It was a little too large; Livia clenched her hand in a fist to hold it tight.
“Let us pray,” the minister said, and he led them through the prayers for the marriage and then went to the altar to prepare Holy Communion. Livia, now baptized and confirmed into the church, went with her new husband to the chancel steps and received the bread and the wine. She was followed by her new aunt Lady Eliot, Sir George, and her household. When the service was completed, they prayed again and the minister said to James: “You may kiss the bride.”
Livia, still holding the primroses to her cheek, turned up her face for his kiss so that he kissed warm lips and felt the flowers against his cheek, and smelled the delicate sweetness of their scent.
“So that’s done,” Lady Eliot remarked sourly to Sir George. She picked up her Prayer Book from the shelf in the front of the pew, and turned to leave, as the big door at the far end of the church banged open and a swirl of cold air blew in. A crowd of strangers strode down the aisle, one, two, three men in traveling capes, and among them Sarah and Alys Stoney—the last people Livia would have expected to see here on the Strand, the last people she would have wanted at her wedding.
“Stop the service,” Rob Reekie said very calmly. “Minister, I bid you, stop the service. This woman cannot be married to this man.”
James Avery, scowling at the rudeness of this interruption, fearing scandal before he even knew what was happening, saw Rob, his former pupil, but did not recognize him in this fully grown confident brown-haired man who looked at him so grimly, with two strangers behind him, and bringing up the rear: Alys Stoney and her daughter, Sarah.
“Stop the service,” Rob repeated. “This woman cannot be married to this man. She is my wife.”
In the stunned silence, it was Lady Eliot who took control of the situation. She stepped forward and put up her hand to Rob. “Not another word more,” she said, and when he would have protested, she said: “I mean it. Not another word more.”
For a moment Livia thought she had found an unlikely defender. But Lady Eliot was only thinking that the servants must see and hear as little as possible. “You can go.” She turned to the Avery House steward, to the Avery House cook, and to their underlings. “Apparently, there is a difficulty, a mistake here, which we will resolve privately. Go back to Avery House now, and we will come later, and you can serve the wedding dinner then. And mind that it’s perfect. However delayed.”
The servants dawdled out, as slowly as they dared, but the nobility and the strangers were silent, as if frozen in their places like statues, until the door had closed behind the servants, and they were alone.
“Shall we…?” helplessly Mr. Rogers gestured towards the vestry. “You will want to be alone?”
“No,” Livia said flatly, daring anyone to contradict her. “I’m not going anywhere. Anything anyone wants to say can be said here. There is no obstacle to me marrying this man. And in any case we are married now, and anyone who says different is a liar.” She did not even look at Rob, as if he were not there, as if he were still imprisoned on a plague island, as if he had never been.
A slight gesture from Felipe caught her eye and for the first time she saw him, realized that he had come with Rob, and that there was a new and dangerous alliance against her. Even now she showed no fear, she did not hesitate for a moment. “This is a true marriage,” she repeated defiantly, directly to Felipe. “It is in everyone’s best interest that it is not challenged. I speak to you complete strangers, as I do to my loved ones, as I do to my new husband and family. All of you, all of you will do better if you leave this marriage unchallenged. I did not undertake it lightly. It is in the best interests of us all.”
Felipe hid his smile. He took off his hat to her and bowed.
James Avery swallowed on a dry mouth. “Who are you?” he asked Rob, and then he said, more uncertainly, “You’re Rob, aren’t you? Rob Reekie? Good God, Rob! I thought you were dead. They all thought you were…” He took half a step towards the younger man as if he would embrace him; but Rob did not respond at all, did not open his arms, made no move beyond a stiff little bow, and James’s joy died away in uncertainty. “I wouldn’t have believed it!” he said more quietly. “What a miracle! And your mother!” He turned to Alys. “Have you told her, Mrs. Stoney? Has she seen him? Does she know?”
“Aye,” Alys said shortly.
“This is your first thought?” Livia asked him with an edge to her voice. “Your first question is—if his mother knows?”
He did not even hear her. “And… Sarah? Miss Stoney? You’re here too?”
“We came straight from the ship,” Sarah said. “We’ve just landed at Reekie Wharf. I went to Venice to find him.”
“I thought you were staying with friends?”
“I thought so too,” Livia agreed with her husband. “That’s what they said. That’s what they all said.” She looked over the top of her flowers at Alys. “That’s what you said, Alys. Did you lie to me?”
“Aye,” Alys repeated, her mouth closed in a hard line.
“My grandma sent me to Venice. She never believed her—” Sarah’s contemptuous tip of her head indicated Livia, standing with her nose in her posy of primroses.
“But the marriage?” the minister interrupted. “We have performed a marriage here. A solemn… Are you saying this lady is precontracted?” He turned to Livia. “Nobildonna, you should have told me… is this true? You made a solemn declaration on oath, you gave your word before God that you were free to marry. You have taken instruction for weeks and you never—”
“She’s my wife,” Rob interrupted. He glanced back at Matteo who was sleeping in Carlotta’s arms. “And that’s my son. He carries my name. This gentleman”—he gestured at Felipe—“was her steward. He knows her as my wife. He witnessed our wedding in Venice, he witnessed my arrest and her running away from Venice. She’s been living with my family as my widow. She lied to them. She told my mother that I was dead.”
“This is very serious,” the minister began.
“I thank God that you are alive,” Livia said with quiet dignity to Rob. She did not rush to embrace him, but nor did she step towards Sir James. She stood alone, poised, looking from one man to another, as if she were deciding what to do. But she never so much as glanced towards Felipe, as if she counted on him to stay silent, while a new fraud was forged.
“You truly thought he was dead?” the minister asked Livia.
She tossed her head as if he were interrupting her thoughts. “Well, of course I did. I was told he was dead,” she exclaimed. “I was told that he was drowned. Why should I question it when he went out every night on the dark tides? I went into mourning for him, I left my country in the deepest grief, I came to England and I broke the terrible news to his family and tried to comfort them.” She shot a dark gaze at Alys. “My sister-in-law will confirm that I tried to comfort her, that we shared our sorrow. We wept in each other’s arms.”
Alys, with a face like stone, said nothing.
“Then you are guilty only of a genuine mistake,” Mr. Rogers assured her. “If it was a genuine mistake?”
“What else could it be? I was told without doubt that he had drowned. Praise God that he is alive.” Her eyes flicked once to Felipe. “I was told that he was drowned. Everyone in Venice said it. No one would contradict me.”
Felipe did not contradict her, though Sarah glanced at him, expecting him to speak. His gaze was fixed on Livia’s beautiful face and the primroses that trembled beside her cheek.
“She denounced me to the authorities,” Rob said flatly. “I was arrested, not drowned. This is her lover and confederate.” He gestured to Felipe. “It was he who arrested me. I was accused of murder and I was imprisoned for life.”
There was an aghast silence. Sir George let out a low whistle. Livia bent her head over her flowers to inhale their perfume.
Rob nodded. “This is her partner—in business and in crime: Felipe Russo.”
“Th
e ancient steward and friend of the family,” Sarah supplemented spitefully, one eye on Livia.
Livia flicked her eyes towards Sarah and took in her new confidence. “A mistake,” she said to the primroses as if to prompt Felipe to speak. “Rob, you are mistaken, perhaps your imprisonment has driven you mad, your word cannot be trusted. Perhaps you have a fever now. Clearly, this is not my steward, not my old steward, this is the son of my old steward, I don’t know him well; but I am sure he will confirm what I have said.” She turned to him, her eyes narrowed, and she held his gaze, a small smile playing on her lips. “He will support me, he will confirm my story. Won’t you, Felipe? Won’t you?”
They all waited for his answer, Sarah watching his face. Felipe Russo bowed to Lady Eliot and to the gentlemen. “Alas, the Nobildonna defrauded me,” he said simply. “She was betrothed to me and we were partners. Together, we stole antiquities from her first husband, and we copied them and sold the forgeries. She married Roberto to hide our crime and when he caught us, she denounced him.”
Sir George cleared his throat and leaned a little towards James, as if he wished to shoulder him out of the church and away from these people. “Perhaps we could go now?” he suggested quietly. “Report all this later?”
But James stood still and silent, his gaze on Livia’s beautiful impassive face and the trembling primroses that she held to her cheek.
The minister shook his head, as if he could not begin to understand. “These are very grave claims, very serious accusations,” he said. “They should be made before a magistrate.”
“I’m a magistrate,” Sir George volunteered promptly.
“Someone unconnected with any of the parties,” the minister ruled.
“I can get one,” Sir George offered. But the minister had already turned to Livia. “Your ladyship, these are most serious accusations that are being made against you. You should have someone to defend you…”
“It is all untrue,” she said coolly. “But by all means let us go to a magistrate so that I may clear my name.”
“You should have an advisor, someone to speak for you! You cannot face this alone.”
“I have someone,” she said calmly. “My husband will speak for me.” Livia put her hand in James’s arm and rested her head, crowned with the enchanting blue hat, against his shoulder. “Sir James is all my family now. My good name is his. I am Lady Avery of Northside Manor—who is going to speak against me?”
“But… but…” The minister was lost for words as Lady Eliot and Sir George exchanged looks of mutual horror.
Sarah watched Felipe smile at Livia, as if he were watching an exceptionally skillful player at a game of chess.
“I?” James said flatly. “I am to speak for you?”
“Obviously not.” Lady Eliot came out of the Avery pew. “You gentlemen must find a magistrate at once, and he must question this woman. If needs be, we will find her a lawyer to speak for her. Though I think she is very able to defend herself. But not in Avery House.”
“In my home if I wish it,” Livia defied her. “In Northside Manor if I wish it! Lady Eliot, you will have to learn that these are my homes now, and I shall go to them whenever I like.”
“Better come to the warehouse,” Sarah said.
Lady Eliot gasped. “South of the river?”
Sarah glanced at her mother for permission. Dully, Alys nodded.
“Not there. We cannot distress Mrs. Reekie,” James said urgently. “She should not be disturbed.”
Livia flicked a contemptuous glance upwards to his pale face. “She will not be distressed,” she promised him. “Why should she care if your marriage is challenged? It’s not as if she could ever be a wife for you?”
He flinched from the contempt in her tone. “I don’t want to trespass on her time,” he said weakly.
“The justice of the peace in our parish is Mr. Peter Lucas, a member of the City Corporation,” Sarah suggested.
“Send for him,” Lady Eliot told Alys Stoney.
Alys raised an eyebrow at being ordered by a stranger. “Aye,” was all she said.
* * *
The only room in the warehouse large enough to accommodate the magistrate, Alinor’s family, the wedding party, Captain Shore, and Felipe was the counting house, with the doors thrown open to the storeroom. Everyone could see, at the back of the store, the newly unloaded crated antiquities, each clearly labeled “Nobildonna da Ricci” in Sarah’s writing, as if to declare, before anyone had even spoken, that Livia was Rob’s wife doing business under his name. Carlotta, holding a sleeping Matteo, stood near them, uncertain what was taking place.
Johnnie, summoned from his work, hugged his sister tightly and whispered: “Glad you’re back!” He took in the assembly, the many strangers in the warehouse where visitors were a rarity, and gentry had never come. “What’s going on? I just got a message from Ma that you were home, that you’d brought Rob with you, and that I was to come at once. I thought we would be celebrating!”
She squeezed his arm. “You’ll see. It’s all right.”
She meant that there was nothing here that would hurt their mother or grandmother and he was reassured. “And you? Are you well?” he asked quickly, and was surprised at the radiance of her sudden smile. “Wait a minute! What’s happened?”
“Tell you later,” she whispered, and pushed him towards the clerk’s stool beside the magistrate, Mr. Lucas, who was already poised behind the tall counting desk. The portly City merchant pushed pen and paper to Johnnie. “You’ll write down what’s said when I give you the word,” he ordered. “Write neat, so we don’t have to make a fair copy after.”
Alinor had come downstairs to be with her son, and she stood, her arm in Rob’s, leaning slightly against him, as if she wanted to be sure that he was truly there, in reality, and not a dream. “I always knew you were alive,” she said to him quietly. “And here you are. Nothing matters more than this. Whatever they say here, nothing matters more than that you are alive and have come home to us.”
“Nothing matters more,” he agreed. “But Ma—she has to answer to this: that she should have imposed on you… that she should have said I was drowned… and…” He lowered his voice. “What’s happened to Alys? She looks so ill? Is it Livia? Did she rob her?”
Alinor looked across the warehouse at her daughter’s closed expression, and the hard line of her mouth. “I think Livia betrayed her,” she said.
“The antiquities? Did she make Alys pay for the shipping? Is she in debt?”
“Yes,” Alinor said, knowing that there was so much more.
James came quietly before them. “May I speak with you?” he asked Alinor, ignoring Alys, who stepped forwards, as if she would protect her mother.
“You can,” Alinor said. She did not move from Rob’s supporting arm and James had to speak before the three of them.
“I wanted to say that I am very sorry,” he said quietly. “I have been a fool, I have been played for a fool and now I am shown as a fool in front of you, the one woman in the world whose opinion I care for. I hoped that she would help you, I gave her money to help you, I only went along with all of this—the shipping of the antiques, their sale at my house—to help you. I wanted to make your life better, I wanted you to be able to afford medicines. I wanted you to live in a better house, a healthier situation, I wanted you to have a garden again…” He trailed off. “I thought I was helping you, through her. And then… like a fool… I was compromised…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alinor spoke with genuine indifference to his shame. “All that matters to me is that my son is alive and has come back to us.”
“I’m glad for that,” Sir James said with a swift glance at Rob. “But Alinor…”
Rob tightened his grip on his mother’s arm. “I don’t think you should speak, sir,” he said quietly. “I don’t think you should speak to my mother.”
“I wanted to make…” He was lost for words. “I wanted to make reparation.”
Sir James bowed his head as a man who accepts a life sentence and stepped back in silence. Livia, at the side of the warehouse beside her looming wrapped antiquities, regarded them all with tepid interest, as if they were a theater performance that might start at any moment. The only person she did not watch was Felipe; as if she were confident that he would say no more.
“Right,” said the magistrate. “Gentlemen, if you’re ready, let’s get started.”
They drew closer to circle the desk, the gentry putting themselves forward as always, as the most important people in any room. Lady Eliot was beside Sir George with Sir James on his right. Livia came forward to stand beside her new husband, her hand tucked confidently into his sleeve, her other hand holding her posy of primroses to her face. Alys, Alinor, Rob, and Sarah faced them on the other side of the circle. Captain Shore stood a little behind Alys, Felipe beside him, immediately behind Sarah. The minister from the church, silently wishing he was elsewhere, stood beside the magistrate and Johnnie at the desk.
“This is a preliminary inquiry by me, justice of the peace of this parish of St. Olave’s, into an allegation of bigamy against Nobildonna Livia Reekie or, in her married name, Lady Avery.” He nudged Johnnie. “Write that down.”
“Da Ricci,” Livia remarked. “Or Peachey, as it is sometimes pronounced.”
The magistrate nodded. “Now, evidence…”
Rob stepped a little forward and explained that he had come to Venice as a newly qualified doctor and been appointed to the elderly Signor Fiori and so met his beautiful wife, the Nobildonna. Livia, sniffing the primroses, apparently uninterested in the retelling of her story, released Sir James from her grasp, and strolled again to the back of the warehouse where the antiquities were crated up, as if the silent shrouded stones were of more interest to her than the two men who had married her, the three men who had loved her, and the silent Alys. Rob concluded his statement saying that since he was alive, Livia was his wife, and this marriage to Sir James was bigamous.
Dark Tides Page 46