Silken Threads by Patricia Ryan Page B

little if I
did. Joanna is her own woman. She’s always done just exactly as she
pleased.” And been sorry about it afterward, more often than
not.
    “You do disapprove,” Graeham said.
    Hugh leaned forward, his elbows resting on
his knees. “In truth, I’m torn in two directions. On the one hand,
I’m concerned for my sister
—
for her happiness as well as
her reputation. On the other, I don’t quite see you as the type who
would exploit her trust
—
and mine. I’ve fought alongside
enough men over the years to be able to tell the scrupulous ones
from the blackguards.”
    “You’re some sort of mercenary, I take
it.”
    Hugh nodded. “A stipendiary knight. I wield
my sword for whoever will pay me the most.”
    Graeham’s eyebrows rose, just slightly. Hugh
knew what he was thinking: How did a knight, stipendiary or not,
come to have a sister living above a shop in West Cheap?
    Hugh noticed that Graeham had not only
cleaned himself up, he was dressed differently than he had been
yesterday, in a voluminous white shirt and russet braies. “Are
those Prewitt’s clothes?”
    “Aye. Your sister’s been most generous.”
    “Joanna’s a compassionate woman. She was
that way as a girl, too. Used to take in wounded animals and tend
to them. She has a good heart.”
    Graeham nodded, gazing at something through
the open doorway. Turning, Hugh saw that, with the leather curtain
open, the serjant had an unimpeded view of the entire length of
Joanna’s long, narrow house. In fact, through the big shop window
he could see across Wood street and into the apothecary’s shop.
Three gilded discs hung above its door. Inside, a redheaded girl
was measuring powders on a scale.
    But it wasn’t the girl who had so captured
Graeham’s attention, Hugh knew. It was Joanna, backlit by the
morning sunshine from the window, holding a ribbon up for her
customer to examine. She laid it back down and lifted another one,
her movements as elegant as if she were dancing a galliard in the
great hall of Wexford Castle.
    Graeham was still watching her, the comb
forgotten in his hand. “This isn’t her world,” he said quietly.
“She doesn’t belong here.”
    “No, she damn well doesn’t.”
    Graeham looked pointedly at Hugh. “Then
what’s she doing here?”
    “She married beneath her.”
    “Prewitt?”
    “Aye.”
    Graeham nodded slowly. “She must have been
very much in love with him, then.”
    Hugh studied his steepled fingers. It would
hardly do for him to disclose Joanna’s true motivation for marrying
Prewitt
—
that it hadn’t been so much a question of love,
but of gullibility...and desperation, for she’d been sorely in need
of saving at the time. Prewitt Chapman had been a handsome,
smooth-tongued charmer, and she’d been as guileless and trusting as
any fifteen-year-old girl. His many defects of character had
eventually come to light, of course, but it would serve Joanna ill
for Graeham Fox to become privy to them.
    Graeham assumed that Prewitt was still alive
to throttle him if he overstepped himself
—
an assumption
that served to protect Joanna. That protection would evaporate
should Hugh divulge the truth of the matter, which was that any
interest Prewitt may have once had in Joanna had vanished within
days of their wedding. Even if he were still alive, Hugh doubted he
would trouble himself to defend her honor, should the need
arise.
    “Yes,” Hugh said without looking up. “I
suppose she must have loved him a great deal.”
    Graeham’s eyes shifted once more beyond
Hugh, toward the front of the house
—
toward Joanna. Hugh
turned as well, and saw her sitting at her embroidery frame in
front of the shop window, passing a tiny needle in and out of the
blue silk. The sun shone through her veil; it looked as if she were
wearing a halo.
    “Then why...” Graeham began, his gaze
straying to the cot on which he sat as he doubtless wondered why
Prewitt had been relegated to sleeping there. “Nay, ‘tis none