Again, Alys looked at her mother for a refusal.

“Very well.” Alinor turned to her daughter. “She’s right, Sir James knows these people and this is his world.” A twist of her mouth showed what she thought of Sir James’s world. “Let him introduce her—we can’t.”

“You permit?” Livia turned to Alys. “You will let me share with you in this business? You will send a ship for my treasures and let me keep Sir James from you and your mother and the dear children?”

The swift grimace that came and went on Alys’s face told Livia that she had guessed correctly that, more than anything, Alys wanted the wealthy nobleman kept away from her son.

“I shall keep him from the children and from your mother,” Livia promised. “I will tell him that his own child died in the accident, and that the two children are yours. I will convince him of it. He will believe me, I shall persuade him. I am good at persuading people.”

“Are you?” Alinor asked.

“When it is the right thing.”

“It’s such a great expense,” Alys said awkwardly. “It’s not the sort of thing we usually do. We’re not merchants, Livia. We just load and unload for the merchants and the captains.”

Livia widened her eyes. “Do you not have enough money?” she asked. “Not for one voyage going only one way?”

Alys flushed. “I could find it, I suppose. I could borrow some of it. But we’ve never borrowed. We’ve never put all our money in one venture.”

“Shall I ask Sir James if he will pay for the shipping?” Livia asked. “I am sure that he would.”

“No!” Alys said abruptly. “Don’t do that.”

“Then what?” Livia asked helplessly. “What shall we do?”

Alys exchanged a glance with her mother. “I’ll find the money,” she said. “Just this once.”

JUNE 1670, LONDON

That afternoon, Sir James, waiting at the bridge over the canal, saw Livia come out of the warehouse front door, put up a black-trimmed parasol against the bright sunshine, and then beckon the nursemaid and baby to follow her. He was relieved to be chaperoned; but he feared that the presence of the maid would not prevent Livia from saying anything that she liked.

“You don’t have a parasol for the baby?” he asked.

“He is Italian,” she replied. “The sun is good for him.”

“Half Italian,” he corrected her.

“Of course, half Italian, half English, and perhaps he will be a—what do you say?—a York-shire-man.”

The matter was too serious for him to return her smile. “Your ladyship, I don’t think that can be. I must say—”

“No, no, don’t say a word!” she interrupted him. “Let us walk in the beautiful fields and I will tell you something that you should know. I have permission from La Suocera to tell you, and from her daughter too. I think the daughter is the strictest of the two, don’t you? But a mother of twins must be obeyed.”

“Alys? You say twins? Both children are Alys’s children? You know that for sure?”

She walked beside him, her hand lightly on his arm. “I will tell you it all,” she promised him. “When I am on my little seat.”

He forced himself to speak of the weather and of the flock of sheep in the distance. She asked how far it was to the warehouse from his home, and how long it took him by boat, or by horse.

“About half an hour by boat. If the tide is with me,” he said.

“And if you wanted to send something from the warehouse to the City?” she said. “Some big, bulky things? Would you send them by boat or by wagon?”

He guessed she was speaking of her antique objects. “I think they would have to go to the Custom House near Queenhithe,” he said. “To pay duties.”

“I have to pay duties before they are sold?” she asked. “I pay duties on the value of them before I sell them? They think I can afford to pay duties before I have made any money?”

“I don’t know.” He felt very tired. “It’s not something I’ve ever gone into.”

As if she sensed his mood, she glanced up at him and smiled. “Ah, business!” she said with a wave of her gloved hand. “We will not talk about business. It is beneath us.”

They had reached the fallen tree where she had sat before. Again, he spread a fresh silk handkerchief and she perched on the trunk of the tree while he stood before her, and the nursemaid put a shawl on the grass and laid the baby down, bending over to see his smile. She gave him a leaf and took it from him when he put it in his mouth. She showed him a twig. She tickled his round cheeks with a buttercup, smiling at his rich chuckle.

Livia held her parasol over her head and peeped up at Sir James. “I have found out about your child,” she said. “As I promised I would.”

Now that he was about to know, he found that he almost wanted to be left in ignorance. “Tell me,” he forced himself to say.

“They trusted me with the truth, so that I might tell you.”

“Yes,” he said. “And?”

“You know that Mrs. Reekie was carrying your child before the accident?”

The drop of his head told her that he had known this, and that still he had failed to save her.

“After the accident she nearly died.”

“The child? What happened to the child?” he whispered.

“She miscarried the baby. It died. There is no child. You have no son.”

He gave a little stagger, as if a blow had finally fallen. “You are sure? There is no doubt? No… deceit?”

“I am sure. They would not lie on a matter so sacred.”

“But Johnnie? I was so sure he…”

“He is Alys’s boy. Sarah is hers too. Alys was carrying twins when she left her husband.” She paused. “I don’t know about him,” she said. “I’ll ask if you want.”

“No, it doesn’t matter. It was their wedding day. I’m not interested in him.”

She was shocked. “Their wedding day? Heavens! What happened?”

“It was their wedding day—the day it… all happened.”

“A winter wedding?” she asked, thinking of the ribbon and the dried berries in Alys’s cupboard. “How sad. Very sad and tragic.”

“Are you sure of this?” he asked her. “It is not a lie they have made up together?”

“Why would they lie about something like this, against their own interests? They would be far more likely to say Johnnie is your child and claim your fortune!”

He tried to speak; he turned away. “So I have no son,” he said, almost to himself. “All these years when I have been hoping… and I sent money. But there was no child. There never was.”

She gave him a moment to walk up and down, he went past Matteo, who crowed to see him and waved a blade of grass; but James was blind to everything. He came back to stand before Livia. “Forgive me,” he said. “It’s a blow.”

“But you are free perhaps now? From your sorrow?” She lifted her parasol so he could see her encouraging smile. “You are free to make a new life again.”