‘You’ll all go,’ he said. ‘You’re safer there than anywhere if Rupert is still there. Parliament can’t arrest you there, you’ll be under royalist protection; and when you come home we can say you were only doing John’s work on the gardens.’

Frances was about to argue, but then she held her peace.

‘You could go now,’ Alexander said. He led the way out of the room to the narrow hall.

Hester hung back and looked at her beautiful stepdaughter. ‘Did you not want the risk of being with me?’ she asked. ‘I would understand if you didn’t want to come to Oatlands. You can go to your grandparents if you wish, Frances.’

‘Oh no!’ Frances cried out, and suddenly she was a girl again. ‘Mother! Oh no! Whatever risks you were taking I should want to be with you. I’d never leave you alone to face danger! I was just thinking that perhaps Uncle Norman could come with us. I’d feel so much safer if he was with us.’

‘The safest way is for him to be here, gathering news, and for us to be tucked out of the way in the country,’ Hester said. ‘And when it is all quiet again we can go home. I don’t like to leave the rarities and the gardens.’

‘In case Father comes home this month?’ Johnnie asked.

Hester managed a smile. ‘In case Father comes home this month,’ she agreed.

Oatlands Palace was beautiful in early summer. The garden was showing signs of neglect and most of the rooms of the house were shut up. There was a regiment of soldiers occupying the main hall and the regimental cooks working in the kitchens. The cavalry’s horses were stabled in the old royal stables and there was constant drilling and training and parading over John’s precious turf at the front of the palace. Prince Rupert was only rarely with his troops. Half the time he was at Oxford with the court, arguing against the negotiations for peace, bolstering up the king’s erratic determination to conquer the Parliament and not negotiate with them. The royalist cavalry troops paid no attention to the silkworm house nor to the gardener’s house next door to it. The commander saw Hester when he was walking in the gardens and Hester mentioned that since her husband was still nominally gardener to the palace she had thought it her duty to make sure that the gardens were not suffering too badly.

‘Very commendable,’ he said. ‘What needs doing?’

‘The grass wants mowing,’ Hester said. ‘And the knot garden needs weeding and trimming. The roses should have been pruned in winter, it’s too late now, and the fruit trees.’

He nodded. ‘These are not the times for gardening,’ he said flatly. ‘You do what you can and I shall see that you are paid for your time.’

‘Thank you,’ Hester said.