Five days after Christmas, I sat with Barbara beside a good fire, Mary asleep on my lap. She had woken with a fit of coughing and come downstairs. Her little sister Katherine did not want to sleep alone, so she was curled on Barbara’s lap. Henry, finding himself the sole occupant of the bed, had also come down and was sprawled on a floor cushion with the cat. I knew I should get them back to bed but we were too comfortable to leave the warm parlor. Around us were remnants and half-made poppets. Henry had cobbled together some cloth soldiers, veterans of fearful campaigns, so disheveled and misshapen were they. Katherine’s dolls were slightly less gruesome and Mary had arranged hers, elegantly sewn although she was but six, on George’s chair, little dishes of sweetmeats in front of each. The sweetmeats were a gift from Frankie and the children had spent much time sucking the gold crests from them, laughing at their glinting teeth. I had not seen Frankie for a few weeks. George and I avoided Court over the Christmas season, for the King and his nobles gambled and drank so much that a single evening there would ruin us.

A coach rattled into our street but I did not stir; George was dining at the College of Physicians and would not be home until midnight at the earliest, somewhat merry, accompanied by Sir William Paddy and his armed guards. It was a bad time of year to be out beyond the curfew. London was swollen with visitors, all bored of country mud and Christmas guests. The rich toured the royal tombs at Westminster, the Tower lions, the camel on London Bridge and the playhouses. The poor begged alms. Those not satisfied with meager charity cut the purses, and sometimes the throats, of bewildered tourists and drunken locals.

Barbara and I chatted quietly. She was soon to remove to the household of Baron Ellesmere whose second wife, Arthur’s aunt, had offered her an advantageous position. The household was on the Strand, a short walk away. Barbara could meet a good sort of husband there. I had been much preoccupied with finding one without such obvious defects as would accept her with so small a dowry.

The coach stopped at our door and immediately I was alert. The knocker was dropped and Barbara and I listened as old Maggie answered. I stood, Mary’s sleeping form still in my arms, and opened the parlor door. The cold in the passage was thick as mist.

To my astonishment, Frankie’s brother stood in our hall.