Page 138 of Dawnlands

Matthew laughed, equally embarrassed. “I suppose I will,” he said awkwardly. “I suppose I can. I have a house, and I’m qualified as a lawyer. If I get a pupilage, I will start to earn money… I can. You’re right. I could marry.”

Gabrielle looked from Mia to Matthew and back again, as if she had never really seen them before. “Your mother perhaps has plans for you.”

“She’s never said anything.” Matthew still had his eyes on Mia’s face.

“She’ll perhaps invite you to court to meet ladies,” Gabrielle persisted.

Matthew glanced at her. “I hardly saw her through all my childhood,” he said. “I doubt I would have met her even now, but sheneeded someone to serve the queen, and she knew I could get her a ship. I’m grateful for the Priory, of course. But it was the queen’s gift, not hers. She didn’t come to my grandmother’s funeral, she didn’t show that respect for the woman who had fostered me from babyhood. I don’t see that she should choose my wife. I can choose my own wife.”

Mia was looking down, her color rising.

“Shall we go in?” Gabrielle asked.

“Oh yes,” Matthew said, as if he had forgotten that they were walking home. He gave his arm to them both and they walked through the herb garden to the rose garden and to the garden door.

Gabrielle turned to Mia the moment that their bedroom door was shut. “You like him,” she said bluntly.

Mia’s eyes flew to her sister’s face and then she turned and sat before the mirror and twisted the ringlets in her hair.

“You do?” Gabrielle pressed.

The young woman nodded at her reflection. “I do,” she said seriously. “Truly I do. Very much. I didn’t think of it until now, just that I am always so pleased to see him and so happy when I’m with him. But when he spoke of a wife, I suddenly realized that I would hate her! I couldn’t bear anyone else to marry him, I couldn’t bear for anyone else to live here. I feel like this is my home, and he is mine, and nobody can take him away from me.”

“I understand,” Gabrielle said slowly.

“Of course, he’s handsome,” Mia conceded, as if explaining to herself and not to her sister, who stood silently watching her. “And so good-natured! He has the sweetest temper. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him even moody.”

“Me neither.”

“I like it when he smiles at me,” Mia confessed. “There’s something about the way he smiles at me. I thought he was smiling at us both? But perhaps he is just looking at me?”

“I always thought it was at us both,” Gabrielle agreed.

“But he was talking of me, wasn’t he? Just now? In the meadow, as his wife? He was thinking of me, wasn’t he? It was unmistakable?”

“I thought so,” Gabrielle said quietly. “I certainly thought so.”

Mia turned on her seat and caught her sister’s hands. “Don’t think I’m leaving you!” she said. “If he marries me, we’ll all live here together, and you can work in the herb garden and stillroom and treat the tenants, and I can read and study in the library, and he can go up to London when he has a case, and the rest of the time we can be happy! Wouldn’t we be so happy? Just like we are now?”

“I think you would be very happy,” Gabrielle said with a little smile, her eyes on her sister’s bright face.

“He’ll love us both!” Mia declared with a little laugh. “And we will both of us love him!”

“Yes,” Gabrielle said, keeping her thoughts to herself. “Perhaps.”

BATH, SOMERSET, AUTUMN 1687

The queen was so grieved by the loss of her mother, Duchess Laura, that the court physicians and advisors all agreed that she should go to Bath to see if the waters improved her health and if she regained her spirits in the pretty spa town. The queen wrote urgently to Livia in Yorkshire, begging her to come to Bath, and when Livia walked into the queen’s rooms in the beautiful sandstone building, Mary Beatrice ran to her and fell into her arms.

“My dear, you look so sad!”

“I grieve for us both,” Livia said elegantly.

“I’m happier now that the first shock is over. But you? And the funeral?”

“He left me nothing.” Livia neglected any description of the funeral, and went straight to the will.

“Nothing?”