Silken Threads (45 page)

“I know him,” Joanna said. She and Graeham
had had a lovely visit with Brother Simon before he left
London.

“When he told me young Graeham intended to
take minor orders, I felt I had to intervene. My youngest brother
was pushed into a Church career he wasn’t suited for, and it ruined
his life. In my judgment, too many young men take orders without
truly grasping what they’re letting themselves in for
—
and
what they’d be giving up. I got to thinking about it and decided
that Graeham had grown up more sheltered than was healthy. Of
course he wanted a career in the Church
—
’twas all he
knew.”

“That’s when you sent him to Beauvais to
serve Lord Gui,” Joanna said.

“Aye. Gui de Beauvais is one of my oldest
and dearest friends. I knew I could trust him to do right by the
boy. I asked him to watch for any hint that Graeham might have an
aptitude for soldiering. Of course, he did, and I assume you know
the rest.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Joanna
asked.

“On the twenty-third of June, I received a
letter from Lord Gui telling me that he’d sent Graeham to London on
some important mission. ‘Twas going to take longer than Graeham had
anticipated, so he found lodgings in West Cheap at the home of a
woman whose name was, of course, familiar to me
—
Joanna
Chapman. Gui begged me to look Graeham up and introduce myself as
his father, but it seemed like madness to break my silence after
all these years. Though when I saw you the next evening at the
Midsummer Watch, my lady, I wondered if it might be a sign.”

“Ah, yes,” Joanna said. “I thought you
looked at me rather curiously.”

“I was tempted, certainly, to contact
Graeham, given all the praise Gui heaped on him, and given that
Nicholas...well, that he’s been something of a disappointment. A
man likes to be able to feel that he’s produced a son worthy of
carrying on his lineage. Still, I wasn’t convinced. Then, a few
days ago, when I returned home from a hunting trip, my lady wife
greeted me at the door with Lord Gui’s letter in her hand.”

Hugh winced and tilted the goblet to his
lips.

Lord Gilbert shook his head. “The strange
part was, she wasn’t nearly as angry about my infidelity as about
my abandoning my own son. She said the only way I could redeem
myself now would be to do as Lord Gui advised and go to see
Graeham. I must say, she argued her point vehemently. She wore me
down. Of course, she’s right
—
I should have claimed the boy
in the beginning, not shunted him off as I did. I had resolved to
come round to your house and meet him, when a second letter arrived
from Lord Gui, just yesterday, telling me that Graeham had
completed his mission and would be leaving London on the fifteenth
of July.”

“That’s right, my lord,” Joanna said.
“Serjant Fox returned to Normandy three weeks ago.”

“So I must go to Normandy. It’s high time I
made amends for having failed Graeham so miserably. I won’t be able
to live with myself
—
nor,” he added with a sheepish smile,
“sleep with my wife
—
until I meet him and acknowledge him
openly as my son.”

Joanna smiled. “I know that would mean a
great deal to him, my lord.”

“My only regret,” said the baron, “is that I
didn’t come to my senses a little earlier. Then I might not have
had to miss his wedding.”

Hugh stilled in the act of bringing his
goblet to his mouth. “His wedding?”

“Ah, you didn’t know,” the baron said with a
grin. “Graeham married someone named Phillipa in Paris about a week
ago. I take it she’s a ward of Gui’s or some such.”

Blood roared in Joanna’s ears.

“Are you sure?” Hugh asked.

“Lord Gui told me all about it in his
letter,” said Lord Gilbert. “It had been planned for some time. He
set the wedding date for August second when Graeham wrote him that
he was returning.”

“Jesu,” Joanna whispered.

The baron seemed oblivious to her
consternation. “They’re going to live in England. Lord Gui is
granting him an Oxfordshire estate
—
fifteen hides, not bad.
A reward for this mysterious mission of his, apparently.”

Joanna felt the cold drain of blood in her
head, a roiling sickness in her stomach.

Are you so chivalrous, then,
she’d
once asked him,
that you’d go to all this effort for no reward
at all?

Perhaps I am.

He’d lied to her.

Not for the first time. Not for the last
time.

I’ll return to England in a few
weeks,
he’d said. Only he’d failed to mention that he’d be a
married man. Did he think she’d consent to be his mistress?

She clutched her churning stomach. This was
a hellish dream, a nightmare.

Christ, no wonder he’d never returned her
declaration of love. He was using her
—
and God help her,
she’d let him, she’d walked right into it, eyes open. Right from
the very beginning, he’d exploited her, first to advance his
mission, and then for sex. How could she have let it happen? How
could she have lowered her guard, especially after Prewitt?

“My lady, are you all right?” asked Lord
Gilbert. “You’re so pale.”

Joanna felt a whirling sense of unreality,
as if she’d drunk too much wine. Then she felt Hugh’s arm around
her, guiding her along the bank of the stream to a boulder, urging
her to sit, to lower her head.

The voices of the two men sounded muffled to
her ears. Hugh seemed to be telling her to take deep breaths. He
was explaining to Lord Gilbert that her stomach had been troubling
her today, and perhaps she was ill.

If only that was all there was to it.
Merciful God, what would become of her now?

Dimly she became aware that Lord Gilbert was
bidding Hugh good-bye and saying he hoped she would feel better
soon.

She raised her head and saw him walking
away. “Wait! Lord Gilbert!”

The baron came back. “Yes, my lady.”

She tried to rise, but everything twirled
slowly. Hugh pushed her gently back down onto the boulder.

“I...I wonder if you would take a letter to
Serjant Fox for me when you go to Normandy,” she said.

“Certainly,” said the baron. “I take it you
want to congratulate him on his marriage.”

“Something like that,” she said. “I’ll bring
it round to you tomorrow.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll send a servant
to your house for it
—
say in the afternoon?”

“‘Twill be ready then. Thank you, my
lord.”

“My pleasure.” He inclined his head and
walked away.

Hugh knelt in front of Joanna, took her icy
hands and chafed them between his. “Joanna, I’m
—
”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” she said in
voice that sounded strangely hoarse and faraway. “You tried to warn
me. I wouldn’t listen. You tried to warn me about Prewitt, too, and
I wouldn’t listen then. This is my own fault. No one’s to blame but
me.”

“I brought him to you, Joanna,” he said, his
hands closing tight around hers. “I installed him in your home. I
should have known better than to trust some stranger I’d only met,
just because he seemed like a likable fellow.”

“Nay,” she said. “I have a weakness for men
like that
—
handsome devils. Handsome, charming,
unscrupulous devils.”

“What are you going to write in your letter
to him?”

“I’m going to tell him I’m moving to the
country and I’ll never see him again.”

“Thank God! You mean you’re finally going to
take my money?”

“Only enough to get me settled somewhere far
away from London. I wouldn’t do it...I didn’t want to do it...I was
hoping Graeham would come back and marry me, but now I...I don’t
feel as if I have any choice, not considering...oh, damn it
all.”

“Swearing again, are you? I’ll warn
you
—
country folk don’t take very well to ladies using
rough language.”

“I’m pregnant, Hugh.”

His eyes widened in shock. He leapt to his
feet, his face a mask of outrage, spun around, fists clenched,
stalked away from her and then back. “I’ll kill him. I’ll find him
and wring his goddamned neck.”

“I thought you were going to slice off his,
er...”

“I’ll do that first, and then I’ll wring his
goddamned neck.”

“Hugh,” she said, striving for calm in the
face of her own tumultuous emotions, “you knew we were sleeping
together.”

“Aye, but there are ways to prevent...” He
gestured in the general vicinity of her stomach. “Things a fellow
can do to keep from...Jesu, Joanna, he should have known what to
do.”

“He did,” she said, feeling heat flood her
face. “Except, well, for the first time.”

A wolflike snarl rumbled out of Hugh. “Did
he know? Before he left?”

“Nay. I’ve only known myself for three
weeks.”

“Are you absolutely positive you’re...” His
gaze lit on her stomach.

“Quite.” Her purgation was due the day
Graeham left for Paris; never had her courses been late. And then
there were her stomach troubles, the fluxes and vomiting.

Squatting in front of her, Hugh took her
hands again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was waiting to tell Graeham first, when
he came back. I was sure he’d marry me and we could move away from
the city, and...” She shrugged helplessly.

“This letter you’re writing to him. Don’t
you think you ought to tell him?”

“Nay.” She shook her head resolutely. “He
made it clear he never wanted to sire any bastards.”

“But now that he has, shouldn’t he know
about it? He’s a man of property now. He could provide for the
child.”

“Don’t you understand, Hugh? He’s a married
man now. ‘Twould be humiliating for me to force myself and my child
on him, knowing he doesn’t care about me, about us.”

“Doesn’t he?”

I wish to God I didn’t have to leave
you....I’ll miss you.

“Perhaps a little. I have no way of knowing
for sure. He was always so credible when he wanted to be, so
lethally charming. All I know for certain is that he didn’t care
enough
—
and that he was using me. I was convenient and
willing.”

“And now you’re carrying his child,” Hugh
said.

“I’m not sorry about the baby, Hugh, in
spite of everything. I want this child. I’m glad I’m carrying it. I
can’t stay in London now, though.”

“Aye, once you start to show, you’ll be the
talk of West Cheap. You’ll be ruined.”

“‘Tisn’t my reputation I’m thinking of. I
don’t want to raise a child in that city, and I can’t bear to stay
there any longer myself. The house reminds me of Graeham now. I
need to get away from there.”

“That’s all well and good, but don’t ignore
your reputation. Promise me something, Joanna. When you settle down
in the country, let people think you’re a recent widow and that the
baby was your husband’s. No use making things any harder on
yourself than you need to.”

“All right,” she said. “But you have to
promise me something in return.”

“What?” he asked warily.

“That you won’t seek Graeham out
and...mutilate him.”

Hugh rolled his eyes and wrapped his hand
around the hilt of his sword. “I swear on the baby Jesus’s manger
hay that I’ll keep my sword away from Graeham Fox’s privities.”

“And your dagger.”

“And my dagger.”

“I know you’re furious with him,” she said.
“Imagine how I feel. But time will lessen our rage. I just don’t
want you to do anything rash in the meantime.”

“Time will have no impact on the anger I
feel toward that lying whoreson,” Hugh said, his expression
murderous.

“Nonsense. You’ve never been able to stay
angry at anyone.”

“I’ll stay angry at Graeham Fox until I draw
my dying breath,” Hugh said grimly. “Just see if I don’t.”

* * *

An October chill was in the air when Joanna
stepped out into the slanting late afternoon sun to feed her
chickens. The autumn-hued leaves on the big oaks overhanging her
little wattle-and-daub cottage rattled as a breeze wafted out of
the woods just beyond her front pasture.

Perhaps someday she could afford a sheep or
two to graze in that pasture; the wool would come in handy. She
could use a few pigs, too. Pigs weren’t much trouble; they could
forage in the woods during the summer and feed her all winter. In
the meantime she’d make do with her chickens
—
for she got a
half-penny apiece for the eggs
—
and her goat, which
provided the milk she’d been craving in gluttonous quantities of
late.

Manfrid strode in front of her as she
crossed to the poultry house with her sack of feed. He threw
himself to the hard-packed ground at her feet, belly up, a silent
but plaintive entreaty. Joanna crouched down to stroke his silky
stomach, causing him to squirm in delight and emit that remarkable
grinding purr of his.

Like cartwheels on gravel,
Graeham
used to say.

Manfrid had missed Graeham after he was
gone. For days the big tom would wander in and out of the
storeroom, as if hoping Graeham would suddenly materialize if he
just kept checking.

‘
Tis a mystery to me why you keep
him,
Graeham had once said about Manfrid.
He’s too timid to
be of any use.
But he’d befriended him anyway, and lo and
behold, he did prove to be of rather significant use eventually.
For to hear Graeham tell it, it was Manfrid who’d awakened him that
eventful day when Rolf le Fever’s ugly blue and red house had
burned to the ground.

Joanna was glad she’d taken the trouble to
transport the two cats to her new home. Petronilla kept the byre in
back of the cottage free of vermin, and Manfrid...well, Manfrid was
Manfrid. He kept her lap warm at night. He kept her from getting
too lonely. Her few neighbors lived too far away and were too busy
to visit frequently, and Hugh had set off for the Rhineland last
month after making sure she got settled into her new house.