He was panting as he finished speaking but there was no response, just another void of silence. He thought she must be astounded by the wealth and good fortune that had descended on them like a thunderclap. He thought she was struck dumb. But then Alys Stoney spoke:

“Oh no, she won’t see you,” she answered him casually, as if she were turning away a pedlar from the door. “And there’s no child in this house that carries your name. Nor one that has even heard of you.”

“There is a boy. I know there is a boy. Don’t lie to me. I know . . .”

“My son,” she said levelly. “Not yours.”

“I have a daughter?”

This threw everything into confusion. He had thought so long of his boy, growing up on the wharf, a boy who would be raised in the rough-and-tumble of the streets but who would—he was certain—have been given an education, been carefully raised. The woman he had loved could not have a boy without making a man of him. He had known her boy, Rob, she could not help but raise a good young man and teach him curiosity and hopefulness and a sense of joy. But anyway—his thoughts whirled—a girl could inherit his lands just as well, he could adopt her and give her his name, he could see that she married well and then he would have a grandson at Northside Manor. He could entail the land on her son, he could insist the new family took his name. In the next generation there would be a boy who could keep the Avery name alive, he would not be the last, he would have a posterity.

“My daughter,” she corrected him again. “Not yours.”

She had stunned him. He looked at her imploringly, so pale, she thought he might faint. But she did not offer him so much as a drop of water, though his lips were gray and he put up a hand to his neck and loosened his collar. “Should you go outside for air?” she asked him, uncaring. “Or just go?”

“You have taken my child as your own?” he whispered.

She inclined her head; but did not answer.

“You took my child? A kidnap?”

She nearly smiled. “Hardly. You were not there to steal from. You were far away. I don’t think we could even see the dust behind your grand coach.”

“Was it a boy? Or a girl?”

“Both the girl and the boy are mine.”

“But which was mine?” He was agonized.

She shrugged. “Neither of them now.”

“Alys, for pity’s sake. You will give my child back to me. To his great estate? To inherit my fortune?”

“No,” she said.

“What?”

“No, thank you,” she said insolently.

There was a long silence in the room, though outside they could hear the shouts of the men as the last grain sack was hauled off the barge, and they started to load it with goods for the return trip. They heard barrels of French wine and sugar roll along the quayside. Still he said nothing, but his hand tugged at the rich lace collar at his throat. Still she said nothing, but kept her head turned away from him, as if she had no interest in his pain.