Page 9 of Dawnlands

Alinor, seated at the fireside, smiled at Rowan. “I hope you’ll feel at home soon.”

There was a knock at the front door.

“That’ll be Matthew, home from college,” Alys said, emerging from the countinghouse at the back of the hall, her husband, Captain Shore, behind her. “Or maybe my brother, Rob, come early.”

Ned nodded to Rowan. “Answer it, lad.”

“How?” she said, very low.

“Just open the door and stand back and bow. Don’t be a gowk.”

Rowan threw him an exasperated look, but went to the door and opened it to a tall, slim man aged about fifty years. He handed her his fringed hat and cape without remark and went past her into the parlor. Rowan went to shut the front door when she heard a shout from the quayside—“Hold up!”

She hesitated, as a long-legged youth of about fifteen came bounding towards the open door, light-footed over the cobbles.

“Here—you’re new!” he exclaimed. “Did you come with my great-uncle Ned? From America?”

She nodded as he slipped past her and into the parlor of his home. The door closed on them, and she scowled at her pang of self-pity. It was strange to think that a man who had always appeared so solitary, in his lonely house, beside a cold river in the Dawnlands, should have had all this behind him: family, house, business, on the side of the great river of London; and that she—a girl embedded in her family, born of ancestors from the dawn of time, whose seat was the cliffs of Montaup—should find herself all alone in a strange flat land that faced north.

In the parlor, Ned was greeting Rob after a gap of twenty-five years. “A doctor’s knocker on your door, half of London coming toyou for physic, and a wife and child! I’m so glad for you. It’s more than we dreamed of, that first day when we sent you to be apprenticed at Chichester. And your ma in tears at losing her little boy!”

“I remember you giving me money for dinner, in case they underfed me! You got me started, Uncle Ned, and then I was lucky in Padua at my university and then in my practice in Venice,” Rob told his uncle.

“Thank God you got out of there safely.”

“Ah, it was a long time ago, and we don’t speak of it.” Rob glanced towards the fostered boy, Matthew. “Better for the lad that we don’t.”

“Secrets?” Ned’s grizzled brows twitched together in a frown.

“Some things are better left unsaid,” Rob said firmly.

“A lad should know his father’s name.”

“Only his mother knows that!” Rob said low, with a half smile. “Livia Avery left us far behind when she married Sir James. She left her son for my ma and sister to raise as their own, without a backward glance. We don’t speak of her, and he never asks. But I should say—my wife, Julia, sends her apologies. She hopes to visit tomorrow.”

“For sure,” Ned said easily. He glanced back at Matthew, who was watching the two of them. “But what name does the lad go by? Not yours?”

“Not mine! Before she married for name and a title, Livia called herself Picci, sometimes da Picci, and Matthew uses that.” He glanced over at Matthew. “I’m telling my uncle Ned you’re doing well in your studies.”

“I’m working hard, whatever Ma Alys suspects!” the youth assured them. “I’m lucky to have a place at Lincoln’s Inn.”

Alys offered him a glass of wine and water. “He had to do a speech in Latin! Can you imagine?”

“Good for you, lad.” Ned offered a callused hand. “Think of us having a lawyer in the family!”

Susie the maid put her head in the room. “Am I to serve dinner now?”

“Yes,” Captain Shore told her. “We won’t wait for Johnnie.”

Everyone drew up their chairs to the table as the cook, Tabs; the maid, Susie; and Rowan brought dish after dish, some of them bought from the bakehouse, some of them cooked at the stove, thebutter cold from the larder, the small ale brewed in the malthouse across the yard.

They heard the front door, and Alys’s son, Johnnie, came into the parlor, his hat in his hand, his brown hair ruffled by the wind from crossing the river from the City. “Grandmother Alinor, Ma, I’m sorry I’m late. I had a ship come in with mail, and I couldn’t leave before I read it.” His brown gaze fell on his great-uncle. “And you must be my uncle Ned! Sir! Welcome home!”

Ned stood and hugged the handsome young man. “Look at you! I left a lad of eleven years, and now you’re a man of business.”

Johnnie thrust his thumbs in his waistcoat and spun around to show his great-uncle his fine embroidered jacket and his deep crimson breeches. He had his mother’s golden brown hair and square, honest face. Ned laughed at his vanity and clapped him on the shoulder as he sat down at the dinner table.

“He always wanted to work for the East India Company,” Alys said proudly, passing her son, Johnnie, a plate. “And he trades on his own account.”