‘That’s as maybe,’ John said firmly. ‘But I’m home now, and you’re not going to drown my wife to keep you company. You can shoot the bridge on your own, my boy.’

The ferryman set them ashore at the steps. John put his hand under Hester’s elbow as they climbed to the top and turned to wave to Johnnie as he sat in the prow of the boat to gain full pleasure from the terrifying ride.

‘Look at his face!’ Hester exclaimed lovingly.

‘You are too indulgent to him,’ John said.

She hesitated. John was his father and the head of the household. Restoring the power to him was hard for her, just as regaining his position was for him. ‘He’s still only a boy,’ she remarked. ‘Not yet thirteen.’

‘If he was in Virginia –’ John started and then bit back the rest.

‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘But he isn’t. He’s a good boy and he has been courageous and faithful through these difficult years. If he was a planter’s son, living in the wilds, then I dare say he would be a quite different boy. But he is not. He is a boy who has had to have his childhood in the middle of a war and he has seen all of the adults around him most terribly afraid. You are right to restore the rules, John, but I won’t have him blamed for not being something he has no business to be.’

He turned and faced her but she did not drop her gaze. She stared at him fiercely as if she did not care whether he beat her or sent her home in disgrace. Not for the first time John was reminded that he had married a redoubtable woman and, despite his temper, he remembered also that she was fiercely defending his son, just as she had fiercely defended the garden and the rarities.

‘You’re right,’ he said, with the smile she loved. ‘And I will be restored to my place at the head of the household. But I won’t be a tyrant.’

She nodded at that, and when they strolled together to the other side of the bridge where the boat was waiting she slid her hand in the crook of his arm and John kept it there.