Suzanne Barclay - Knights Divided

The third stranger was a rumpled little man who prowled the shop’s interior, poking a pudgy finger into the bunches of dried herbs with the air of complete absorption. His face” was round and wrinkled as the old-fashioned brown gown he wore. A rim of frizzy gray hair lapped at the edges of his bald pate like moss on a shiny rock. He didn’t look like the sort of man who’d demand she sell the apothecary shop she’d inherited from her mother just to satisfy a drunken old fool’s gaming debts.

Emmeline drew in a steadying breath. “I’ll see what they want. Please finish packaging this saffron for Dame Wentworth, Peter, and mind no more than three threads per packet.”

“Mistress…” Peter caught at the sleeve of her gown, his thin fingers stark against the brown wool. “Let me go with ye. If there’s trouble, I can help.”

Despite her trepidation, Emmeline smiled. Though he was only three and ten, Peter was a good lad and likely to make a fine apothecary. Providing she didn’t lose the shop before his training was completed. “I’ll be fine.”

“I beg ye leave the door open,” he whispered as she left the workroom. “If they threaten ye, I’ll come running.” And he would, too. They were closer than apprentice and mistress, more like the only family either of them had. Peter was an orphan, and Emmeline nearly so. Her mother had died a year ago after a long illness, and her father…well, Cedric had been dead to Emmeline ever since she’d found out what he was.

More to salve Peter’s pride than out of any actual fear, Emmeline left the door ajar and stepped into the store. The soldiers tensed; the little man looked up. His eyes were brown, large and sleepy-looking in the gentle folds of his face. He resembled an old hound roused from his warm spot by the fire.

That comfortable comparison gave her the courage to answer his sad little smile with a tentative one of her own. “May I help you?” she inquired past the lump in her throat.

“Mistress Emmeline Spencer?” he inquired, bowing from the hips, for his belly precluded anything else. “I am Sir Thomas Burton, come up from London to speak with you on a matter of some—” his fleshy features tightened —some delicacy.”

“London”. Emmeline’s heart sank. Whatever trouble Cedric had gotten into would be expensive. “What has he done?”

“Who?”

“My…father,” she admitted. “Cedric le Trompour.”

“Le Trompour is your father?” Sir Thomas pursed his lips. “I had not realized he had chil…oh.” A flush stained his jowls as he made the obvious leap.

“My sister and I are Cedric’s natural daughters.” A prettied-up way of saying they were bastards.

Sir Thomas coughed. “Then Alford is your grandfather.” At her nod, his frown deepened. “I wished I had known. I’d have taken my news to Cedric, or to Old Alford.”

“Grandfather disowned Cedric years ago and won’t give you a farthing to repay his debts.” She, however, was more vulnerable. Though he’d failed to wed her mother, Cedric was her father, and could dispose of her as he wished. Thus far, she’d managed to forestall any marriage plans by keeping him in coin.

“I am no usurer come to collect my due.” His gray brows knit together. “I hate to presume on your hospitality, but is there a place where we might speak in private?”

“In private?” Belatedly Emmeline looked out the large window that faced Market Street. Bunches of dried herbs, rosemary, thyme and mint hung from the open shutters. The wide sill formed a counter on which sat baskets of pepper, black and white, both ready to be weighed up for sale. Most days she had a modest flow of customers. Today the opening was crammed with people absently fingering the merchandise while staring at the unfolding drama.

Emmeline felt the color rise in her face. No matter how hard she worked to erase the stains of her own past and the continuing stigma of Cedric’s debauchery, she was ever the object of the town’s pity, scorn and ridicule.

“My men could give your apprentice a hand in closing the shop,” Sir Thomas suggested.

Oh, it must be very bad. Emmeline’s fists clenched a little tighter in the folds of her gown as she called, “Peter.”

The boy popped out of the storeroom like a rock launched from a catapult. Brandishing the large pestle she used to crush peppercorns, he flew at Sir Thomas.

“Peter!” Emmeline grabbed her protector by the arm before the blow landed. “Please, do not hold this against him.”

“On the contrary. I find his defense of his mistress quite a tribute in this day of deceit, murder and betrayal,” Sir Thomas said so forcefully Emmeline wondered who or what he was.

She found out soon enough. Leaving Peter to deal with the flood of customers—under the watchful eye of the two soldiers—she led the way up the stairs to the small solar.

“Er, can I offer you wine?” Emmeline asked, not at all used to entertaining men. Cedric’s perfidy had made her ’distrust men, and she avoided them as much as possible, except for Toby, who’d been with the family forever, and Peter, who was just a lad.

“Tis most kind,” Sir Thomas said. “We’ve had a long, dusty ride.” The sturdy chair by the hearth, the best piece of furniture she’d inherited from her mother, creaked as he lowered his bulk into it. “But only if you’ll join me.”

Stiff with dread, Emmeline forced herself to walk to the side table and fill the two cups that stood next to the pitcher. Her neck prickled, but when she turned, Sir Thomas was looking around the room, not at her. No doubt gauging the worth of the furnishings. She wished she’d never brought him up here to see the few things she’d thus far managed to keep. The trestle table and stools her greatgrandfather had made, the tapestry and pair of silver plates.

Angry now at her own helplessness, she thrust the crockery cup at her visitor. He accepted it with a gracious smile, then gestured to the smaller chair that had been her mother’s. “Won’t you sit?” he asked.

Nay. She wanted to stamp and scream and throw things. She wanted to kick the stools and hurl the plates against the whitewashed walls. Impotent rage warred with her mother’s strictures. “You have a strong will, Emmeline,” she used to say. “Use it to overcome the base emotions you inherited from Cedric.”

Emmeline’s fingers knotted behind her back. “If you will kindly state your business, sir.”

“Mayhap we should send for your father.”

“Ha! So this does concern him.” Inside her, something cracked. Like a kettle set too long to fire, her anger boiled over. “This time I will not pay. I don’t care if you throw him in debtor’s prison. I don’t care if you—”

“I spoke truly when I said I haven’t come to collect money,” Sir Thomas said gently. “It…it is about your sister.”

“Celia?” Her anger evaporated. “What has happened now?”

“Now? Has she been having trouble of some sort?”

All her life. Beautiful Celia with the laughing eyes and insatiable appetite for self-indulgence inherited from their sire. She was Emmeline’s opposite in all things—pretty, popular, irresponsible. Though their mother had constantly harped about her younger sister’s frivolous ways, Emmeline loved her dearly.

“Not trouble, exactly,” Emmeline said. “But sorrow, surely. Two years ago she wed Roger de Vienne.” Proving herself as susceptible to a rogue as their mother had been, but he’d given Celia the one thing she wanted more than anything, a chance to leave Derry for the gaiety of life in London. The prize had not come without a heavy price. “Roger was killed six months ago.” Run through by a husband who’d returned home at a most unexpected and inopportune moment Celia had retired to Derry briefly till the scandal had died down, but declared she couldn’t work in the apothecary or bury herself in the country. “Is it money?” Like Cedric, Celia never seemed to have enough.