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“Aye. Very well. So, shall you ladies step down to the coffeehouse and order a dinner there and come aboard this afternoon at four?”
“We can’t be seen,” Livia ruled. “And better for you, Captain, if we’re not known to be sailing with you.”
“That bad, is it?” he asked.
Livia smiled at him, her eyes warm on his weather-beaten face, as if he were their only savior and her particular friend. “Just a temporary reverse,” she said, smooth as silk. “But sir, would you be so kind as to let us dine here, in your house, and go aboard when you are ready to sail?” she asked. “It would be more comfortable, and discreet. You will be rewarded, when we come to our own again.”
“If you ever do,” he said bluntly.
He saw the warning narrowing of her eyes; but she turned to Alys. “You will let us stay here, I know,” she said. “You were always so good to me…”
Matthew saw his foster mother flush a painful red where she had been so pale. “I didn’t know what you were about then, and I don’t know now,” she said shortly.
Livia took two steps across the little room and took her hands. “Remember what we were to each other?” She lowered her voice. “I never forget. You were everything to me.”
Captain Shore kept his eyes on his wife’s face as Livia, still holding her hands, swayed slightly to her own words, as if she would dance her from her stubborn stance. Alys did not yield, but nor did she shrug off Livia’s touch. She was frozen, as if the caressing tone were a spell that the beautiful younger woman was winding around her.
“You can dine here,” the Captain interrupted. “My wife’ll tell the cook to get something for you. Plain fare, since you gave us no notice. But good enough—since you’ve no choice.” He suddenly remembered that he was speaking to the queen and he pulled off his hat and bowed again. “I’ll come and fetch you on board when we’re ready to sail, ma’am.” He remembered that he should not turn his back on her and he reversed awkwardly, bumping the table, out of the room.
Livia released Alys with a teasing little smile. “He is so kind,” she said. “I do hope you are very happy? I think you are happier in your marriage than I in mine? I am sure you do not miss me, as I miss you?”
“I’ll order your dinner,” was all Alys said, and she went out of the room.
Livia turned to the queen. “Shall you take off your veil?” she asked gently. “We are among friends. And your hat? Would you like to lie down before dinner? I can show you to a bedroom?”
The queen made a little gesture, and Livia stood behind her, untied the ribbons of her hat and lifted it and the veil away. Matthew stood by the door, waiting to be dismissed, but his mother passed the hat to him and then stepped towards him to whisper: “She’s given us the manor of Foulmire! I have the deeds in my sleeve. I’ll give them to you, here and now!”
With a rustle of silk she pulled them from her loose sleeve and unrolled them on the dining table and showed him where his name followed the royal seal, and before that was the earlier owner, Sir William Peachey.
“How lucky it is that the name is ours!” she exclaimed. “Peachey—so you will be Matteo da Picci of Foulmire Manor, but you shall spell it the English way, Matthew Peachey, and everyone will think that we have owned it forever. And when this is all over and the queen comes to her own again you shall be knighted and then you can be Sir Matthew like Sir William our ancestor.”
“He wasn’t our ancestor,” he pointed out. “We cannot claim another man’s name and family.”
“Oh, who knows? And who will ever care? When kings are coming and going, who is going to mind a mere Italian widow changing her son’s name? And everyone is a son of God, after all! As soon as we set sail, you must go there at once, move in, move the old lady in too, that was a good idea of yours. Do everything to make it look as if you have owned it for years, and if we are in exile for a while, for months even, then you at least will have your estate, and I will have somewhere to come home to.”
“If Monmouth comes…” he said very quietly, one eye on the queen, who had leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
“If he comes from the west and Argyll from the north, then you certainly should be in your manor in the south of England, and far from London,” she insisted. “Take the old lady. Take Alys.”
“Sir James doesn’t go with you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive. He will have fought Argyll as he marched through Yorkshire, for sure. I’ve heard nothing from him. He said he would send his carriage for me, but it hasn’t come. If you meet with him, tell him that I was besidemyself with grief and not knowing what he would want me to do. When his carriage failed me, I had to get away by sea.”
“But Lady Mother—you always planned to go by sea…”
She put her silk-mittened hand over his mouth and he felt the warmth of her fingers like a kiss.
“It doesn’t matter,” she told him softly.
BRIDGWATER, SOMERSET, SUMMER 1685
Ned, with Rowan at his side, marched his troop into Bridgwater between cheering crowds, people thrusting bread and whole hams and cheeses into the soldiers’ hands as they went to their camp in Castlefield. The Somerset militia, armed and mustered to attack them, surged into the rebel camp, throwing their arms around men with the sprig of green in their hats, swearing that they too were for liberty, and were welcomed by the duke himself.
“This is a strange war,” Rowan observed to Ned. “All dances and no fighting.”
“We’ve not yet met any who’ll stand against us,” he said. “But the king’s regular troops must find us, sooner or later.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve a mind to go down to the port and see if there’s a coaster going to London that’d take you to Alinor.”
“No.”
