One fine-gloved hand plucked at the corner of the odd blue silk, turning it back and forth, watching the light play on the threads of color. No mistaking it now: her mouth was a sneer, and her voice had turned positively glacial. “Sir, I must ask you:Wheredid you get this fabric?”
Mr. Giles scrambled forward and began rolling up the bolt of cloth, hurrying to hide the offending article. “My apologies, madam—that was brought to us in error—”
The lady’s grip on the cloth tightened into a fist. “It certainly was,” the woman said. “I know this weave, sir—and I can tell you one thing: it hasneverbeen offered for sale.”
Mr. Giles gulped and chattered, the trailing ends of explanations hanging from his lips as his eyes darted from the lady to the silk and back again.
“Who brought it to you? They had no right. I shall take this away and report it to the authorities at once.” She pulled a little harder on the corner of the silk.
A glint came into the mercer’s eye, and he put a hand firmly on the bolt, holding it in place. “Madam,” he said, with a little more steel than servility, “if there is some question about the provenance of this fabric, then by all means make your case to the magistrates. But until then, I must regretfully insist my wares remain with me.”
Her chin raised. “Is this all you have of the stuff?”
“Yes, madam.”
“I will pay you a pound for it,” the lady said.
Sophie choked, and even Mr. Giles looked stunned to hear his prices more than doubled. “A pound?” he said.
The lady clicked her tongue. “Have I offended your pride? A guinea, then.”
“Two guineas,” said Mr. Giles, who even in the midst of mystification was clearly ready to seize an opportunity.
“Done,” the lady replied.
Mr. Giles looked as happy as if he’d been offered three wishes by a benevolent fairy.
The lady held up a hand. “Provided—and I cannot insist enough upon this point—provided you let me knowat onceif you come across any more of this silk. Send to Mrs. Horace Money, at the Mulberry Tree.” Mr. Giles nodded acquiescence, and the lady reached diffidently into her purse for the guineas as the draper began wrapping her purchase in brown paper.
Sophie set the ribbon on a nearby shelf and slipped out the door. Mr. Giles wouldn’t miss such a small sale, not after the windfall he’d just had.
Her footsteps sounded an irritated march in the frost. Two guineas! For one bolt of ugly silk! Poor Miss Crewe. She had obviously been desperate to sell that fabric, and had no idea of its true value. She would come back later and find it gone—and Sophie was not willing to trust Mr. Giles would tell her the truth about what had happened. She would get her half-pay, but not realize she’d been so thoroughly cheated.
A flash of auburn hair—there! Miss Crewe’s tall form was just disappearing round the corner. Sophie hitched up her skirts and hurried to catch her.
It took two turnings before her shorter legs caught up with Miss Crewe’s long strides. They were just outside St. Severus’s churchyard, winter’s first snow draping the headstones in the graveyard like fur stoles on an opera-loving audience. “Miss Crewe!” Sophie gasped. “Excuse me, Miss Crewe!”
The woman paused with one hand on the graveyard gate. Her mitten like her muffler was thick blue wool, with scars where it had been darned and the newer yarn showed brighter against the old.
“Yes?” said Miss Crewe, squinting at Sophie, who had to pause to suck air into her lungs. “I’m sorry, have we met?” The woman’s lips pursed, and her head tilted, and a teasing note entered her voice. “Was I drunk?” Her eyes swept down Sophie’s shape and then up again, lingeringly.
“No, I—” Sophie gulped again, heat rushing over her wherever Miss Crewe’s gaze touched. It seemed Sophie wasn’t the only girl in Carrisford with an eye for other women.
Miss Crewe was smiling now, very slightly, as though remembering a wicked secret she was hoping Sophie remembered too.
Sophie’s voice was breathy when she went on: “I was in Mr. Giles’s shop just now—”
“Were you?” Miss Crewe’s hand tightened convulsively on the metal spike of the gate. Her alluring smile stayed in place, but that clutching grip told a different tale: she was on her guard.
“Y-yes,” Sophie replied. “After you left... Mr. Giles sold your silk—for two guineas!”
Miss Crewe shrugged, as if this was of no consequence. “I left it because I hoped he’d sell it. Obviously.”
“But,” Sophie protested, “at such a price—you were only asking—”
“Since we do not know one another, Miss Anybody,” Miss Crewe interrupted, “I will kindly ask you not to meddle in my business. A girl can wind up in a great deal of trouble that way.” She shoved open the graveyard gate with an unholy shriek of rusted metal.
Sophie flinched hard, as the discordant sound scraped raw every nerve she had.
