13 - The Midsummer Rose by Kate Sedley Read Free Book Online Page B

to do than notice the attire of her sister-in-law’s maid.
    ‘I think, then, that I must try to see either Mistress Alefounder or the other lady for myself,’ I concluded.
    Marianne Avenel gave her companion an apologetic glance and sighed. ‘In that case, you’d better come home with me.’
    Luke Prettywood made no comment, but I could well imagine his thoughts as we left Saint Giles and proceeded along Bell Lane, he and Marianne walking decorously side by side, with me only a pace or two behind. He must have wished me in Hades.
    A few yards further on, we turned into Broad Street. The house that had belonged to Alderman Weaver, and which I had once known so well, was a little over halfway up on the left-hand side. And judging by the growing babel of noise, the market around the Tolzey was getting under way, leaving Luke Prettywood no choice but to abandon his companion and take himself off. In silence, the lady and I watched him walk rapidly up the street and disappear into the rabble of people heading for the market. Only then did she turn her attention back to me.
    ‘Wait there,’ she ordered, ‘while I find out who’s at home. Who do I say is calling? Roger the Chapman?’ There was the same slightly contemptuous note in her voice that I had noticed earlier, when she had been speaking of her sister-in-law’s maid.
    I hesitated, suddenly a prey to misgivings. If Mistress Alefounder was not the woman I had met at Rownham Passage, what excuse could I offer for calling on her? As for Mistress Hollyns, unless, by some lucky chance, she was wearing a blue brocade gown, I shouldn’t even recognize her. As so often in the past, I had rushed into a situation without carefully considering all its ramifications.
    ‘Perhaps I’ll leave my visit until another time,’ I said, backing away and treading on the toes of several indignant passers-by. ‘Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Let me wish you good day, Mistress Avenel.’
    She shrugged, plainly thinking me an idiot, and, having knocked for admittance, vanished inside the house. But instead of returning home, I crossed the street, nearly getting run down by one of the refuse carts clearing the central drain, and took refuge in the mouth of an alleyway almost directly opposite. Here, I propped myself against the wall of a house and waited.
    And waited. Half an hour or more passed and still no one had emerged from the Avenel dwelling. Either Marianne had kept her own counsel, or her story had provoked little or no curiosity among the inmates. No one had considered it worthwhile to find out if I might still be loitering in the vicinity.
    After my lengthy wait, my legs were again beginning to feel as if they were stuffed with sawdust. The morning was getting steadily hotter as the sun rose in a sky of unrelenting blue. I removed my jerkin, but the heat burned through the linen of my shirt until I could feel it scorching my skin. My head swam and once or twice I had to swallow hard to prevent the bile from rising in my throat. Moreover, I was afraid I was becoming conspicuous. Several people who had noticed me on their way up Broad Street stared even harder on the return journey, obviously wondering why I was still skulking there. Those who recognized me shrugged and no doubt decided that I was living up to my reputation for nosiness. And, of course, there were others who were not even as charitable as that.
    ‘Snooping again, Roger?’ A familiar voice sounded in my ear.
    ‘Hello, Jack,’ I said, none too pleased at being accosted.
    Jack Nym, the carter, gave me his broken, black-toothed grin. He was wearing his customary greasy, food-stained leather jerkin and wrinkled hose, and even in the height of summer his nose was running. He wiped it on one of the empty sacks he was holding. Adela and I had once spent an entire week in his company, on a journey to London, and a kinder, more considerate person it would be hard to find. (Moreover, he had never been one of those