she’d
brought into her new friend’s mouth the next morning. “You may
think it a bit odd.”

Ada swallowed with difficulty, coughed and
said, “What is it?”

“It’s about your husband.”

“Rolf?”

Joanna nodded as she tucked the empty
porridge pot back in her basket. She was loath to tell Ada too much
right now, when there was nothing the ailing woman could do about
it but lie in this bed and fret. Earlier, before Joanna had left
for her daily visit to the le Fever house, she’d paid a young boy a
penny to deliver Graeham’s note about the planned murder to the
sheriff who lived closest to West Cheap.

“I can’t tell you anything about Rolf,” Ada
said. “I haven’t seen him since before Lent.”

“I know. But when he was still visiting you
up here, did he...seem like himself? Was he acting unusual at
all?”

Ada stared tiredly at nothing for a moment
and then shook her head. “He always acted unusual, to my way of
thinking. I’ve never understood him. Why?”

Joanna shrugged and fiddled with the basket,
tucking the napkin back over it with exaggerated care. “I suppose I
just think it’s odd that you haven’t seen your own husband in four
months.” Thinking of Graeham, she added, “I’d hate to go that long
without seeing my husband.” They’d been up all night, whispering
together and making love; many times they resolved to go to sleep,
but then one of them would say something that got them talking
again, and as they talked, he would slowly caress her with those
gentle, clever hands, and she would end up reaching for him...They
never did get any sleep, and this morning Joanna was as
tired
—
and happy
—
as she’d ever been.

“I thought you did used to go that long,”
Ada said, “when Master Prewitt was abroad. You told me just last
week that you didn’t miss him at all.”

“Ah.”

“Ah,” Ada repeated with a gently mocking
little smile. “I feel the same way about Rolf.”

The two women laughed together
companionably, but it seemed to take the wind out of Ada; her head
fell back listlessly onto the pillow. It pained Joanna to watch
someone she’d grown to care for waste away like this.

“Some water?” Joanna offered.

Ada shook her head weakly. “Too hard to
swallow. Would you read me some Psalms?”

“I’d be happy to.”

Joanna read for longer than usual,
apprehensive about leaving Ada alone in this house, knowing what
she now knew, even though Ada wasn’t in any immediate danger; it
was still quite early in the morning, and the adulterated tonic was
presumably to be administered later this afternoon. Nevertheless,
Joanna had resolved to return and keep watch over Ada after she
spoke to the sheriff.

As Joanna read, Ada’s eyes drifted closed;
so did Joanna’s. The only thing that kept her awake was anxiety
over Ada. She kept glancing nervously at the sleeping woman’s chest
to make sure it continued to rise and fall; it did.

When she returned the psalter to its little
shelf, Ada opened her eyes. “There was something,” she said in a
soft, muddled tone.

Joanna sat back down and took Ada’s hand,
which felt terribly small and cold and fragile. “Go back to
sleep.”

“There was something Rolf did,” Ada said,
enunciating the words slowly, “that I thought was unusual. ‘Twas
spring
—
after Easter, but before Pentecost, I think.”

“About a month and a half ago,” Joanna said.
“I thought you hadn’t seen your husband since before Lent.”

“I haven’t. But one day
—
’twas in
the afternoon
—
Aethel came up here in quite a state. She
said that Rolf had ordered me to dress for a journey, and Aethel
was to pack my things. He said someone would be coming for me.”

This was the day Graeham came to take her
away and was attacked in the alley, Joanna realized.

“Aethel helped me to get dressed,” Ada said,
“and she put all my things into traveling bags. I was bewildered at
first, but then it occurred to me that perhaps my father had
summoned me home. I was so excited to be leaving this house. Even
though I was ill and I knew the journey would be hard on me, I was
thrilled to be going home. I sat over there at the window that
overlooks the street, and waited.” The spark in her eyes dimmed.
“But no one ever came.”

Tempted though Joanna was to fill in the
missing details for Ada, she knew this wasn’t the time. And, too,
this revelation was inciting disturbing new questions in Joanna’s
mind.

“I waited until the bells of curfew were
rung, and then I waited some more, looking out at the dark street,”
Ada said sadly. “Finally Aethel convinced me to get undressed and
go to bed. I never did find out what happened that day.”

Ada was shivering; she was cold again.
Yawning, Joanna tucked the blanket around her. “I must go now, but
I’ll be back later this morning.”

“You’re coming back?” Ada looked pleased;
she must get lonely.

“Aye
—
just to keep you company. Get
your rest. And remember
—
don’t eat anything that’s brought
to you, or drink anything, or
—
”

“So you’ve told me a dozen times this
morning,” Ada said with an indulgent smile.

“And if someone brings you your
tonic
—
Olive or your husband or anyone, even
Aethel
—
”

“I know. I’m not to take it.” Ada’s brow
knitted. “What has you so troubled, Joanna? What’s wrong?”

Joanna brushed some stray hairs off of Ada’s
cheek. “I’ll tell you later, when everything’s resolved. You’re
tired now.”

Ada nodded and closed her eyes.

“Sleep,” Joanna said as she turned to leave.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

When she returned home, she found Graeham in
the shop stall talking to a bearish fellow with silver-threaded
black hair whom he introduced as Nyle Orlege, an undersheriff
dispatched by the sheriff in response to their note.

“Good morrow, mistress,” said the
gruff-voiced Nyle, who got right to the point. “If the serjant has
explained it correctly, a woman’s life may be in danger.”

“That’s right.”

The undersheriff scratched the graying
stubble on his oversized jaw. Iron manacles and chains hung on one
side of his belt, a gigantic sheathed knife on the other. “And you
two think it’s the husband and his doxy that are poisoning
her.”

“I hate to think of Olive as being involved
in this,” Joanna said, “but I admit it doesn’t look good. She’s not
evil, though, just young and impressionable.”

“She seems to be entirely within Rolf le
Fever’s power,” Graeham said, touching Joanna’s arm comfortingly.
“He coerced her.”

“Probably,” Joanna added.

Graeham regarded her with a look of
puzzlement.

“Probably?” The undersheriff turned to
Graeham. “You seemed pretty sure of things in your
note
—
came right out and accused the man of attempted
murder.”

“Is there something I don’t know?” Graeham
asked Joanna.

“Perhaps,” she said. “It might mean nothing,
but it struck me as odd.” She told the men what Ada had revealed
about the mysterious journey she’d been readied for that had never
taken place. “If le Fever had been in the process of poisoning his
wife to death, he would hardly have wanted her to leave with
Graeham. ‘Twould have made more sense to finish the job and be done
with her for good.”

“Aye, but assuming he did want to finish her
off,” Nyle said, “he very well may have hired those churls to
ambush the serjant so he couldn’t interfere
—
and he’d get
the fifty marks, to boot.”

“Yes,” Graeham said, “but then why did he
prepare his wife for a journey? You’re right, Joanna. The pieces
don’t add up.”

“Well, it’s my job to make them add up,”
declared the undersheriff. “But I’ve got to proceed with caution,
you understand. Rolf le Fever is an important man in this city.
Can’t be making wild accusations with no proof.”

Graeham picked up the two bundles of herbs
from the table and handed them to Nyle. “Surely any good apothecary
can identify those and tell us whether they’re poisonous.”

“Undoubtedly,” Nyle said, “and if they are,
that implicates the girl, but there still won’t be any proof that
le Fever put her up to it. What I’ve got to do
—
what we’ve
got to do, because you two are the accusers, so I want you
there
—
is to go across the street and question this Olive.
A confession would go far toward making my job easy, and if we can
get her to reveal le Fever’s role in this, all the better.” He
opened the door and led the way out. “Come along, then.”

“Can you make it across the street, do you
think?” Joanna asked Graeham as he limped on his crutch toward the
door. He wore his heavy riding boots, she saw; it was the first
time he’d had them on in the six weeks he’d been here.

“I made it up that ladder, didn’t I?” With a
glance outside to make sure the undersheriff had his back to them,
he leaned down and kissed her, quickly but thoroughly. “As Brother
Simon used to say, to him that will, ways are not wanting.”

Graeham’s will may have been strong, but by
the time he finally made it across Wood Street
—
with Joanna
supporting him on one side and his crutch on the other, Nyle Orlege
was already inside the apothecary shop, interviewing a cowed and
wide-eyed Olive.

“Mistress Joanna!” the girl exclaimed when
she and Graeham appeared. “This man says he’s an undersheriff. He
says he might have to arrest me. Do you know
—
” Her gaze
lit on Graeham, recognition flicker¬ing in her eyes, still swollen
from last night’s bout of crying.

“Do you remember me?” he asked.

“I...I think so. Weren’t you at Master
Rolf’s a while back?”

“That’s right.”

“You were going to take Mistress Ada
away.”

“I say, can I please get a headache powder?”
asked a squirrel-faced little man standing outside the window.

“Shop’s closed.” Reaching through the
opening, Nyle pulled away the support poles, causing the upper
shutter to slam slut. He raised the lower shutter and latched them,
plunging the shop stall into eerie semidarkness.

Olive wrapped her arms around herself, her
panicky gaze taking in the three of them. “What’s this all about? I
haven’t done anything.”

“We know you didn’t want to, Olive,” Joanna
said.

“Didn’t want to what?”

Nyle held up the two bunches of dried herbs.
“Do you recognize these?”

Olive’s milky complexion grew even paler.
“Oh, God.” She backed away from them. “Oh, God.” Clutching her
stomach, she said, “I feel sick. I’m going to be sick.”

Joanna moved to the girl’s side and sat her
on a low wooden stool. “Put your head down. That’s right. Take deep
breaths.”

“I didn’t want to,” Olive moaned, sinking
her head into her trembling hands. “He said there was no other
way.”

“We know, Olive.” Joanna leaned over her,
patting her back. “He talked you into it. That doesn’t make it
right, but ‘twill help when you’re tried. You might get some
lashes, but I’m sure they won’t hang you, not given
that
—
”

“
Hang
me!” she wailed, looking up
with tear-filled eyes. “I didn’t know you could hang for...oh, God.
Oh, God. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. But he said if I went
ahead and had the baby, he could never marry me, because of the
shame.”

Joanna glanced at Graeham and Nyle, who
looked as confounded as she felt.

Someone knocked on the door. “Can someone
sell me an elixir of
—
”