She dropped her hand. “All right then. But don’t complain later that I didn’t tell you.”

“You’re planning something stupid,” he predicted as she walked on. “You’re never leaving the millinery shop? You’re never leaving without another post to go to and some mad idea, like sewing herb tea bags with Grandma? Or the statues… oh God, Sarah… not the statues…”

She turned back to him, and he crowed with laughter. “I always know what you’re thinking. You’re going to go in with Aunt Livia and trade in statues!”

She snatched at his hands to silence him, though there was no one near them down the narrow street that led to the church. “Don’t you say a word! Don’t you dare say one word, Johnnie!”

“Tell me what you’re going to do.”

“This is a secret,” she told him.

He made the little hangman gesture of their childhood oath which said that either would be hanged on the gibbet at Savoury Dock before betraying the other. She leaned so close that the feather on her bonnet tickled his face. He listened intently till she finished.

“You can’t go,” he said flatly.

“Grandma herself is sending me.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not safe for a girl,” he amended.

“I’ll be with Captain Shore,” she pointed out. “And then I’ll go straight to Livia’s steward. She says he loved Uncle Rob like a grandson. He speaks English and I know a little Italian. He was her family steward. She says he has ten children. He’ll probably take me in to stay with them. Why not?”

He made a face, took off his hat, and scratched his head. “I should go with you,” he said.

“Really, Johnnie, you know you can’t. You’ve got to finish your time and your master would rip up your indentures if you upped and left.”

“I can’t let you go on your own.”

“Yes, you can. You know I’m no fool. I can look after myself. And if Grandma’s happy, you can’t object.”

He nodded. “You can run faster than any girl I know. And fight like an alley cat. But Venice! All that way?”

She took his arm and they walked together towards the church. Over their heads, the first-story windows leaning towards each other made the street like a tunnel. Their footsteps echoed and Sarah lowered her voice. “If something were ever to go wrong for me, d’you think you’d know?” she asked. “Would you know without being told?”

“Oh yes,” he said at once. “But that’s being a twin, isn’t it?”

“Grandma says she’d know if her son was dead. I believe her. I think she would.”

That made him pause. “Grandma does not believe Livia that he drowned?”

She nodded.

“That’s a terrible accusation,” he said slowly. “That Aunt Livia is a fraud? Not Rob’s widow? Perhaps not even our aunt?”

“I know,” the girl said. “It’s that important. That’s why I’m going.”

* * *

All through the service and the long sermon Johnnie wondered if he should tell his mother of Sarah’s plan, but a lifetime of loyalty to his twin through all the little adventures of wharfinger life silenced him. By the time they filed out of the church and walked home with the minister, Johnnie’s mind was made up. As Mr. Forth went upstairs to pray with Alinor, Johnnie turned into the counting house with his mother to balance the week’s books, fully decided to say nothing.

As soon as he was seated on the high clerk’s stool, he saw the address of Signor Russo, written in Livia’s large dramatic scrawl. He knew at once it must be the directions to the steward’s house in Venice, and without saying a word, silently palmed it as his mother came into the room and opened the ledgers.

One glance confirmed his fears. “I see she’s started another debt, and still paid us nothing from her last voyage,” he remarked. He did not say who it was, owing money to the warehouse. Only one debt had ever been left to run in the two decades that they had been in business.

“She’s sending for more antiquities,” his mother said tightly. “She’s so sure of selling these that she wants more. We’ll stand the charges again. She’s doing it for us, for all of us. She wants to buy a bigger warehouse, somewhere better for your grandma, and we’ll all live there together. It’ll be a home for you, when you finish your apprenticeship, and for Sarah.”

“We only need more bedrooms because she’s here,” he pointed out. “We never needed a bigger house than this before. It’s been good enough for twenty years.”

“She has plans for us…”

“How does she get to make plans for us?”

His mother flushed. “She’s family, Johnnie. She’s your aunt. She has a right to…”

“Not like family at all,” he said gravely. “She brings in nothing. Nobody in the family is idle. Sarah brought home her pennies the day that she started work. You’ve always had my wages. Even Grandma grows herbs and makes her teas. Uncle Ned is on the other side of the world and yet he still sends us goods. Nobody takes money out. Nobody spends the family money. We never risk it. We’ve always earned, not speculated.”

“Livia’s not making pennies on lavender bags, she’s on the way to a fortune.” His mother bridled. “And as Rob’s widow and our kin we should support her. She thinks we could get a bigger warehouse and sell the antiques direct from Venice.”

“Is she going to put up the money for a bigger warehouse?”

“When she’s paid…”

“Or does she mean that we should be her banker?”

“We’d be in partnership,” Alys said defensively. “It would be a family venture. I trust her. I’ve come to love her as a sister indeed. I believe her word. I believe in her knowledge of the statues. She says she’s going to make a fortune, she says she’s going to buy a house and share it with us, she’s going to live with us. When I think of living with her, for the rest of my life, at my side—” She broke off. “It would change my life completely,” she said quietly.

“You want a bigger wharf?”

“A bigger wharf, a better house, somewhere with a garden for your grandma. And a companion, a friend for me. Someone to share the worry.”

Johnnie had a painful sense of his mother’s long years of loneliness. “I should do more.”

“No, Son, you do all I ask of you. But to have someone at my side, as a sister, now that you two have left home. It would be—”

“But Ma, is she… reliable?” he asked, trying to find the right words. “She came so suddenly? With nothing but what she stood up in? We know nothing about her? All that we know is what she’s told us.”

“Yes,” Alys said firmly. “We know she was Rob’s wife and the mother of his child. What more do we need to know? She has a true heart, I know it, Johnnie. And she’s found a family in us. We’re not going to fail her.”

The young man felt acutely torn between his sister’s secret and his mother’s trust. “I hope so,” he said uncertainly.