Figures in Silk by Vanora Bennett Read Free Book Online Page B

with the beginning of a rough growl of laughter in her voice. “Show Isabel the ropes?”
    Isabel looked down at the table, but not before she saw the Prattes giving each other another of their sharp, birdlike looks—enough to show her it wasn’t the first time they’d heard Alice Claver say this sort of thing to her son, and that they didn’t expect a positive outcome. Isabel squeezed Thomas’s hand back. If he felt bullied, she wanted to show her support.
    “Aw, Ma,” she heard Thomas answer. It was a child’s whine, and there was a cunning look in his eye that she could see meant he had no intention of working today and would say anything to avoid it. Isabel let her hand go soft again. “We only got married yesterday.”
    Alice Claver looked unimpressed. “Well, you’ve had all morning to loll about, haven’t you?” she said, and there was more rough-ness and less laughter in her voice now. Isabel blushed. The Prattes glanced at each other again. Visibly restraining her impatience, Alice Claver continued: “You know William’s very kindly offering to take you round the selds. Showing you the kind of range of goods you might think of buying to set yourself up. Introducing you to the kind of people at Guildhall who can advise you.”
    She paused, as if this would jog Thomas’s memory. But Thomas stayed mulishly quiet.
    Anne Pratte piped up, in her fluting little voice, “You don’t need to worry about Isabel, Thomas. I’ll look after her for the afternoon. I’m going round Alice’s embroidery suppliers; it would be useful for Isabel to meet them. She can come with me . . .”
    Isabel could see both offers would be helpful if Thomas were to start buying in enough stock to get going as a merchant in his own right, and she needed to learn the names and faces of the silkwomen she’d soon, perhaps, need to commission work from. She squeezed his hand again and looked encouragingly at him from under her lashes, trying to convey that she’d like him to say yes.
    But Thomas just scowled harder.
    “Ma,” he repeated, with the elaborate patience of a man talking to an idiot. “I just said. We’ve just got married. And Isabel wants to go and see off the king’s army. We were going to take a picnic.”
    The eyes all turned on Isabel, making her face burn. She’d been acutely embarrassed by Thomas’s tone of voice. However informal people were in this house hold, it surely couldn’t be right to talk back to your mother like that. Besides, she’d made no plan for a picnic or a trip to see the army leave Moorfields; if anyone had asked her, she’d have said no. She knew nothing about soldiers except that they were dangerous. Why court trouble? And she certainly didn’t want to be Thomas’s alibi for shirking an arrangement his mother had made for him. It would only make Alice Claver dislike her, and she didn’t want that either.
    But she was Thomas’s wife now. It was her duty to stand by him. And she didn’t like the way Alice Claver was using the Prattes as an audience to try to shame Thomas publicly. She’d have to find a way to sweet- talk him into doing what his mother wanted, privately, later. For now, all she could do was brazen out Alice Claver’s accusing stare, try to smile lightheartedly, as if nothing were amiss, and pray that the hot tide of blood staining her face red right to the roots of her hair would recede.
    There was a long, frustrated pause.
    “Well, if that’s what Isabel wants,” Alice Claver said coldly, turning away. She didn’t finish the sentence. No one else finished it for her this time, either.
    “Come on, Isabel,” Thomas said, getting up and pulling her along behind him.
    Isabel glanced back from the doorway. The Prattes were quietly shaking their heads at each other. But Alice Claver was still staring straight at her, and there was a cold anger in her eyes.
    With a sinking heart, Isabel realized she’d made an enemy.
     
    Like every other Londoner who’d gone