* * *

Sarah and Johnnie took supper in the kitchen with their mother, then walked down the quay to London Bridge and crossed to the north side of the river. They walked together arm in arm, their steps matching, to Sarah’s millinery workshop.

“That was odd, that Sir James,” Johnnie remarked. “What d’you think he wanted? What d’you think he really said to Grandma?”

“I’ve never seen Ma so flustered,” Sarah agreed.

“But why would he turn up? And why speak to Grandma about a refuge? What can he mean: a refuge?”

“Perhaps he’s something to do with our Lady Aunt?” Sarah suggested.

“Odd that they should have just met on her walk?”

“D’you think they’re working together? I’ll ask at the milliner’s if anyone has ever heard of him.”

“In a milliner’s?” Johnnie asked skeptically.

“If he’s ever bought a hat for a woman in this town, they’ll know.”

“I suppose so. I’ll ask at Mr. Watson’s if they know his name, if his credit is good.”

“He looks like a wealthy man. That collar alone was worth ten shillings.”

They paused at a bow window, the shop front of Sarah’s workplace. “That’s one of mine.” Sarah pointed to a wisp of golden net and some glass flowers.

“How much?” Her brother strained to see. “Two pounds for what? Some beads and some wire?”

“It’s not the beads and wire, it’s the art of putting it together,” she said with assumed dignity, then she giggled. “It’s the name on the hatbox to tell the truth,” she admitted. “I’d give the world to be able to open my own shop and have my own name on the hatbox, and not to have to work for someone else.”

“When Uncle Ned’s ship comes in,” her brother replied. “From America. Filled with Indian gold.”

* * *

At bedtime in the warehouse, Livia paused on the stairs and asked Alys: “May I stay in your room again? The attic room is so stuffy and hot.”

“Of course,” Alys replied a little awkwardly. “I was going to ask if you… but then I thought…”

“I sleep so much better with someone in the bed,” Livia confided. “I miss your brother so much in my sleep. I wake and wonder where he is. But beside you, I am at peace.”

The two women went into Alys’s bedroom. “Don’t undress under your gown like that,” Livia told her. “We are just women, the same as each other. There’s no need for shame. Here—let me help you.” Gently, hands on her shoulders, she turned Alys around, and undid the fastenings at the back of her gown and lowered it for her to step out. “And you can be my maid in return.”

“All right,” Alys said, blushing furiously as she stood in her underdress and undid Livia’s gown and helped her slide it from her shoulders over her slim hips till it lay in a pool of black silk at her feet. Livia stepped out of it, and let Alys pick it up and spread it gently in the chest.

“So pretty!” Alys exclaimed as she turned and saw Livia in her shift of silk trimmed with black lace.

“Roberto always liked me to have the best.” Livia took the hem in her hands and pulled it over her head. She stood before her sister-in-law, quite naked. Alys took the shift, shook it out, and laid it flat in the chest, her hands trembling. When she turned back, Livia was pulling her nightshift over her head, and then she turned and sat on the edge of the bed. “Will you do my hair?”

Alys pulled the ivory pins from the thick black hair and it tumbled over Livia’s bare shoulders. “It’s a pity to plait it up,” she remarked.

“Perhaps tomorrow you will help me wash it?” Livia asked. “Roberto used to help me wash and dry it.”

“Of course,” Alys said. “If you want.”

She turned her back and whipped off her own dayshift and pulled on her nightgown as quickly as she could. But when she turned back to the bed there was no need for self-consciousness, Livia was not watching her. She had climbed into the big soft bed and was lying back on the pillows. She reached out her arms. “Come and hold me! Hold me and let me sleep like a little girl in your arms.”

Shyly, Alys climbed in beside her, and felt the warm lithe body slide against her own. “Isn’t this better than being alone?” Livia asked as her head dropped to Alys’s shoulder. “I hate sleeping alone.”

JUNE 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

The morning after the town meeting the iron bar clanged on the far side of the bank and Ned left his breakfast to climb the embankment and look at the other side. Quiet Squirrel was standing there with her fishing creel in her hands, her daughter and two other women beside her.

He raised a hand to them, stepped onto his ferry, and hauled the raft across, going hand over hand on the damp rope. He ran it to the pebble shore and the Norwottuck women stepped on board, saying “Netop, Netop” one after another. Last on board was Quiet Squirrel. “Netop, Nippe Sannup,” she said.

“Netop, Quiet Squirrel, you’re selling fish today?”

“Is it true they will pay more?”

“How you know that?” Ned asked, smiling. “Quick!”

“We listened at the meetinghouse window,” she said, matter-of-factly. “We’re not such fools as to be deaf to our neighbors. Especially when they talk about us—at the tops of their voices.”

Ned understood only some of this. But he smiled. “Glad see you. We want friends with Norwottuck.”

Her smile crinkled the skin around her dark eyes. “Didn’t sound like it,” she said cynically. But when she could tell from his trusting face that he did not understand her, she spoke more slowly. “You Coatmen want land,” she said flatly. “You want servants. You want people to feed you and hunt for you. I don’t think you really want friendship.”

Ned understood most of this; he spread his hands. “I’m friendly,” he said. “Hopeful. We’re all good people. Try harder. Why not?”

“Why not?” she agreed. “You can be hopeful.”

JUNE 1670, LONDON

The three women took breakfast together in Alinor’s room, the noise of the Monday morning quayside below them, the brightness of the sunshine muted by the linen curtains, the seabirds outside calling over the high tide and diving for fish into the water.

“May I speak of a little matter of business?” Livia asked when Tabs had cleared the plates and the jug of small ale.

“Business?” Alinor asked.

“Indeed yes,” she replied. “I hope to be a help to you here, and not a burden. If I had known that it was so small a house and so mean a business, I would not have thrown myself on your kindness—but Roberto did not tell me.”

“I’m sorry if that’s so,” Alinor said a little stiffly. “We’ve never pretended to be more than we are.”

“No, it is I that am sorry that I have no fortune to bring you! But I have prospects. This is what I want to discuss.”