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  ‘Cousin Norman,’ Hester said pleasantly, coming into the hall from the kitchen door. ‘What a pleasure to see you, and on such a cold day. Did you come by the river?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He let her help him off with his greatcoat and gave it to Frances to take to the kitchen to warm it through, and to order some hot ale. ‘I would not trust the roads these days.’

  She shook her head. ‘Lambeth is quiet enough now that the archbishop’s palace is empty,’ she said. ‘All the apprentice lads are exhausted with their drilling and their mustering and digging the fortifications. They have no stomach left for roaming around the streets and making trouble for their betters.’

  She led the way into the family sitting room. Johnnie was seated before a small fire, writing out plant labels with painstaking care. ‘Uncle Norman!’ he exclaimed and leaped up from his place. Alexander Norman greeted him with a brisk hug and then dived once again into his pocket.

  ‘I have given your sister half a mile of silk ribbon, should you like the same to edge your suit?’ he asked.

  ‘No, sir, that is, not if you have anything else … that is, I should be very grateful for anything you bring me …’

  Alexander laughed. ‘I have a wicked little toy here which one of the armourers made at the Tower. But you must promise me to only behead dead roses.’

  From his pocket he drew a small knife which folded cunningly, like a barber’s razor, so the sharp blade was hidden and safe. ‘Do you permit, Mrs Tradescant?’ Alexander asked. ‘If he promises he will take care of his fingers?’

  Hester smiled. ‘I should like to have the courage to say no,’ she said. ‘You may have it, Johnnie, but Cousin Norman must show you how to handle it and see that you are safe with it before he leaves us today.’

  ‘Can I carve things with it?’

  Alexander nodded. ‘We’ll set to work as soon as I have drunk my ale and told your mother the news from town.’

  ‘Wooden whistles? And toys?’

  ‘We’ll start with something easier. Go and ask them in the kitchen for a cake of soap. We’ll work our way up to wood.’ The boy nodded, put the cork carefully back in his pot of ink and carried the tray of labels out of the way, and then went from the room. Frances came in and set down a cup of ale before her uncle and then took up some sewing and sat in the windowseat. Hester, glancing across the room, thought that her stepdaughter could have been sitting for a portrait entitled ‘Beauty and the Domestic Arts’ as she bent her brown head over her work. A swift glance from Frances’s bright eyes warned her that the girl was perfectly aware of the enchanting picture she made.

  ‘Any news?’ Hester asked.

  Alexander Norman nodded. ‘You’ve heard the news of Birmingham?’

  Hester glanced towards Frances. ‘We won’t speak of it now. I heard enough.’

  Alexander shook his head. ‘Dreadful doings. Prince Rupert lost control of his men altogether.’

  Hester nodded. ‘And I heard that the king holds the whole of the west country.’

  Alexander Norman nodded. ‘He’s lost the navy but he holds many of the ports. And they face France, so he can land a French army if the queen’s promises are fulfilled.’

  Hester nodded. ‘And no-one is marching on London?’

  Alexander Norman gave a small shrug. ‘Not that I’ve heard, but this month alone there have been skirmishes all over the country.’

  ‘Nothing close?’

  Alexander Norman leaned forwards and put his hand over Hester’s tightly gripping fingers. ‘Peace, cousin,’ he said gently. ‘Nothing close. You know I would warn you the moment I heard of any danger to your little Ark. You and your precious cargo will come safe through this storm.’

  He glanced over to the windowseat. ‘Frances, would you fetch me another glass of ale?’ he asked.

  She rose at once and went to the door. ‘And give me a moment alone with your stepmother,’ he said smoothly. ‘I want her advice on a private matter.’

  Frances glanced at Hester to see if she demurred, and when Hester gave the smallest of nods Frances slightly raised her eyebrows in a tiny expression of sheer impudent speculation and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  ‘She’s impertinent,’ Hester said as the door shut. ‘But it’s only lightness of spirit.’

  ‘I know it,’ Alexander Norman agreed with her. ‘And I would not see her subdued. She’s very like her mother. She was a light-hearted girl but her spirits were kept much in check by her strong sense of religion, and her strict upbringing. But Frances was spoiled from the moment she was born by John and by them all. It’s too late to try to weigh her down now, I would rather see her soar.’

  Hester smiled. ‘I feel that too,’ she said. ‘Though it falls to me to try to keep her in check.’

  ‘You worry about her safety?’

  ‘I do. I worry for all of us, of course, and for the treasures. But mostly for Frances. She is at an age when she should be venturing out a little more, going into society, to make friends; but she is cooped up here with me and with her brother. The plague is everywhere again this year so I cannot let her stay with her grandparents in the City – and besides they are not sociable people, they meet no-one.’

  ‘She could go to court at Oxford …’

  Hester’s face was a picture. ‘I’d as soon throw her into the lion’s cage at the Tower than send her among that crowd. Everything that was bad about the king’s court when they were properly housed and properly served is ten times worse now they are crowded into Oxford and drunk nine nights out of ten with celebrating victories.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking the same,’ Alexander said. ‘I wondered if you would consider me … I wondered if you would let me offer her – and yourself of course – a safe haven. I wondered if you would leave here, shut the Ark up until the end of the war, and come and live with me at the Tower of London: the safest place in the whole of the kingdom.’

  When she said nothing he added, very quietly, ‘I mean marriage, Hester.’

  She went quite pale for a moment, and moved her chair back from his a little.

  ‘You did not expect this? Though I have been such a frequent visitor?’

  Mutely, she shook her head. ‘I thought it was just kindness for Mr Tradescant’s family,’ she said softly. ‘As a family friend, as a relation.’

  ‘It was more.’

  She shook her head. ‘I am a married woman,’ she said. ‘I do not consider myself deserted or widowed. Until I hear from John that he is not coming home ever again I shall bear myself as his wife.’ For a moment she looked at him as if she were pleading with him to disagree with her. ‘You may think he has left us forever, but I am sure he will come home. There are his children, there are the rarities, there is the garden. He would never abandon the Tradescant inheritance.’

  Alexander did not answer, his face was very grave.

  ‘He would never abandon us,’ she said again but with less certainty. ‘Would he?’

  Before he could answer she rose from the chair and went quickly over to the window with her light, determined step. ‘And if you are thinking that he will die over there, and never return, I must tell you that I would still think it my duty to stay here and guard the house and the garden for Johnnie to inherit when he is a man. I promised John’s father that I would keep the place and the children safe. Nothing would release me from that promise.’

  ‘You have misunderstood me,’ he burst out. ‘I am so sorry. I was not proposing marriage to you.’

  She turned at that. The light of the window was behind her and he could not clearly see her face. ‘What?’

  ‘I was thinking of Frances.’

  ‘You were proposing marriage to Frances?’

  The incredulity in her voice made him wince. Dumbly, he nodded.

  ‘But you are fifty-five!’

  ‘I am fifty-three.’

  ‘And she’s a child.’

  ‘She is a young woman, and she is ready for marriage, an