Hester nodded, her hand steady and skillful as she turned the charcoal on its side and rubbed it gently against the grain of the paper to show the delicate veining on the tulip leaf. “It is an understanding. An agreement; not a love affair.”

“Will that be enough for you?” John asked curiously. “A young woman of your age?”

“I’m not a young maid,” she said steadily. “I am a spinster of the parish of St. Bride’s. A maid is a girl with a life of promise before her. I am a spinster of twenty-five in need of a husband. If your son will have me, and treat me kindly, I will have him. I don’t care that he has loved another woman, even if he loves her still. What I care about is getting a home of my own and children to care for. Somewhere I can hold up my head. And you and he are well-known; he works for the king direct and he has the ear of the queen. With Parliament dissolved and London trade doing badly, there is no other route of advancement other than the court. This would be a very good match for me. It’s nothing more than adequate for him, but I will make it worth his while. I will guard his business and his children.”

John had the delightful sensation that he should not be having this conversation at all, that J was not a lad to have these things arranged for him, he was a man who should make his own choices. But it was a great pleasure to organize things as he wished, and he was afraid for his grandchildren.

“Frances is nine and her brother is four years old. A girl needs a mother, and Johnny is not out of his short coats. You would care for them and give them the love they need?”

Still Hester did not take her eyes from the tulip. “I would. And I would give you more grandchildren, if God is merciful.”

“I won’t be with you for long,” John predicted. “I’m an old man. That’s why I’m in a hurry to see my grandchildren safe and my son married. I want to know that I leave it all in safe hands.”

She put down her paper and for the first time her eyes met his. “Trust me. I will care for all three of them, and for your rarities, for the Ark and for the gardens.”

She thought that a look of immense relief passed over his face as if he now saw the way out of some complex thick-leaved maze.

“Very well, then,” he said. “When Their Majesties leave here, I’ll go home and you can come with me. You should see the children and they see you before we go further. And then J will come home from Virginia and the two of you can see if you like each other enough.”

“What if he doesn’t like me?” Hester asked bluntly. “I’m not a beauty. He might think he could do better.”

“Then I’ll bring you back to your uncle and you’re no worse off,” John said. He thought he had never met a woman so frank. The lack of vanity and the plain speaking suited him; he wondered if J would like her for it, or if she would embarrass him. “Of course, you might not like him.”

She shook her head. “I’m not a princess in a romance pining for love,” she said. “If he can give me a house and business and a couple of children, that’s all I want. I could shake on the deal today.”

John reminded himself that to put out his hand and shake on the deal now would be to trap her as well as to trap his son. He heard Cecil’s wise cynicism in his head urging him to do it and turned away. “I won’t let you be too hasty,” he said, resisting the temptation. “Come with me to the Ark at Lambeth, meet the children, see the house and see if it suits you before we say more.”

Hester nodded, her eyes back on the tulips again. “Good,” she said.

John was weary to the very marrow of his bones on the journey home from Oatlands to Lambeth. The road seemed longer than usual and the river crossing was cold, with a bitter wind that swept down the river and cut through his leather waistcoat and his woolen cloak. The ague that he had brought home from Rhé, which descended on him whenever he was tired, made him ache in every bone of his body. He was glad that Hester was there to pay the ferryman and to commandeer a wagon for them to ride down the South Lambeth Road. She had an eye to his comfort all the way but not even her care could stop the wind blowing chill or the wagon jolting down the road in the winter ruts.

When they halted outside the house she had to help him over the little bridge and into the house, and as soon as she was in the door she was giving orders for his comfort as if she were mistress already.

The servants obeyed her willingly – lighting a fire in John’s room, bringing a chair for him to sit in, bringing him a glass of hot wine. She knelt before him, her cloak still tied around her neck, her muff pushed to one side, and rubbed his cold hands until they lost their blueness and tingled.

“Thank you,” John said. “I feel a fool, bringing you here and then needing your help.”

Hester rose to her feet with a slight smile which made little of her care of him, and set him at his ease. “It’s nothing,” she said easily.

She was a woman who could set a house to rights in moments. In a very short time she had clean sheets on John’s bed, and a bowl of hot soup and a loaf of white wheaten bread sent up to him so that he could dine in his bedroom. Then she turned her attention to the children and sat with them in the kitchen while they ate their supper.

She heard them say grace after the meal, both heads bowed obediently over their hands. Baby John still had the golden silky curls of infancy falling over his white lace collar. Frances’s brown sleek hair was hidden under her white cap. Hester had to stop herself from reaching out and gathering the two of them onto her lap.

“The mistress used to say prayers every morning and evening,” the cook volunteered from the fireside. “D’you remember, Frances?”

The girl nodded and looked away.

“Would you like us to pray, as your mother used to pray?” Hester asked her gently.

Again Frances nodded wordlessly, turning her head away so that no one could see the pain in her face. Hester put her hands together and closed her eyes and prayed, from the prayer book issued by Cranmer, as if there were no other way to address your maker. Hester had never been inside a church where prayers were spoken from the heart; she would have thought such behavior unsettling, perhaps illegal. She said the words the archbishop had ruled, and prayed by rote.

And Frances, slowly, without turning her head or indicating in any way that she wanted an embrace, stepped backward, toward Hester, closer and closer and then finally leaned back against her, still not looking around. Gently, carefully, Hester dropped her hands from where they were clasped in prayer and rested one hand on Frances’s thin shoulder, and then the other on Johnny’s silky curls. Johnny was comfortable under the caress and leaned at once toward her, but she felt the little girl’s shoulder tense for a moment, and then relax as if the child were relinquishing a burden which she had been carrying alone. While the others said “Amen” out loud to the familiar prayer, Hester added a private silent wish that she might take these children who belonged to another woman, and bring them up as their mother would have wanted, and that in time they would come to love her.

She did not move away when the prayers ceased but stood still, her hand on each child. Johnny turned his little round face up to her and lifted up his arms, mutely asking to be picked up. She stooped and lifted him and settled him on her hip, and felt the deep satisfaction of a child’s weight at her side and his arms around her neck. Still without looking, and with no word of appeal, the girl Frances turned toward Hester and Hester folded her into the crook of her arm and pressed the sad little face into her apron.

John recovered after a few days at home, and was soon setting seeds in pots and sending Frances out in the frosty garden to gather up, without fail, every single one of the last chestnuts as they fell from the trees down the avenue.