Page 170 of Dark Tides
The magistrate was gathering up Johnnie’s notes.
“Better say nothing more,” he advised her quietly. “Since she is married into the Avery family. She is Lady Avery.”
“But the alleged crimes?” Sir George asked. “The… er… fraud? The false denunciation? The stolen and forged antiquities? This whole caper?”
The magistrate shook his head. “Out of my jurisdiction.” His dry tone indicated that he did not regret it. “You’d have to take it up with the Venetian authorities, if you want to do that.” He turned to Alinor and Alys, who stood, very still and quiet, with Sarah and Rob on either side of them as a family might watch a tide rise to their doorstep and lap at their livelihood.
“Good day,” he said. “I shall send this in as my report. If there is any duty unpaid on the lady’s cargo, you should pay it at once. Any false reporting of the goods will be noticed.” He turned to James. “Any claim against her for goods that are forged or fraudulent will fall on you as her husband. You might wish to speak to her customers. You might wish to compensate them, to protect her name, which is now yours.”
Lady Eliot visibly shuddered.
Captain Shore glanced at Alys. “The tax will be paid tomorrow before the noon gun.” He turned to the magistrate. “I’m obliged to you, sir. I’mjust remarking that the good name of the warehouse is unchanged. This was none of their doing. They had a good business before this… fell on them. They’ll have a good business after. There will be no gossip about the Reekie warehouse. They are innocent of any misdoing.”
“I’m aware of it,” the magistrate said, glancing towards Livia, who stood, slightly smiling, her arm entwined with James. “You would almost call it an act of God.”
“Not God!” the minister exclaimed indignantly.
“Nothing godly about the widow,” Captain Shore agreed. “But she is no fault of the warehouse.”
“I’ll bid you good day,” the magistrate said shortly, glancing around the silent storeroom. Johnnie led the way and showed him and the minister out of the front door and came back to the warehouse, leaving the door to the quay open, as if to hint that the others might leave also.
“We’d better go,” Lady Eliot said to Sir James, her frozen lips barely moving. “I hardly know where we should go. I suppose she will have to come too? Perhaps she will accept an allowance, and a house somewhere in the country? Unless we can send her back to wherever she came from?”
Livia laughed shortly; but James seemed deaf. He stood unmoving, looking across the room at Alinor, with Livia’s hand still tucked firmly in his arm as if she would nail them together.
“James!” Lady Eliot prompted him.
Finally he turned to her. “I have ruined myself,” he said quietly. “I have shamed my good name and ruined myself.” Gently he detached himself from Livia, unfastening her hand and pushing her gently away from him. He crossed the room to Alinor, who still stood, pale and unmoving, her family around her. He stood before her as if she had far more authority than any magistrate, as if she were judge and jury to him.
“When I was a young man, a foolish young man, I broke my word to you,” he confessed, his voice very low. “I did not speak up for you. I loved you and I let them half drown you though I knew you were carrying my child. All I thought of then was my good name and that I could not bear to be shamed. So all the shame fell on you.”
Her dark gray eyes were steady on his pale face; but she did not speak and he went on: “And now—in a sort of justice—my word is given, when it should not have been given, and this woman will holdme to it. I have ruined myself to a far worse degree than I risked with you. I did not claim you, and marry you when I should have done, so that I might claim and keep my position in the world; and now I have pushed myself into the gutter and my name is as mud.”
She was silent for so long that he thought she would refuse to speak to him; but then she took a breath: “I am sorry for you.” Her voice was filled with pity. “I wish you nothing but well, James.”
“May I…?”
Livia came up to him and slid her hand in his arm. “No,” she said simply, speaking without doubt that she would be obeyed. “You will not visit here, nor write. She has told you more than once, and she is a better judge than you will ever be. And I am your wife, and I forbid it. We will go now to Avery House.” She managed a laugh, a pretty light laugh. “I doubt the dinner will be edible, but your aunt ordered it to be ready for our return. It is I who will have to speak to the cook!” She turned to the hall and gestured with the posy of primroses that Carlotta should follow them.
“So you’re going through with your marriage to this man?” Felipe asked her, casually, as if he were only slightly interested. “And you intend to take Matteo—my son?”
“He is my son,” she said. “Perhaps Rob fathered him, or perhaps it was you, but I have decided that he shall be Matthew Avery, and that is final. In time he will be Sir Matthew Avery of Northside Manor, which is more than you or Rob could do for him.”
“Never,” Sir James said quietly without heat.
Livia glanced up at him. “I don’t think you can refuse me.”
“He can stay here,” Alys spoke for the first time. “He can stay here, with us.”
Livia checked. “Why would you want him?” she asked coldly, as if it was another ruse to overcome; and then she suddenly realized that Alys was speaking from love. “You want him?” she asked in a quite different tone. “You want to raise my son? You want to care for him?”
“Not because he’s yours,” Alys told her. “But he’s happy here. He doesn’t know that we’re lowly and poor. He doesn’t despise us. He likes it here, and he’s settled with us. I love him for himself, whoever his father is; and so does Ma. You’ve got no time for him, you neverhave any time for him, and Sir James once again loses a child through his own pride.” Her eyes flicked over him with contempt. “You neither of you know how to love him, nor how to love anyone. Give him a chance and leave him in our keeping.”
Livia did not even glance at James to know his opinion. “You will love him for me,” she whispered to Alys.
“I love him for himself,” she replied steadily. “And this is the only place where he will be loved.”
“Leave him here,” Rob advised her.
