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  ‘I shall be delighted,’ John said politely and watched Sir Henry recede into the distance without any regret as the ship slipped her ropes and drifted away from the shore.

  Spring 1646, London

  It was a homecoming as ordinary as any man might wish. John hired a carter at London dock to carry his barrels of seeds and roots, the two barrels of saplings, the chest of Barbados goods, and sat up on the wooden seat at the front of the cart as they jolted up the frozen lanes to Lambeth.

  ‘What’s the news of the war?’ John asked.

  ‘You’ll have heard that Chester surrendered?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Virginia,’ John said. ‘Is the king truly defeated?’

  ‘Humbled to dust,’ the carter said feelingly. ‘And now pray God we can see some peace and order in this land and that crew of parasites run back to Rome where they came from.’

  John tried to say ‘Amen’, but found the word did not come out. ‘I’ll pray for peace,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough of war for a lifetime.’

  ‘And so have we all. And for some the war lasted longer than their lifetimes. How many Englishmen d’you think have died to persuade the king that we want to be governed by Englishmen and pray to God and not to bishops?’

  John shook his head.

  ‘Thousands,’ the man said glumly. ‘Hundreds of thousands. How many more died of plague and hardship because of this damned struggle?’

  John shook his head again.

  ‘Thousands more. And how many families d’you think have lost a son or a brother or a father?’

  John shook his head in silence.

  ‘Every single family in the land,’ the carter said solemnly. ‘This has been a wicked, wicked war, a war without an enemy because we were fighting and killing ourselves.’

  Hester was in the stable yard, tossing hay over the door to the horse, when she heard the rumble of the wheels and saw the cart rock as it rounded the corner into the yard. For a moment she saw only the barrels at the back and thought that John had sent some goods ahead, and then she dropped the pitchfork with a clatter on the cobbles as she recognised the man who got down from the carter’s seat and turned to face her.

  He looked older than she remembered, and weary. The bear-grease stain had faded from his skin but he was still deeply tanned from the hard sun and wind. He had lost a couple of teeth during his time of near-starvation, and he had grown a brown moustache and beard which were flecked with grey. His eyes were sad, an unmistakable sadness which made Hester want to hold him and comfort him without even asking what had grieved him so. He looked as if he had lost something very dear to him and Hester wondered what blade in the new world had cut him so deep.

  ‘John?’ she said quietly.

  He stepped forwards a little. ‘Hester?’

  She realised that she was wearing her oldest working clothes, men’s thick boots and a brown scarf over her hair which was pinned carelessly on the back of her head. She could not have looked more functional if she had tried. She whisked her scarf off her head and tried not to seem embarrassed. She had always tried to be above vanity, especially with this man who had married his first wife for love and lost her while she was still in her youth and beauty.

  Hester brushed the hay from her coat. ‘You are welcome home,’ she said.

  He took two steps towards her and opened his arms to her and she went towards him and felt the intense relief of a man’s embrace after more than three years of loneliness.

  ‘Do you forgive me?’ he said urgently into her hair. She smelled of hay from the stable and the clean, familiar smell of soap from her skin, and lavender from her linen. ‘Can you forgive me for leaving you so unkindly and then disappearing like that?’

  ‘It’s you that should forgive me for refusing to go with you,’ she said quickly. ‘And I regretted it, John.’

  He tightened his grip around her. ‘I have been unfaithful,’ he said quickly, to get the confession over and done with before he was tempted to lie. ‘I am sorry.’

  She rested her head against his shoulder. ‘That’s the past,’ she said. ‘And in another country. You have come home to me, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  She craned her neck to look up into his sad, weary face and realised that he was wearing the same bewildered expression of pain as when they had first met and he had not recovered from the loss of his first wife. ‘What happened, John?’

  For a moment he was about to answer her, then they were interrupted by the carter. ‘I can’t unload these on my own,’ he said flatly. ‘And I can’t afford to wait here all day while you two kiss.’

  Hester turned with a laugh. ‘I’ll find Joseph to help you.’ She rang the bell which hung at the corner of the yard. ‘You go in, John, you must be frozen, and Johnnie will be longing to see you. He’ll be in the kitchen eating his breakfast.’

  John hesitated at the kitchen door, suddenly shy and hardly knowing how to approach his son who had been a boy of nine when he left and was now a youth of twelve. He opened the door slowly and put his head around it.

  Johnnie was seated at the scrubbed kitchen table, his bowl of porridge before him, absently spooning it into his mouth, his eyes on his book propped on his mug of small ale. John took in the sight of his son, the fair head with the cropped golden hair, the light hazel eyes, the long nose in the long face and the sweet innocent mouth. You could see his mother in his colouring and the joy in his face, but he was every inch a Tradescant.

  He glanced up as the draught from the half-open door blew into the kitchen and put down his book as if he was about to greet his stepmother. Then he saw it was a man looking in at him, and he hesitated.

  Very slowly he rose to his feet, very cautiously he looked. John opened the door fully and stepped into the doorway.

  ‘Father?’ Johnnie asked uncertainly. ‘Is it really you?’

  John took two swift steps across the kitchen floor and wrapped his boy in a tight hug and inhaled, half-weeping, half-kissing the top of his silky head. ‘It’s me. Praise God I am home with you, Johnnie, and you safe and well.’

  Hester came in behind him and hung her cape on the hook. ‘Did you recognise him?’ she demanded.

  Father and son answered ‘No!’ together and then laughed together. John made himself release his son, forced himself to let the boy go.

  ‘He is grown,’ Hester said proudly ‘And as much help to me in the garden as any man could be. And he is a scholar, he keeps the rarities and garden accounts now, and the planting records.’

  ‘And school?’ John demanded.

  A shadow crossed Hester’s face. ‘The school has been closed this last year. The teacher was dismissed, some quarrel about theology. So we do the best we can at home.’

  ‘And where is Frances?’ John asked, looking round for her.

  Something in Hester’s silence made him stop, fear gripping him. ‘Where is Frances? Hester, tell me. Please God, tell me that she is not lost.’

  ‘No! No!’ She rushed to reassure him. ‘She is well, in great beauty and well. It’s just … you were not here and I did not know you would return. I didn’t know what I should do for the best and I was at my wits’ end to keep her safe …’

  ‘Where is she?’ John shouted.

  ‘She’s married!’ Johnnie interrupted. ‘Safe at the Tower with Alexander Norman.’

  ‘She married Alexander Norman?’ John demanded.

  Hester nodded, her eyes on his face.

  ‘Not my father’s executor? Not my uncle? Not that Alexander Norman?’

  Hester gave the smallest confirming nod.

  ‘You married my daughter off to a man old enough to be her father? A friend of her grandfather?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘It was her choice,’ Johnnie said stoutly. ‘And she is happy.’

  ‘By God, this is most ill-done!’ John swore. ‘I can’t believe it! When did this happen?’