He bent his head to hear her whisper.

“Infiammando,” she breathed.

“Inflaming?” he confirmed.

Livia, sloe eyes turned down for modesty, only nodded.

“For sure, to a lady; but for a man of the world like me?”

“It’s indecente to anyone,” she assured him, turning her head away, embarrassed beyond words. “It would be indecente to the king himself, and we all know that he has an eye for art.”

“How much?” he asked, breathing a little heavily.

“Ah, my Venus, my indecent Venus, would be five hundred.”

“Guineas?”

She turned back and smiled. “Exactly.”

* * *

James waited for Livia in his study, as the last guest left the house. She came in smiling and offered him Sir Morris’s note of hand. “Will you take this for me?” she said. “I dare not take it to the warehouse. I am so afraid of thieves or fire!”

“I’ll redeem it tomorrow,” he said. “Shall I keep the gold at my goldsmith’s for you?”

“Yes,” she said. “That would be best, thank you.”

He glanced at the amount. “You must be pleased,” was all he said.

“I am,” she agreed. “For the poor ladies.”

He waited while she put on her bonnet and threw a little cape around her shoulders against the cold evening air, and then she took his arm and let him lead her through the garden towards the river. Glib went ahead of them to hail a skiff to come to the Avery pier.

“What a beautiful evening,” she sighed. “What a wonderful day we have had.”

She waited for him to reply, and when he was silent, she paused at the head of the steps to the pier. “Oh! I had quite forgotten! How foolish of me. Alys will be wanting to be paid for the shipping and the wagon.”

“Immediately?” he asked, surprised.

“My dear, they are so hand to mouth, she has been dunning me for weeks. You have no idea! I have been quite uncomfortable…”

“I shall send your money from the goldsmith’s tomorrow…” he suggested.

“No, no, I need it at once. She will be waiting up to empty my pocket. She’ll be expecting it tonight.”

“Surely she realizes that you would be paid in a promissory note?”

“My dear, they only deal in coins,” she said. “She keeps everything she makes in a chest in the counting house. I doubt they’ve ever seen a note!”

“Of course…” He hesitated and reached into the deep pockets of his jacket. “Shall I give you some funds now?”

“That would be so kind,” she said. “I should give my Mia Suocera something for housekeeping too.”

He drew out a heavy purse and tipped out five gold guineas. “Would this be sufficient?”

She took it and breathed: “Thank you, you’re very thoughtful. Perhaps ten? I would not want to embarrass myself in front of Alys, she’s very grasping.”

“She always was,” he assured her, and handed over the entire purse, which disappeared into the placket sewn inside the waistband of her skirt. He bowed and kissed her hand and then helped her down the stair into the stern of the waiting skiff, as Glib scrambled into the seat in the prow. The boatman nodded to Sir James, pushed off, and started rowing.

The sun low on the river, the skiff went along its own shadow on the darkening water. The wind was coming in from the sea and the boat rocked gently on the little waves. Livia, a woman of Venice, took no notice of the birds skimming by her, going to roost for the night, or the beauty of the little moon rising before her. She looked back to the water stairs of Avery House and the tops of the trees beyond it in the orchard and the hidden garden, and thought only of the grand house behind that and the Avery fortune that had built and maintained it, and the ten guineas in her pocket.

The waterman drew up to the Horsleydown Stairs and Glib paid with Sir James’s money, and got out of the boat first, to help Livia up the greasy steps. “You can go,” she dismissed him when she reached the top.

He hesitated. His orders had been to see her into the warehouse, and he hoped she might pay for his return by boat.

She snapped her fingers in his face. “Did you not hear me? Go.”

He bowed and set off on the walk back to Avery House, as Livia opened the mean front door and stepped into the dark little hall.

Alys was waiting for her. “I saved you dinner,” she said eagerly. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

“I’m very tired,” Livia said sulkily. “I don’t want anything.”

“Oh! Would you like some soup? Or a glass of—”

“I said: nothing! I think I’ll go straight to bed.”

“How was it?” Alys asked. “Did it go well? Did you…?”

“I suppose you want money,” Livia said unpleasantly.

“Well, of course I do! But I also hoped that you’d had a good day. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been thinking about you. I was worrying as it got dark that you wouldn’t…”

“Wouldn’t what?” Livia countered. “Bring home a pocket of shillings like your son and daughter have to do? Of course not! I have put my earnings into the care of Sir James who will deposit them at his goldsmith’s! Did you think I would push a purse down my bodice like a thief?”

“I did hope you would bring money home, tonight,” Alys admitted. “My dear, we need it! The warehouse has paid out for the shipping, and for the wagon, and for the lightermen. And we’ve commissioned a second voyage. I can’t carry the debt! I did tell you? And you did say you would…”

Livia put her black silk shoe on the bottom stair. “I’ve earned a fortune today, more than you could have earned in a year, in ten years! I told you I would do so, and of course, I will pay my debts, but I shan’t be paying out my money for your children’s keep, nor for a maid who does not even come when she is called.” She opened the purse from her pocket and pulled out five coins. “Here is five guineas and you’ll have the rest later. I would have given you it at breakfast, there was no need for you to stay up and dun me on the doorstep.”

“I just wanted to see you safe home!”

“You wanted to see the money safe home! All you care about is money. And don’t wait up for me again, unless I ask you to.”

NOVEMBER 1670, LONDON

Johnnie tidied his high desk in the merchant’s counting house as the early dusk darkened the lofty dirty windows. The other clerks were putting on their jackets and hats, and leaving at the same time, but he did not walk with them to the bakehouse or coffeehouse. Instead he went down to the river and stood at a set of river stairs. The low tide lapped at his feet on the green weedy steps, a wash of rubbish, bits of cloth, the flat end of a bonnet, a sheet from a catalogue, some bits of wood, something stinking and dead; but he looked beyond the flotsam to the horizon. The river, even at dusk, was a forest of swaying masts, as ships—sails furled—were towed in by busy barges or moored in midchannel waiting for their turn to declare their duty and unload at the legal quays.