DECEMBER 1670, LONDON

Sir James and Lady Eliot struggled to make conversation over dinner. Livia’s laughter tinkled out, but nothing seemed to amuse her companions. More than once, Lady Eliot looked puzzled at her vivacity, and James made a little embarrassed grimace. The ladies withdrew after dinner to the parlor and sat there for only a few minutes before Sir James joined them. It was as if he did not dare to leave them alone.

“Have the ladies from the warehouse moved into their new home?” Sir James asked his fiancée.

She shrugged. “Not yet, I am looking for them.”

“They’re still in that cramped cold warehouse! Through this weather?”

“I am still there,” she pointed out. “Nobody feels the cold worse than me.”

“You won’t like Yorkshire then.” Lady Eliot smiled.

“And Sarah is still away?” James pursued.

Livia spread her hands in a pretty gesture of bafflement. “Apparently English girls may go away from home with whoever they like and return when they wish. No Italian girl would dare. It’s hardly respectable. I have spoken to her mother, but she says nothing more than that Sarah can be trusted.”

“Where is she?” Sir James asked.

“Staying with a friend in the country. She said she would be a few days but she has stayed on, and on. I think there must be a young man in the question. Don’t you? But her mamma does not order her home. I cannot understand it.”

“Young girls have far more freedom than when I was a girl.” The Dowager finally found something on which they could agree. “Quite shocking.”

“But they are quite poor,” Livia explained, “so it does not matter so much. The girl is a milliner and the ladies—I call them that—but they are nothing but very small merchants with a little warehouse. They are workingwomen.”

James was irritated by this exchange. “I left you with money to get them a better house!”

“And I have it still,” Livia said limpidly. “But Mrs. Reekie will not move until Sarah comes back from the country, and they insist on a warehouse upriver, where they could sell things as well as import them… At least I achieved one thing: the boy Johnnie will join the East India Company at Easter. Your letter was introduction enough.”

“Yes, yes?” James said, distracted.

Livia turned to the Dowager with a little laugh. “I wish to help them, though I am afraid they have grown greedy since I shared my dower with them.”

The Dowager nodded. “It’s an unfortunate address for you,” she said. “That side of the river, and so far out of town. I couldn’t call on you there.”

Livia flushed. “Exactly, and I cannot be married from there, I was telling Sir James. We need to call the banns in the north, in Yorkshire, do we not?”

“You can’t live in Northside before your wedding,” the Dowager ruled. “It looks so odd. As if you have no address of your own.”

“I thought so myself,” Livia said smoothly. “So would it be better if we were married in London? In this parish?”

James glanced from his aunt, to the exquisite face of his mistress. “Yes, I suppose so. You can only have met with Mr. Rogers—what? A dozen times?”

“Oh yes!” she said. “I have studied with him twice a week, and I have attended his church twice a week as well. Crossing the river in all weathers! I am completely prepared; he agrees that I am completely ready.”

“You must have at least four months’ instruction.”

“Yes, yes, I can do that, of course. I can complete my instruction while they are calling the banns.”

“But the baby must be baptized after you,” James said. “You have to bring him to the church.”

Livia threw up her hands, laughing prettily. “Allora! I agree! I agree! Don’t make me press for my own wedding day before your aunt, she will think me shameless.”

Lady Eliot raised an eyebrow but said nothing, as if this was exactly what she thought.

“Matteo and I can be baptized into your church together, when I have completed my instruction,” Livia offered. “We can be married. It will be…” She counted on her long fingers in the black lace mittens. “The end of February. How will that suit you?”

Sir James tried to laugh at her pretty challenge. “Very well,” he said.

“Alas no,” Lady Eliot said in quiet triumph. She leaned forward. “Lent. You can’t get married in Lent.”

The look that Livia flashed at her was far from daughterly. “Why not? It’s not as if you are of the tru… the Roman Catholic Church?”

“Yes, but even so. You cannot marry in Lent. Can she, James?”

“No,” he was forced to agree. “It will have to be after Easter, my dear.”

Livia tried to smile. “No, no, I can take extra instruction next week, and we can marry before Lent. In early February.”

James hesitated.

“There is no reason for delay,” Livia told him.

“Certainly,” he agreed. He took her hand and kissed it and glanced nervously at his aunt. “February, in St. Clement Danes.”

“And do you have no family in England at all?” Lady Eliot pursued. “No one to stand as your godparent when you are baptized? No one to give you away when you are married? You are as solitary as… as an orphan?”

“I have no one.” Livia blinked on a tear, daring Lady Eliot to challenge her any further. “I know nobody in England but my late husband’s family, women wharfingers with a little warehouse. I make no pretense! I married beneath myself when I engaged with him and his family. But with my dear Sir James I will return to people of my own sort—nobility.”

“Oh, will you?” Lady Eliot said, with one eye on Sir James’s face. He was looking into the fire, downcast. He did not look like a joyful bridegroom only six weeks away from his wedding.