“She wants a passage on Captain Shore’s next sailing. She wants two berths. I said he took passengers and that he was due to go out next month as soon as she was loaded.” He turned to look up at Alinor. “Was that all right to say?”
“Aye,” she said shortly. “Go on.”
“She told me who the berths are for—but I don’t know if I should repeat it.”
“For herself,” Alys said harshly. “She never does anything for anyone.”
“It’s for herself and for the queen,” he said, his voice low. “In case Argyll and Monmouth invade.”
“The king’s going to surrender?” Alys demanded incredulously. “He’ll go like his father? Give himself up to them?”
The youth shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s all she told me.”
“And what did you say?” Alinor prompted gently.
“I said I would ask. I made no promise.” He shifted uneasily and Alinor’s hand tightened comfortingly on his shoulder. “She said some other things…”
“Did she?”
“She said that she would serve me, take me to court, that we should help each other rise in the world.”
“I daresay she will serve you,” Alinor spoke before her daughter could reply. “Why shouldn’t she? She’s your ma by birth, she’ll be ambitious for you. Of course, she’ll want you to do tasks for her. She’s a woman accustomed to service.” She felt the rapid pulse at his collarbone. “Did you like her, Matthew?”
“She called mecaro figlio,” he said. “It means dear son.”
“She said she would never take you from us!” Alys burst out.
“She hasn’t done so,” Alinor said steadily. “She’s given him some errands to run. She can’t take him, Alys. He spent his childhood with us, he’s had our love poured on him. Nobody can take that from him.” She smiled at Matthew, whose color had risen. “Nobody can take him anywhere—nor can we keep him. He’s old enough to choose where he wants to live and what sort of man he wants to be.”
“Here?” Alys turned to the boy she had raised as her own son, herblue eyes imploring in her square face. “You’ll live here, in your home? As we raised you.”
He rose to his feet. “Ma—this will always be my home and you’re my mother.”
She waited.
“But of course I want to rise in the world!”
There was a silence in the sunlit room. Outside, the gulls cried over the flowing tide, wheeled on silver wings.
“We have risen,” Alys said defensively. “You’ve no idea what it was like here when we first came. We’ve risen. Through hard work. Slow but steady. Trading, little profits, well earned. Hard earned. We never sold underweight. We never borrowed, we always paid on the nail. We never issued a note of credit without money behind it.”
“You didn’t send me to Lincoln’s Inn to come home to be a wharfinger.”
“It was her who sent you,” Alys said resentfully. “To turn you into a gentleman. I always feared she would spoil you—”
“I am a gentleman!” he exclaimed. “I was born a gentleman! I am descended from the Fiori family!”
“Are you?” Alinor asked.
“Yes, of course. I am stepson to Sir James Avery!”
“Was he there?”
“No. Just her. I don’t know what she wants. Only what she tells me.” He looked at Alys. “What am I to tell her?” he asked.
They both turned to Alinor, as if her foresight could keep them safe.
“You can tell her that she can have passage in Captain Shore’s ship, if he agrees to it,” she said gently. “You’ll have to ask him yourself. Make sure he knows who he’ll be carrying. And you can tell her when he’ll sail. I doubt he’ll wait for her and you shouldn’t ask it of him. If we’re no use to her, she can find someone else.”