Quiet Squirrel came out of one of the houses and stood beside Wussausmon, her dark eyes on Ned.

“Come for dinner with us, take home gifts, you are welcome,” Wussausmon said. “And tell them at Plymouth and Boston that they cannot go on like this. They have to stop at our boundaries, they have to respect our limits. I am showing you this so you can tell them, Ned.”

“Tell them, Coatman,” Quiet Squirrel said to him. “Be a peace bringer. Make them understand.”

DECEMBER 1670, LONDON

Sir James was leaving for Northallerton, anxious to get to his home before the winter weather grew any worse. Avery House was to be shut up for the season. Livia shouldered Glib out of the way as he opened the front door and marched into the hall, hoping to persuade James to postpone the journey.

“I am sorry, everything is wrapped up here,” James said to her. “I did not expect you today.” He met her in the black-and-white checkered hall, as Glib labored up the stairs and slowly carried boxes down and out of the front door to strap them on the back of the hired carriage. The last of the statues were labeled and ready for collection in the hall beside them. Livia could see through the open door to the parlor that the furniture was draped with holland wraps.

“But I have a new consignment of antiquities coming,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “How am I to show them?”

“My dear!” He looked genuinely perturbed. “Why are they sending more? You know I cannot show them again. That was a first and last experience!” He tried to smile, but her grip on his arm tightened.

“They are my dower, the very last few things!” she said. “I thought you would allow me. In this house, which is to be my home?”

“I can’t sell another collection,” he said firmly. “One was bad enough. The people who came, Livia, and their belief that they could come time and again until they had decided, the way you had to barter and haggle with them! It was intolerable to me—to you too, I would have thought? The future Lady Avery will not hawk goods like a pedlar.”

“It is my dower!” she whispered stubbornly, her lower lip trembling. “It is all I have in the world.”

He hesitated and then found a solution. “I know! What is left of your dower shall come with you. You can put the pieces in the house and in the garden, here and at Northallerton. It can be the fortune that you bring me, my dearest. Not your widow’s dower but your bridal dowry! How would that be? You shall make me into a collector, like your first husband! How is that?”

“Generous!” she said, trying to smile. “And so like you! Thank you, my darling. So will you give me the keys to the house so I can bring in my little things and make it ready for your return?”

James shook his head, his mind already on his journey. “Store them at the warehouse,” he advised. “You don’t want the worry of them here.”

She tried to laugh. “I don’t mind!”

“No,” he said. “Avery House is being closed up. Let me leave you safely with the ladies at the warehouse, moving them to a new home with the money you have so cleverly earned for them, with your little treasures stored safe. I will go north and make everything ready for you there.”

“I don’t like you to go so far away!”

“I shall be back as soon as I can.”

“We should announce our engagement now,” she pressed him. “Before you go.” She had a superstitious fear that if he left London without her, he would never return.

“When I come back,” he promised. “But I have to see my aunt at Northside Manor and tell her that my circumstances have changed. I have to tell the minister I want the banns called, and then we can announce our betrothal and I will send for you.”

“But this will all take so long!”

“There’s so much to do.”

“I shall miss you so!” She tried to press herself against him, to remind him of desire, but the front door stood open and Glib was coming and going and James did not dream of embracing her in public. “Oh, James, don’t go! Write and tell them to do everything! Surely you can just write?”

“My love, I would if I could; but I must—I really must—tell my aunt of our betrothal. I cannot write such news to her, it would distress her. I must tell her in person, I have to see her and explain. She would never forgive me if I thrust you on her without giving her time to prepare. She will want to order new curtains, and new carpets, for Lady Avery’s parlor, and new sheets for the bed. Give us time to get your new home ready for you.”

“But I want to choose my own things!”

He smiled. “You shall make it over if there is anything you don’t like,” he promised. “Besides, you have Matteo to care for, and you have to go on with your instruction in the Church of England, and a new house to find for the ladies. You have too much to do already!”

“I can’t get my money from the goldsmith’s without you,” she pointed out. “And I need money to put down on a new warehouse for them.” She put her hand on his sleeve. “I can’t do it without you,” she said softly.

He hesitated, hearing the rumble of wheels on cobbles as the carriage came to the door.

“At least stay another day and take me to the goldsmith’s,” she pressed him. “I have to have my money to pay for my shipping from Venice.”

He threw a harassed glance towards the front door which stood open, the carriage outside. “How much do you need?”

“Fifty pounds for the shipping,” she lied quickly, guessing that he would not know. “And a pound for Alys’s housekeeping.”

Glib was carrying smaller boxes past them and James stopped him. “Put that one down.”

Glib put the small chest down and stepped back. “You can load the others,” James said to him, and when the footman turned away, he took a small key from his waistcoat pocket and opened the chest.

Livia’s gaze raked the box which was filled with promissory notes and a few purses of coins. “Are you not afraid of thieves?” she asked.

“I have to have coin in Yorkshire.” He lifted a small purse from the chest and counted out coins. “Fifty-one pounds,” he said. She watched him put the purse back in its place.

“And you will send for me?”

“I will,” he promised. “Of course.” He locked the chest and gestured to Glib that he should load it in the carriage. “I can’t keep the horses waiting,” he said.

“James!” she whispered urgently.

But he was blind and deaf to her, thinking of his long journey to his beloved home. “Glib will take you back to the warehouse,” he promised her.

A swift kiss on her hand, not on her mouth, then he bowed to her and walked out of the hall, down the three shallow steps to the street, and got in the carriage. The door was closed on him, the horses strained against the harness and, in a moment, he was gone.

* * *

Glib escorted Livia to the water stairs, called a boat with a shrill whistle, and accompanied her as the boatman rowed them down the river to the wharf. The tide was ebbing, he held the boat steady at the foot of Horsleydown Stairs. She climbed the greasy steps, rising up from the stinking low-water level as if she were coming up from a dank hell, Glib following her. In front of the warehouse she turned to him. “Come for me the moment that your master tells the household that he is returning,” she said. A silver shilling went from her gloved hand to his.