“They’re worth two!” Ned swore. “And tell her she is a good friend to think of me in these cold days.”

NOVEMBER 1670, LONDON

Alys and Livia waved at the passing masts of Captain Shore’s galleon as it went downriver at midday, under a darkening sky.

“Godspeed,” Livia called after it. “God bless.”

“I hope it’s not going to be stormy,” Alys said.

“God grant them good weather,” Livia agreed. “Especially coming back with my goods.”

“Amen,” Alys said as the two women went into the warehouse front door and closed it behind them. “But before it returns we have to earn some money! I can’t pay for the return voyage and the delivery. I’ve got next to nothing in the chest, after paying Captain Shore. I’m having to ask some creditors to wait.”

The younger woman slipped her arm around Alys’s waist and rested her smooth cheek and scented ringlet curls against Alys’s shoulder. “Make them wait,” she recommended. “Unless you want me to borrow from Sir James?”

“No! No, of course not. We don’t need anything from him. We can stretch it. Tabs can wait for her wages. If the worst comes to the worst I can borrow at Paton’s against the next cargo.”

“Of course Tab can wait,” Livia agreed. “You feed and house her, after all! And could you borrow enough to take another bigger warehouse? Would it not make sense to get a bigger warehouse so that I don’t have to sell at Sir James’s house? So I never have to go to his house again?”

At once Alys looked anxious. “I’d rather you didn’t go—but we couldn’t raise such a sum, it would be far too much.”

“If we sold this warehouse?”

“We can’t sell here!”

“But my dear, how are we going to make more money unless we take our opportunities? You don’t want me to be confined here forever, do you? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to buy a new warehouse, somewhere more fashionable, somewhere that we could show the antiquities, and you could run the warehouse and I could sell the treasures in a gallery?” Livia took Alys by the waist and swayed with her as if they were dancing together. “It would be a real partnership, it would be our own business.”

“I… I… don’t think, I couldn’t…” Alys floundered, torn between the beguiling picture of a thriving warehouse and a business that Livia could run alongside her, a partnership of work and love. “It sounds wonderful… but I couldn’t raise such a sum. I couldn’t risk our home… and Johnnie would never agree.”

Livia’s pretty laugh tinkled out. “Ah, Johnnie! We might as well ask Matteo for his permission. My love, we will not let our children rule us! We will think what we can do. Us together. And see! We have just seen our ship go out, we are going to see it come in. You don’t know, you have no idea, what profit I am going to make. You don’t know, you have no idea, what plans I have for us. Especially, you have no idea how happy we are going to be.”

* * *

Sarah’s bumboat hailed Captain Shore’s galleon as it rolled at anchor, waiting for the tide. Passengers often joined ships at Greenwich, merchants often sent out a final load. Captain Shore himself helped her scramble aboard over the ship’s rail.

“Whoa—a little lass?”

“I’m the maid at the Reekie warehouse,” she said. “The Nobildonna has sent me to choose her goods in Venice and get them packed.”

“I’ve already got the order from Mrs. Stoney,” he protested.

“I’m to see they fulfill it,” she said easily. “And then come home with them.”

“Why?” he asked simply. “Why not let me fetch them like last time?”

Sarah shrugged. “You know what she’s like,” she said, confident that he did not. “She wants me to pick them out. I can’t refuse. She just ordered me to come, and so here I am.”

“She said nothing to me about sending a maid to do my work. I thought she trusted me, I’ve worked for her often enough!”

Sarah smiled at him. “Oh no no! Not Mrs. Stoney! She’s fair enough—it’s the other one. The Italian one. It’s her that sent me.”

“Ah,” he said dourly. “Her.” He showed Sarah into a small cabin and stowed her hatbox under the bunk. “We only stop at Lisbon,” he warned her.

“That’s fine,” Sarah replied. “I didn’t even want to come. I’m here to fetch her goods, and to meet my husband.”

“What’s he doing in Venice?” he asked, immediately suspicious.

“He’s sick,” Sarah improvised.

“How sick? For if they have sent him to the lazaretto we’ll not even see him, you’ll not be allowed to meet till the end of his quarantine, if he survives at all.”

“No, nothing like that! It’s a broken leg,” she said glibly. “Nothing infectious. He’s a trader… a trader in silks. I’m to choose her goods and bring him home.”

He looked at her, his blue eyes acute under his sandy eyebrows. “I hope you’re telling me the truth, young lady?”

“Oh yes,” she lied cheerfully. “I am.”

NOVEMBER 1670, LONDON

The next morning Alinor told Alys that Sarah had sent a message from the millinery shop to say that she had gone to the country for a visit and would be back within the week. The three women were sewing herb bags in Alinor’s high room. Below the turret, the tide flowed in, a surge of rubbish on the incoming waves, creamy with foam from the tanneries and dye shops that had drained out to sea and were now washing in again. Seagulls cried and dived into the mess. Alinor watched for cormorants breasting the water and soaring gulls in the sky and spoke absentmindedly: “It was Ruth from the milliner’s shop. Getting married from her village and she wanted Sarah to cook her wedding breakfast.”

“And that takes a week?”

“Oh, my dear, she’s worked without a holiday for seven years! She’s served her time, let her take a holiday.”

“Alys, don’t be a hard mamma!” Livia interpolated, resting her work in her lap. “Let our pretty girl stretch her wings. She’ll be clipped and cribbed soon enough.”

In silence, Alinor observed Livia advising Alys on how to treat her own daughter.

“I’ve never even heard of this Ruth before,” Alys complained.

“You think she has run off with a lover?” Livia challenged, laughing at her. “No, you don’t! So, let her go. She’ll be back in a few days, won’t she?”

Alinor smiled. “I’m sure you know best,” she said with a little edge in her voice. “And are you going to the Strand today, my dear?”

Livia preened. “For my exhibition tea,” she said smugly. “To meet the buyers. And one sale agreed: I have sold my Caesar heads!”

“How much?” Alys asked eagerly. “Are they as valuable as you thought?”

“A hundred pounds,” Livia said, halving the sum without hesitation.