CHAPTER THREE
As matters transpired, it took Isabel a week to finish the embroidery.
It wasn't owing to the difficulty of the design - she'd embroidered vines before, and could have done so again in her sleep - but to Hilda, who seemed to have an unerring sense for when Isabel desperately wanted a moment to herself and a will to ensure her wishes would be denied.
She kept Isabel run off her feet with errands, chores, and lessons for the girls, and Isabel was only able to snatch a quarter-hour at a time to work on the dress.
She was fortunate in that she finished it on a feast day; the whole family had gone to dine at a neighbour's house and left her home alone with Walter.
They wouldn't be back until nightfall, and so would not be around to take notice of the fact that she meant to abscond for the rest of the afternoon.
Lacking anyone to watch Walter - she might have left him with her sister-in-law, but the day was chilly and she didn't wish to prolong the time she spent walking outdoors - she took him with her to Constance's.
The cold hardly seemed to bother him, for he refused to wear his mittens no matter how she coaxed, and took little notice of the fact that his hands were red and chapped by the time they arrived.
He also managed to find several puddles along the way and darted away from her to jump in each one, splashing himself up to the knees with freezing water.
How he could possibly be enjoying himself, Isabel didn't know, but the grin on his face was proof enough that he was.
She scooped him up when they got to the shop, not wanting him to track muddy footprints all over Constance's clean floor.
"Hello?" she called, pushing the door open.
"C- that is, Mistress Rykener?" She was more than a little surprised that she'd managed to recall Constance's family name, but it had somehow stuck in her thoughts.
A great deal of that afternoon had, in truth: the warmth of Constance's hearth and the ease of her smile, Walter's delight over the cat and the toy Constance had offered him, the overwhelming relief she had felt when she burst through the crowd to see Walter safe and sitting at Constance's feet.
She hadn't realized how much she needed an easeful hour or two until she finally got one.
"Mistress Rykener?" she called again, tugging off Walter's shoes before she set him down to wander.
The main room of the shop was dark, but not cold - the shutters were all closed up, but a fire was clearly still burning somewhere in the house.
Perhaps Constance had just stepped out, then.
Isabel could simply leave the dress on Constance's table and take her leave - but she felt she ought to explain the embroidery which had not been there when Constance had loaned it to her.
Besides, she needed to reclaim her dress and shift as well, and she didn't wish to go rooting about in Constance's things to find them.
Better to sit and wait for her to return.
Besides, it wasn't as if she were anxious to return home.
The first small sound above her head made her frown, craning her neck to look upwards for its source.
The only thing she could see was the ceiling beams, of course - the noise must have come from upstairs.
It hadn't been so noticeable, just the tiniest scuffling followed by a thump, but as the mother of a small child, she was used to keeping one ear out for anything that might suggest mischief in the offing.
It sounded like Walter did, when he climbed out of his cradle in the morning.
Constance hadn't spoken of having any children, had she?
And if she did have some, then surely she wouldn't have left them home alone.
She was just beginning to wonder if the sound had been nothing - perhaps a squirrel clambering on the roof, or in the attic - when there came another thump, followed by a distinct groan.
That sound, she knew - and it sprung from neither child nor squirrel.
It was the sort of sound she had often heard Geoffrey make in the last months of his life, when the pain of his illness had been too bad for him to even rise from his bed.
Constance hadn't mentioned children, but she had mentioned a husband who wasn't well.
Isabel had assumed she'd met the man - the one who had put his head in the kitchen while she and Constance were sitting there - but perhaps that had actually been the brother she spoke of, the one who lived with her.
Either way, if Constance had stepped out and her brother was not at home - and Isabel saw no sign of him - and her husband was unwell, had fallen out of bed or taken a turn . . .
"Walter, come here," she said, then bent to pick him up when he obeyed.
If Constance's husband was upstairs, alone and suffering, she couldn't in good conscience wait where she was for Constance to come home.
If he wasn't in need of help, then she would go back downstairs - but if he was, she could at least offer some assistance in the meantime.
As she set her foot on the stairs, she heard another sound - a moan, mixed with words too faint to make out - and she quickened her step.
". . . can't," was the next thing that reached her ears, when she was halfway up the steps.
Then: "I can't - for God's sake, just leave -" The sentence cut off with another groan.
Then there were more words, murmured too low for her to hear.
A second person? Perhaps, but she wasn't sure.
She gained the top of the stairs, then turned until she saw a door, and went to push it open.
There was a man in the room beyond, standing with his back to her, his feet braced against the floor as if he was straining to hold up some great burden.
Belatedly, she realized that was precisely what he was doing - there was a second man in the room, his elbows resting on the first man's shoulders, his head dropped down so that she could only see a crown of dark brown hair.
The man with his back to her was fair - this must be the one she'd met the week before - and he was making indistinct soothing noises, swaying on the spot the way she did with Walter when he was fussy.
"You're all right," he was saying, "you're all right, you just -"
"Evidently not," the second man snapped, "when I cannot even rise from a bed on my own strength, to be helped to and from the chamber pot like a child -"
"You're all right," the first repeated, "you only stumbled, anyone might. Here, sit down -"
It was by now abundantly clear that Isabel needed to leave - this man was not wanting for help as she'd feared, and the moment she'd stumbled across was far too private for her to intrude on - but she never had the chance, for as she took a step backwards, two things happened at once.
The first was Walter choosing that moment to squeal loudly in her ear as he dug his heels into her side, impatient to be put down.
The second was the dark-haired man in front of her lifting his head from his companion's shoulder, just enough to catch sight of her in the doorway.
His eyes narrowed, and Isabel felt her stomach drop.
"And who," he said, his voice icy, "pray tell, are you?"
"I -" She took a step backwards, trying to keep her balance while also keeping hold of a squirming Walter. "I - I'm sorry, I -"
"Sorry?" His lip twisted. "Is that the name your mother christened you with? She must have had few hopes indeed for your prospects. Perhaps she foresaw that she'd borne a child who would go about barging into the bedchambers of total strangers unannounced and unwanted."
"Peter," the fair-haired man murmured. He was ignored.
The snap in Peter's voice was so near to what Isabel might have expected to hear from Hilda, or from Geoffrey, that she felt a part of her quail instinctively the moment he opened his mouth.
She had lived with such spite for ten years, and every time she thought it had lost its power to hurt her, she felt its sting afresh.
It would be best if she simply mumbled her excuses and fled, for no good would come of lingering.
And yet, her feet would not obey her. Beneath the sting, and the familiar flash of fear, she felt something else. A tiny, almost imperceptible snap.
This man was not Geoffrey. He was not Hilda. He had no power over her, or Walter. He was only an ill-tempered brute, pouring his venom on her head because she had - what? Attempted to come to his aid? Made a mistake? She spent most of her life cowering, but now not, and not here.
"I am sorry," she said, drawing herself up to full height, "for my intrusion.
I assure you, it was not intended. I heard a noise and thought, perhaps, that someone upstairs was in some distress and that I might come to their aid.
" Peter opened his mouth, doubtless to say something cutting, but she ploughed past him.
"I see now, however, that your affliction is not one I may offer any relief to, for I am not privy to any cure for bad temper or worse manners.
I only hope you conduct yourself better before those who do care for you, for I cannot imagine what a thankless task your maintenance is otherwise. "
The fair-haired man was agape. Peter's face was flushed bright red. "A pretty speech, from an intruder."
"I have explained my presence already, and apologized for it," Isabel said coldly. "I will not to so again, for I have no interest in abasing myself before someone who only wishes to bully and scold. Find a physician to purge your bile for you. It's none of my concern."
"You, you," Peter said, apparently tripping over his own tongue in his rage. "You wayward, shrewish -"
"What's going on?"