‘Fetch the damned things yourself!’ Johnnie burst out. ‘I’ll have no part in robbing the queen of her own. I won’t pretend that it’s not thievery to live in a queen’s palace and steal her fruits! It’s nothing better than looting! It’s a dead king’s goods!’

He flung out of the house and ran down the shallow steps into the garden, they saw him tear down the avenue and through the gate towards the lake. There was an appalled silence.

‘I apologise,’ John said. ‘He will be disciplined, your lordship. He will apologise to you himself. He doesn’t realise the gravity of what he is saying.’ John shot a swift look at Hester, asking for help. At the very least Johnnie was guilty of appalling rudeness; at the worst, treason.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Hester said in a whisper. ‘He’s still very young, you understand. And distressed. I would not have had him speak so to anyone, you least of all. He does realise that the war is over. He is not an active royalist. We are all of us loyal to Parliament here.’

Lambert leaned back against his chair and took up his glass of wine. ‘Oh, there’s no need to apologise,’ he said gently. ‘There are many who feel as he does up and down the country, it’s bound to take some time for feelings to die down. And there have been enough trials for treason. The lad has strong feelings and it’s hard to lose two battles by – what is he? – twenty? Did he get that scar at Worcester?’

‘Yes. A scratch from a pike,’ Hester said. ‘Thank God it missed his eye. It was all but healed up by the time he came home. And he’s only eighteen. I am sorry, your lordship. He spent his youth in the shadow of the war.’

‘He’s at an age when you see things in black and white,’ Lambert said easily. ‘Things are not so simple in real life. If Charles Stuart would make half the promises to us that he made to the Scots then he could have come home to his throne. But we can’t trust him. Those of us who dealt with his father remember that the Stuarts find it easier to promise than to deliver. And the son is even worse than the father for reneging on his debts and word. He’s not much of a model for Johnnie to set his heart on.’

‘I know,’ Hester said sadly. ‘But I can’t seem to persuade him.’

Johnnie did not reappear for dinner and Hester laid the table, served the gentlemen, and dined on her own in the kitchen before she went out to look for him.