Silken Threads by Patricia Ryan

littering the drainage channel.
    “Good morrow, little sister.”
    “Hugh.” Joanna nodded at him and glanced in
a distracted way toward the cart.
    Hugh reined in the mules harnessed to the
cart, jumped down and kissed her on the cheek. “Fine morning, eh?
Not a cloud in the sky.”
    She mumbled something unintelligible.
    Hugh reached up to hold the upper shutter
open while Joanna braced it on either side with two shorts poles,
forming an awning. “I trust our new friend was no trouble for you
during the night,” he said.
    His sister, preoccupied with lowering the
bottom shutter, which served as a countertop for her wares, didn’t
answer him. Hugh propped the shutter in place with two more poles
and followed her into the shop.
    “He wasn’t, was he?” Hugh asked.
    Joanna crouched down to unlock a sizeable
chest with one of the keys on her chatelaine. “Wasn’t what?” She
withdrew from the chest a folded length of white silk, prettily
embroidered around the edges, which she shook out and spread on her
display counter.
    “Trouble.” In an effort to be helpful, Hugh
plucked a jumble of embroidered ribbons out of the chest and shook
them out onto the silken cloth.
    Rolling her eyes, Joanna separated the
ribbons and arranged them in a tidy row, smoothing them down. “No
trouble to speak of.”
    Which meant there was something she was
choosing not to speak of. Hugh knew from long experience that he’d
have no luck badgering it out of her, so he said, “I’ll fetch him
and have him out of here quicker than you can draw your next
breath.”
    He smacked a palm on the wall for emphasis
and turned toward the rear of the house, but she stopped him in his
tracks by grabbing a handful of his leather tunic. “He’s staying
here.”
    Hugh turned around slowly.
    She said, “‘Twas a waste of your time, I’m
afraid, bringing that cart.” She laid three embroidered girdles
next to the ribbons and reached into the box for a scarf. “He
offered me four shillings to rent the storeroom for the next two
months, and I couldn’t turn it down.”
    “Four shillings! That’s ridiculous. It’s too
much.”
    “I know. He doesn’t seem to care.” At last
she looked directly at him, in that obstinate way of hers. “I
accepted the money. He’s staying. You’ll have to take the cart back
to wherever you got it from.” Looking away, she muttered, “Sorry
for your trouble.”
    Hugh leaned against the wall, rubbing his
prickly jaw. “I don’t mind a bit of trouble. What I mind is...well,
the notion of your being alone with this fellow, living with him,
for two whole months. You don’t even know him.”
    She turned to glare at him as she spread the
rest of her merchandise out on the counter. “You brought him here,
Hugh, or don’t you remember? You talked me into letting him spend
the night.”
    “Yes, but
—
”
    “‘He’s a decent fellow,’ you said.”
    “I said he seemed decent.”
    “You said you were sure he was harmless.
Well, now that decent, harmless fellow has offered me four
shillings
—
four shillings, Hugh
—
to sleep in
my storeroom, for pity’s sake, and I bloody well intend to
let him.”
    “‘Bloody well’? Since when has my lady
sister started saying ‘bloody well’?”
    “Since I stopped being your lady sister and
started being the wife of a
—
widow of a
—
silk
merchant. And not a very
—
”
    “Not a very prosperous one, I know.”
    “That’s another thing,” she said, a bit
wearily, as she squatted down to lower the lid on the chest. “He
thinks Prewitt is still alive. I’d appreciate it very much if you
wouldn’t disabuse him of that notion.”
    Hugh closed his eyes and massaged his
suddenly aching forehead. “And why, exactly, is it that he thinks
Prewitt is still alive?”
    “Because I haven’t told him that he’s dead,
obviously.”
    “And why
—
”
    “Because it’s wiser to let him think I’m a
married woman.”
    Hugh opened his eyes to find her staring