CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Isabel eased the front door open slowly, hoping to slip inside without being noticed by any of her family.
If she were truly lucky - and she had been truly lucky for the past night and day, so perhaps her luck would hold - she would be able to creep upstairs without meeting anyone, and pretend to Hilda that she had arrived home the night before, after the rest of the household had gone to bed.
Hilda would be angry with her for staying out late regardless, but she might be able to mitigate it a bit.
It was the first time in a long time she'd had any faith in her own ability to manage Hilda. She had to assume that the night with Constance had conferred it on her, for she certainly had no such internal resources of her own.
"There you are!" Her hopes were dashed in an instant.
Petronilla was standing on the stairs, her arms crossed.
"Mother and Father were worried when you didn't come back last night.
Mother said you'd most likely made off with Walter, and she'd send Cousin Piers after you if she had to. Did you run off?"
"No, it was raining," Isabel said with a sigh. There was nothing for it now but to face the impending scolding head-on. "Where's your mother now?"
"I don't know." Petronilla shrugged, then leaned into the main room and bellowed, "Mother!
" loudly enough that Walter - who'd been dozing on Isabel's shoulder - awoke with a start and a whimper.
Isabel was still trying to hush him when Hilda emerged into the front room, her posture a mirror of her daughter's.
When she caught sight of Isabel, her expression shifted, but not quite to the anger Isabel had anticipated - it was an emotion she couldn't quite place.
"You said you wanted to know as soon as she came home," said Petronilla.
Her emotions, at least, were easy to read: her entire mien was buoyed with self-satisfaction at having carried out her mother's orders.
Likely she was especially glad to have done so before Aline was able to.
She won so few victories over her sister, after all.
"Go back upstairs," Hilda said, "I told both you girls to keep to the solar this morning. And you -" This, she addressed to Isabel. "Ancelin wishes to see you in the hall. Hurry now, my husband is a busy man."
Out of the corner of her eye, Isabel caught a dejected Petronilla slinking back up the stairs.
There would be no praise forthcoming for her obedience; likely her mother had forgotten her as soon as she stepped out of her line of vision.
It was a pitiful sight - or would have been, had she not made herself so odious.
But Isabel had greater concerns just then than her niece.
"I ought to change Walter first, and wash him," she said, "he's not had the opportunity for a bath this morning, and -"
Hilda cut her off with an impatient gesture. "Never mind that. Ellyn!" The maid appeared behind her in moments; it seemed she'd been waiting for the summons. "Take Walter with you to the kitchen and keep him there, his mother is otherwise occupied."
Isabel's arms tightened around her son as she felt her heart seize. Walter would come to no harm in Ellyn's care - she was a silly girl, but she at least knew how to mind a baby - but the prospect of letting him out of her sight in this house, even for a moment . . . "There's no need for that."
"I say there is," Hilda said coolly, "and I am the mistress here, not you.
" There was some of her normal imperiousness in her tone, but there was something else, too - a gloating note of something that sounded like triumph.
It made Isabel nervous. Hilda already held the upper hand between the two of them, and always had; it had never sweetened her temperament before, so why the sudden change?
And why did she want to send Walter off with Ellyn while Isabel was busy elsewhere?
"Give him here," Ellyn said, coming towards Isabel with her arms outstretched.
Isabel wanted to tighten her grip further, but Hilda was watching her with sharp eyes, and Ellyn looked expectant.
Short of fleeing back the way she came, there was no gainsaying Hilda - and that would only invite the threatened pursuit from Piers.
She kissed the top of Walter's head with a whispered, "I'll be back soon," and handed him to Ellyn. She pulled a face. "He stinks."
"He's a baby," Isabel snapped. She would withstand a great deal from Hilda - particularly when it was directed at her - but she had no need to bear Ellyn's sourness when it was aimed at her son.
"Go and wash him, then," Hilda said to Ellyn, sounding only marginally less annoyed than Isabel.
Ellyn rolled her eyes and flounced off down the passageway, muttering to herself about finding a new position where she wouldn't be expected to work as a nursemaid.
Isabel could hear Walter cooing, which was some small comfort: at least he wasn't frightened at being taken out of her arms.
"It's this way," Hilda said, and turned to go down the passage after Ellyn. Isabel bit back a retort - she had lived in this house a full decade before Hilda's arrival and knew well enough where the hall was - and followed her.
When they entered the hall, Ancelin was seated at the table in the corner where the girls usually ate, when they dined with their parents.
There was a pile of parchment on the table in front of him, and an inkwell sitting at his elbow; it looked as if he'd been working here.
Isabel couldn't imagine why. She saw Hilda's husband rarely, for he was usually traveling on business; but when he was at home, he used the solar.
The unease that had been coalescing in her stomach was starting to solidify.
Everything was just slightly out of place and off-kilter, and she knew from experience not to trust any changes she could not explain.
"Sit," Ancelin said, indicating the stool opposite him. Hilda went to stand at her husband's shoulder. Isabel did as she was told, and clasped her hands in her lap.
Ancelin went on reading the parchment in front of him, saying nothing.
Isabel willed herself to be still and not to let her eyes dart around the room.
She did not wish for either of them to see how anxious she was, for Hilda would find it gratifying, and Ancelin - she didn't know.
Clearly his silence was meant to impress something on her, even if she was not yet certain of what.
At last, he set the parchment aside and folded his hands, one over the other, on top of the table. His gaze, when it met hers', was unreadable. "You did not come home last night. Hilda and I were concerned."
"I apologize." Isabel inclined her head.
"The weather was inclement, and I did not wish to risk carrying Walter through it in the dark.
I sheltered overnight at the lodging of - a friend.
" She had considered, briefly, saying she had stayed at Matthew's, but it was better not to offer any details until she had to: that way, they could not catch her out in a lie.
"Peter Rykener is a friend of yours?" Hilda said. Isabel was not able to stop her head from whipping around to look at her. There was a little smirk playing around her mouth. "I'd no idea you had friends in such - varied places."
The sound of Peter's name in Hilda's mouth chilled her to the bone.
Neither she nor anyone else in the family could boast of any preexisting acquaintance with either Peter or Constance; they would have told her already, if that were the case.
But then how did she know? And how much was safe for her to say?
"Not a friend, precisely," she said. She kept her voice as colourless as possible. "I have an arrangement with him, to provide embroidery for his shop. An infirmity prevents him from doing so himself."
"He does not live alone, though," Ancelin said. "Does he?" It was stated as a question. Isabel knew it wasn't one.
"Nnn-o," she said. Her heart was hammering so fast, she thought it might explode. She clenched her hands into fists at her side and willed her breathing to slow. It would do her no good to visibly panic: like a hunting dog, they would sense weakness and pounce on it. "He has a wife."
"And a brother-in-law, I believe?" Ancelin said. "Who lives with them?"
Isabel looked from him to Hilda, frowning. This was not an avenue of questioning she had expected. Nor could she see any reason for it. What purpose could the mention of Jack serve them? "Yes. He's a journeyman cooper, but he lives with his sister."
"You must have seen a great deal of him, of late," Hilda remarked. Her smirk was widening. "As you've passed so much time at the Rykeners'."
"I don't know that I have," Isabel said. She was speaking slowly, the better to keep either Hilda or Ancelin from noticing her panic. "My duties here keep me close to home. As you know."
Ancelin coughed. "That is not, I believe, entirely true," he said.
He nodded to Hilda. "My wife has sent Ellyn out after you several times now, wondering how it is you pass your time when you leave this house.
She reports you have been at this tailor's shop, often for hours, and that you've left Walter with your brother's wife while you do it.
" His brows knit in a frown. "You have been offered no permission to do so, by Hilda, myself, or my wife's cousins.
Walter is under our protection; we must know where he is. "
"And," Hilda said, "we must know that he is under the care of a decent woman. Not one who conducts herself no better than a doxy."
"A doxy?" Isabel repeated. Now she could afford to let some of her ill feeling leach into her voice: she could defend Elizabeth and not have it held against her the way any attempt at self-defense would be. "My brother's wife is an honest woman."