Page 25 of Dawnlands

“Allora!” she exclaimed. “I see you are a lawyer in the making indeed.Caro, I was in no case to issue instructions. I was trapped between the wishes of my new husband and the will of the stubborn old lady. They would have nothing to do with each other, and I had to find a safe haven for my beloved only child, while I made my new marriage.”

“For fourteen years?” he queried.

She shot a quick look at him as if assessing his tone. “You feel that I should have sent for you earlier? Would you not have been torn between the women of the warehouse and me? Between two worlds and secure in neither? Was it not better to let them give you a childhood—an English childhood—of great safety and peace?”

“Yes…” he said uncertainly.

“And so that is what I did. You lived with them under their name—Reekie—only I cannot say it! So I call you Picci, da Picci for my title. And only now that you are a young man, a proper young man, and I am free of the demands of my husband and the manor and Yorkshire, can I visit you and see that my son has grown, and what we might be to each other.”

He felt slow and stupid. “What we might be?”

“Yes, of course, I want to help you to make your way in the world, and I am sure that you would want to see me rise.”

“I thought you…” Under her bright gaze he found his mouth was dry and took a gulp of coffee. It was scalding hot. He swallowed, feeling the burn go down his gullet. He flushed scarlet at the pain and blinked tears from his eyes.

“You thought I had risen?” Livia guessed, ignoring his discomfort. “Toll-loll! You must know I was a great lady in Venice, of the Fiori family, and then I came to England and married Sir James and became a great lady in Yorkshire, and now I am a great lady in London—a friend to the Queen of England! So, yes! I have risen. And I continue to rise—” She broke off and snatched a quick look at him. “But these are troubled times and I need to know that you are with me. As I work for our good.”

“You are working for our good?” he queried.

“Always,” she assured him. “When my dearest friend your foster mother and her mother agreed to take you in, I knew you would be safe with them. But I knew too that the day would come when I would come back for you and make you my own again.”

She was unstoppable. He felt his head spinning and his throat hurt.

“I won’t leave them.”

“Of course not! It would be most churlish. They have been as my nurserymaids, they have been as rockers for you. But I am your mother—that was never forgotten. And I will open doors for you that would otherwise be distant dreams. I will take you to court, you shall meet the king and queen.” She assessed the impact she was having on him. “You want to be a lawyer?” she asked abruptly.

“Yes…” he said. “Or at any rate some post—”

“There you are then!” she said triumphantly. “I shall find you a post. None of them at the wharf could do so! But now tell me—does the wharf have its own ship now? Alys married Captain Shore, did she not? He still has his ship?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Very good, very good. And this ship—it is in London now?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. They’re loading.”

“And if I wanted to take passage I could go?”

“I suppose so. They often take passengers.”

She smiled at him. “You will be puzzled by all this, I know, Matteo. But I need you to trust me.”

The Italian version of his name, spoken lovingly in her accent,startled him. He felt that he had heard her say his name in that caressing voice, through his dreams, for all of the fourteen years that he had answered to Matthew.

“You cannot trust me yet,” she said understandingly. “But you will. It may be that I need your help in a matter of life and death. You may be able to save me, your own mother, and…” She leaned forward and lowered her voice so that he had to lean towards her to hear her whisper, “the Queen of England herself!”

He could feel her breath on his cheek, he could smell the sweet dark scent of coffee.

“The queen needs a ship?”

She sat back and smiled at his stunned face.

“Because of the invasion?”