Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  Joanna chose a goose quill and a piece of willow charcoal from the basket. She broke off about an inch of the charcoal, pared down one end with a penknife, and inserted it in the tip of the quill.

  “Clever,” Graeham said.

  “One of Lady Fayette’s little tricks.” With this ingenious charcoal pen, Joanna began sketching a design of curved lines and circles onto the silk. He watched her in profile, her brow furrowed in concentration as she worked.

  She had removed her veil before coming in here to work, not realizing Graeham would follow her. The amber lamplight ignited the gold in her hair, tendrils of which had sprung loose from her single braid to curl around her cheeks and nape. She wore her violet linen kirtle tonight, which was as plain and patched as her two woollen gowns, but a bit more pleasingly snug around her breasts and waist and hips. Graeham contemplated the elegantly sensuous curve of her back as she leaned over her work.

  Two weeks had passed since the Friday fair and the revelation about Joanna’s widowhood—a fortnight of interminable days and long, lonely nights on his solitary little cot. Sometimes, after Joanna climbed the ladder to the solar at night, he would lie very still in the dark, listening for the groan of certain floorboards as she trod upon them, the faint squeak of the bedropes—apparently directly above him—as she lay down and shifted to get comfortable.

  After giving it some thought, he’d decided not to tell her that he knew about Prewitt’s death, not just for Leoda’s sake, but because he understood and sympathized with her determination to pass herself off as a wedded woman. Undoubtedly the pretense made her feel better about his staying here; insulated by her presumed matrimony, she could keep him at a respectable—and safe—distance.

  Curious as to what pains she’d taken to maintain her deception, Graeham had several times casually mentioned Mistress Joanna’s husband to Thomas Harper, whereupon the leper had swiftly changed the subject, clearly discomfited; no doubt she’d asked Thomas not to reveal her widowhood to Graeham, just as Hugh had asked Leoda. Suspicious of everyone now, Graeham had even broached the subject of Prewitt Chapman with young Adam, who’d taken to coming around from time to time, but the boy had clearly never even heard of the man, nor met Joanna.

  Deep inside, Graeham wanted her to tell him the truth, to look him in the eye and say, “I’m a widow—no man has a claim on me.” His heart wanted this, ached for this...but he was old enough to know better than to trust the impulses of his heart. His rational mind knew far better. Joanna had constructed this subterfuge for a reason, and a good one. She was well advised to keep Graeham at a distance; as an unlanded soldier, he could only worsen her already dire prospects. As for Graeham, he’d best remember that he was, for all intents and purposes, a betrothed man. He had no business cultivating an infatuation with Joanna Chapman when he would soon be wed to someone else—a wedding he mustn’t jeopardize, lest he forfeit the estate that came with the lady Phillipa’s hand.

  Striving to keep his mind off Joanna, Graeham had spent the past fortnight maintaining his vigilant surveillance of Rolf le Fever’s house, an effort that seemed more futile with each passing day. Ada le Fever’s sickroom window remained shuttered, while her husband came and went as if naught were amiss. One night he’d spirited a woman through the back door and up to his bedchamber, not bothering to shutter the window while he’d coaxed her out of her sable-trimmed mantle, jeweled cap and opulent tunic; her beauty had been marred by pockmarked cheeks, but she’d been buxom, with striking white-blond hair. She’d laughed as he’d tied her to the bedposts—at which point Graeham had shuttered his own window, ashamed of having watched as long as he had.

  He wondered if the guildmaster ever climbed the stairs to the solar, where Ada le Fever passed her days and nights. When was the last time he’d actually seen his ailing wife in the flesh?

  Joanna’s drawing was taking form as a tree with gracefully drooping branches on which were suspended a dozen or more weighty spheres.

  “A fruit tree?” Graeham inquired.

  “An orange tree.” Her shoulders rose in a small shrug. “I’ve been thinking about oranges of late.”

  He smiled; for some reason, that pleased him. “What is it going to be when it’s done?”

  “A scarf.”

  “You draw beautifully,” he said, leaning closer for a better look. Her lines were light, fluid, and executed with a dexterity born of long practice.

  She glanced at him from beneath her dark lashes. “Thank you.”

  “Do you always create your designs this freely? Just...thinking them up and sketching them out like this?”

  “Oh, no—generally I use a pattern. I’ve been collecting them for years. Some I made myself and others were gifts from Lady Fayette. They’re in that box on the floor.” She smiled. “Would you care to choose a border for this scarf?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Go on—open the box and take a look.”

  Graeham lifted the box—a large, flat document chest—onto his lap and flipped open the leather-hinged lid. Stacked on top were a number of stencils cut from white silk.

  “The borders are underneath,” she said.

  Setting the stencils aside, Graeham found sheets of parchment scraped extraordinarily thin and oiled to make them transparent. Each one had a repetitive image inked onto it—flowering vines, networks of circles, interwoven knots, grape clusters, fleurs-de-lis, scrolls, circular medallions, stylized leaves and various geometric patterns. Holes had been pricked along the outlines of the images; traces of chalk and charcoal clung to the templates.

  “That—” she nodded toward the wall hanging above her “—will give you an idea of how those borders will look once they’re stitched.” The banner of ivory silk was embroidered in a variety of different designs. All the borders were represented, as well as a number of animals—a bird with a nestful of young, a rampant lion, an eagle, a squirrel collecting acorns, a frolicking monkey, a peacock spreading its tail and a dragon spewing fire. There were crosses, saints, angels, lovers, beasts, flowers, a king and queen, and, interestingly, a woman bending over an embroidery frame.

  “What is that hanging for?” he asked. “Why did you make it?”

  “‘Tis a sampler of my work,” she said, still sketching away. “If a customer wants something special, she can pick the design and I’ll embroider it.”

  “You take commissions?”

  “No, not really. I mean, I do. I have. I made a very elaborate pair of cuffs for Alderman Huxley last year, and a purse for his wife. But most of my customers aren’t in the market for more than a new pair of garters or a hair ribbon. And even if they were, they couldn’t afford my prices. Work like that is time-consuming, and I charge good coin for it.”

  “Then it could be very lucrative work for you—more lucrative than the shop—if you could cultivate the right customers.”

  She glanced at him. “A while ago—it was during the Friday fair, actually—I got to thinking about the time I visited the Tower of London as a girl. There were beautiful embroidered cushions on all the chairs and benches, and decorative hangings on the walls. The queen and her ladies had the most exquisite panels and bands sewn onto their tunics—satin stitched in gold with hundreds of pearls and garnets and silver plaques sewn in. And they all had such lovely girdles and purses.”

  “Ladies like that could afford to commission pieces from you.”

  “I know. And I’ve been thinking about showing my sampler and some of my best pieces to the ladies at the Tower, but...” She shook her head and frowned at her drawing.

  “Why don’t you? You’d do a far sight better than selling the occasional ribbon or scarf out of this shop.”

  “It’s...You’ll think it’s silly.”

  “No I won’t.”

  Joanna gestured toward the sampler. “Have you picked a border?”

  “You can’t change the subject that easily, but yes, I’ve picked one. The one that looks like knotwork.”

  She
smiled. “Perfect.”

  He felt a ridiculous surge of pride.

  “Would you find me the template for that one?”

  Sorting through the templates, he said, “Your embroidery is worthy of the queen herself. A royal commission could feed you for years.”

  “Well I know it.”

  “Then why do you hesitate to show your work at court?”

  She plucked the worn-down bit of charcoal out of the goose quill and put it away, then took a shiny black raven quill out of the basket and proceeded to sharpen its point. “It’s because of the change in my circumstances,” she said without looking at him, seeming a little embarrassed. “At fourteen I was presented at court. I met the queen. To return at one-and-twenty as a tradeswoman...” She shook her head. “It shouldn’t shame me, but it does. Perhaps I just need a little longer to work up my courage...or grow so desperate that I don’t have any choice.”

  He handed her the template and set the box back on the floor. “Allowing desperation to take over is rarely a successful strategy, no matter what your goal.”

  Joanna sighed. Opening a jar of ink, she charged her quill and began tracing over the lines of her charcoal drawing, quickly but flawlessly. “There’s another problem. The ladies of the court aren’t going to be content with what I do—plain silk thread on twill and damask. They like ornaments sewn into their embroidery, and fancy ones—pearls, enamels, jewels set in gold. I don’t have the money for that sort of thing. Gold thread is just as dear. It’s made by winding strips of gold by hand around a core of silken threads. The silkwoman gets more for an ounce of it than I get for a scarf like this.”

  “The queen’s ladies must have gold and jewels?”

  She cast him a doleful glance. “Gold and jewels are all they know, serjant, all they’ve ever known. These are the daughters of the most noble families in the kingdom. A merchant’s wife—even an alderman’s wife—might be content with silver thread and spangles, but not these ladies.”

  “Spangles?”

  “Little metal ornaments—they can be had fairly cheaply, and if they’re applied well, the effect isn’t too tawdry. There are also little glass beads from Venice that can be bought at the Friday fair—they’re a passable substitute for precious gems. I’ve used them on some of my girdles.”

  “And merchants’ wives find these compromises acceptable?” Graeham asked, as an idea began to take shape in his mind.

  “They have no choice. Gold and gems are generally out of their reach. Even if they aspire to look like nobility—and most of them do, it seems—their husbands simply can’t afford it.”

  Graeham sat forward, infused with excitement; this could work. “Have you considered...seeking commissions from the wives of the more well-to-do merchants here in West Cheap?”

  She studied her completed ink drawing with a critical eye. “I already do. If they come by the shop and ask for something special—”

  “Nay, I mean actively soliciting them—going to their homes with your samples. Most of them probably have no idea the level of work you’re capable of. If you came to them in their homes, the way their dressmakers do, and talked to them, found out what it is they really want, you’d soon have more commissions than you could handle.”

  She plucked the feather duster out of her basket and swept the charcoal dust from the silk, leaving a clean, precise ink drawing.

  “You wouldn’t have to travel farther than Milk Street,” he said. “There’s the wife of that money lender with the evil temper...”

  “Lionel Oxwyke’s wife?”

  “Aye—she could afford your work.” Graeham strove to keep his tone nonchalant, not wanting to seem too overeager; she mustn’t suspect that this idea would be of any benefit to him. “And what about the wife of that guildmaster who lives behind you? The woman with the head cold.”

  “Ada le Fever?”

  “Aye.”

  “Absolutely not.” Joanna stood and walked to the rear of the house, down the hall and out the back door.

  Graeham muttered an oath and slumped back against the wall. It would serve his cause well if he could talk her into visiting Ada le Fever. Afterward he could question her and possibly get a better idea of the situation in the guildmaster’s household—the nature and severity of Ada’s malady, whether she’d be capable of travel if he could find a way to get her out of there. Any information was better than what he’d been able to come up with by spying through the storeroom window.

  Joanna could be very useful to him. She could be his eyes and ears and legs...if only he could convince her to seek out Ada le Fever’s patronage. That the scheme might very well serve Joanna’s purposes as well as Graeham’s was an added benefit, but he didn’t delude himself that his motives for proposing it were altruistic. Graeham was consumed with his mission; if he could use Joanna to implement it, with or without her knowledge, he would; any advantage to her was entirely secondary.

  When she returned, she was carrying a rag and a wooden bowl of water with a sea sponge in it, which she set on the work table before taking her seat. “I’ll do it.”

  “You will? You’ll go to see Ada le Fever?”

  “Not her. But I’ll pay a call on Rose Oxwyke, and perhaps Elizabeth Huxley, the alderman’s wife—she likes her finery. And there are one or two others. With the rent you’ve paid me, I can buy some silver thread and spangles and—”

  “What’s stopping you from going to see Ada le Fever? Her illness?”

  “Her husband.” Rising, she lifted the embroidery frame from the trestles and turned it over, exposing the reverse side.

  Interesting. “You don’t care for him?”

  “He stole my livelihood from me just because I wouldn’t—” She cut herself off with a sharp look toward Graeham.

  “Stole your livelihood? How so?”

  Joanna squeezed the wet sponge into the bowl. “I...went to him for a favor once.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  She chewed on her lip as she rubbed the sponge over the silk, dampening it. “I wanted to be admitted to the Mercers’ Guild.”

  The pieces were falling into place. “Isn’t your husband a member of the guild?” he asked, half hoping she would tell him the truth about her husband if he pressed her, knowing he shouldn’t want that, that it could only bring trouble.

  Luckily, she had more sense than he did. “Yes,” she said as she returned the sponge to the bowl and flipped the frame back over. “He is. I wanted to join also, just because...because I did. But le Fever, he...he had conditions.”

  Of course—the lecherous worm. “Conditions you refused to meet.”

  “I should say so.” Taking her seat, she extracted a blunt, soft-looking brush from her basket, dipped it in the ink and blotted it on the rag. With deft strokes she gradually shaded in the trunk of her orange tree.

  Manfrid entered the shopfront through the open alley window. On seeing Graeham, he leapt onto the chest next to him and threw himself on his back, displaying his vast white belly as he gazed imploringly at Graeham.

  “Yes?” Graeham said in the low voice the cat seemed to find reassuring. “And what, precisely, is it that you want?”

  Manfrid stretched luxuriously, throwing his head back as he writhed in delicious expectation against Graeham.

  “What’s that? I don’t quite follow you.”

  “Stop teasing the poor creature,” Joanna chuckled, “and pet his stomach.”

  “I don’t want him to start thinking I’m at his beck and call.”

  “Aren’t you? ‘Tis a wonderment how he’s taken to you.” With a mischievous smile she added, “And how you’ve taken to him. I wouldn’t have thought it would be worth your trouble to befriend such a...useless creature.”

  Graeham held his hand poised above Manfrid’s enormous stomach, engendering a purr of astonishing volume and resonance. “Sounds like cartwheels on gravel.”

  Joanna grinned as she added whisper-soft shadows to the tree and its fruit, makin
g it stand out in astonishing relief from the surface of the taut silk.

  “‘Tis a miracle, how you do that.” Graeham stroked the downy fur of the cat’s underbelly; he squirmed in hedonistic abandon.

  “All it takes is a good squirrel brush and a steady hand.”

  “You shouldn’t dismiss your talent so cavalierly. You’re a remarkable woman—an extraordinary woman.”

  She made no response to this, seemingly absorbed in her work, but spots of pink bloomed on her cheeks. Graeham kicked himself; he should be finessing her into visiting Ada le Fever, not flattering her like some lovesick suitor.

  Changing tack, he said, “You’re not just talented, you’re very strong, especially for a woman—independent, self-reliant.”

  “I’ve had to be.”

  As have I. Perhaps that was what drew him to her, the shared sense of isolation, of having no one to rely on but oneself. For all the advantages of being unfettered by others, it was a lonely way to live. He wondered if she ever lay awake at night, listening for sounds from below.

  “You are strong.” He lightly scratched Manfrid’s throat. “Which is why it surprises me so for you to cower before this Rolf le Fever as you do.”

  “Cower.” She whipped around to face him, her eyes glittering with outrage, as he knew they would; they were really much alike, he and Joanna Chapman.

  “Yes, cower. This man intimidates you so thoroughly that you won’t even attempt to approach his wife. He’s defeated you without even trying, while you just sit back and let it happen.”

  She turned back to her work, but her brush was unmoving in her hand. For a moment Graeham feared that she might ask him where, precisely, his interest in these matters lay. She might have, if she’d had an inkling of his ulterior motive for wanting her to visit the le Fever house—but as far as she knew, Graeham had never heard of Rolf le Fever before fate landed him in her storeroom while he was en route to visit kinsmen in Oxfordshire.

  Joanna would assume Graeham’s only interest lay in helping her. An uneasy little rivulet of contrition wormed its way into his belly.