Free Silken Secrets by Joan Smith

glance at his dusty fingers, he altered this misleading phrase. “That is to say—the silk ain’t here. It’s tiring work,” he said, wiping his brow and looking about for a keg of ale.
    “I’d offer you a seat, but all the empty chairs are full,” Mrs. Plummer said, grimly placing a dirty pot on the one closest to him.
    With a glower and a military straightening of his shoulders, Codey said, “As you were, ladies.” Then he saluted and left.
    Mrs. Plummer stared at his swaggering departure. “Gudgeon. Why we have to pay taxes to be badgered by the likes of that yellow hammer is above and beyond me. He’s set me an hour behind on my work. The bread will have swelled to a mountain.” On this complaint she returned to her kitchen.
    The untidy condition of the house had been borne in on Miss Judson during the tour, and she went for a dust cloth to tackle the main saloon. “You’d best use beeswax and turpentine, or you’ll only rearrange the dust,” Mrs. Plummer told her, and supplied these necessities, before returning to beat her bread dough into compliance.
    Mary Anne had just tucked a tea towel into her waistband and begun the job of restoring a sheen to ancient furnishings when the door knocker sounded again. This unwonted flurry of visitors was a distraction from her usual solitude, and she quickly whipped off the towel to answer the door. She smiled in surprise to see Mrs. Vulch and her daughter, Bess, standing on her doorstep. Bess was arrayed in yet another new gown. The Vulches were the smartest-looking women in the village, due to their unique closeness to incoming silk.
    Fond as they were of silk, however, they did not wear it during the daytime. Mrs. Vulch was a large, strident, dark-haired woman, florid of complexion and outspoken in the extreme. Bess, having been born into more opulence than her parents, appeared closer to gentility. She wore a fashionable blue and white gown of mulled muslin, with a broad ribbon around the waist. Mary Anne thought the straw cartwheel bonnet must have been sufficient protection from the sun, but it was augmented with a sun umbrella that matched the gown.
    Miss Vulch, like most redheads, was prone to spotting from the sun. Even with all her layers of protection, the charge of being bran-faced was not entirely foreign to her. But she did not sink under it. She had pretty brown eyes, a trim figure, a lively manner, and a dowry of ten thousand pounds.
    “Mary Anne!” She smiled gaily. “Whatever are you doing with a dust cloth in your hands? My dear, you look a quiz. You have dust on your chin.”
    “Some ladies don’t think it beneath them to pick up a dust cloth, you see,” Mrs. Vulch pointed out to her daughter.
    “Do come in. I’m delighted you called.” Mary Anne smiled and showed them into the Blue Saloon.
    Mrs. Vulch perused the chamber closely, trying to figure out why it should be that her own saloon, where everything was bright and new as a penny, failed to achieve the casual air of elegance that still lingered here at the Hall despite the sad disrepair of the chamber. Her piano was as good as new, as no one ever played it. All the books Adrian bought were the same—why, most of the pages weren’t even cut.
    “You should be out driving on a fine day like this, Mary Anne,” Bess said. “I wager that horrid uncle of yours has gone off and left you carriageless. You should make him buy you a phaeton. Papa’s buying one for me.”
    On this breathless rush of words she smiled contentedly around her. Mr. Robertson must have laughed up his sleeve to see such a shambles. She examined the sofa cushion for dirt and brushed it with her gloves before sitting down. Mary Anne had some hopes her friend had come to invite her out for a drive and glanced at the clock to see it was already after three.
    “Yes, I would like to go for a drive, but as you said, Uncle is out in the carriage.”
    “I’d love to take you, but alas, we have dozens of cards to