A great clatter and rumble of wheels on the cobbles outside the window made her turn in surprise.

“Is that a carriage? Here?” he asked.

She said nothing, but stood listening, blank-faced, as a carriage rolled noisily up the cobbled quay to the warehouse and stopped outside the front door which gave on to the street.

“A gentleman’s carriage?” he asked incredulously. “Here?”

They heard the clatter of the hooves as the horses were pulled up, and then the footman jumped down from the back, opened the carriage door, and turned to hammer on the front door of the warehouse.

Swiftly, Alys went past him, across the room, and lifted the bottom of the blind so that she could peep out onto the quay. She could only see the open door of the carriage, a billowing dark silk skirt, a tiny silk shoe with a black rose pinned on the toe. Then they heard the maid, stamping up the hall to open the shabby front door and recoil at the magnificence of the footman from the carriage.

“The Nobildonna,” he announced, and Alys watched the hem of the gown sweep down the carriage steps, across the cobbles, and into the hall. Behind the rich gown came a plain hem, a maid of some sort, and Alys turned to James Avery.

“You have to go,” she said rapidly. “I was not expecting . . . You will have to . . .”

“I’m not going without an answer.”

“You have to!” she started towards him as if she would physically push him through the narrow doorway, but it was too late. The stunned housemaid had already thrown open the parlor door, there was a rustle of silk, and the veiled stranger had entered the room, paused on the threshold, taking in the wealthy gentleman and the plainly dressed woman in one swift glance. She crossed the room and took Alys in her arms and kissed her on both cheeks.

“You allow me? You forgive me? But I had nowhere else to come!” she said swiftly in a ripple of speech with an Italian accent.

James saw Alys, so furiously icy just a moment before, flush brightly, her blush staining her neck and her cheeks, saw her eyes fill with tears, as she said: “Of course you should have come! I didn’t think . . .”

“And this is my baby,” the lady said simply, beckoning to the maid behind her who carried a sleeping baby draped in the finest Venetian lace. “This is his son. This is your nephew. We called him Matteo.”

Alys gave a little cry and held out her arms for the baby, looking down into the perfect face, tears coming to her eyes.

“Your nephew?” James Avery said, stepping forward to see the little face framed in ribboned lace. “Then this is Rob’s boy?”

A furious glance from Alys did not prevent the lady from sweeping him a curtsey and throwing her dark veil back to show a vivacious beautiful face, her lips rosy with rouge, enhanced with a dark crescent patch beside her mouth.