She turned and went quietly upstairs, as Tabs brought in the soup and the fresh bread roll and the glass of wine.

* * *

Much later, Livia came into the darkened bedroom. “Alys,” she said to the shadowy bed. There was no answer.

In the dark, she slipped off her beautiful gown and her silk undergown. Alys could hear the whisper of the material but she lay still and closed her eyes, pretending sleep. Livia did not feel for her nightgown under her pillow, she lifted the sheets and slipped into bed naked. The ropes of the bed creaked beneath her weight. Alys was far away over her own side, a cold space between them.

Livia slid up to Alys’s unresponsive back. She put a gentle hand on Alys’s hunched shoulder: “Forgive me, Alys. My sister, my love. Forgive me. I spoke unkindly. I cannot help that I am not like you, nor like your mother or your daughter. I’m a woman unlike any you have met before. I cannot be diminished, Alys. I would die if I were diminished.”

Alys said not a word; but Livia sensed she was holding her breath to listen.

“I could not bear to be like you, a woman driven down into work, driven out of her home. I wouldn’t stoop to it. I would rather die than be poor, Alys.”

Still, Alys said nothing,

“I’m not an honest woman, nor a straightforward woman, not in the way that you and your mother are. And I know I’m vain and flighty.” Her voice quavered with emotion. “I was vain this evening. I was cruel to you. I am a beautiful liar, if you like. I am all twists and turns and misdirection. You cannot trust me. I recommend that you do not trust me. I am not actually evil; but I am not straightforward. I am not simple.”

Alys breathed out and Livia continued: “You think that a woman should be honorable. I’ve seen you speak to the captains, to the warehousemen, even to the lumpers. You speak to them with respect and you demand that they respect you: a good trader. You think that a woman succeeds by being like a man. You think that if you act like a good honest man you will rise in a man’s world. You think you will succeed on your merits. You think hard work and God’s blessing will be rewarded.”

“I am honest,” Alys was driven into speech. “I learned it—the hardest way.”

“I’m not,” Livia replied quickly. “I am far more interesting than honest. I am far more successful than honesty could ever be. I am only ever honest to myself. My face in the mirror is the only one that I trust with my secrets. I never lie to myself, Alys, I know what I am doing when nobody else knows. And I don’t do things by accident. I never do something and not know why, I’m never driven by an unknown desire, I never run in one direction while yearning for the other. I always know who I am, and what I want, and I go to my way in a roundabout fashion so that no one can refuse me. The only honest word I utter is to myself.” She paused. “That is admirable, in a way. In its own way. I am admirable; in my own way.”

“But what do you want here?” Alys cried out to her, sitting up and turning round so that her sister-in-law could see—even in the shadowy room—her eyes red from crying and her face twisted with distress. “What d’you want here, if you despise us so much? Why stay in our home when it’s so poor? Why are you using our warehouse but going out to make money with our enemy? Why’ve you come here to distress us? Why d’you work with him? What d’you want? What were you planning, when you came here, all little and crushed and grieving? When you came so beautiful that a heart would break to see your face? And the first thing you did was reach out your hand to him? You held your handkerchief to your eyes and you reached for him! How can you boast of your pride when you flung yourself at him?”

Livia flung herself into Alys’s arms, kissed her hot face, wet with tears, lay along the lean length of her. “I want you,” she whispered in her ear. “That’s what I want. I know it now, and the moment I met you. I want to be like you: simple and honorable and brave. I want you to love me as I am: curious and duplicitous as I am. I want to belong here with you. I want to be yours: heart and soul. I want you to own me as a sister, I want to be the great love of your life. I want you to see past the beautiful surface of me, past my luster, and see me for myself.”

“Luster,” Alys repeated the unusual word.

“The shine on a beautiful marble, the gleam on a skin of bronze. The glow of my perfect skin.” She gave a low laugh.

“I can’t bear lies,” Alys whispered in reply. “You don’t know what they cost me, what they cost my ma. You don’t know how we both told lies until there was such a tangle of deceit that we were drowned under the weight of them. We weren’t punished for our crime, my crime. It was the lies that destroyed us. I can’t live with a pack of lies. I can’t bear it.”

“You must, you must bear me,” Livia urged her, pressing her warm breasts against Alys’s cool nightgown. “For you are the only person in the world that I speak the truth to. The only one in the world that I love and trust. I have to be with you. You have to love me in return. Please, Alys. Without you I have no one! I have nowhere to live, I have no friend. I am an orphan, alone in the world. I am a widow. How can you not love me? How can you not pity me? You are my sister: be a sister to me!”

Alys did not plunge into Livia’s arms but hesitated, scrutinized the beautiful face in the stripes of moonlight. “Can I trust you not to lie to me?” she demanded. “Even if you lie to everyone else? Can you be honest to me, here, when we are alone together, in this room? Even if you lie all the day to everyone else?”

Two tears like pearls rolled down Livia’s cheeks, her lips trembled. “Yes,” she said. “I swear I will be true to you; if you will love me.”

The two women looked at each other, unmoving for a long moment, and then Alys opened her arms and they kissed, deeply kissed, and fell asleep, enwrapped, Alys’s face buried in Livia’s dark hair, Livia’s hands linked behind Alys’s back, drawing her close and holding her close all night.

OCTOBER 1670, LONDON

Sarah and Johnnie walked back from church together, as Sarah described Avery House, and Livia’s presence as the lady of the house, under the name of Lady Peachey.

“You think she’ll catch him?” Johnnie muttered, one eye on his mother walking before him arm in arm with Livia.

“She’s got him wrapped around her finger,” Sarah said. “She walks in and out of the house as if it was her own.”

“Then she’ll be a wealthy woman, and she can pay her debts to us.”

“There’s plenty of money there,” Sarah confirmed.

They followed Livia and Alys through the front door and parted in the little hall. Sarah went upstairs to sew with Alinor, while Johnnie went to the counting house with his mother.

As soon as he looked at the books he saw that the warehouse had carried the cost of loading, shipping, and unloading, that Livia paid nothing for the storage of her goods in the warehouse, and nothing for them to be delivered by the Reekie wagon to Avery House, crossing and recrossing the river on the expensive horse ferry. The warehouse books had never showed such debt before, the cashbox was almost empty.