Page 113 of Dark Tides
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.
He took the coin, the first she had ever given him. “Won’t he send for you himself?” he asked.
“I am ordering you to come and tell me before he arrives,” she repeated, her voice sharp. “Of course, he will send for me, but I want to be ready. I want to know the moment he plans to return to London. Do as you’re told, and I will pay you again.”
Glib bowed and palmed the coin.
“And bring me any other news,” she added. “If he writes to say the house is to be opened. If he writes to say the house is to be closed. Tell me his plans.”
“Won’t he write you himself?” Glib asked impertinently, but then wilted under the dark look of spite that she shot at him.
“When I am Lady Avery, and you can be very sure that I will be Lady Avery, shall you want a place in my household? Because I will be Lady Avery and I will be the one that hires the household staff. Or dismisses them.”
He dropped his head. “Yes, your ladyship. Of course I want to keep my place.”
“Then I have told you how to earn it,” she said, and turned to the warehouse door, clicked the latch, and went in.
Alys was in the counting house at the high clerk’s desk. Livia came in taking off her cape and leaned against her sister-in-law’s shoulder, seeking comfort. Alys put an arm around her but kept the page open, finishing her work. Livia ran her eye down the column of figures. “Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“It’s hardly worth doing?”
“It keeps us.”
“It wouldn’t have paid for my shoes in Venice!”
“I expect you had very lovely shoes,” Alys said with a smile. “We earn enough to keep a household; but there’s very little profit. We’re too far from the legal quays to pick up waiting ships, and I can’t afford to bribe the lightermen for them to bring us trade.”
