The daughter said nothing.

“Did you think you were keeping him from me, for my own good?” Alinor asked gently.

“No.” Alys was driven into honesty, the words spilling out with sudden tears. “It was for me. I could hardly bear to touch his letters. I’d never have let him in if I’d known who he was yesterday, I’d have slammed the door in his face. As it is, I told him not to come back. Not for you, because I don’t know what you feel—now, after all this time. It was for me. Because I will never forgive him.”

“After all this time? As you say? After all this time?”

“More. More every year that you sicken.”

“But he was so good to Roberto!” Livia interrupted. “And so charming a gentleman. I don’t understand! You are angry, Sister Alys? You are distressed? And you… Mia Suocera?”

They both ignored her.

“He wrote to me?” Alinor’s voice was a thread.

“I dropped his first letter in the fire, and when the wax burned off, a gold coin fell through the bars of the grate into the ashes. I didn’t even know what it was, only that it was gold. It was a French pistole. I kept it. It paid for your medicine, we’d never have afforded the doctor without it. Next year he sent again. This time I lifted the seal and took the coin and burned the letter. I never wanted to know what he wrote. I never wanted to see his writing. I never wanted to see him again.”

“But Roberto said he was so good…” Livia remarked. “And he is such a gentleman! His clothes…”

“He wasn’t good to us,” Alys said with quiet bitterness. “He was no gentleman then.”

Her words drove Alinor to her feet, leaning on the breakfast table for support. At once, Alys jumped up to help her.

“No, I can walk. I’m just going to my chair.” She took the three steps, leaning on the table and then the back of the chair, and when she was seated she was breathless, her face pale.

“Let me tell him to leave?” Alys asked her. “Ma? Please can I tell him to go?”

“Leave?”

“And come back in another twenty-one years?”

Alinor shook her head, fanning her face with her hand as if she would summon air. “I can’t see him now.”

“Oh, why not?” Livia’s face was bright with curiosity. “Since he has come twice to see you? And before that, he sent money?”

“You don’t have to see him, ever,” Alys said fiercely.

“Ask him to come back tomorrow.” Alinor struggled to speak. “I’ll see him tomorrow, in the afternoon.”

“I don’t want him here again.”

Alinor nodded. “I know, my dear, I know. Just this once.”

Livia looked from one to the other, her dark gaze sharp. “But why not?”

“Not Saturday afternoon, not Sunday,” Alys specified.

Alinor took a shuddering breath. “Oh? Is it the children he wants? Did he not come for me, but for them?”

“I don’t know what he wants,” Alys said stubbornly. “But he shan’t have it.”

Her mother looked at her with a long level stare. “I expect you do know,” she said, her voice very low. “I expect he told you.”

“I hate him.”

“I know.” She took a breath and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the high chair. “Best tell him to come back this afternoon then. Not tomorrow so he can’t see the children.”

“Shall I tell him?” Livia offered helpfully. “Shall I run down and tell him to come back this afternoon?”

Alys nodded, and the young woman whisked from the room. They heard her high-heeled shoes clatter down the stairs to the parlor, and then they heard the door close behind her. In the sunlit bedroom Alinor reached out her hand silently to her daughter, and Alys gripped it.

* * *

James Avery was looking out of the window over the busy quayside; the grinding of the pulleys and the rolling of the barrels was a constant nagging din.

“Sir James.” Livia entered and swept a deep curtsey to him.

He turned and bowed. “Nobildonna da Ricci.”

“Madam Ricci will see you this afternoon,” she said simply. “It is too early now. She is unwell, you understand. And of course, old people do not like to meet their friends early in the day.”

He hesitated as if he could not understand what she was saying.

She gave him a mischievous smile. “You must not surprise us ladies in the morning!” she said. “The older you are, the more there is to do!”

James flushed and looked awkward. “I did not think… I’ll come back this afternoon then.” He picked up his hat and whip from the table. “Would three o’clock be the right time?”

“Why not say four o’clock, and you can stay for dinner,” she offered.

“She invited me for dinner?” He was astounded.

Her gleeful smile told him the truth. “No! It is my invitation; but I hope that they will agree.”

“You are kind to me, Nobildonna da Ricci,” he said, carefully hiding his disappointment. “But I think I had better wait for an invitation from Mrs. Stoney.”

“From Sister Alys? She’ll never make you welcome! Why does she dislike you so much?”

“I didn’t know that she did?”

She laughed irrepressibly, and then clapped her hand over her pink lips and the little white teeth. “Ah, this house! Nobody laughs here!”

“They don’t?”

“No, it is very grave. Roberto was such a happy young man. I thought everyone would be merry.”

He started to speak and then checked himself, as if there was too much to say. “It all happened a long time ago.”

“When the twins were born?”

“There are twins?”

She widened her dark eyes. “Did you not know? But I thought you came to see them?”

“I did not know there were twins,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “I must speak to Mrs. Reekie. I might be able to… I could assist the boy. I have been blessed in my good fortune, and I would want to be of assistance to her, if I can.”

“You have no family of your own?”

“My wife and I were childless. It was a great sorrow to us.”

“But of course. It is a sorrow for any man and wife. Especially if there is property.”

He smiled at her frankness. “You are a Venetian indeed. Yes, it is a great pity, especially if there is property.”

“I am not a Venetian,” she corrected him. “My family home is in the hills outside Florence. We are a very old family, a noble family. That is why I know the importance of a son and heir. And now I am an English lady. With an English boy. Would you have made Roberto your heir if he had lived?”

She could see him shift on his feet and look awkward. “I have a particular interest in the boy… in the twins.”

“But Roberto is their uncle? Then my baby must be their cousin?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So you must love my boy too,” she insisted. “Let me show him to you.”

“Perhaps I should go now and come back this afternoon?” he suggested, but she had already opened the parlor door and called out before he could speak, and then the nursemaid came from the kitchen with the baby in her arms.