Hester gave him a long, level look. ‘You and your father are the king’s gardeners,’ she said. ‘You are in his service.’

‘He doesn’t own my soul!’ John shouted. ‘I am his servant, not his slave! I can withdraw my service. I can work for myself, I can leave. I have just left.’

She nodded. ‘Then a man has a right to choose where he lives and who he calls master?’

‘Yes,’ John said firmly.

‘A woman too?’

‘Yes,’ he said begrudgingly.

‘Then I choose to live here, and you will not take the children without me to care for them.’

‘You want to stay here and face who knows what dangers?’

‘I shall face the dangers when they come,’ she said. ‘I am not such a fool as to think that we are safe here. We’re too near to the city – if the king brings in a Papist army we will be in the worst place. But if that happens I shall take them to Oatlands, or away into the country. We will have a warning of the dangers. I can prepare for them. And Jane’s parents will warn us and protect them, and Alexander Norman knows to the minute where the king’s army can be found, he makes the barrels for the gunpowder. My own family have refuges planned. I shall have advisors, I shall have protectors.

‘But in Virginia there would be no-one to keep us safe but you; and you don’t know the country, and you are not a farmer or a labourer, and I think only a farmer or a labourer can get a living there.’

John got to his feet and spoke bitterly. ‘I won’t argue with you,’ he said spitefully. ‘Because I don’t care enough to take the trouble. It doesn’t matter to me if you will come with me to Virginia as my wife or if you prefer to stay at home like a housekeeper. It is your choice. I shall go to Virginia a single man, if that is your wish.’

She felt a pain inside her which was worse than anything she had suffered from him so far. She heard the threat of infidelity in his words but she would not let him frighten her into abandoning her home. ‘I am sorry to stand against you,’ she said steadily. ‘But I promised your father I would guard his trees and his grandchildren, and I cannot escape that promise.’

John got to his feet and stalked to the door. ‘I am tired. I shall sleep. I don’t want to be disturbed. I am used to sleeping alone.’

Hester bowed her head, not commenting on the fact that she was no longer invited into bed with him. ‘Take your bed,’ she said politely. ‘I shall make up the bed in the spare bedroom.’