The Silk Merchant's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a precise place for everything; if you valued your life, you didn’t touch.
    ‘I had tea with Mark Jenson yesterday,’ Nicole said. ‘At the hotel. There were officers and music.’
    ‘I’m concentrating.’
    ‘I rather like Mark. Doesn’t he have the most amazing blue eyes?’
    Sylvie bent her head and paused before she spoke. ‘Isn’t he a bit old?’
    Nicole looked up at the ceiling. Was he too old? She turned to look at Sylvie again. ‘What do you write about?’
    ‘Are you bored, Nicole?’ Sylvie closed the leather-bound journal and began filing her nails.
    Nicole envied her sister’s perfect nails, each one filed to the exact same curve. Her own split too easily, but with the summer ball fast coming up – the first Nicole would go to – she had to attend to them.
    ‘What are you going to wear to the ball?’ she asked.
    ‘My secret.’
    Nicole decided to wait until her sister was out and then search the room.
    ‘I know what you’re thinking and it’s not in here!’
    Nicole laughed. ‘When did you become a mind reader?’
    Sylvie shook her head and gazed at her sister, her hazel eyes a perfect mirror. ‘You wear your heart on your sleeve. You’re too transparent.’
    Sylvie was the exact opposite. The two of them couldn’t have been more different. You never knew what Sylvie was thinking or feeling.
    ‘Have you never felt the impulse to rush into the street and dance naked under the stars?’ Nicole said.
    Sylvie laughed. ‘Have you?’
    Nicole stared at her sister. Why did she always look so calm? While Sylvie seemed barely aware of the unfairness of their current situation, Nicole was consumed by it.
    ‘Tell me why Papa gave you the entire business.’
    Sylvie shook a bottle of pink nail varnish and began to paint her nails. ‘You know why. He’s focusing on his governmental work.’
    ‘And you know what that is?’
    Sylvie looked up again and Nicole watched a single drop of nail polish drip on to the floor. Sylvie took out a tissue and wiped the polish away. She spotted Nicole’s toffee paper, crouched down to pick it up and threw it in the bin.
    ‘So?’ Nicole said again.
    ‘
Chérie
, I don’t know any more about it than you.’ Sylvie continued painting her nails. ‘What I want to know is are you going to accept the offer of the silk shop or not? Because if you are we need to organize some protection there.’
    ‘Protection?’
    ‘Just a precaution.’
    Nicole gazed at her sister’s impassive features and took in the perfect symmetry of her face. Everyone envied Sylvie’s flawless complexion and chiselled cheekbones; she was the girl who had everything. Sylvie seemed to be studying Nicole’s face too, but then lowered her eyes and finished the final nail.
    Suffocating black clouds gathered over the city the next day and time hung heavy. Nicole could hardly wait for the following morning when she would meet Mark and she wandered about the house and garden in a state of suspense. She wanted to talk to her father about the shop, but he seemed more distant than usual; when Nicole felt she could wait no longer, she walked into his office expecting him to be alone. Unfortunately she’d interrupted a visit from a high-ranking Vietnamese mandarin just as he was speaking about an underground network in Haiphong.
    ‘Well? What do you want now?’ her father snapped. ‘This is a private conversation.’
    ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ she said, feeling embarrassed. ‘I only wanted to say I will accept the offer of the shop.’
    ‘All right. Talk to Sylvie about it.’
    The words ‘French puppet’ rang in her head as she backed out of the room. They had been daubed in red on their neighbour Madame Hoi’s garden wall more than once. Could it be her father who was the puppet master? She was surprised when he seemed to change his mind and followed her out to the hall, closing the office door behind him.
    ‘I had a phone call complaining about you,’ he said in a lowered