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Elizabeth dressed herself in her maroon serge workaday gown, tied a white fichu around her shoulders and a white apron around her waist. She braided her hair and bound it with a linen kerchief, then she went to the kitchen to get a mug of breakfast beer on the way to fetching Martha’s palliatives from the shop.

She found a scene of confusions and snivellings in the kitchen, where Priscilla was half-heartedly beating Tib, the youngest maidservant, with the small cane reserved for this purpose; though Priscilla’s good temper and lethargy prevented her from chastising cither her children or servants as often as her gossips did theirs. The cook, who had got her underling into trouble in the first place, was virtuously stirring a potful. of eel stew and egging on the punishment. “And a fearful liar she is too, ma’am, said she’d swept the stairs when she ‘asn’t touched ‘em in donkey’s age, said she wasn’t a-kissing the sweep be’ind t’ scullery door, wen I see ‘er face wi’ me own eyes all smooched wi’ soot - “

“I never! I never I” wailed Tib, snivelling harder, and wriggling expertly so that Priscilla’s blows hardly reached her. “Ow, ma’am, ow! You’re a-killing me!”

Priscilla’s fat arm dropped, and she sank on to a stool, mopping her face. “Well, see that you be good in future, Tib - go to the stillroom and fetch me some fresh vinegar, I’m quite faint.” As the girl scuttled out of sight, Priscilla said to Elizabeth, “Ah - good morrow, Bess, you’re down late, where’s Martha? . . . these wenches ... it wearies me so to wield the cane . . . but when I found she’d eaten up a whole crock of butter, and in truth she is of late so greedy, I pray the little slut’s not breeding, ‘twould be most inconvenient. . . Sammy - “ she turned to Elizabeth’s twelve-year-old brother who was perched on a stool munching toast and scowling into his Latin Grammar, “You’ll be late for school again.”

Samuel Fones shut his grammar with a bang and flung it in a bag with the abacus he used for arithmetic. He was dressed in the yellow stockings and blue coat worn by Christ’s Hospital scholars, and he had been quite oblivious to Tib’s punishment, canings being of daily occurrence at school. Moreover he was at the age when his home interested him little and he lived entirely in those moments when he escaped with his comrades to investigate the London docks, or play football at Smithfield. He gave Elizabeth, of whom he was rather fond, an absent-minded wink; bowed to his stepmother saying, “I gi’e-you-good-day, ma’am, may-God-keep-you-in-health,” and pelted out of the door.

I wish
I
was going to school, or rather I wish I was going out
somewhere,
thought Elizabeth while she explained to Priscilla about Martha’s toothache. She finished her beer and walked along the passage to the apothecary shop, where her father was already rolling pills on a marble slab by the light of a candle. He had recovered from his last bout of illness, but it seemed to have shrunk him, and the tremor had not left his knotted hands. He greeted Elizabeth, and told her to continue making up the pills when she had attended to Martha. Elizabeth enjoyed much of her work in the apothecary shop, but pill-rolling was dull, and this morning she protested. “Oh, Father, can’t Richard do it? I wanted to - “ She thought rapidly and amended, “That is, my mother badly needs new needles so that we may sew on my bride sheets, I could just run out to the tailor’s and buy some . . .”

“You know well I won’t have you running the streets alone like a beggar wench,” snapped her father. “If Edward comes over later, he may take you, and Richard has gone ‘cross river to Southwark with the Unicorn’s Horn for Mrs. Elwick’s babe. If that doesn’t bring the little one out of its fits, nothing will.”

Elizabeth sighed and resigned herself. At least the Elwicks paid quite promptly, and for the use of the marvellous Unicorn’s Horn -  which was a spiralled white bone - one could charge as much as a guinea, so later Thomas might be in a good enough mood to give her a few pence pocket money.

The morning passed like a hundred other mornings. A few customers sent in their servants with prescriptions to be filled or simple requests for plasters, and physic. Thomas left the shop to Elizabeth and remained in the stillroom behind, while compounding the most complicated of his mixtures, but he emerged twice to greet clients of importance. One was the assistant to the eminent Dr. William Harvey who lived a few streets north at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and was famous for his discovery of the blood’s circulation. Thomas was flattered that this physician relied on him for many remedies, and eagerly questioned the young assistant about present conditions at the hospital.

The other customer was a stranger, and obviously a gentleman, for he was dressed in taupe velvet with a sword at his hip, and wore a large plumed hat above curling lovelocks glistening with pomade. He strode into the shop demanding with some arrogance to know whether they carried the best Verina tobacco, and upon Thomas bowing low and assuring him that they did, the young man leaned against the counter and requested to try its merits then and there, while he stared boldly at Elizabeth. She was used to that type of stare, which she calmly returned before lowering her lashes and fetching one of the little clay pipes they kept ready. She filled the pipe with their best minced tobacco, then lit it for him, smiling faintly, pleased with so interesting a break in the day’s routine.

“Ah - splendid . . .” drawled the young man on a deep breath, letting the smoke drift out of his nostrils. “Fine tobacco . . . and I should know . . . since I have recently been growing it in Barbadoes.” It seemed to Elizabeth that he spoke with meaning, and that his eyes moved watchfully from her to her father. This puzzled her, but Thomas noticed nothing, and said without enthusiasm, “Indeed, sir? We have a young kinsman who is there now, but this is none of his tobacco, I assure you.
It
was most inferior.”

“Ah so?” said the young man . . . “sad, sad.” He seemed about to add something else, but did not. He looked at Elizabeth instead. “Well, this is excellent,” he said, “I vow I shall return later and buy a pound of it, for the moment I’ve not my purse with me ... unless, perchance . . .” he paused delicately and looked at the apothecary, “My name is Robert Seaton, esquire, I have lodgings at the Sign of the Bell in Aldersgate, near in fact to my good friend the Earl of Thanet’s mansion.”

Thomas hesitated only a moment. “But of course you shall take the tobacco now, sir, and settle the account at your leisure, and I trust that in future you’ll be pleased to patronize The Three Fauns again!”

“Why, to be sure - “ said Seaton smiling, “and since you
are
so kind, I’ve a touch of the ague, perhaps you have some electuary that might help... ?”

As Seaton had hoped, Thomas nodded and turned in to his still-room. The young gallant leaned close to Elizabeth and whispered, “Slip out into your garden quick as you can . . . over to the Wall, behind the rose trellis?” As she looked both startled and indignant, he added urgently, “There’s a valentine awaiting you!”

“Sir - “ she said tartly, though she kept her voice low, “I assure you I’ve no interest in your valentines, find yourself another.”

He shook his head violently, in denial of exactly what she was not sure, because Thomas came back with a flask of betony water. The young man thanked him, took the pound of tobacco, and went out, but his lips formed “the garden” to Elizabeth behind her father’s back.

Such effrontery! I certainly shall
not
go, she thought as she dusted the tobacco crumbs off the counter, nor did she find him particularly attractive. Yet how did this Robert Seaton know there was a rose trellis in the garden, how did he expect to get into the locked garden, and how was it that he had a valentine all ready for her? It could do no harm to find out, she decided suddenly. It was even perhaps her duty to investigate so peculiar an invasion herself, since Richard was cur. and her father virtually crippled.

She murmured a quick excuse to Thomas and slipped past him into the house. As she walked down the passage to the garden door, she wiped her hands on her apron, and loosened her kerchief so that several dark curls escaped to frame her forehead and cheeks in the becoming way the Queen had made fashionable. The garden appeared quite deserted. She walked a trifle nervously up the brick path around the sundial whose brass pointer shadowed XI, past a bed of sweet marjoram and yellow violets to the trellis. Between the trellis and the wall there was an ancient spreading yew, and she saw a flicker of motion behind it.

“Who’s there?” she called resolutely. “Is it you, Mr. Seaton? I only came to inquire by what means you intrude on our - “ She stopped with a gasp, as the tall figure in brown emerged laughing from behind the yew, grabbed her roughly and stifled the scream in her throat with a kiss. Her response was a violent resounding slap. She was instantly released while a voice between mirth and anger cried, “God’s bloody wounds! What a greeting!” She stared and her jaw dropped. “Harry . . .?” she whispered uncertainly. “But you’re in Barbadoes . . .” So astonished was she and so unlike her memory of him did he look that she felt a quiver of fear. There were ghosts that appeared like this, there was witchcraft - whereby the Devil took on human form to tempt maidens who were not discreet.

“Aye, I’m Harry, in truth,” he said ruefully, rubbing his cheek where the marks of her ringers sprang red against the tanned skin. “As you Bess, have turned a vixen, in truth . . . but let be - I’m pleased to find my cousin so virtuous. Did you think it was Seaton?”

She nodded, still staring at him. His blond hair was bleached with flaxen streaks from the sun, his skin was browner than any she had ever seen. There were small gold hoops in his ear lobes; he wore a cutlass and a pistol at his belt. There was a careless swagger about him even though his leather jerkin was sweat- and sea-stained, and one seam was ripped open. He was tall, taller than the other Winthrop men, and far handsomer than they. His eyes were blue, heavy-lidded and bold, yet in their mirthful light and the deep set beneath arched brows there was something of Jack. And seeing this she felt the familiar pang, and consequently a melting towards Harry whom she had always thought of as a nuisance and a scamp.

“Tell me,” she said slowly. “How is it that you’re in England ... and why this stealth . . . and
how - “
she said frowning and stilt perplexed, “did you get into the garden?”

He laughed and jerked his chin. “Over the Wall, my lass, how else? ‘Tis simple enough, though I tore my jerkin on the iron spikes atop. No matter, I shall now order me a new scarlet suit at Seaton’s tailor. This is hardly garb for a gentleman o’ London - where by the way I arrived this morning.”

“Why?” she said. “I mean, why didn’t you come to us openly, since you are back?”

He spoke slower than he used to, almost in a lazy drawl which now had a mocking edge. “Because I have some reason to doubt my welcome in certain quarters. My father’s and Uncle Downing’s letters have been scarce admiring of late, ... so, my sweet coz, I thought I’d see you first, mayhap learn from which quarter the wind doth blow.” He gave her a lopsided smile of considerable charm, and leaned towards her touching her bare arm. “You’ve not turned long-mouthed and decorous while I’ve been gone, have you, Bess? As I remember our childhood you were nearly as black a sheep as I!”

She tried to look rebuking, and she tried to still a quickening of her pulses, but she could neither. Instead his touch pleased her as had no man’s but Jack’s. It is because it’s his brother, she thought - their kinship that I feel. And she said, “But why did you come back, Harry, and what is it you want now?”

“ ‘Tis a dry tale, sweetheart,” he said shrugging. “So let’s wet our whistles and sit there, for the telling of it.” He pointed to a wooden bench beneath the trellis.

She cast an anxious look towards the house, knowing she would soon be missed when the family gathered for dinner, but she sat down beside him. A leather flask hung from his belt. He unbuckled it and took a long drink. “Now
you
- “ he insisted. She sputtered and coughed as the burning pungent liquor ran down her throat. “What
is
it?”

“Rum,” said Harry laughing at her. “The joy and solace of the Indies. ‘Tis a drink of almighty Mars’s own blood to fighters, of Venus’s enchanted milk to lovers!” He took another pull from the bottle.

“Harry - what is this talk!” Surely these were pagan gods he named in the same chanting voice his father used for public prayer I “You sound nothing like you used to.”

“Nay, and why should I? I was a raw lad of eighteen when I left, and now I’m twenty-one. I’ve learned hunger and danger, and the gut-shaking peril of the sea. I’ve learned the sweetness of a moonlit beach where the water laps like warm velvet, and it matters not that the woman in your arms is black.” At her in-gasp of breath, he, turned to her, his eyebrows raised and he drawled ever slower. “I’ve learned what it is to have an enemy, and walk ever-watchful in fear of murder, and then ... to
Kill
that enemy before he cuts
me
off.” He tilted his eyebrows, watching her shocked face sardonically.

“Harry - “ she whispered, after a moment. “This man you killed ... he was a black?”

“Nay, sweet. He was an Englishman, even as I, and until last September we settled our quarrels amongst us on Barbadoes, each man as he saw fit. But then alas a governor was sent us, one Wolferstone, a narrow man - and before he pried his long nose too deep into my matter, I thought it best to leave.”

She looked at him in wonder and excitement, aching to know more and yet afraid to question.

“Might the Governor send after you to London?” she asked at last.

Harry shook his head. “Far too busy with the Spaniards, who are assaulting the Islands again; moreover, who’s to carry word to London? Since the two captains of the only ships that touch Barbadoes are friends of mine!” He grinned at her. “Bess, it would be wise to forget what I’ve just told you. In tame and peaceful little England they take crotchety views of bloodshed.”

“Yes,” she said, gazing at his handsome face. “I will forget. . . yet, Harry, I think England is not so tame and peaceful as when you left. There be bitter things take place in Parliament these days, and fierce murmurings against the King and Bishop Laud.”