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NORTHSIDE MANOR, YORKSHIRE, SPRING 1685
Livia Avery came down the grand staircase of Northside Manor in a tailored black velvet riding habit, her gloved hand lightly on the bannister, the heels of her riding boots clicking on the polished wood. Her husband, Sir James, crossing the stone-floored hall, looked up and noted the letter in her hand and the flush in her cheeks.
“So, you finally get your wish,” he said levelly. “You’ve waited most patiently. It’s been five years since you met the duchess, and now she is queen. I thought you had given up.”
She took a little breath. “I never give up.” She showed him the royal seal.
“Is it a royal summons?”
“We can’t speak here!” she ruled and led the way into the library. Large logs smoldered in the hearth; she undid the mother-of-pearl buttons on her dark riding jacket and pulled at the cascade of fine lace at her throat. He observed her beauty with nothing but weariness. She was like the classical statues she had dotted around his house and gardens—lovely to look at, but meaningless to him.
She sat in the great chair before the fire, leaning slightly forward, her face glowing in the firelight as if posing for a portrait. Her hair was still glossy black, the creamy skin smooth on her cheeks, a few light lines around her dark-lashed eyes. She waited for him to take his seat opposite her before she would speak.
“I’m all ears,” he said ironically.
“I am summoned to court,” she breathed. “James, Duke of York, is to be crowned king, his wife is queen. There is no support for thelate king’s bastard. James the Second will inherit without challenge, and my dearest friend Mary of Modena will be queen.” She was as exultant as if she had herself persuaded the people of England to crown the unpopular Roman Catholic brother to the king, instead of the adored Protestant bastard son. “She writes that she needs me, she is unwell. I will, of course, obey.”
Still he said nothing.
“You could come with me? I am to be a lady-in-waiting, we could open Avery House? I could get a place at court for you. This could be a fresh start for us.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that I want a fresh start. I doubt that I’d want anything you can give me.”
Her dark eyes flashed with irritation. “You cannot expect me to refuse a royal invitation; it’s practically a command.”
He turned his face from her show of temper. “Really? I imagine that you could very well refuse. But I am absolutely certain you have courted her—writing every week, sending little gifts, all your engaging tricks—I imagine you have begged her to invite you. And now: she does.”
“You should be grateful to me…”
“You can go.” He had no interest in what she might say. “I will send you in the carriage. I imagine you will live at St. James’s Palace while they rebuild Whitehall. I assume you will return here when they go to Windsor in the summer?”
“You agree?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “You may do as you wish. As always. You are aware that the court is famously—” He broke off, searching for the right word. “Extravagant,” he said. “Corrupt,” he added. “Lascivious. But you will not mind that.”
She raised her eyebrows as if in disdain; but her face was pale. “You can hardly think that I—”
“No, I believe that you are quite above weakness. I am quite sure you will lock your bedroom door in London as you do here. Perhaps there, you will have reason.”
“Of course, my reputation will be without stain.”
“And you should be discreet in the practice of your faith.”
She tossed her head. “Her Grace—I should say Her Majesty—and I are proud of our shared faith,” she said. “She will open the royal chapel in St. James’s Palace. She is appointing the Benedictine order—”
“London will not tolerate Roman Catholics practicing religion in public,” he told her. “You may attend the queen’s oratory inside the palace, but I advise you not to show off in chapels outside the palace walls. There’s bound to be trouble, perhaps even worse than we’ve had already. Their Majesties should be as discreet, as the late King Charles.”
“We’re not all turncoats!” she flashed.
“I renounced my Roman Catholic faith to live my life as an English gentleman,” he said steadily. “The Church of England is my faith; not a failing.”
She thought his whole life was a failure: he had changed his faith; he had betrayed his first love; Livia herself had played him for a fool, and trapped him into marriage for his name and fortune.
“I am Roman Catholic,” she told him proudly. “More so now than ever. All of England will return to the true faith, and it is you who will be in the wrong.”
He smiled. “I do admire how your devotion increases with the fashion. But you had far better be discreet.”
She looked at the fire, the heavy wooden carving of his coat of arms on the mantelpiece, and then to him, her dark eyes melting, a little smile on her lips. “James, I want to talk to you about my son.”
