Free The Wandering Arm by Sharan Newman

Especially the part about Catherine.
    “Baruch thought you could go to Paris, pretending to be a silversmith with no master to speak for him,” he said at last. “Without a recommendation, even if you showed some skill, few people would take you on. You could seem to be desperate enough to take any sort of work. All we want you to do is keep your eyes and ears open. See if there are any rumors of jobs in the craft for those who ask no questions, especially about where their payment comes from.”
    Edgar seemed disappointed. “Is that all?” he asked.
    “Of course it is,” Hubert said. “Would you even consider taking Catherine along if it were more dangerous than that?”
    Edgar got up and started pacing as well. Catherine pulled her feet in close to her stool to avoid being stepped on. The men went around each other like two dogs deciding whether or not to attack.
    “I thought you wanted me to do something important,” Edgar muttered. “Something only I could do. Anyone can wander about picking up gossip.”
    “I could do that,” Catherine piped up. She was getting tired of sitting hunched against the wall while the beasts prowled.
    Both men glared at her, more in panic than anger. They knew very well from past experience that she was likely to act on anything she heard rather than simply report it.
    “Well, I could,” she repeated. “And don’t start lecturing me about danger. What I’ve just gone through was more dangerous than anything that ever happened to me before. What more have I to fear?”
    Her deep blue eyes challenged them to refute her. They both looked away.
    Hubert’s eyes filled. Edgar stared hard at the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling. The only emotion men of his family were allowed to show was anger, and that well chilled.
    “My beloved child …” Hubert began.
    Catherine stopped him. “Father, tell us what needs to be done,” she said calmly. “You know we’ll be safer together, as well as happier, so we should begin from that premise and build our plan from it. Edgar, please come sit down. You’re making me queasy going round and round like that.”
    Edgar took her hand, but remained standing next to her. He faced his father-in-law. “When I married Catherine, I gladly gave up my parents’ plans for me to enter the priesthood and follow my uncle into the bishopric,” he said. “But in these last few months you have never been willing to discuss just what I am to do with my life. You’ve kept me occupied with errands, as you do Solomon. I can’t believe that’s all you expect from me. If it’s still your wish, I’ll go to Montpellier, or even Bologna, to study law. However, I’d rather continue my education in Paris.”
    “Well, possibly.” Hubert wasn’t ready to commit himself until he learned where this conversation was going.
    “In your plotting, you’ve forgotten that I’m known in Paris,” Edgar told him. “I lived there for four years. But that doesn’t need to make me useless for this. If I came back with Catherine and announced that my parents had disowned me for marrying her and I needed to work with my hands to survive, it would be perfectly believable. Any lack of skill could be placed to my not having been trained in the guilds.”
    “Edgar, you would do that?” Catherine said. “Your friends would all scorn you, or worse.”
    “Not all of them,” Edgar said. “Anyway, don’t you think that I would do that much for you, if this tale were true?”
    Catherine knew that he would, but even more, she was well aware that he was desperately eager to. There was no point in letting her father know that.
    “I think that’s very noble of you, carissime,” she said. “And I think it’s an excellent idea.” She smiled.
    “So, as a poor student forced to support a wife,” Edgar went on, “I would be just as likely to fall in with those with unlawful business as if I were a journeyman, and there would be fewer questions asked.”
    “It’s