“Excuse me,” a voice behind her said politely. “I am looking for John Tradescant.”

“He’s not here,” Hester said wearily and turned around. “I am his wife. Can I help you?”

The man before her was one of the handsomest she had ever seen in her life. He swept off his hat to her and the plumes brushed the ground as he bowed, one long brown suede boot stretched forward. He was dressed in gray – a sober enough color, which might indicate he was a Parliament man and one of the dreary Presbyterian sort at that; but his thick, curly head of hair, his rich lace collar, and that laughing confidence in his smile was that of a cavalier.

Hester’s first response was to smile in reply, he was not a man that any woman would find easy to resist. But then she remembered the times they lived in and she glanced toward the house as if she feared a guard of soldiery at his call and a warrant for arrest in his pocket.

“Can I help you?” she asked again.

“I’m looking for tulips,” he said. “Everyone knows that John Tradescant’s is the only garden worth visiting in England, and also these are troubled times to go flower hunting in the Low Countries.”

“We have tulips,” Hester said gravely, not taking advantage of the conversational opening to deplore the badness of the times. “Was it a special variety you wanted?”

“Yes,” he said. “What do you have?”

Hester smiled. The verbal fencing was a typical approach to naming a plant which had, in its heyday, cost the value of a house. “We have everything,” she said with the simple arrogance of a professional at the very top of her profession. “You had much better tell me simply what you want. We only ever charge a fair price, Mr.-?”

He stepped back slightly as if to reasses her, as if his view of a plain woman plainly dressed had hidden the strength of her character, and her pride. “I’m John Lambert,” he said. “And last year I grew half a dozen tulips at my home, and this year I must have more. I simply must. Do you know what I mean, Mrs. Tradescant? Or are they nothing more than a crop to you, like wheat to a farmer?”

“They’re not my passion,” Hester said. “But nobody could live in this household and not come to love tulips. They are one of the finest flowers.”

“None finer,” he said quickly.

“Roses?”

He hesitated. “But the thing about tulips is the shortness of the season, and the way you can buy them in the bulb and hold the bulb in your hand and know that inside it is a thing of such beauty. And you know that if you care for it you will see that thing of beauty, whereas a rose – a rose grows itself.”

Hester laughed. “If you were a working gardener, Mr. Lambert, you would value plants that grow themselves. But let me show you our tulip beds.”

She led the way back through the garden and then paused. The path ran alongside the wall, which kept the west wind off the plants. Along the wall, espaliered in regular lines, were apple and pear trees; the south wall was lined with the peaches and apricots. They were Tradescant walls: a double skin of brick with three fireplaces set one on top of each other and a flue running from each fire along the length of the wall to keep the bricks at a steady warmth by night and day. But Hester had not been able to afford the charcoal for the fires for two seasons.

Hester saw Mr. Lambert take in the neat planning and the solidity of the building, and the immaculate pruning of the branches, and felt her familiar stir of pride. Then he turned to the garden beds and she heard his sharp intake of breath.

There was bed after bed of tulips. They grew at least twenty of each specimen, and they had more than a hundred different varieties. Each new variety was labeled with a lead spike stuck in the ground at the head of the row and on each spike, in Johnnie’s meticulous printing, was the name of each variety. Behind each label, like a row of well-drilled infantry, grew the tulips, with their leaves clasped close to their stalks and their growing heads like multicolored soldiers shouldering their pikes.

Hester enjoyed the expression on the cavalier’s face. “We keep the rare ones potted up,” she said. “These are only garden tulips. I can show you the rarities, we keep them in our orangery.”

“I had no idea,” he said softly. He was walking between the tulip beds, scanning them, bending to read the labels and then going on. “I had heard you were great gardeners, but I thought you worked on the palace gardens.”

“We do,” Hester said. “We did,” she corrected herself. “But we had to have our own garden to stock the palace gardens, and we have always sold our stock.”

He nodded, paced the length of the bed, kneeled down and then got up again. Hester noted the dirt on the knees of his gray suit and that he did not trouble to brush it off. She recognized at once the signs of a besotted tulip enthusiast and a man accustomed to employing others to keep his clothes smart.

“And what rarities do you have?” he asked.

“We have a Lack tulip, a Duck tulip, Agatha tulips, Violetten.” She broke off at the eagerness in his face.

“I’ve never seen them,” he said. “D’you have them here?”

“This way,” Hester said pleasantly, and led him toward the house. Johnnie came running out and checked at the sight of the stranger. He gave a neat bow and the man smiled at him.

“My stepson,” Hester said. “John Tradescant.”

“And will you be a gardener too?” the man asked.

“I am a gardener already,” Johnnie replied. “I am going to be a cavalry officer.”

Hester scowled a warning at him but the man nodded pleasantly enough. “I’m in that line of work myself,” he said. “I’m in the cavalry for the Parliament army.”

“That John Lambert!” Hester exclaimed and then flushed and wished she had the sense to be silent. She had read about the talents of the cavalry leader who was said to be the equal of Prince Rupert, but she had not pictured him as a young man, smiling in spring sunshine, and devoted to tulips.

He grinned at her. “Shall I keep a place among my officers for you, Master Tradescant?”

Johnnie flushed and looked awkward. “The thing is-”

“He is too young to be thinking of such things,” Hester intervened. “Now… the tulips-”

John Lambert did not move. “What is the thing?” he asked Johnnie gently.

“The thing is that I am in the king’s service,” Johnnie said seriously. “My family have always been gardeners to the royal palaces, and we have not yet been dismissed. So I suppose I am in the king’s service, and I can’t, in honor, join you. But I thank you for the invitation, sir.”

Lambert smiled. “Perhaps by the time you are old enough to ride with me there will be a country united, and only one army and one cavalry and all you will have to choose is your horse and the color of the feather in your hat,” he suggested diplomatically. “And both Prince Rupert and I will be proud to serve under the same colors.”

He straightened up and looked over Johnnie’s head at Hester’s concerned expression. “Please don’t fear, Mrs. Tradescant,” he said. “I am here to buy tulips, not to cause you a moment’s uneasiness. Loyalty is a difficult path to tread and these are difficult times. You may well garden in a royal palace once more and I may yet dance off a royal scaffold. Or I might be the new chief justice and you mayor of London. Let’s just look at some tulips, shall we?”

The warmth of his smile was irresistible. Hester smiled in reply and directed him to the terrace where the tulips stood in their beautiful ceramic pots. Warmed by the sunshine and sheltered in the orangery at night, these were more developed than those in the bed and they were showing the colors in their petals.

“Now these are our rarities,” she said. “These are green parrot tulips, very special.” Hester indicated the ragged fringe on the green petals. “And these are Paragon Liefkens, they have a wonderful broken color – red and white or red and yellow. The Semper Augustus comes from this family but excels them in shape, it has the true tulip shape and the best broken color. Here are the Violetten, they come in a different color in every bulb, very unpredictable and difficult to grow a consistent strain: they can be as pale as a bough of lilac or a true, deep purple-blue like violets. If you were interested in developing your own strain-” She glanced at him and saw the avidity in his face.