* * *

Alinor came down for dinner after praying with Mr. Forth, and Tabs served the family in the parlor with several different dishes and a jug of wine from Paton’s with their compliments to Miss Stoney on the day of her completing her apprenticeship. They had roasted oysters and roasted beef from the cookhouse, and Alinor had made Sussex pond pudding with a lump of sweet butter in the middle. After dinner they played at riddles, and then Johnnie and Sarah sang the rhythmic chants that the lightermen sung as they unloaded their boats, with much-amended lyrics to cover the usual obscenities. Alinor recited a country poem from Sussex that her mother had taught her, and Livia sang an Italian folk song with a swirling little dance that she did in the corner on the worn floorboards. It was late when they banked down the parlor fire and took their candles up the stairs to bed.

Johnnie stopped Sarah with a hand on her arm and slipped the scrap of paper with the address into her pocket without a word. Nobody noticed and the twins moved as one: Sarah to her bedroom that she shared with Carlotta and the baby, Johnnie up the narrow stairs to his attic room.

“Did you draw the runes?” Alinor confirmed with Alys as they went to her room.

“Of course, Ma.” The younger woman helped her mother into bed and went to her own room.

Livia was already in bed with her candle blown out. “It’s sad when a girl leaves her childhood,” she said into the shadowy bedroom.

“Not sad for her! Sarah is glad to have completed her time.”

“But now she will have to marry, and her life will be decided for her. Children and a husband, and she will never be able to do what she wants.”

“Not in England,” Alys said, lifting the sheet and sliding into bed.

Livia turned to her and put her head in the warm crook of Alys’s neck. “Ah, that’s good.”

Alys drew the younger woman to her and stroked her smooth braided head, inhaling the warm perfume of roses. “You know, in England, a wife can have her own business, earn her own money, she can declare herself independent of her husband—a feme sole—and her money is hers, and her business is hers too.”

“Is that so?” Livia asked, suddenly alert. “A husband does not take everything on marriage?”

“They have to agree, of course, she cannot do it without his agreement. She has to go to the City fathers and they have to give her a deed to say that she is a feme sole. But if she declares herself to be so, and everyone agrees, then she can own her own house, keep her own fortune, and run her own business. Ma is a widow, I am a feme sole, the business is our own.”

“But the child of a marriage between a feme sole and a man with money still inherits his father’s estate?”

“He would. And his mother can leave her fortune to him if she wishes. It is in her gift.”

“And they are still married—she would get her widow’s dower if the husband died?”

“Yes. Livia—why does this matter to you? What are you thinking?”

“Nothing! Not at all,” the younger woman said rapidly. “It’s just so unlike my home. In Venice, if you are a woman, your life is ended at the church door. I was a nothing. Nothing. Until Roberto saw me and then I came into the light again.”

“His loss must have been terrible for you,” Alys said sympathetically.

“It was the end of everything; but he showed me what I might be and now I am in England, with you, and with your family, and I can hope again.”

“Do you hope?” Alys asked, a sense of something like desire rising up in her.

Livia slid a little closer. “I have more than hope,” she whispered, her lips against Alys’s shoulder. “I have found my heart and my home.”

“My love.” Alys drew the younger woman closer, so they touched, from lips down the long line of their bodies to their entwined feet.

“And does the husband of a feme sole have to pay her debts?” Livia whispered.

Alys sighed and released her embrace. “No, she is responsible for her own debts.”

“Interesting,” Livia remarked, and turned on her side and went to sleep.

OCTOBER 1670, LONDON

Johnnie was up early on Monday morning, to get to his City merchant house on time, and was surprised to find Sarah in the kitchen, heating his small ale and cutting the bread for his breakfast.

“No Tabs?” he asked.

“I said she could lie in,” Sarah said. “Ma will be down in a minute. I wanted to see you. Before I go.”

He looked directly at her and made a little grimace that she understood at once as anxiety for her, guilt that he was not going with her, and pain at their separation. She stepped towards him, gripped him, and they held each other tightly.

“Take care!” he said urgently. “Don’t do anything stupid. For God’s sake come home. We can’t stand another loss. It would kill Grandma—especially as she sent you.”

“Lord! I hadn’t thought of that,” she exclaimed. “I’ll come back safe and sound. Don’t worry!”

Their mother’s step on the stair made them break apart and Sarah turned to the fire.

“You’re up early, Sarah,” Alys remarked.

Sarah turned and smiled. “I know. I couldn’t sleep.”

After Johnnie left, and Sarah and her mother cleared the dishes, Sarah kissed her mother good-bye, surprising her by the warmth of her embrace, and ran up the stairs to see her grandmother. The older woman pressed a guinea into her hand. “Keep it safe,” she said. “If you need anything.”

The girl hesitated. “How d’you have this?” she asked. “A whole guinea?”

“It’s my burial money,” Alinor said. “I saved it up over the years and kept it for myself. To pay for my burial at Foulmire, beside my ma, in the little churchyard at St. Wilfrid’s.”

“I shouldn’t take your burial money, Grandma.”

“You take it. I won’t need it. I’m not going to die until I see my son again,” Alinor said confidently. “You’ve told them at the milliner’s that you’re leaving?”

The girl nodded. “I told them I’d be away for a quarter. They weren’t happy, but they’ll take me back when I return. Ma thinks I’m going to work as usual.”

“And you have the money for your passage?”

Sarah nodded. “I’ve got enough. It feels wrong not giving it to Ma. And Johnnie’s given me some.”

“You’ve told Johnnie?”

“I can trust him. But, Grandma, maybe don’t tell Ma, for she’ll only tell Livia.”

Alinor nodded. “She tells her everything. I’ll say you went to stay with a friend in the country, for a week. And, at the end of the week, I’ll tell her then. That’ll give you a start, so Livia can’t send a message to warn them.”

The girl frowned. “You think she has people working for her? But doing what?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want her knowing that you’ve gone to find her out.”

The girl was struck for the first time with the enormity of her task. “Grandma! If I find Uncle Rob, what am I to do?”